Army Goes Goth With 'Super-Black' Materials

Get ready to break out the eyeliner and the candelabras, because the Army is going goth.In its latest round of solicitations for small businesses, the Army is asking for proposals for super-black material. That is, material so black that it absorbs 99 percent of all light. But it isn’t really black paint, exactly. The plan is to use either an “antireflective coating or surface treatment process...

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Reaction to the death of actor Jack Klugman

Celebrities on Monday reacted to the death of “Odd Couple” star Jack Klugman, who died Monday at age 90. Here are samples of sentiments expressed on Twitter:___“R.I.P. Jack Klugman, Oscar, Quincy a man whose career spanned almost 50 years. I first saw him on the Twilight Zone. Cool guy wonderful actor.” — Whoopi Goldberg.___“You made my whole family laugh together.” — Actor Jon Favreau, of “Swingers,”...

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Gifts That Keep Giving (if Not Exploding)

Gregory Tobias/Chemical Heritage Foundation CollectionsA Chemcraft set from the mid-1950s. More Photos »Ask scientists of a certain age about their childhood memories, and odds are they’ll start yarning about the stink bombs and gunpowder they concocted with their chemistry sets. Dangerous? Yes, but fun. “Admittedly, I have blown some things up in my time,” said William L. Whittaker, 64,...

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Raging fire guts Kabul market

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Firefighters battled through the night to contain a raging fire that swept through a market in the Afghan...

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Hourglass Nebula

This Hubble telescope snapshot of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula, reveals that the object has an hourglass shape with an intricate pattern of "etchings" in its walls. A planetary nebula is the glowing relic of a dying, Sun-like star.The results are of great interest because they shed new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter that accompanies the...

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Reality TV star Bethenny Frankel and husband to separate

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Reality TV star Bethenny Frankel and her husband Jason Hoppy are separating, Frankel announced on Sunday.“It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that, as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said in a statement confirmed by her representative.“We have love and respect...

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N.Y.U. and Others Offer Shorter Courses Through Medical School

Training to become a doctor takes so long that just the time invested has become, to many, emblematic of the gravity and prestige of the profession. But now one of the nation’s premier medical schools, New York University, and a few others around the United States are challenging that equation by offering a small percentage of students the chance to finish early, in three years instead of...

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Terra/MODIS Color Image of Copahue Eruption Plume Across South America

For the first time since 2000, Copahue is erupting, sending an ash plume across southern South America. So far, the eruption is following the same patterns as the activity that ran from July to October 2000. That activity started with phreatic (water-driven) explosions, so it will be interesting to see if this eruption has new juvenile magma involved. Earlier this year,...

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Iron Butterfly bassist Lee Dorman dies at age 70

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lee Dorman, the bassist for psychedelic rock band Iron Butterfly, has died at age 70.Orange County sheriff‘s spokeswoman Gail Krause says Dorman was found dead in a vehicle Friday morning. A coroner’s investigation is under way, but foul play is not suspected.Krause said Dorman may have been on his way to a doctor’s appointment when he died.Iron Butterfly was formed and rose to...

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Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation

Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers’ reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine. After several well-publicized cases involving writers buying or manipulating their reviews, Amazon is cracking down. Writers say thousands of reviews have been deleted from the shopping site in recent months. Amazon...

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