The Writings on the Wall (NZRDXL): "[W]e entered the compound of what had once been UNESCO's pride and joy. The first thing I saw was the shell of a rusted motor vehicle lying in the garden, its body peppered with bullet holes. On the wall near the front door, a large hand-drawn piece of graffiti immediately caught the eye. Translated, its message was potent, its plea chilling. It read 'War, don't kill us! We are teenagers'." (This is about a trip to some radio facilities in Kabul by a UNESCO staffer and DXer. Thanks Paul Ormandy.)

Posted 12:39 UTC

Resurgent sun peaks for second time (CNN) -- Hurling great heaps of energy into space at a brisk pace, the sun has likely entered a second phase of major intensity during an 11-year cycle of activity. "Sunspot counts peaked in 2000 some months earlier than we expected," said David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Considering recent developments, "the current solar cycle appears to be double-peaked," he said.

Posted 20:19 UTC

New orbiter to make X-ray flicks of sun (CNN) -- An $85 million satellite that will make movies of powerful solar flares roared into space Tuesday, following more than one year of launch delays. The High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, or HESSI, comes equipped with a new kind of vision that will create the first high-fidelity films of the most powerful explosions in the solar system, intense X-ray and gamma ray outbursts from the sun.

Posted 20:17 UTC