Science, Technology & Health: July 2012 Archives
This was a pretty small (two kiloton) air-burst nuke, so I bet these five guys were all pretty much fine. NPR did some research and it seems like they mostly died of old age:
Alex looked, and here's what he found:
- Col. Sidney C. Bruce -- died in 2005 (age 86)
- Lt. Col. Frank P. Ball -- died in 2003 (age 83)
- Maj. John Hughes -- very common name, but I'm guessing he is Maj. John W. Hughes II (born 1919, same as the above) -- died in 1990 (age 71)
- Maj. Norman Bodinger -- unclear (not listed in the database), he may still be alive?
- Don Lutrel -- I think this is a misspelling of "Luttrell." There is a Donald D. Luttrell in the DVA database, US Army CPL, born 1924, died 1987 (age 63). Seems like a possibility.
(HT: Gizmodo, who can't resist making historically ignorant comments.)
What happens if the pitcher pitches the ball at 0.9c?
Short, boring version: You get to advance to first base -- but you, first base, and the stadium are all destroyed in a nuclear explosion.
(HT: GeekPress.)
Even though our genetic manipulation technology isn't good enough to reliably augment our natural abilities, it might be good enough that countries without ethical qualms about human experimentation are already at work creating super-athletes. Sure, most of the experiments will be failures, but if the high defect rate doesn't bother you then why not throw a few thousand darts and see if anything sticks?
Assuming that these augmented athletes will age at a normal human rate, we should expect to start seeing the successful experiments show up at the Olympics by 2024.
