“America is building a new weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear missile the length of a bowling lane,” writes the contributing editor for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (in an article shared by Slashdot reader DanDrollette): It will be able to travel some 6,000 miles, carrying a warhead more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on…
Tag: Hiroshima
‘The Largest Nuclear Bomb Ever Detonated’ Explored in Declassified Russian Footage
“The blast was over 3,000 times bigger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima,” reports Smithsonian magazine: Hydrogen bombs are so destructive, their impact has been described as unthinkable throughout history. Recently declassified Russian footage of the 1961 Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb test shows why. The 40-minute documentary, which was posted on YouTube on August 20, shows footage of the largest bomb…
What Hiroshima teaches us about coronavirus and the future of humanity
The nuclear bomb told us we are the greatest threat to our own survival – and the covid-19 pandemic shows the lessons still to learn, say Anders Sandberg and Thomas Moynihan Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24732940-100-what-hiroshima-teaches-us-about-coronavirus-and-the-future-of-humanity/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Asteroid Day, June 30, live from Luxembourg
The 6th annual Asteroid Day will be held as a digital event on June 30, 2020. It’ll feature presentations with experts, panel discussions, and question-and-answer periods. Here’s how to participate. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/international-asteroid-day-june-30…
Interview with the Science Writer Who Predicted the Pandemic 8 Years Ago
In 1945, after atomic bomb detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several former Manhattan Project scientists founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Publishing continuously since 1945, its current deputy editor, science writer DanDrollette, is also a Slashdot reader, and shared one of the nonprofit magazine’s thought-provoking new interviews:
In 2012, author David Quammen wrote a book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next…
Supercomputer Simulates the Impact of the Asteroid That Wiped Out Dinosaurs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth on the eastern coast of modern Mexico, resulting in up to three quarters of plant and animal species living on the planet going extinct — including the dinosaurs. Now, a team of researchers equipped with a supercomputer have managed to simulate the entire…
Can we peek at Schrodinger’s cat without disturbing it?
Quantum physics is difficult and explaining it even more so. Associate Professor Holger F. Hofmann from Hiroshima University and Kartik Patekar from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have tried to solve one of the biggest puzzles in quantum physics: how to measure the quantum system without changing it? …
Scientists Stunned By ‘City-Killer’ Asteroid That Just Missed Earth On July 25
A “city killer” asteroid whizzed past earth Thursday that “would have hit with over 30 times the energy of the atomic blast at Hiroshima,” according to one astronomer professor. Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared a Washington Post story that begins with a reaction from Alan Duffy, lead scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia: “I was stunned,” he said. “This was…
Asteroid Day 2019 is June 30
The 5th annual Asteroid Day is Sunday. Online programs begin June 27. Here’s how to participate. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/international-asteroid-day-june-30…
A small asteroid hit us last weekend
Asteroid 2019 MO exploded in our atmosphere with an energy of about 3 to 5 kilotons of TNT. Such events happen once or twice yearly, astronomers say. Most are unexpected, but this space rock was detected hours before it struck. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2019-mo-struck-earth-june-22-2019…