Geoff Brumfiel

Geoff Brumfiel appears in the following:

A Milestone Marked In Disposal Of Syria's Chemical Weapons

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

President Obama has announced that the U.S. has completed disposal of the most sensitive parts of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. The successful disposal is an impressive technical ...

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Do Not Fear This Giant Robot Swarm

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Researchers created a swarm of 1,024 tiny robots to do their bidding. So far, the only job they're given is to arrange themselves into a shape. But future versions could perform all sorts of tasks.

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After 78 Years, A First: Math Prize Celebrates Work Of A Woman

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

The International Mathematical Union has announced the four winners of its prestigious Fields Medal. The group includes Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the prize in its long history.

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Rosetta Spacecraft Arrives At Comet After 10-Year Chase

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

In November, Rosetta will release a lander about the size of a small refrigerator that will attempt to secure itself to the comet's surface using harpoons.

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In Quest To Harpoon A Comet, A Spacecraft Stalks Its Prey

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

The European Rosetta mission arrives at its target comet Wednesday morning. In the coming months, its lander unit will harpoon the space rock.

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After A Decade, Comet-Chasing Spacecraft Nearly There

Monday, August 04, 2014

It's been a long journey, but it's nearly over. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will finally arrive at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Humans have sent spacecraft hurtling past comets before, but Rosetta is doing something very different. It's sidling up next to 67P to join ...

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To Find America's Nuclear Missiles, Try Google Maps

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Earlier this week, NPR ran a short series I did on America's land-based nuclear missiles. One diagram in particular raised a few eyebrows: It showed the location of a Missile Alert Facility, along with the silos for 10 nuclear weapons.

Ken Albertson summed up what several of our ...

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How To Order Pizza From A Nuclear Command Bunker

Thursday, July 31, 2014

I spent months working with the U.S. Air Force to get access to a remote underground nuclear bunker in Nebraska for our radio series on America's missile forces. There was only one question left to answer before I left.

What did I want for lunch?

The menu provided by ...

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'Guardians Of The Galaxy': Let's Hear It For F.U.N.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

The worst thing about making a post-Avengers Marvel movie is how far ahead of the game you are when you start. Your film will be marketed with brute force, treated as arguably the biggest opening of the summer, reviewed everywhere, and very likely to land among the most commercially successful ...

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Should America Keep Its Aging Nuclear Missiles?

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

The U.S. arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles is decades old and will have to be replaced. Now some are questioning whether the weapons are worth the cost.

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Welcome To The Nuclear Command Bunker

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

A small cadre of officers is responsible for keeping America's nukes on alert 24/7. Here's a peek into their world, and what it takes to do the job.

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To Stop Cheating, Nuclear Officers Ditch The Grades

Monday, July 28, 2014

A switch to pass-fail grading is curbing the "perfection" culture among U.S. nuclear missile forces. Critics of the old way say striving to be perfect invited cheating by those who launch the nukes.

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What Brought Down The Malaysian Airliner?

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Shortly after news broke that a Malaysia Airlines flight crashed in eastern Ukraine, suspicions began to swirl that the plane had been shot down.

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Physicists Crush Diamonds With Giant Laser

Thursday, July 17, 2014

It's not a plot from a Bond film: Zapping diamonds could tell researchers more about the insides of giant planets.

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Researchers Aghast Over Discovery Of Smallpox Vials

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Federal health officials have found six vials of smallpox apparently forgotten in a lab storeroom. Officials want to know where the deadly virus came from and why it was left unsecured for so long.

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In A Lab Store Room, An Unsettling Surprise: Lost Vials Of Smallpox

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health made an unpleasant discovery as they cleaned out an old laboratory: The lab contained vials of the smallpox virus, previously unknown to authorities.

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Carbon Observatory To Monitor Greenhouse Gas From Space

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

NASA is preparing to launch a new satellite to observe carbon dioxide from space. The satellite could revolutionize our understanding of where this greenhouse gas comes from and where it goes.

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Carbon-Sensing Satellite Prepares For Second Launch

Monday, June 30, 2014

An earlier version of the satellite crashed into the ocean near Antarctica shortly after launch. Scientists are keeping their fingers crossed for the second attempt.

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World's Chemical Weapons Watchdog Clears Syria

Monday, June 23, 2014

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons has announced that Syria has handed over the last of its declared chemical weapons stockpile. Despite the milestone, what ques...

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Dust Clouds Big Bang Signal

Friday, June 20, 2014

In March, a team of physicists announced it had found a signal from the very first moments after the Big Bang. But in a paper published Thursday, the researchers expressed considerably more caution and conceded that they could have actually been detecting little more than interstellar dust.

If ...

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