How far can bullets travel when fired into water?

The first candidate for this test was the Civil War rifle. At a range of 15 feet, the ballistics gel was completely unharmed; likewise at five feet. Only when the range was reduced to three feet did the bullet finally penetrate the gel, suggesting that diving under water was probably a pretty effective way of dodging slugs during the Civil War.

The experimenters moved on to the hunting rifle, which was loaded with a full-metal jacket .223 round that emerged at roughly 2,500 feet per second. At ten feet, the bullet disintegrated and the gel was untouched. At three feet, the bullet again broke up, with its tip coming to rest on the gel — not nearly enough power to damage flesh.

A bullet from the M1 Garand, with a muzzle speed of 2,800 ft/sec, also disintegrated at the ten-foot range. At two feet, the slug penetrated about four inches into the gel, suggesting a non-fatal wound. The armor-piercing .50 caliber round didn’t do any better — it, too, came apart at distances greater than five feet and lost most of its punch by three feet.

The engineers at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Precision Machinery Construction in Moscow correctly perceived the problem with shooting into water and in response developed the SPP-1 (Spetsialnyj Podvodnyj Pistolet, or “Special Underwater Pistol”) for use by Russian Navy frogmen. The SPP-1 is a manually operated four-barrel handgun that breaks open along the top and loads in a fashion similar to a double-barrel or over-and-under shotgun. The ammunition is designed to work underwater, using long bottlenecked rimmed casings plus bullets made from mild rather than hardened steel and designed to be stable underwater. The barrel isn’t rifled. According to the specs for the pistol, when fired at a depth of five meters — over sixteen feet — it’s lethal up to seventeen meters, or over fifty-five feet.

The SPP-1 isn’t the only exemplar of the breed. Other firearms are designed to work underwater as well, but they tend more towards the spear-gun model using dart-like projectiles. There’s no bright-line boundary where a bullet becomes a dart, but the projectiles fired by the Heckler & Koch P11 Underwater Pistol, for example, clearly cross the line. The H&K is an all-polymer weapon made especially for underwater use by the German Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmer — “army combat divers.” Each of the five dart-shaped projectiles is powered by a small, solid-fuel rocket. The weapon has been featured in some high-profile films, including Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, and is said to be able to inflict a fatal wound at fifty feet underwater.

{ The Straight Dope | NB: The article isn’t on the site anymore | Related: Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down? }

photos/enlarge { 1. Howard Schatz | 2. Unsourced }

{ Miss Landmine | Thanks Glenn! }

{ via hsgn | Thanks Tom! }

YouMe: Control Real People In Real Time

An unusual new service called YouMe is being touted as the next generation of gaming, and a new way of sourcing help. The service will let users (”Yous”) control real people (”Mes”) in real time. Yous give instructions to the Mes via bluetooth headset or text message, and the Mes escapades are captured by video camera and streamed live.  Almost anything is game as far as requests, barring illegal or sexual activity. YouMe is in private beta, and should launch later this year.

{ PSFK | Continue reading }

The patient was a 15-year-old girl employed in a local bar. She was admitted to hospital after a knife fight involving her, a former lover and a new boyfriend. Who stabbed whom was not quite clear but all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries. (…)

Precisely 278 days later the patient was admitted again to hospital with acute, intermittent abdominal pain. Abdominal examination revealed a term pregnancy with a cephalic fetal presentation. The uterus was contracting regularly and the fetal heart was heard. Inspection of the vulva showed no vagina, only a shallow skin dimple was present below the external urethral meatus and between the labia minora. An emergency lower segment caesarean section was performed under spinal anaesthesia and a live male infant weighing 2800 g was born…

The patient was well aware of the fact that she had no vagina and she had started oral experiments after disappointing attempts at conventional intercourse. Just before she was stabbed in the abdomen she had practised fellatio with her new boyfriend and was caught in the act by her former lover. The fight with knives ensued. She had never had a period and there was no trace of lochia after the caesarean section. She had been worried about the increase in her abdominal size but could not believe she was pregnant

{ Discover | Continue reading | ABC }

artwork { The Designers Republic }

Wolfie Blackheart is not an ordinary 18-year-old. She believes she is a wolf –technically, a werewolf– and so she wears a tail. She also wears a harness in case someone special wants to drag her around.

And last week, she used a pocketknife in her kitchen to decapitate a dog–already dead, according to Wolfie–that had been missing since Jan. 5.

{ San Antonio Express-News | Continue reading }

{ Courtesy of my friend Glenn }

Six months is all it took to flip Europe’s climate from warm and sunny into the last ice age, researchers have found.

They have discovered that the northern hemisphere was plunged into a big freeze 12,800 years ago by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream that allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.

Previous research had suggested the change might have taken place over a longer period — perhaps about 10 years.

The new description, reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of past climate changes yet attempted.

{ Times | Continue reading }

Last week, I read a few articles in relation to results from a recent Australian Hotel Association (AHA) survey, revealing that women are consistently more likely to pilfer than men. Millions of dollars a year in the hotel industry, are lost to theft; from tiny soft face towels, to larger items like statues. Essentially, anything not nailed down. (…)

While exploring other topics on the subject matter to cover, I learned about the different tactics reportedly used by women to steal.  Did you know about Crotch Walking? Taken directly from- Associated Content.com: Shoplifting Statistics and Tactics, explains it as, “Crotch walking is a theft tactic that is cleverly performed by women. They simply wear a full dress or skirt into the store; place an item between their thighs, and walk out of the business like it is any other normal shopping day. Women with stronger thighs have been known to shoplift larger ticket items like electronics.” 

{ Bust | Continue reading }

Is there life after death? Theologians can debate all they want, but radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long says if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade’s worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. (…)

Medically speaking, what is a near-death experience?
A near-death experience has two components. The person has to be near death, which means physically compromised so severely that permanent death would occur if they did not improve: they’re unconscious, or often clinically dead, with an absence of heartbeat and breathing. The second component [is that] at the time they’re having a close brush with death, they have an experience. [It is] generally lucid [and] highly organized.

{ Time | Continue reading }

illustration { Jong Myung Hwang }

{ Travis Louie | more }

{ Skimmer found Dec. 6, 2009, attached to the front of a Citibank ATM in Woodland Hills, Calif. A skimmer is a device made to be affixed to the mouth of an ATM and secretly swipe credit and debit card information when bank customers slip their cards into the machines to pull out money. | Krebs on Security | more }

Tom alerted me to this fantastic brief case published in the British Medical Journal where a builder is admitted to hospital in great pain after a nail penetrated all the way through his boot. But it turned out that the pain was entirely psychological, as the nail had missed his foot by sliding between his toes. (…)

This isn’t really the nocebo effect, where ’side-effects’ appear after having taken nothing but a placebo, but more similar to what doctors might describe in its persistent form as somatisation disorder where physical symptoms appear that aren’t explained by tissue damage.

{ Mind Hacks | Continue reading }

{ The notion that the speed of thought could be measured, just like the density of a rock, was shocking. Yet that is exactly what scientists did. | Discover | Full story }

{ Stivo | Enlarge/Read more }

{ Mata Hari in 1906 | Mata Hari was a Dutch-born erotic dancer and courtesan living in Paris who was executed by firing squad for espionage during World War I. | Wikipedia | Continue reading | More double agents }

Jeanette’s Taxidermy proudly introduces Pet Pillows as an alternative way to remember your pet. Each pet pillow is hand made from the fur of your pet and made into a pillow that you can display. On one side of the pillow is your pet’s fur and the other side of the pillow is your choice of fabric. These soft, huggable pillows are a great way to enjoy your cherished pet and is an inexpensive alternitave to taxidermy.

Prices: $65 for a cat, $75-$125 for a dog, $150 for a horse.

Freeze your pet immediately upon passing to insure there will be no hair slippage.

Double bag to insure no freezerburn.

Ship packages ONLY on Mondays to prevent carrier mishaps. All frozen animals must be shipped next day air to insure against spoilage.

{ Thanks Shampoo! | The site Jeanettestaxidermy.com doesn’t exist anymore | Jeanette’s Taxidermy profile on Muley Madness | Read more: Woman who turns pets into pillows faces death threats and Taxidermist Jeanette Hall standing with her pedestal mounted horse | The story behind this photo }

{ toy-camera-paparazzi }

Antarctica is warming, but not melting anything like as much as expected. In fact, during the continent’s summer this time last year, there was less melting than at any time in the 30 years that we have had reliable satellite measurements of the region. (…)

Melting in Antarctica happens almost entirely in the summers, which have warmed very little, say Andrew Monaghan of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and Marco Tedesco of the City College of New York. (…)

But Tedesco warns that as the ozone hole heals in the coming decades, the winds will weaken, the continent will become much warmer in summer – and melting will increase.

{ New Scientist | Continue reading }

An iceberg that broke off of Antarctica in 2000 is headed toward Australia. Usually, they circulate around Antarctica due to currents there but this one managed to escape, and is drifting northeast toward Australia’s south-southwest coast. Since it broke off the main ice mass it shrank from 140 square kilometers down to 115 square km. Manhattan is 88 sq km. It would fit comfortably inside that iceberg.

{ Discover | Continue reading }

related { Frozen Britain seen from satellite | Plus: A deluge of overnight snow has left much of Britain paralysed, with airports closed, schools shut, normally-busy roads impassable and train lines all but empty. 10 ways to cope with snow. }