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Figure 9 from “A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight”Guest essay by Eric WorrallAn American scientist has made a remarkable conceptual breakthrough, a design for a non nuclear relativistic launcher, capable of accelerating thousands of deep space probes per year to 0.25C; fast enough to reach the nearest stars in 15 years. The system is extremely scalable – you could start with a small, low cost proof of concept launcher, and work up to bigger devices, capable of launching substantial probes into interstellar space. The system also has a practical alternative use – the full size version is powerful enough to deflect...

If a recent report by The New York Times is accurate, the Obama administration is attempting to figure out a way to continue bombing Libya without the Congressional approval required by the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The act requires the president to terminate the prosecution of such activities 60 days after formal notification of Congress regarding the deployment of forces "into hostilities or into situation (sic) where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances." The 60 day period ends on May 20th... ...Pentagon officials admitted the issue has been turned over to lawyers who are ostensibly...

Kajillionaire activist, Media Matters funder, and to hear Glenn Beck tell it, Puppetmaster of the coming One World Government George Soros is reportedly pulling on some strings. According to reporting by HuffPo’s Sam Stein, Soros told a private gathering of progressive donors that “Democratic donors (should) direct their support somewhere other than the President.” An adviser for Soros later told Stein that Soros was not suggesting a primary challenge to President Obama...From The Huffington Post:According to multiple sources with knowledge of his remarks, Soros told those in attendance that he is “used to fighting losing battles but doesn’t like to...

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New approach offers more pleasant light of traditional bulbs without the energy guilt Thanks to a bit of ingenuity, Chunlei Guo, associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester, and his assistant Anatoliy Vorobyev have been able to squeeze out fluorescent-like energy performance from an incandescent light bulb. The breakthrough boils down to a laser treatment of the bulb's tungsten filament, a processing step which could one day become a standard in the light bulb industry. Traditionally, incandescent light bulbs provide more pleasant light, however they lack the efficiency of fluorescent designs. The new bulb offers the brightness and...

World's smallest girl proud of her tiny size By Kate Day Last Updated: 2:44am BST 07/04/2008 At just 1ft 11 in tall, she is dwarfed by her neighbour's baby, but Jyoti Amge is 15 years old. How About That? Because news doesn't have to be serious The teenager, who is the world's smallest girl according to the Indian Book of Records, has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia. Now fully grown, she weighs just 11 lb. Jyoti Amge with a neighbour's 13-month old baby and with her school friends Far from being unhappy about her tiny size, Jyoti says that...

Chavez reiterates that 'everything indicates they're trying to kill me' The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, reiterated today that, again, his most radical opponents have reactivated their assasination plans against him and 'everything indicates that they will be trying to kill me because of what will happen on Sunday'. Next Sunday, Venezuelans will vote on a constitutional reform with which Chavez intends to install a 'socialism of the 21st century', which his opponents means the installation of a personal dictatorship. ~ snip ~ In the [campaign] event, he repeated that recently "a strange light traveled through my body, around here,...

Senator Kerry's national security adviser had to take back comments he made under oath in 2002 to a federal court that members of a Colombian paramilitary group received training from Al Qaeda in Afghanistant The disclosure of Rand Beers's amended deposition in Arias v. Dyncorp, may weaken a central claim of the Democratic campaign for the White House that the Bush administration knowingly lied about pre-war Iraq intelligence.