Care to guess how many times we've come close to nuclear annihilation?

Far too many times. Here's twenty documented cases. Several happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis when everyone was a little twitchy.

The fine article.

Some cool stuff on the Space Elevator

They're testing prototype deployments and have had one up that was 100 meters tall for 60 days. They found it attracted bats, and insects built colonies on it. Still, information is information.

The fine article.