5:36 PM
UK engineers have designed a "gravity tractor" that could intercept an asteroid that is headed for Earth, position itself to fly alongside it, and gradually modify its course by exerting a small gravitational force on the asteroid:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6110022/Scientists-design-spacecraft-to-save-Earth.html
Brazil picked a French fighter jet over the competition from the US and Sweden. This deal could be worth $7 billion and could change the international market for fighters. One key was that Brazil's government insisted on technology transfer to benefit Brazil's aerospace industry so that they can make the planes in Brazil...the US and Sweden didn't give in to the tech transfer requirements but France did:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/french-fighter-beats-out-american-swedish-aircraft-in-brazil/
Journal article highlights the key issues for the future of wind energy in Spain and concludes that it is technically viable and economically reasonable for wind energy to account for 30% of Spain's overall energy production:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/f-sf-kif090709.php
The increase in the size and frequency of large hurricanes that make landfall from the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in an increase in the number of tornadoes generated from those hurricanes:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/giot-tti090809.php
Two Clearwire executives (CFO and Chief Strategy Officer) resigned:
http://4gtrends.com/?p=1514
Huawei has 147 LTE patents, 12% of the total LTE patents assigned and the most of any company:
http://www.wirelessdesignasia.com/article-11445-huaweipullsaheadinltepatentranking-1-Asia.html
Study forecasts that Europe will take the early lead in LTE user growth (with 15 million users in Europe in 2013, compared to 13 million in Asia/Pacific and 7 million in North America) and that by 2016 Asia/Pacific will pass Europe, with the Chinese becoming dominant in Asia:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/europe-lead-lte-user-growth-52-cagr/2009-09-04
Florida woman broke into a car that was parked in a secure lot at a Florida police station, taking $7 because she said she wanted money for the soda machine:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/04/ap/strange/main5289300.shtml?tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesAreaMain;cbsnewsLeadStoriesHeadlines
Prostitution was illegal in Rhode Island until 1980, when legislators tried to speed up the prosecution of prostitution and accidentally deleted the section that made it a crime. Nobody noticed until a court case in 2003 and they haven't been able pass a law closing the loophole:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125210953971287935.html