That includes every single nuclear weapon, every one of the Russian Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles in ground silos, nuclear submarines, and heavy bombers around the world. Scary stuff indeed.

But fear not, fellow humans, because the Dead Hand system is not completely automatic. The actual red button is apparently activated by a soldier hidden in some underground bunker.

Yes, I feel so much safer now. [gradremstroy—in Russian via DRB]

The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn't matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched.

The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret.

The scary thing is that Perimeter still works today. At least according to Valery Yarynich, a former Soviet colonel now 72 years old. Yarynich should know, though: He worked 30 years at the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff helping to build it.

US Officials won't even like to mention it, but with the Cold War over and Russia being more or less a friend, why risk having such a system in place? I really don't like the idea of something going wrong in a rusty 25-year-old piece of Soviet-era technology.

Not when it can automatically launch a nuclear attack capable of taking out Humanity out of the map. [Wired]

A bunch of students at a Brisbane high school filmed a dirty porno in a high school bathroom the last time news of the Large Hadron Collider was hot. Yeah, that video was literally dirty. Remember high school bathrooms?

Basically the guy convinced his sweet, innocent, and oh-so-stupid girlfriend that it was her last chance to lose her virginity as his buddy played hidden camera man, producer, and distributor. The camera phone recorded, underage sex act made its way through the community and could potentially result in child pornography production charges, although news.com.au claims it unlikely due to the age of all the participants.

No word on whether the sweet talker managed to hang on to the girl by convincing her that a miracle spared the world until November. [news.com.au]

There is a case to be made that dark, dormant comets are a significant but largely unseen hazard.

That's University of Cardiff's Professor Bill Napier talking to New Scientist magazine. Dark comets almost don't reflect any light from the sun because all the ice around them is gone, leaving only a dark organic ball of organic crap. There are a whooping 3,000 of them around, but only 25 have been detected.

Professor Napier's fellow Zarkov Dr David Asher at the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland agrees, so does Southwest Research Institute comet expert Clark Chapman. One example: In 1983 the comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock-with only 1 percent of its surface reflecting Sun's light-passed Earth at only five million kilometers, which is the closest encounter in 200 years.

So let's recapitulate here. We have Apophis, a doomsday unknown asteroid that like Pink Floyd, the Large Hadron Collider, Al Gore's overheating pants, Woz dancing with the stars,and now Dark Comets.

Thank you Mr. Scientists-not-named-Zarkov. You gave me yet another reason not to do my homework, get drunk, and have sex until I drop dead this weekend. [Daily Mail]

That's because next Friday, UNIX time will read 1234567890. Scary! And, it just so happens that this event will coincide with one of the more superstitious days on our calendar, Friday the 13th. Scarier!

Well-known UNIX and Linux personality John Maddog Hall plans on celebrating the event in style:

While our friends at Bell Labs (er, ah, Lucent....O.K. "Alcatel-Lucent") strive to understand this phenomenon, I will be doing my civic duty by drinking fine beer, and maybe an Islay scotch. This is hard to do while you are holding your breath, but I will suffer through. Who knows, perhaps the U.S. government will give us a "bailout" to study this issue.

To see when this takes place in your time zone, run this little Perl script, which I promise won't end the world before next Friday:

perl -e 'print scalar localtime(1234567890),"\n";'

Shit just got real, folks. Say good-bye to loved ones. Make sure you start with your Windows machines, because UNIX is probably going to take them out first. Part of an agreement with Linux and Linus Torvalds, I've heard. [Linux Pro Magazine via Slashdot]

Clearly, you can tell why Neal is the host of PBS's NOVA spaceNOW TV program. While the clip is from a talk he gave in 2007, it's kind of fun to hear about the possibility of experiencing such a deadly event in such a lighthearted kind of way. If it wasn't a real possibility, I would be laughing.

And while maybe it won't in Thursday, April 13, 2029, it may happen any other day. Just in case, remember to follow your "What if the world would end tomorrow?" checklist every day. [Geeks Are Sexy]

On August 31, 2007 an Air Force crew accidentally loaded six live nuclear warheads into a B-52 Stratofortress—stationed in the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota—believing they were conventional cruise missiles. The weapons were missing, without anyone noticing it, for 36 hours until the B-52 landed in Louisiana.

According to the Pentagon, this happened because the nuclear weapons were stored right next to conventional ones, with just an "8.5 x 11-inch sheet of printed paper to differentiate between the two types." I guess the paper was ignored by the ground crew. I also guess that the paper said something like "Maybe this is bad. Really. No touchy! Noooo touchy!" instead of "NUCLEAR WARHEAD INSIDE. DON'T TOUCH UNLESS INSTRUCTED BY THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, YOU MORON" because, otherwise, I just can't understand their mistake.

The report goes on saying that "part" of the problem is that nobody really has absolute control of the nuclear weapons in the US arsenal after the demise of Strategic Air Command. After the fall of the Soviet Union, SAC was split in 1992 into three different commands: the Air Force Space Command (which grabbed ICBM control,) the Air Combat Command (in charge of the bombers themselves) and the Air Mobility Command, which "provides airlift, special missions, aerial refueling, and aeromedical evacuation for U.S. troops." Furthermore, the Air Force nuclear capability is also under the control of the USSTRATCOM, along with the Navy's submarine nuclear ballistic missiles.

The report, however, then says that this "near disaster" was a "human error" because there are tight rules in place that weren't followed. Col. West Anderson, second in charge of the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, added that they "handle weapons safely and ensure the highest possible standards of individual reliability and professional competence." I guess that means that the crew at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota are a bunch of incompetent monkeys, but his guys are A-OK. However, it all seems that they are just glad that nothing bad happened, so they can get away saving their asses.

Despite this "human error" excuse, their explanation leaves me with the impression that nobody has a real, definitive grasp of where every nuke is except probably Matthew Broderick and the WOPR. Their conclusion doesn't help either: the Air Force treats nukes the same as disarmed missiles when verifying armament, and there's "no written directive that specifically described the required identifying means" to make the distinction before loading the weapons into the bombers.

In other words: there are rules which are not followed, but they need more rules in writing. Perhaps they just need to stop playing Warhawk in their PlayStation 3 and start printing clearer warning signs. [Military.com, Wikipedia]

Judging from the huge subterranean structure's facilities, filled with a mixture of grey machinery and bright 60s designer decor, they planned to spend the long time after absolute destruction in style. They had it all: lounges, emergency broadcast station, laundromats, dental care and even hairdresses (for the upcoming giant rat Earth overlords, I guess.)

The $4-billion Cold War monstrosity has just been declassified by the German government. Hopefully, they will reconvert it to a Halo 3 playground. [Der Spiegel]

What evidence of our existence would be left behind? Hint: after about a thousand years, not much. For a reminder of just how temporary we could be, take a look at the full chart, after the jump. – Charlie White

We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When [treehugger]