When space shuttle Atlantis lifts off later tomorrow on what NASA has planned to be its final flight, helping to launch it will be a rocket booster segment that first flew 25 years ago on the orbiter’s maiden mission.

The aft dome on the left solid rocket booster scheduled to loft Atlantis’ STS-132 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) Friday first launched STS-51J, the orbiter’s first flight to space, on Oct. 3, 1985.

The almost quarter-century reunion between Atlantis and its reusable solid rocket booster’s casing is just one of the historical connections between the orbiter and its launch system. Including STS-132, 18 of Atlantis’ 32 flights are represented by the boosters’ segments, underscoring the legacy that NASA’s fourth-to-fly orbiter will leave after it is retired.

SPACE.com — Shuttle Atlantis to Fly Final Flight With Rocket Segment From Maiden Mission.

According to this document released by THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, it appears that the cement that Haliburton had finished pouring just 20 hours earlier failed.   I guess it was only a matter of time before Dick Cheney‘s name came up in this somewhere. Click on the image below to open the full PDF version.

Deepwater_Horizon.pdf (application /pdf Object).

The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was signed into law in August 1990, largely in response to rising public concern following the Exxon Valdez incident.

The OPA created the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident.

Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the owner or operator of a facility from which oil is discharged (also known as the responsible Party) is liable for the costs associated with the containment or cleanup of the spill and any damages resulting from the spill. The EPA’s first priority is to ensure that responsible parties pay to clean up their own oil releases. However, when the responsible party is unknown or refuses to pay, funds from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund can be used to cover removal costs or damages resulting from discharges of oil.

The primary source of revenue for the fund is a five-cents per barrel fee on imported and domestic oil.

In addition, the OPA provided new requirements for contingency planning both by government and industry. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) has been expanded in a three-tiered approach: the Federal government is required to direct all public and private response efforts for certain types of spill events; Area Committees — composed of federal, state, and local government officials — must develop detailed, location-specific Area Contingency Plans; and owners or operators of vessels and certain facilities that pose a serious threat to the environment must prepare their own Facility Response Plans.

Oil Pollution Act Overview | Emergency Management | US EPA.

Now we’ll just have to drive to the beach to fill up our SUV’s.  Hey Sarah, how’s that “Drilly Spilly” thing workin out for ya?

David Brang of the department of psychology at the University of California, San Diego asked 183 students to visualize the months of the year and construct this representation on a computer screen.

Four months later the students were shown a blank screen and asked to select a position for each of the months. They were prompted with a cue month – a randomly selected month placed as a dot in the location where the student had originally placed it.

Uncannily, four of the 183 students were found to be time-space synaesthetes when they placed their months in a distinct spatial array – such as a circle – that was consistent over the trials.

Time Lords discovered in California – life – 01 April 2010 – New Scientist.

The Large Hadron Collider will shut down at the end of 2011 to address design and safety issues.

Until then, it will run at a maximum of 7 trillion electron volts…instead of its designed max of 14 trillion.

The problem involves the copper sheaths around the superconducting joints in the tunnel.  The copper sheaths are a failsafe mechanism designed to take up the current if one of the magnets in the Large Hadron Collider warms up – an incident known as a … gulp…”quench”.

Apparently where Large Hadron Colliders are concerned, there’s nothing worse than hot magnets.

I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t more handiwork of  the Higgs-boson time travelers.

BBC News – LHC to shut down for a year to address safety concerns.

If half the things they say about Spray-on liquid glass are true, then it’s the best thing since sliced bread.  Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

MEDICAL APPLICATIONS: A year-long medical trial of the spray discovered many applications including coatings for equipment, medical implants, catheters, sutures and bandages.

NO MORE GRAFFITI: The war graves association in the UK is investigating using the spray to treat stone monuments and grave stones, since trials have shown the coating protects against weathering and graffiti. Trials in Turkey are testing the product on monuments such as the Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara.

HAVE YOUR WINE BEFORE ITS TIME: Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent “corking” and contamination of wine.

NO MORE CHINESE SECRETS: The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant.

BYE BYE DAWN: In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Since it is available in both water-based and alcohol-based solutions, it can be used in the oven, in bathrooms, tiles, sinks, and almost every other surface in the home, and one spray is said to last a year.

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything.

A tactic familiar from insect behaviour seems to give viruses the edge in the eternal battle between them and their host.

New video catches viruses only a few hundred nanometres in size in the act of hopping over cells that are already infected. This allows them to concentrate their energies on previously uninfected cells, accelerating the spread of infection fivefold.

Viruses use ‘hive intelligence’ to focus their attack – life – 21 January 2010 – New Scientist.

If you open your mind too much your brain will fall out (Take My Wife)

YouTube – Tim Minchin – If You Open Your Mind Too Much….

Philematologists, the scientists who study kissing, aren’t exactly sure why humans started locking lips in the first place. The most likely theory is that it stems from primate mothers passing along chewed food to their toothless babies. The lip-to-lip contact may have been passed on through evolution, not only as a necessary means of survival, but also as a general way to promote social bonding and as an expression of love.

But something’s obviously happened to kissing since the time of the chewed-food pass. Now, it’s believed that kissing helps transfer critical information, rather than just meat bits. The kissing we associate with romantic courtship may help us to choose a good mate, send chemical signals, and foster long-term relationships. All of this is important in evolution’s ultimate goal—successful procreation. 

Why We Kiss: The Science of Sex – DivineCaroline.