In 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Theodosia). After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe.
The Native American population was decimated after contact with the Old World due to the introduction of many different fatal diseases. There is, however, only one documented case of germ warfare, involving British commander Jeffrey Amherst and Swiss-British officer Colonel Henry Bouquet, whose correspondence included a reference to the idea of giving smallpox-infected blankets to Indians as part of an incident known as Pontiac's Rebellion which occurred during the Siege of Fort Pitt (1763) late in the French and Indian War.It is uncertain whether this documented British attempt successfully infected the Indians.
During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted human experimentation on thousands, mostly Chinese. In military campaigns, the Japanese army used biological weapons on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.
Diseases considered for weaponization, or known to be weaponized include anthrax, ebola, Marburg virus, plague, cholera, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, brucellosis, Q fever, machupo, Coccidioides mycosis, Glanders, Melioidosis, Shigella, Psittacosis, Japanese B encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, and smallpox.
Spores of weaponized anthrax were accidentally released from a military facility near the Soviet closed city of Sverdlovsk in 1979. The Sverdlovsk anthrax leak is sometimes called "biological Chernobyl".China possibly suffered a serious accident at one of its biological weapons plants in the late 1980s. The Soviets suspected that two separate epidemics of hemorrhagic fever that swept the region in the late 1980s were caused by an accident in a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.In January 2009, an Al-Qaeda training camp in Algeria had been wiped out by the plague, killing approximately 40 Islamic extremists. Experts said that the group was developing biological weapons.
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Monday, September 7, 2009
Science, engineering and technology
The distinction between science, engineering and technology is not always clear. Science is the reasoned investigation or study of phenomena, aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the phenomenal world by employing formal techniques such as the scientific method.[8] Technologies are not usually exclusively products of science, because they have to satisfy requirements such as utility, usability and safety.
Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result.
Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.
The exact relations between science and technology in particular have been debated by scientists, historians, and policymakers in the late 20th century, in part because the debate can inform the funding of basic and applied science. In immediate wake of World War II, for example, in the United States it was widely considered that technology was simply "applied science" and that to fund basic science was to reap technological results in due time. An articulation of this philosophy could be found explicitly in Vannevar Bush's treatise on postwar science policy, Science—The Endless Frontier: "New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature... This essential new knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research." In the late-1960s, however, this view came under direct attack, leading towards initiatives to fund science for specific tasks (initiatives resisted by the scientific community). The issue remains contentious—though most analysts resist the model that technology simply is a result of scientific research.
Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result.
Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.
The exact relations between science and technology in particular have been debated by scientists, historians, and policymakers in the late 20th century, in part because the debate can inform the funding of basic and applied science. In immediate wake of World War II, for example, in the United States it was widely considered that technology was simply "applied science" and that to fund basic science was to reap technological results in due time. An articulation of this philosophy could be found explicitly in Vannevar Bush's treatise on postwar science policy, Science—The Endless Frontier: "New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature... This essential new knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research." In the late-1960s, however, this view came under direct attack, leading towards initiatives to fund science for specific tasks (initiatives resisted by the scientific community). The issue remains contentious—though most analysts resist the model that technology simply is a result of scientific research.
Top 10 Bungled Attempts at One-person Flight
"God denied to men the faculty of flight so that they might lead a quiet and tranquil life, for if they knew how to fly they would always be in perpetual danger."
-- Juan Caramuel y Lobkovitz (1606-1682)
Human history is filled with marvelous achievements. The invention of the automobile changed the landscapes of cities and the surrounding suburbs around the world; the Internet connected people on a scale unimaginable before computers; and, of course, the arrival of the airplane only 100 years ago gave us the ability to cross oceans and connect the far corners of the Earth.
Before each of these innovations settled in and were taken for granted, however, their inventors struggled to get them off the ground. Early railway systems and gas-powered vehicles were bumpy, uncomfortable and inefficient. For centuries the abacus was the only tool available for making calculations. Attempts at flight, meanwhile, were the most dangerous, since the point was maintaining control of a body or machine in the middle of the air, high above the ground.
The history of flight, in particular, is peppered with mishaps, failures and fatalities. In their efforts to understand the mechanics of flight, would-be inventors mostly tried to mimic the anatomy of birds.
Some of the attempts are mythical and legendary; others are true stories with real documentation. Some were simple designs destined for loud thuds; others were complicated contraptions meant for equally chaotic crashes. On the next page, we'll begin our look at some of the well-meaning failures in man's attempt to reach for the stars.
-- Juan Caramuel y Lobkovitz (1606-1682)
Human history is filled with marvelous achievements. The invention of the automobile changed the landscapes of cities and the surrounding suburbs around the world; the Internet connected people on a scale unimaginable before computers; and, of course, the arrival of the airplane only 100 years ago gave us the ability to cross oceans and connect the far corners of the Earth.
Before each of these innovations settled in and were taken for granted, however, their inventors struggled to get them off the ground. Early railway systems and gas-powered vehicles were bumpy, uncomfortable and inefficient. For centuries the abacus was the only tool available for making calculations. Attempts at flight, meanwhile, were the most dangerous, since the point was maintaining control of a body or machine in the middle of the air, high above the ground.
The history of flight, in particular, is peppered with mishaps, failures and fatalities. In their efforts to understand the mechanics of flight, would-be inventors mostly tried to mimic the anatomy of birds.
Some of the attempts are mythical and legendary; others are true stories with real documentation. Some were simple designs destined for loud thuds; others were complicated contraptions meant for equally chaotic crashes. On the next page, we'll begin our look at some of the well-meaning failures in man's attempt to reach for the stars.
10 Amazing Telescopes
The drive to map the sky is as old as civilization itself. The Great Pyramids in Egypt point straight at specific stars. The ancient stone configuration Stonehenge in Britain is arranged to track the progress of the sun toward its northernmost point in the sky. The first astronomical observatories date back as early as the third century in the Middle East; at that time, astronomy was mixed up with astrology, and sky-watchers used cosmic measurements to predict the future. Since Islamic law forbids such superstition, many of the earliest astronomers were executed for heresy.
But during the Renaissance period in Europe, astronomy's ties to astrology were broken and it became a real science. In the late 16th century, Hans Lippershey, an eyeglass-maker in Holland, applied for the first telescope patent, claiming invention of a device that made distant objects on Earth appear closer. Soon after, Galileo Galilei in Italy turned his own telescope to the sky for the first time and saw incredible sights, like craters on the moon and four bodies orbiting Jupiter. His discoveries tended to fly in the face of religious dogma, though, and he had to retract much of what he said. Still, the telescope went on to completely change our understanding of the world beyond our planet.
What Galileo viewed through his "far looker" was a blurry mess compared to what we can see today. Not long after Galileo saw the moon up close, inventors like Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton and N. Cassegrain made a succession of major innovations in telescope design. Since then, developments in our understanding of astrophysics, along with technological advancements in optics, engineering and rocket science have led to amazingly clear, distant views of our galaxy and far, far beyond. Current telescopes can even see matter disappear into a black hole.
And the telescope race is just heating up.
In this article, we'll look at 10 of the most amazing telescopes of our time, including several that are still on the drawing board and promise to reveal images of the Big Bang itself. Many of these new telescopes are funded partially by private donors. We'll begin with some of the greatest ground-based telescope systems in use today. Because they have to be able to see through the Earth's atmosphere, these telescopes are truly massive.
Technically speaking, the South African Large Telescope, or SALT, is the biggest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. But when it comes to telescopes, how big is "big?"
But during the Renaissance period in Europe, astronomy's ties to astrology were broken and it became a real science. In the late 16th century, Hans Lippershey, an eyeglass-maker in Holland, applied for the first telescope patent, claiming invention of a device that made distant objects on Earth appear closer. Soon after, Galileo Galilei in Italy turned his own telescope to the sky for the first time and saw incredible sights, like craters on the moon and four bodies orbiting Jupiter. His discoveries tended to fly in the face of religious dogma, though, and he had to retract much of what he said. Still, the telescope went on to completely change our understanding of the world beyond our planet.
What Galileo viewed through his "far looker" was a blurry mess compared to what we can see today. Not long after Galileo saw the moon up close, inventors like Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton and N. Cassegrain made a succession of major innovations in telescope design. Since then, developments in our understanding of astrophysics, along with technological advancements in optics, engineering and rocket science have led to amazingly clear, distant views of our galaxy and far, far beyond. Current telescopes can even see matter disappear into a black hole.
And the telescope race is just heating up.
In this article, we'll look at 10 of the most amazing telescopes of our time, including several that are still on the drawing board and promise to reveal images of the Big Bang itself. Many of these new telescopes are funded partially by private donors. We'll begin with some of the greatest ground-based telescope systems in use today. Because they have to be able to see through the Earth's atmosphere, these telescopes are truly massive.
Technically speaking, the South African Large Telescope, or SALT, is the biggest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. But when it comes to telescopes, how big is "big?"
10 NASA Inventions You Might Use Every Day
In 1958, President Eisenhower signed the Space Act, officially creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. From the beginning, the purpose for the new branch extended beyond space ships and moon boots. The law stipulated that its research and advancements should benefit all people, and in its 50-year history, NASA has certainly fulfilled that role.
Although most people today will never set foot on the moon, everyone likely comes in contact with a NASA by-product every day. Partnering with various research teams and companies, NASA continues to spawn a vast array of new technologies and products that have improved our daily lives. Basic steps in health, safety, communications and even casual entertainment find their roots in the government branch commonly associated with rocket ships and floating people. In fact, NASA has filed more than 6,300 patents with the U.S. government [source: NASA Scientific and Technical Information.
Each year since 1976, NASA has published a list of every commercialized technology and product linked to its research. The NASA journal "Spinoff" highlights these products, which have included things like improved pacemakers, state of the art exercise machines and satellite radio. Each product was made possible thanks to a NASA idea or innovation.
But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to use many of these so-called spinoffs. Read on to learn about ten of these familiar products.
Although most people today will never set foot on the moon, everyone likely comes in contact with a NASA by-product every day. Partnering with various research teams and companies, NASA continues to spawn a vast array of new technologies and products that have improved our daily lives. Basic steps in health, safety, communications and even casual entertainment find their roots in the government branch commonly associated with rocket ships and floating people. In fact, NASA has filed more than 6,300 patents with the U.S. government [source: NASA Scientific and Technical Information.
Each year since 1976, NASA has published a list of every commercialized technology and product linked to its research. The NASA journal "Spinoff" highlights these products, which have included things like improved pacemakers, state of the art exercise machines and satellite radio. Each product was made possible thanks to a NASA idea or innovation.
But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to use many of these so-called spinoffs. Read on to learn about ten of these familiar products.
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