What's New Friday, Jan 1, 2010

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park    Friday, 01 Jan 10   Washington, DC

1. UNDERWEAR BOMBS: THE ONLY DEFENCE IS FULL EXPOSURE. 
The problem with suicide bombers is that they’re never experienced. We 
endure the minor indignity of removing our shoes when passing through 
airport security ever since a young Al Qaeda recruit named Richard Reid 
attempted to detonate an explosive substance in his shoes on a flight from 
Paris to Miami on 22 Dec 2001 without having first tried it.  Either the 
flight was sold out on Christmas or Richard had it confused with the winter 
solstice.  Removing your shoes is no big deal, but about 2 million people 
pass through airport security in the US every day; over eight years that’s 
something in the neighborhood of 1 billion pairs of shoes being taken off 
and put back on, not to mention the number of lost shoes. Think of it as a 
sort of tax on staying alive. The guy that invented the shoe bomb that 
failed to go off for Richard Reid on Winter Solstice 2001 must have 
invented the underwear bomb that didn’t go off for Umar Abdulmutallab on 
Christmas 2009.  Let’s hope they keep this guy.  But what are we supposed 
to do now?  We can't parade our private stuff in public.  Or can we?  Air 
travel could be limited to those willing to go naked through terminals.  If 
you have it, you should flaunt it.  

2. BREWING TROUBLE: NOT ALL THE THINGS WE LIKE ARE BAD FOR US.
It's a common experience: your doctor is treating you for some chronic 
condition and suggests you try cutting back on coffee. This is based on an 
ancient medical principle that the things we enjoy most must be bad for us. 
The Personal Journal section of the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday gives 
the other side in a striking visual: 6 cups per day lowered the risk of 
advanced prostate cancer in a 20 year study of 50,000 men, 5 cups per day 
lowered their risk of Alzheimer's by 65%, 4 cups per day cut the risk of 
stroke by 43% in a study of 83,000 nurses, and so on. This, of course, 
represents blatant cherry picking from a number of studies. Nevertheless, 
the Wall Street Journal article relieves some of the guilt feelings of 
confirmed caffeine addicts.

3. NASA: SPACE COWBOYS ARE BACK IN THE SADDLE.
According to an article by Andrew Lawler in today's Science, president 
Obama plans to ask Congress to cancel work on the Ares 1 rocket and replace 
it with a heavy-lift vehicle to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the 
moons of Mars. To prepare for human visits to Phobos and Deimos may order 
additional robotic missions, which leads one to wonder why they are 
planning for a human presence at all. The international space Station 
meanwhile seems to have dropped off the radar. What is critically important 
at this time is to replace Earth observing satellites that are a part of 
climate change studies.

4. ARCHIVES: THE LAST ARCHIVED ISSUE WAS DECEMBER 11, 2009.
We are aware of the problems and hope to have it solved soon. There are 
unexpected problems in going back some 28 years. We continue to hope the 
switch to a new server will be completed soon.  

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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