Word: radar
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...National Weather Service's new $3 million radar outpost in Norman, Okla., proved its worth on its first day of operation last March. That evening a series of thunderheads rolled across the southern Oklahoma hill country. One storm cell appeared -- at least on conventional radar -- to be relatively benign. But not to Nexrad (for Next Generation Radar), a new detection system that is powerful enough to track a swarm of insects moving across a wheatfield 50 km (30 miles) away. The domed instrument peered into the swirling winds and raindrops inside the clouds and saw a tornado aborning. The Weather...
...weather forecasters, the radar station in Norman represents the bright edge of what is technically possible. It is the first of a proposed network of 160 stations that will eventually blanket the U.S. with high-power radar, vastly improving the accuracy of predictions. The network is part of an ambitious $2.25 billion modernization of the National Weather Service, almost a decade in the making, that also features a fleet of advanced satellites, a mosaic of automated weather stations and a high-speed information network linking them all together...
Unfortunately, the Norman outpost has also become a symbol of broken promises, missed deadlines and unfulfilled potential. Two more radar systems, one set for installation near Cape Kennedy in Florida and another outside Washington, are still sitting in packing crates, victims of a bitter contract dispute between the agency and the manufacturer, Unisys. Meanwhile, virtually every other part of the modernization program is either over budget, technically flawed or facing stiff opposition in Washington. The program could cost up to $1 billion more than originally estimated and is not likely to be completed until 1998, several years later than planned...
...infection. But the great mystery has always been why the body cannot knock HIV out completely. One possibility is that the body has trouble "seeing" all of the virus. Like a Stealth fighter plane, HIV may have hidden parts that do not show up on the immune system's radar screen. As a result, the body may not manufacture all the different kinds of antibodies that could attack the virus. "We thought that if we could make the virus in a slightly different way, the immune system could see it better and mount a more effective response," Redfield says...
When it comes to military cost cutting, the sky's the limit. Starting July 1, the Pentagon will save $38 million a year by shutting down the radar command center at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, one of the two major monitoring facilities that constantly scan the heavens for Soviet bombers flying toward North America. The other center, at Bangor Air National Guard Base in Maine, will continue operating, but on a part-time basis. "I think it's better than nothing," says Republican Senator William Cohen of Maine, who lobbied to keep the Bangor radar working...