Skye

I guess sapan soni means an engine based around a nitinol element than alternates between austenitic and martensitic forms, then this translational motion is converted into rotational motion mechanically. It would require an electrical supply to function, putting it into competition with conventional electrical motors, which I doubt it would compete with. And anyway, it would have the same existing problems electrical energy storage.

The main reason is that different engines have differing fuel efficiencies in take off/landing and cruising. Piston engines are more efficient at the former, turbofans at the latter. Turboprops are in the middle. So piston engines are used for short ranged, turboprops for medium distance and jet engines for longer distances.

I didn't see the article refer to any stats or trends going back much more than a decade so the reasoning that it's been mismanaged for decades is unsupported.

They haven't generally. Here's income in US counties in 2008: And here's electoral college info from the 2008 Presidential election: Kudos to Wikipedia. Now they're couple of years old, and it's Federal election data rather than State. The problem with State governments though is that the local parties can vary in policies. By comparing State Governors, for example, you'd think that California has been a solid Republican state until recently. Anyway, there's a general correlation between voting for Obama and having rich neighbours, and you can probably stretch that to say there's a correlation between conservative states and poor economic performance. Why? It could just be a fluke. It could just be cultural differences between different states. It could be that the richer states put greater emphasis on the leftist policies like the environment because they can afford to. Interestingly, there's also the better performance of income growth during Democrat rather than Republican Presidencies.

Bin Laden didn't actually claim responsibility until 2004.

Windjammers still carried long distance cargo during the first half of the 20th century. They could be sailed with around 20 crew at around 15 knots, which is similar to modern cargo ships. However they'd do this following the wind along certain routes, and it's still not as reliable as a powered ship. It would be interesting to see what a modern ship design could achieve though.

Rephrased: you have a rally about government spending, where the organisers were taking some inappropriate signs off people, and there's still one in twenty signs mentioning the President's race or religion. On the flip side, there could be a small number of very visible racists who are just tagging along with the tea party movement.

I prefer their fission one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

For all its problems, at least the US has finally made the fusion-powered family car a reality.

Ok, so you're aware that love is studied under some definition and seems to be the result of some biochemical processes? I can't see how that's consistent with post #47. Well I'm aware of religion, like love, being studied a neurological process, but that simply supports religion as a neurological process not religion as a philosophical position.

There's plenty of research on love, particularly related to oxytocin.

Are you weightless in the dark?

In Australia medicine was traditionally a ~6 year undergraduate degree that you entered straight out of high school. Some univerisities have started adding to, or replacing, these courses with four year postgrad degrees. There are no requirements for science subjects in the undergrad courses, they do need to pass the standard test that includes organic chem and physics though. The reasons are mostly commercial, it opens up a larger number of potential students and increases the number of years they'll be paying fees to 7 or 8.

The problem here is cost. MRAPs are meant to be cheap, otherwise you'd buy a APC or AFV. A commercial truck with some steel plate and a light machine gun on the roof is reasonably cheap to build and service. Going beyond that pushes cost into APC/AFV territory, at which point you'd just buy a Stryker or Puma.

The Guardian is a left wing paper. The Times (now owned by News Corp) is traditionally conservative though. It is well respected and is considered a newspaper of record for the UK. I think that news of record generally implies an excellent reputation, because the term newspapers of record originates from the use of certain newspapers as the medium through which public notices, such as product recalls or retractions of libel, were distributed, and that these were typically distinguished high brow broadsheets like the Times, the NYT and La Monde. These papers have a bias, certainly, but are still usually respected across ideological lines for good reporting. I don't think this is the case with the Fox News Channel. The same ideologically people who dislike the Times or the WSJ will of course dislike FNC, but I think FNC gets little respect from moderates, or even many conservatives.