Pentagon plots comic book therapy for troops
The fighting was furious, and entirely one-sided. While on patrol in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktia province in December 2002, paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division had taken a wrong turn and blundered straight into one of Paktia’s isolated villages. The villagers weren’t Taliban or even Taliban sympathizers. But they were heavily armed – and…
Check out the aftermath of an asteroid collision
Back in the days when the Solar System seemed a simpler place, asteroids were thought to be chunks of rocks whose features could be explained by impacts with other such objects. Comets were altogether different, laden with icy material that erupted when heated by the Sun. It was a straightforward picture, at a time when…
That’s what she said: software that tells dirty jokes
Double entendres have been making us laugh since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but up until now computers weren’t in on the joke. Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun, two computer scientists at the University of Washington, have developed a system for recognising a particular type of double entendre – the “that’s what she said”…
How to make a zombie plague
Ah, the zombie plague! A Mad Scientist couldn’t ask for a better means for world domination. Not only would discrete application of your infectious agent eliminate your opposition, the rest of humanity will be far too busy fending of their recently deceased loved ones to notice when you swoop in and take control. The population…
