Level
Posts: 25145
Joined: 3/3/2006
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: wytchywoman
quote:
ORIGINAL: Level
Cin, I only regret that I have one thread to give for my country (nods heroically).
LMAO.. May I call you "Patrick" as in Patrick Henry?
Aside from that bit of banter I don't think the U.S has done much of anything in the last 20 yrs except encourage the terrorists that we wind up later bitching about and declariing war on.
LOL........."Patrick" works for now  .....and let's see...... the last 20 years...
1- Ashok Gadgil, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, invents an effective and inexpensive device for purifying water. UV Waterworks, a portable, low-maintenance, energy-efficient water purifier, uses ultraviolet light to render viruses and bacteria harmless. Operating with hand-pumped or hand-poured water, a single unit can disinfect 4 gallons of water a minute, enough to provide safe drinking water for up to 1,500 people, at a cost of only one cent for every 60 gallons of water—making safe drinking water economically feasible for populations in poor and rural areas all over the world.
2- The Hubble Space Telescope goes into orbit on April 25, deployed by the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery. A cooperative effort by the European Space Agency and NASA, Hubble is a space-based observatory first dreamt of in the 1940s. Stabilized in all three axes and equipped with special grapple fixtures and 76 handholds, the space telescope is intended to be regularly serviced by shuttle crews over the span of its 15-year design life.
3- IBM announces that it has developed a copper-based chip technology, using copper wires rather than traditional aluminum to connect transistors in chips. Other chip manufacturers are not far behind, as research into copper wires has been going on for about a decade. Copper, the better conductor, offers faster performance, requires less electricity, and runs at lower temperatures, This breakthrough allows up to 200 million transistors to be placed on a single chip.
4- Ushering in the new "precision agriculture," farmers begin using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to record precise locations on their farms to determine which areas need particular quantities of water, fertilizer, and pesticides. The information can be stored on a card and transferred to a home computer. Farmers can now combine such data with yield information, weather forecasts, and soil analysis to create spreadsheets. These tools enable even greater efficiency in food production.
5- Responding to a more mobile workforce, handheld computer technology leaps forward with the Palm VII connected organizer, the combination of a computer with 2 megabytes of RAM and a port for a wireless phone. At less than $600, the computer weighs 6.7 ounces and operates for up to 3 weeks on two AAA batteries. Later versions offer 8 megabytes of RAM, Internet connectivity, and color screens for less than $500.
6- The Glenn Anderson Freeway/ Transitway, part of I-105, opens in Los Angeles, featuring a light rail train that runs in the median. Sensors buried in the pavement monitor traffic flow, and closed-circuit cameras alert officials to accidents.
7- President Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Among its provisions it gives schools and libraries access to state-of-the-art services and technologies at discounted rates.
8- NASA launches robotic spacecraft equipped with a variety of imaging instruments as part of a program of solar system exploration. Spacecraft have returned images not only from the planets but also from several of the moons of the gas giants
9-
New York City ophthalmologist Steven Trokel performs the first laser surgery on a human cornea, after perfecting his technique on a cow’s eye.
10- Researchers begin the Human Genome Project, coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, with the goal of identifying all of the approximately 30,000 genes in human DNA and determining the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA. The project catalyzes the multibillion-dollar U.S. biotechnology industry and fosters the development of new medical applications, including finding genes associated with genetic conditions such as familial breast cancer and inherited colon cancer. A working draft of the genome is announced in June 2000.
Yours in Google-ing,
Patrick 
|
RE: What has America done right? - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread