Cat of Death

"This sort of thing makes one wonder if the personification of Death should in fact be a cat, although, oddly enough, not a black cat..."; click Respectful Insolence: The Kitty of Doom.

UFOs Are Real

The flying wing concept aircraft takes flight | NetworkWorld.com Community: "The flying wing concept aircraft takes flight
Submitted by Layer 8 on Thu, 07/26/2007 - 5:32pm.

Looking a little bit too much like an F-117 Night Hawk fighter on steroids Boeing's blended wing unmanned test aircraft flew for the first time last week.

Designed and engineered by Boeing, NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the aircraft are said to be able to carry greater amounts of equipment, burn less fuel and run quieter than traditional aircraft..."

Greek Mastodon Found

BBC NEWS | Europe | Greek mastodon find 'spectacular': "The remains of a prehistoric mastodon - a mammoth-like animal - have been found in northern Greece, including intact long tusks.

A Dutch scientist at the site, Dick Mol, says the find near Grevena should help explain why mastodons died out in Europe two to three million years ago."

Robot Air Attack Squadron Bound for Iraq

Robot Air Attack Squadron Bound for Iraq - The Huffington Post: "BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq — The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsized U.S. 'hunter-killer' drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill."

Water World Spied

Guardian:"British astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of an enormous, fiery planet that circles a distant star far beyond our own solar system.

The discovery raises hopes that the substance considered most vital for life may be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy and wider universe.

The finding, described in Nature today, proves scientists can overcome what has long been thought one of the greatest hurdles in the search for extraterrestrial life - the ability to analyse atmospheres of distant worlds for signs of living organisms."

Small Earth

ScienceDaily: Earth smaller than thought: "Earth smaller than thought

BONN, Germany, July 6 (UPI) -- German researchers say their discovery that the Earth is smaller than originally thought may have serious ramifications for climate change.

The difference is minute -- all of five millimeters -- but that is crucial to studying how climate changes the Earth, said researchers at Bonn University.

Five millimeters (0.2 inches) is less than half the width of an average finger, which may seem negligible in comparison to the earth's diameter of 7,926.3812 miles."