After more than 20 years of neglect, the planet Venus is once more drawing NASA's eye for ambitious new missions.A Venusian dream expedition for some scientists would include nothing short of an exploration flotilla – a ground robot, planetary airplane and orbiting manned spacecraft. The potential mission to Venus could investigate its surface from up-close for the first time in several decades, a NASA scientist said. [Photos: The surface of Venus.]
"Recently there has been a renaissance in looking at proposals to study Venus," researcher Geoffrey A. Landis at NASA's John Glenn Research Center in Ohio told SPACE.com. "One very good reason is that there has been a renewed interest in study of the atmospheres and climates of planets, and – being the planet that is most like the Earth in size – learning more about the atmosphere of Venus may help us learn more about the atmosphere (and climate) of the Earth." Continue reading at Ambitious Venus Mission Ideas Include Robots, Planes, Humans
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Idiot Attempts to Cash Forged $1 Million Check
gcdailyworld - A rural Bloomfield man who went to the drive-through window of the Eastern Heights branch of the Bloomfield State Bank early Friday morning, and tried to cash a check for one million dollars, didn't drive off with any cash.
Later the same day, Lt. Bryan Woodall of the Greene County Sheriff's Department gave the man a ride to the county jail.
Justin S. Johnson, 21, who resides in Lawrence Hollow Estates, appeared in Greene Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon and was charged with one count of forgery, a class C felony.
A call came in to the sheriff's department from the bank around 8:45 a.m. on Friday. The complaint was that Johnson was attempting to cash a check for one million dollars by handing the check through the window to a teller.
Lt. Woodall was dispatched and spoke with the teller who said it was not a valid check and she did not cash it. Woodall said the teller kept the check. And she obtained Johnson's driver's license and made a copy of it before Johnson left.
The deputy located Johnson at his residence.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Johnson said a blank check was given to him the day before by a man he had done some work for.
Johnson allegedly filled the check out, knowing it was not supposed to be written for one million dollars, signed the man's name and attempted to cash it.
The check was written on an account at Hoosier Hills Credit Union located in Bedford, in the name of a company located in Bloomington.
Johnson's bond has been set at $10,000 according to the standard bond schedule.
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Radioactive Wild Boars Plague German Forests
io9 - It's been 25 years since Chernobyl fallout contaminated flora and fauna in Europe, but German hunting officials are still dealing with rising numbers of radioactive wild boars. But why?
This burgeoning boar population munches on radiation-absorbing truffles and mushrooms, and because of an overall increase in wild boars, the number of radioactive boars has gone up as well. The German Atomic Energy Law requires Berlin to reimburse hunters who bag radioactive boars. In 2009, the government paid out approximately €425,000 — or $555,000 — for polluted piggies. According to Der Spiegel, the contaminated boar population has been the most problematic in southern Germany:
Many of the boar that are killed land on the plates of diners across Germany, but it is forbidden to sell meat containing high levels of radioactive caesium-137 — any animals showing contamination levels higher than 600 becquerel per kilogram must be disposed of. But in some areas of Germany, particularly in the south, wild boar routinely show much higher levels of contamination. According to the Environment Ministry, the average contamination for boar shot in Bayerischer Wald, a forested region on the Bavarian border with the Czech Republic, was 7,000 becquerel per kilogram. Other regions in southern Germany aren't much better.
Rising numbers of radioactive wild boars plague German forests Hunting officials have been experimenting with Giese salt (a cesium-binding chemical mixture that's been used to facilitate the excretion of radiation in farm animals), but the radioactive boars aren't going away anytime soon. According to Joachim Reddemann of the Bavarian Hunting Federation, "The problem has been at a high level for a long time [...] It will likely remain that way for at least the next 50 years."
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British MoD Blocks Release of UFO Files
ukpressThe release of files about a Ministry of Defence civil servant-turned-UFO expert has been blocked.
Nick Pope has drawn on his experiences working for Britain's official UFO investigation unit for a number of books about aliens and strange sights in the skies.
Fellow UFO researcher David Clarke made a Freedom of Information request in 2007 for internal MoD documents about Mr Pope's decision to speak publicly about his conversion from sceptic to believer in the possibility that extra-terrestrials are visiting Earth.
But more than three years later, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has upheld the department's refusal to publish the files because they contain personal information.
Mr Pope worked on the MoD's UFO desk from 1991 to 1994, dealing with possible sightings sent in by the public. He published his first book about the phenomena - Open Skies, Closed Minds - in 1996, although he continued working for the MoD until November 2006.
The MoD's official line is that it has no opinion on whether or not aliens exist but 50 years of UFO reports uncovered no evidence of a potential threat to the UK.
Dr Clarke asked the department to release records of its internal discussions about how to respond when Mr Pope began talking to the media about UFOs in 1995-96.
He obtained an April 1996 memo written by a senior officer in defence intelligence, who said the matter should be approached "very delicately".
But the MoD refused to release other papers about Mr Pope, including some which contain "free and frank advice" from defence officials about how to handle the situation.
The ICO said in its ruling on Dr Clarke's request: "The commissioner feels that this is a finely balanced case and that the complainant has provided well reasoned arguments to support his case. However, in this particular case the commissioner does not believe that release of the information concerned would further the legitimate public interest in any significant way."
Fortean / Oddball News - 8/1/2010
