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British Chicken-Warmed Nuke
darrellberry writes "During the Cold War, British researchers developed a nuclear landmine, kept operational during cold conditions by packing it full of live chickens. This story has appeared in a few UK media channels this morning. Probably an April Fools', but who knows? The bomb is supposedly on display at the National Archives in Kew, so if you live in London you can go and see for yourselves..." Also a BBC story and an older New Scientist blurb.
Everyone knows that lawyers and politicians are more effective heat sources.
"Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair." A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
...good for dept?
Uhm, yes. They don't make very good boomerangs.
Or coffee filters. Or baseball gloves. (Although that one would be fun)
Sent from your iPad.
This BBC story says that "Plans to fill a nuclear landmine with chickens to regulate its temperature were considered during the Cold War. Officials at the National Archives say it is coincidence the secret plan was revealed on 1 April."
I, for one, welcome our nuclear chicken overlords...
I feel like chicken tonight....like radioactive chicken tonight....chicken tonight!
What is the diffference between April Fool's Day and every other day on Slashdot?
On April fools day, everyone knows slashdot will be full of useless information. Every other day, the editors aren't aware fo this fact.
Mustm orrowwwww......
Stop
Reading
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Until
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Download my free songs!
Way off-topic, but who cares, its a holiday...
"What if we celebrated Valentine's Day with chickens instead of hearts? Then we'd say, 'I love you, with all my chicken.'"
- Sesame Street
Because the ... *BOOM*
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
I like the fact that one of our railways cost more than a trip to the moon.
And takes just as long too
Hooray for British ingenuity - now we're making our own Chicken a la Kiev, faithful even down to the rad count...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Ah. I always wondered about the origin of Cluckzilla, who ravaged Leeds during the late 1960s.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I smell a PITA protest......
Seymour Cray would've used oxen to warm his nuclear landmine.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
"Are you suggesting nuclear bombs migrate?"
"Not at all. They could be carried...."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
If this were true, I can already imagine Soviet army personel encountering this weapon:
Soviet private: In the name of Lenin, what's that awful noise?Soviet sergeant: It sounds like... Oh no...
Soviet private: Chickens? A whole bunch of chickens?
Soviet sergeant: PULL BACK!!! Tell Dmitri to launch all ICBMs! Get me in contact with the Kremlin!
Soviet private: What? They're going to peck us to death?
Soviet sergeant: Silence, cappitalist pig! Those anglobastards witll suffer for their foul crime!
Hate me!
I think everyone's overlooking the very real possibility that these chickens were used for more than just heat.
Like styrofoam in the H-bomb, this seemingly innocuous packing material (chickens) might be converted to plasma by radiation pressure, thereby dramatically increasing the explosive yield of the device.
Just wait. I give it 20 years, and we'll see these docs declassified. Of course, then we'll have to worry about rogue states building C-bombs.
Does all the included chicken poop make this a dirty bomb?
A 1944 design for a pigeon-guided missile, that was to be used to sink German battleships. Until the Navy decided it was a stupid idea.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I took a grad-level physics-based electromagnetism class last year, and picked up some supplementary E&M books from the library. One of them was from an engineering slant, and actually described the following problem and it's solution.
Farmers wanted a way to keep pigs warm in the winter. So they estimated the thickness of a layer of fat under the pig's skin, determined permittivities and permeabilities of the fat and the muscle-layers underneath the fat, and solved the boundary conditions of Maxwell's equations in the presence of RF radiation.
The result was that they effectively made a low-cost 'microwave oven' tuned to the pig's fat layer, which would keep them warm and still be relatively cheap (ie, put the heater in the pen without worrying about walls, etc).
Kind of cool, but disturbing in a way too.
make world, not war
Wouldn't the clucking sound give away it's position to the enemy?
Or baseball gloves. (Although that one would be fun)
It depends on where you plan putting your hand...
Then again, you might have a different idea of fun than me.
After winning the war using this weapon the Brits would not have to send in much help to the conquered survivors. Hot roasted chicken just falls out of the sky. And it is easy to find in the dark too.
...but I don't think I ever chickened a nuke.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Cause it gives you: CHICKEN KIEV!!! That, for me, suggests it's a hoax... Future Shock