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Wednesday, August 4
CIA asks Bush to discontinue Blog WASHINGTON, DC—In the interest of national security, President Bush has been asked to stop posting entries on his three-month-old personal web log, acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin said Monday. According to McLaughlin, several recent entries on PrezGeorgeW.typepad.com have compromised military operations, while other posts may have seriously undercut the PR efforts of White House press secretary Scott McClellan. "I would hate for the president to inadvertently put American soldiers at risk," McLaughlin said. "We work hard to maintain the integrity of state secrets. When we see the president posting details of troop movements, international counter-terrorism negotiations, and even the nuclear launch codes, as he did on Monday, we have to step up and say something." 
(Courtesy The Onion) Monday, August 2
Chupacabra? 
A rancher in Elmendorf, southeast of San Antonio, Texas found a strange creature attacking his livestock, and local animal experts say identifying it is a tough call. Devin Macanally says he has lived on his ranch for 15 years and has never seen anything like it. It is a strange dog-looking creature with a blue color that he says began a killing spree. Devin first knew something was up when his chickens started disappearing. At one point, 35 were gone in just one day. "First thing that came to my mind, is surely everybody's gonna think this is a chupacabra," he laughed. "But it's so odd because it has no hair." People at the San Antonio Zoo say they have not seen anything like it. Terry DeRosa with the zoo says at a feather-light 20 pounds, he thinks it might be a wild mexican dog. A Walking Gun Platform "If we were in Detroit, the 2020 Future Warrior system would be the concept car. It leverages a lot of the nano-work being done by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology," DeGay said, noting the Army just awarded MIT a five- year, $50 million program to establish the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. Another potential development is inserting "nanomuscle fibers" that can actually simulate muscles, giving soldiers more strength. Fabric is impregnated with nanomachines that create the same weight, lift and feel as a muscle. "So I coat the outside of the armor with a nanomuscle fiber that gives me 25 to 35 percent better lifting capability," DeGay explained. The uniform from the waist down will have a robotic-powered system that is connected directly to the soldier. This system could use pistons to actually replicate the lower body, giving the soldier "upwards of about 300 percent greater lifting and load-carriage capability," DeGay said. "We are looking at potentially mounting a weapon directly to the uniform system and now the soldier becomes a walking gun platform." 
"Maggots, Michael..." Maggots Make Medical Comeback "They'll probably be easier to use now that they're FDA-approved, and we'll talk about it more and think about it more," Kirsner said. He estimates he uses maggots in about one in 50 patients where conventional therapy alone isn't enough. This has been quite a year for wormlike critters. In June, FDA also gave its seal of approval to leeches, those bloodsuckers that help plastic surgeons save severed body parts by removing pooled blood and restoring circulation. And in the spring, University of Iowa researchers reported early evidence that drinking whipworm eggs, which causes a temporary, harmless infection, might soothe inflammatory bowel disease by diverting the overactive immune reaction that causes it. |
