Johnston's Archive News

last modified 25 May 2006

2006

April 2006: The previously mentioned review of "Solar system binaries" by Keith S. Noll, citing my resources on binary asteroids and TNOs, is published in IAU Proceedings Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors (IAU S229), ed. by Daniela Lazzaro, Sylvio Ferraz-Mello, and Julio Angel Fernandez. [23]
March 2006: An article in The Telegraph of Calcutta, India, by Sreelatha Menon, "Is global warming a myth?", cites me as an example of the on line "subterranean world of suppressed opinion--both scientific and non scientific--on the matter of global warming". A number of statements are referenced from my pages on global warming; as time permits, though, I will post something more specific on the issue, since the collected quotes in the Telegraph article really don't work as a summary statement. [22]
March 2006: The fifth edition of W. H. Freeman's college geology textbook Understanding Earth by J. Grotzinger, T. H. Jordan, F. Press, and R. Siever, includes a version of my rendering of an ice age Earth--I'm pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this text. [21]
March 2006: A new review of minor planet binaries by Keith S. Noll, "Solar system binaries", includes a complementary reference to my resources on binary asteroids and TNOs. This paper certainly demonstrates how much this field has developed in just a few years: the first confirmed asteroid satellite was recognized 13 years ago; only 14 examples were known 5 years ago; and now, with 88 known asteroid/TNO systems, we have many interesting pieces of the puzzle.
February 2006: Peter G. Challenor, Robin K. S. Hankin, and Robert Marsh cite my historical data pertaining to climate change in their article "Towards the Probability of Rapid Climate Change" in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, ed. by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley, and Gary Yohe; this text from Cambridge University Press includes proceedings of a 2005 UK government-sponsored conference on climate change. [20]
February 2006: Demoscope Weekly, the electronic version of the Russian Academy of Sciences Naselenyue yu Obstesmeyo (Population and Society), prints a table which cites my abortion data. [f]
January 2006: A World Economic Forum factsheet on earthquake risks uses my graph of world earthquake deaths per million population.

2005

December 2005: First 5,000,000 hits.
December 2005: The textbook Economic Development, 4th ed. by E. Wayne Nafziger includes a reference to my page on abortion data in Hungary. [19]
December 2005: Bruce Wilson's book Disarming the Culture War: How the Silent Majority Can Break the Stalemate is published; it cites my data on abortion statistics. He reviews the discrepancy between American public policy and public sentiment on several issues, notably abortion. [18]
November 2005: A section "Reproductive Issues and Nursing Ethics" by Janie B. Butts in the book Nursing Ethics: Across the Curriculum and into Practice by Janie B. Butts and Karen Rich includes a reference to my web site section on abortion data. [17]
November 2005: My page Maps of percentage of pregnancies aborted in the United States--by states has received over 5,600 hits in two days, thanks to links from LifeSite and other sites.
October 2005: New educational pages posted by The Planetary Society include a page on the Moon with my map of the Moon's near side.
October 2005: An article by F. Gabern, W. S. Koon, J. E. Marsden, and D. J. Scheeres, "Binary Asteroids Observation Orbits from a Global Dynamical Picture", includes a reference to my page on Asteroids with satellites.
October 2005: An ABC News fact book by Jacqueline Shire and Jennifer Moravitz, Loose Nukes on Main Street: The New Terror Threat, cites my page on Osama Bin Laden and nuclear weapons.
October 2005: For those interested, my master's thesis "Detection strategies for a multi-interferometer triggered search" is now accessible at the University of Texas at El Paso Digital Commons. Actually, a more compact version may be downloaded from my page at UTD.
September 2005: An article "Abortion Rights along the Irish-English Border and the Liminality of Women's Experiences" by Alyssa Best in Dialectical Anthropology cites my page on abortions in Northern Ireland. [16]
September 2005: A poster presentation by Daniel Hestroffer and Paolo Tanga, "Figures of equilibrium among binary asteroids," includes a reference to my data on binary asteroids.
September 2005: First 1,000,000 visits.
August 2005: My page on the upcoming October-November Mars opposition has received over 3,400 hits (and accounted for 9% of my site's kb traffic this month) due to an email hoax claiming Mars is making a close approach on August 27. In reality, Mars will be bright and visible from now to the end of the year and will be a great sight with small telescopes in October and November.
August 2005: An editorial by Beverly Winikoff in the New England Journal of Medicine, "Pregnancy Failure and Misoprostol--Time for a Change," cites my abortion and miscarriage data for Romania. [15]
August 2005: First 4,000,000 hits.
August 2005: An online Planetary Society article by Susan Lendroth, "Planetary Society Funds Search for Potentially Dangerous Near Earth Objects", uses one of my space art renderings of asteroid (4179) Toutatis passing the Earth in 2004.
August 2005: In its on line report on the discovery of a second satellite to asteroid (87) Sylvia, "Sylvia has two partners," Science magazine gives a link to my section on Asteroids with satellites.
August 2005: Hamid Mohtadi and Antu Panini Murshid post a paper "Using Extreme Value Statistics to Construct Catastrophic Risk Metrics on Terrorism: Applications to the Food Industry," which cites my Database of radiological incidents and related events.
July 2005: A book Bioethics and the New Embryology: Springboards for Debate ed. by Scott F. Gilbert, Anna Tyler, and Emily Zackin, cites my list of SBC resolutions on abortion. [14]
June 2005: A book Mapping Hacks: Tips and Tools for Electronic Cartography by Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson, and Jo Walsh, includes a link to my web site. [13]
June 2005: An article by Vaclav Smil, "The Next 50 Years: Fatal Discontinuities" in Population and Development Review, cites my page on nuclear weapon milestones. [12]
June 2005: Glen Stassen, in follow-up to his articles of November 2004, cites my statistics on abortion in his defense of his (discredited) claims of a recent increase in U.S. abortions. This has been a subject of some small controversy, which I discuss here and in more detail here. An early version of my analysis was posted by Stan Guthrie in his weblog discussion on this topic.
May 2005: A short version of the previously mentioned paper "Holy Terror and Mass Killings? Reexamining the Motivations and Means of Mass Casualty Terror" by Victor Asal and Andrew Blum appears in the forum "Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction" in International Studies Review. This paper cites my data on mass casualty terrorism and is an interesting critique of conventional wisdom regarding unconventional terrorism. [11]
April 2005: The National Observatory of Athens posts a report Climate of Greece in the 20th Century: Observations and analysis of trends which cites my data on climate change. [e]
April 2005: An article by Robert S. Leiken, "Europe's Mujahideen: Where Mass Immigration Meets Global Terrorism," at the Center for Immigration Studies, mentions one of my pages of terrorism statistics.
April 2005: First 3,000,000 hits.
March 2005: The Hong Kong Pro-Life League posts a Chinese translation of my page on Hong Kong abortion statistics. This is one of many groups promoting the positive pro-life message in East Asia.
February 2005: A page on a web site for NASA's proposed New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission includes a link to my section on asteroids (and TNOs) with satellites.
January 2005: MILNET, a repository of defense-related information, posts a link to my chronology of terrorist attacks in Israel.

2004

December 2004: Martin L. Van Crevald in his new book Defending Israel: A Controversial Plan Toward Peace cites my page listing Israeli nuclear weapons. [10]
December 2004: Ondrejov Observatory's Asteroid Photometry Project posts materidal on their Photometric Survey for Asynchronous Binary Asteroids with useful links, including a link to my page on asteroids with satellites.
December 2004: The U.S. Congressional Budget Office releases a paper Homeland Security and the Private Sector which mentions in a footnote my list of nuclear terrorism-related incidents. [9]
October 2004: A working paper by Veronique de Rugy of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy titled "What Does Homeland Security Speding Buy?" mentions my list of worst terrorist stikes which was included in Bruce Schneider's book Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World. [d]
October 2004: A section in the book Medical Response to Terrorism: Preparedness and Clinical Practice (ed. by Daniel C. Keyes, Jonathan L. Burstein, Richard B. Schwartz, and Raymond E. Swienton), "Mass Fatality Incidents" by Lynn Roppolo and Kathy J. Rinnert, cites my page on the worst terrorist strikes. [8]
October 2004: An article by John Ankerberg, "News You Didn't Hear From Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings or Dan Rather About Partial-Birth Abortion, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and Same-Sex Marriage", cites my article on reasons given for having abortions. The Ankerberg Theological Research Institute is an outstanding source for information on Christian apologetics and teachings.
October 2004: First 2,000,000 hits.
October 2004: An article by Victor Asal and Andrew Blum, "Holy Terror and Mass Killings? Reexamining the Motivations and Means of Mass Casualty Terror" (delivered at the CIDCM Conference on Non-State Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction), cites my data on mass casualty terrorism.
October 2004: A letter by Brent Rooney in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons cites one of my pages on abortion statistics. Dr. Rooney, research director of the Reduce Preterm Risk Coalition, is doing profoundly important work to increase awareness of the health risks of abortion. [7]
September 2004: Springs of Hope, a ministry to victims of terrorism in Israel, posts some of my data on terrorist attacks in Israel. Their efforts are a much-needed service for the thousands of people affected by terrorism in Israel.
August 2004: A paper by Sergey A. Astakhov and David Farrelly, "Capture and escape in the elliptic restricted three-body problem", includes a footnote referencing my web page on asteroids with satellites. The paper investigates the capture of small irregular satellites into orbits around the Jovian planets and was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in November. [6]
August 2004: An editorial "Irrational Fear" by Shmuel Neumann, appearing in Israel National News on line, includes links to my data on terrorism. His analysis is a reminder that Americans could learn much from Israelis about responding to terrorism.
August 2004: A comment in Lancet, the UK medical journal, includes a comment by Benjamin Piura titled "Women undergoing termination of pregnancy should be screened for gestational trophoblastic neoplasia." It includes a reference to two pages from my Abortion statistics and other data section. [5]
August 2004: I have moved to the University of Texas at Dallas for Ph.D. studies in space physics (this explains a second recent lack of updates...).
July 2004: In The Strange Death of Moral Britain, a book by Christie Davies, is a citation of my page on abortions in Northern Ireland. [4]
July 2004: The Boeing Corporation's web site on their Prometheus Project posts a link to my page on Europa. The Prometheus Project is a revolutionary effort to use nuclear propulsion for an unmanned science mission to the Jupiter system.
July 2004: An article "Ancient Climates" by Deborah Strickland at CH4.org.uk includes my image of an ice age Earth. CH4.org.uk is an educational project (addressing waste/recycling issues among others) by the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford University.
June 2004: First 1,500,000 hits.
June 2004: Astronomy Picture of the Day posts an image of asteroid (243) Ida with its satellite Dactyl, and the caption includes a link to my page on asteroids with satellites, resulting in about 3,000 hits that day to that section.
May 2004: I complete my master's thesis, Detection strategies for a multi-interferometer triggered search for an M.S. in physics (this explains the recent lack of updates...).
May 2004: An article "Terrorists and Unconventional Weapons: Is the Threat Real?" by Debra Bennett appears in the journal Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement. The article cites my page "Dirty bombs and other radiological weapons. [3]
February 2004: Science magazine posts another on line "Enhanced Perspectives" article with links to a page of mine. The article is "Double pulsar jackpot" by Edward P. J. van den Heuvel, and mentions my pages on binary pulsars. [c]
February 2004: The Planetary Society posts an on line article by Amir Alexander, "What to Do When the Big One Heads Our Way? Apparent Close Call by Asteroid Stirs Debate", which includes my image of the upcoming close approach of asteroid (4179) Toutatis to the Earth. The Planetary Society is a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting space exploration.
February 2004: First 1,000,000 hits.
January 2004: The physics textbook Invitation to Contemporary Physics, 2nd ed. by Q. Ho-Kim, N. Kumar, and C. S. Lam, cites my table of black hole candidates. [2]

2003

December 2003: Johnston's Archive is overwhelmed for two days by visits to The effects of a global thermonuclear war. This page receives 10,100 hits (and there are reports of another 35,000 attempted visits from the site that posted the guilty link).
November 2003: Johnston's Archive moves to WestHost.
October 2003: The winter 2003 issue of Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy includes an article by Walter Isard and Tadayuki Hara titled "The Old City of Jerusalem as a tourist international magnet: an initial proposal for a first step cooperation in the Middle East. Part II: Projection of decrease in hostilities and terrorist activity." It cites my chronology of terrorist attacks in Israel. [b]
August 2003: Bruce Schneier, a renowned security expert, publishes Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (Springer-Verlag). Schneier included a portion of my list of worst terrorist stikes on pp. 239-240. His approach to risk management is more thoughtful than much public policy. [1]
June 2003: A report by the United Nations Development Programme titled Bosnia and Herzegovina Human Development Report/Millennium Development Goals 2003 cites my data on births, abortions, and miscarriages in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
May 2003: First 500,000 hits.
May 2003: Space-Graphics links to my site. This is a commericial venture (with some material available for free) providing impressive textures for 3-D imaging of the Earth, Mars, and more.
April 2003: TransHuman Space: Deep Beyond, a Steve Jackson Games gaming supplement by David Pulver, includes a map by Nelson Cunnington, modified from this Europa map, modified from a USGS map.
April 2003: Misioneros del Sagrado Coraz�n en el Per� posts a Spanish translation of some of my abortion statistics.
February 2003: Luis Cabeza, a "Radiation Protection Officer" for the Ontario Ministry of Labour, comments on my site on the Radsafe bulletin board: "If terrorists want to get ideas about possible nuclear/radiation attacks, they can readily find them at http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/wrjp1855.html..." (With respect to Mr. Cabeza, my listing cites 168 incidents, which resulted in a combined total of one radiation death and one radiation injury. This is profoundly harmless compared to what's really in the public domain.)
January 2003: Baptists for Life site links to some of my statistical research on abortion. Their work on behalf of the unborn is invaluable.

2002

August 2002: First 100,000 hits.
August 2002: Science magazine posts an on line "Enhanced Perspectives" article by Joseph A. Burns: "Two bodies are better than one." The article includes several links to my Asteroids with Satellites section. [a]
May 2002: Bill Allen's Asteroid/Comet Connection links to my pages on asteroids with satellites. This site is an impressive news source and repository of information on minor bodies of the solar system.
March-April 2002: Bj�rn J�nsson and Don Davis give links to my space art. They were inspirations to my interest in space art, and my efforts pale in comparison to theirs.

2001

June 2001: Johnston's Archive gets its own domain, launched at Advanced Minds.
April 2001: The Global Warming News and Views site posts my editorial on global warming. This is affiliated with the Petition Project, a effort to increase understanding of the scientific case against the global warming hypothesis.
January 2001: Johnston's Archive begins as a Prodigy personal web page.

List of references in print:

[23] Noll, Keith S., 2006, "Solar system binaries," in Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors (IAU S229), ed. by Daniela Lazzaro, Sylvio Ferraz-Mello, and Julio Angel Fernandez, Cambridge Univ. Press (Cambridge, UK).
[22] Menon, Sreelatha, 20 March 2006, "Is global warming a myth?", The Telegraph (Calcutta, India), on line at [http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060320/asp/knowhow/story_5978021.asp].
[21] Grotzinger, John, Thomas H. Jordan, Frank Press, and Raymond Siever, 2006, Understanding Earth, 5th ed., W. H. Freeman and Co. (New York, NY).
[20] Challenor, Peter G., Robin K. S. Hankin, and Robert Marsh, 2006, "Towards the Probability of Rapid Climate Change," pp. 55-64 in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, ed. by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley, and Gary Yohe, Cambridge Univ. Press (Cambridge, UK).
[19] Nafziger, E. Wayne, 2005, Economic Development, 4th ed., Cambridge Univ. Press (Cambridge, MA). (p. 788.)
[18] Wilson, Bruce, 2005, Disarming the Culture War: How the Silent Majority Can Break the Stalemate, iUniverse (New York, NY). (p. 72.)
[17] Butts, Janie B., 2005, "Reproductive Issues and Nursing Ethics," pp. 69-94 in Nursing Ethics: Across the Curriculum and into Practice, by Janie Butts and Karen Rich, Jones and Bartlett Publ. (Boston, MA). (p. 93.)
[16] Best, Alyssa, Sept. 2005, "Abortion Rights along the Irish-English Border and the Liminality of Women's Experiences," Dialectical Anthropology, 29:423-437. (p. 424.)
[15] Winikoff, Beverly, 2005, "Pregnancy Failure and Misoprostol--Time for a Change," New England Journal of Medicine, 353(8):834-836. (p. 836.)
[14] Gilbert, Scott F., Anna Tyler, and Emily Zackin, eds., 2005, Bioethics and the New Embryology: Springboards for Debate, Sinauer Associates. (p. 39).
[13] Erle, Schuyler, Rich Gibson, and Jo Walsh, 2005, Mapping Hacks: Tips and Tools for Electronic Cartography, O'Reilly Media (Sebastopol, CA). (p. 162.)
[12] Smil, Vaclav, 2005, "The next 50 years: fatal discontinuities," Population and Development Review, 31:201-236. (p. 234.)
[11] Asal, Victor, and Andrew Blum, 2005, "Holy terror and mass killings? Reexamining the motivations and methods of mass casualty terrorists," International Studies Review, 7:153-155. (p. 153.)
[10] Van Crevald, Martin L., 2004, Defending Israel: A Controversial Plan Toward Peace, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY). (p. 179).
[9] Congressional Budget Office, Dec. 2004, Homeland Security and the Private Sector, Congressional Budget Office (Washington, DC). (p. 11.)
[8] Roppolo, Lynn, and Kathy J. Rinnert, 2004, "Mass Fatality Incidents," pp. 424-431 in Medical Response to Terrorism: Preparedness and Clinical Practice, ed. by Daniel C. Keyes, Jonathan L. Burstein, Richard B. Schwartz, and Raymond E. Swienton, Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins.
[7] Rooney, Brent, fall 2004, "Informed consent for abortion," Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 9(3):67.
[6] Astakhov, Sergey A., and David Farrelly, Nov. 2004, "Capture and escape in the elliptic restricted three-body problem," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 354(4):971-979. (p. 977.)
[5] Piura, Benjamin, 21 Aug. 2004, "Women undergoing termination of pregnancy should be screened for gestational trophoblastic neoplasia," The Lancet, 364(9433):645-646.
[4] Davies, Christie, 2004, The Strange Death of Moral Britain, Transaction Publ. (p. 206.)
[3] Bennett, Debra, spring 2004, "Terrorists and unconventional weapons: is the threat real?", Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement, 12:20-50. (p. 35.)
[2] Ho-Kim, Q., N. Kumar, and C. S. Lam, 2004, Invitation to Contemporary Physics, 2nd ed., World Scientific Publ. (p. 324.)
[1] Schneier, Bruce, 2003, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY). (pp. 239-240.)

List of references in electronic journals or reports:

[f] "Novoye ye prulozhenuyaz," 6-19 Feb. 2006, Demoscope Weekly, 233-234, on line [http://demoscope.ru/weekly/app/app40ab.php].
[e] National Observatory of Athens, 2005, "Climate of Greece in the 20th Century: Observations and analysis of trends," National Observatory of Athens, on line [http://www.climate.noa.gr/Reports/ClimateReport_1.pdf].
[d] de Rugy, Veronique, 29 Oct. 2004, "What Does Homeland Security Speding Buy?", AEI Working Paper #107, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, on line [http://www.aei.org/docLib/20041109_wp107.pdf].
[c] van den Heuvel, Edward P. J., 20 Feb. 2004, "Enhanced: Double pulsar jackpot," Science, on line [http://www.sciencemag.org/].
[b] Isard, Walter, and Tadayuki Hara, winter 2003, "The Old City of Jerusalem as a tourist international magnet: an initial proposal for a first step cooperation in the Middle East. Part II: Projection of decrease in hostilities and terrorist activity," Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 9(1):80-87, on line [http://www.bepress.com/peps/vol9/iss1/].
[a] Burns, Joseph A., 9 Aug. 2002, "Enhanced: Two bodies are better than one," Science, on line [http://www.sciencemag.org/].

Thanks to those who have contacted me with comments--and with criticisms or corrections, which have been helpful. Thanks for visiting!