Directional Materials Could Spawn True One-Way Mirrors and Soundproofing

Those one-way mirrors made famous by cop dramas aren?t actually one-way. They simply play off the differences in light on each side. That is, if the lights were equally as bright behind the mirror as in front, that rattled suspect could see right through to the cops on the other side. But researchers have, at least theoretically, figured out how to use nonlinear materials to create actual barriers that let waves pass through one way and not the other, potentially allowing for true one-way sound- and light-proofing.

Nonlinear materials don?t treat all waves equally, but rather respond based on the attributes of the wave passing through it, be it light or sound. By stacking these nonlinear materials asymmetrically in carefully tuned arrangements with other linear materials, it should be possible to create materials that allow a wave traveling in one direction to pass straight through, while virtually repelling an identical wave coming the other way.

That?s the theory anyhow. So far these are only numerical models, and no genuine one-way material has yet been produced. Moreover, the researchers note that no one-way material would be universal--each material would have a range of frequencies and amplitudes for which it would work. For others, it would be less effective.

While that might not have huge implications for cop dramas, it could have a big impact on acoustics. Materials that could be finely tuned to let certain waves pass in only one direction could be used to optimize sound (and light) in novel new ways.

[Scientific American]

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Scientists map volcanic plume under Yellowstone (AP)

HELENA, Mont. ? Scientists using electric and magnetic sensors have mapped the size and composition of a vast plume of hot rock and briny fluid down to 200 miles below Yellowstone National Park's surface, according to a new study soon to be published.

The so-called "geoelectric" imaging of a plume to this extent is a first, giving researchers a clearer picture of the material that feeds Yellowstone's volcanic features, said Robert B. Smith, the study's co-author, a University of Utah professor emeritus and a coordinating scientist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The information will help scientists better understand the evolution of these hot spots that are an integral part of continental drift and are active in 20 places around the world from Hawaii to Iceland, he said.

"This is the first time that an electrical image has been made of a plume anywhere in the world, period," Smith said. "We're getting much more information on the composition and evolution of the earth."

The plume is made up of solid rock, partly molten rocks and briny fluid that conducts electricity like seawater, said Smith and principal author Michael Zhdanov, a University of Utah geophysics professor. The plume rises from the earth's depths at a 40-degree angle and extends 400 miles from east to west, the data found. The image of the plume reaches a depth of 200 miles, the limit of the technology.

A previous study by Smith using seismic waves measured the plume's depth to at least 410 miles below the Montana-Idaho border.

The study will be published in Geophysical Research Letters within the next few weeks, according to the American Geophysical Union.

The new data, which measured the plume's electrical conductivity to create the image, supplements Smith's seismic data that gave scientists their first detailed look at the plume in 2009. Both seismic and electrical conductivity are imaging technologies that reveal different things.

Together, the data reveal a plume that is larger and contains more brine and fluid than previously believed.

"All this is very important to better understand the physics of this plume," Zhdanov said. "We are just learning. It's a very new phenomenon and now we've got another tool to get an image and better understanding of the composition and geographical shape."

That tool may help lead one day to developing a way to better forecast eruptions and other volcanic activity, he said.

Derek Schutt, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, said others have used the geoelectric technology but not to these proportions. The technology is a useful supplement to seismic measurements and will lead to a better understanding of how the earth is forming, he said.

"I think what this will be particularly useful for is we can understand much better the magma distribution of what's under Yellowstone," he said.

The research says nothing about the chance for a large eruption happening at Yellowstone, which draws millions each year to see its bubbling pots and spouting geysers. Yellowstone's caldera, a 37-by-25-mile volcanic feature at the center of the park, has erupted three times since the North American continent drifted over the hot spot. The last eruption was 642,000 years ago.

The plume stops rising about 60 miles below the surface. Some of that melted rock then leaks up, possibly through a series of rock fractures, to a chamber about five miles below the surface of the Yellowstone caldera, Smith said. That magma chamber feeds the volcanic activity on the surface.

If enough of the plume breaks off and rises to the chamber, an eruption could happen. But that accumulation happens very slowly over thousands of years and there is no indication of when an eruption could occur, Zhdanov said.

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Obama says U.S. must be cautious about oil reserve (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama, in an ABC interview aired on Friday, said the United States must be "very careful" about releasing oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a time of uncertainty in the Middle East.

"We are monitoring the situation very closely. The strategic petroleum reserve was designed for when oil actually shuts off," Obama told ABC.

"The reserves, I think, are something that we've got to be very careful about. And what we don't want to do is catch ourselves in a situation, particularly when things are uncertain in the Middle East, where we're using it now and it turns out we need more later."

Obama said tax cuts enacted in 2010 have helped buffer the strain on American consumers posed by rising gasoline prices.

The cautious tone of his remarks, in an interview recorded on Thursday, marked a change from a month ago when Obama said a plan to tap the reserve was "teed up" and vowed to move quickly to address rising U.S. gasoline prices.

The United States and its allies have since taken military action in Libya, an OPEC member, and increased pressure on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at a time of spreading unrest in the Middle East.

The price of oil has since skyrocketed with North Sea Brent crude trading around $122 a barrel on Friday.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Huge old home of US envoy to Belgium goes green (AP)

BRUSSELS ? Enormous 18th-century houses aren't known as the most energy-efficient buildings in the world. But now the 230-year-old residence of the U.S. ambassador to Belgium has gone green, thanks in large measure to donations from private companies.

It can't have been easy: The floor space of the Louis XVI-style house is in excess of 16,000 square feet (1,500 square meters) ? larger than six average American houses put together ? which must have made heating it quite a project, especially as the attic was completely uninsulated.

Enter seven private companies, which chipped in various different products along with installation. The house, located in Brussels, the Belgian capital, now has window film, energy-efficient appliances, time-controlled thermostats, a touch-screen kiosk that provides real-time data on energy savings ? not to mention 500 new light bulbs. The two layers of insulation that have been added to the attic are a total of 14 inches (360 millimeters) thick.

Total value of the donations ? more than euro100,000 ($145,000).

The results were unveiled this week, and those involved in the project sang its praises.

"While it may look like a home rooted in history, it actually represents our energy future," said the mansion's current resident Ambassador Howard Gutman, a former Washington lawyer and fundraiser for President Obama's campaign.

Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, praised the project as an exciting demonstration of the cost savings and increased comfort that can be achieved.

"The U.S. embassy retrofit also clearly demonstrates that any existing home or building, no matter how old, can be made more energy-efficient without sacrificing any of its attractive or historic attributes and ambiance, a message that is very important for Europe, where so much of the building stock has been around for centuries," Callahan said.

And so it is that a house whose walls were going up as British Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered to American Gen. George Washington, ending the War of Independence, is now equipped with people sensors and web-based energy-monitoring software. It seems safe to assume that Monsieur and Madame Bartelous de Pepingham, who took out a mortgage in 1781 for construction of the house, would have been astonished.

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Launching Soon: PopSci's Online Innovation Pavilion

Innocentive

We're going to be launching an online "open innovation" pavilion in partnership with Innocentive.com, where anyone ? companies, nonprofits, government agencies, universities ? can put up science and engineering challenges for the general public (that's you) to solve. Whether it's some company looking for a better waterproof material, or a research lab asking for a better design for a satellite, it will be your opportunity to not just read about the future, but to be part of it. And the best part: winning entries will win cold, hard cash.

We recently blogged on Innocentive about how open innovation fundamentally changes the whole history of how people come up with great ideas. Read it, and stay tuned for the launch date.

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For the First Time, Humans See Quantum Entanglement With the Naked Eye

Physicists at the University of Geneva in Switzerland have devised a new kind of quantum experiment using humans as photon detectors, and in doing so have made the quantum phenomenon of entanglement visible to the naked eye for the first time.

For those that need a primer, entanglement is that strange quantum phenomenon that links two particles across distances such that any any measurements carried out on one particle immediately changes the properties of the other--even if they are separated by the entire universe. Einstein called it ?spooky action at a distance.? And indeed it is weird.

Nicolas Gisin at U. of Geneva noted that Italian physicists had previously done an interesting thing with entangled photons. Rather than entangling just a few as experimenters usually do, the Italian team had entangled a pair of photons and then amplified one of them to create a photon shower containing thousands of particles, all linked to the single other photon from the original pair. That is, there was one ?microscopic? photon, and a shower of ?macroscopic? photons, all tied together at the quantum level.

Gisin realized that while the naked eye can?t see a single photon, it can certainly see thousands. So he used a setup similar to the Italians?, but rather than putting a photon detector in front of the macroscopic photons he put himself and his colleagues there. The beam of photons produced by the amplifier would appear in one of two positions in their darkened room, depending on the polarization state given to their microscopic single photon. Time after time, when the human results were tested against photon detectors, they got a positive result.

It may sounds like a bunch of scientists sitting in a dark room looking at blinking lights, but it represents the first time quantum entanglement has been directly observed with the naked eye.

Sort of. The Swiss team also found that what they were looking at wasn?t necessarily macro-micro entanglement. Even when they deliberately broke the quantum link between micro and macro and then ran their ?human detector? experiment, they still got a positive result. This is due to the imperfection of detectors (even human ones) and a loophole in what?s known as the Bell Test (which, in a nutshell, is used to measure entanglement) that?s negligible in small quantities of photons but grows along with their quantity. This introduces a degree of uncertainty (for a better explanation of this, click through the Nature link below).

What the Swiss team does know is this: when they started, they had two entangled photons. Even though flaws may have been introduced in the amplification process, they could still ?see? the effects of entanglement. A new method is being devised by the original Italian researchers (who also detected this flaw in their research) to verify micro-macro entanglement with lasers. Unfortunately, humans can?t be used as detectors for these experiments, as the highly focused beams of light would be the last thing those humans would see.

[Nature]

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Banking stem cells could save Japan nuclear workers (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) ? Health officials should collect blood from workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in case they are accidentally exposed to high levels of radiation and need a stem cell transplant, Japanese researchers said on Thursday.

They said gathering blood from the workers would give them a ready source of their own stem cells that could help rebuild their bone marrow should they become exposed to high levels of radiation.

"The danger of a future accidental radiation exposure is not passed, since there has been a series of serious aftershocks even this April," Dr Shuichi Taniguchi of Toranomon Hospital in Tokyo and Dr Tetsuya Tanimoto of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research wrote in the Lancet medical journal.

A series of strong aftershocks this week has rattled eastern Japan, slowing the recovery effort at the Fukushima Daiichi plant due to temporary evacuations of workers and power outages.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said this week the situation at the nuclear plant, wrecked by a 15-meter (49.2-foot) tsunami on March 11, had stabilized. The crisis is now rated par with the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, although the total release of radiation at Chernobyl was far greater.

The researchers say transplant teams are standing by in Japan and Europe to collect and store the nuclear workers' cells, but so far the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan is balking because it would cause a "physical and psychological burden for nuclear workers," the team wrote.

Collecting cells from the workers has several advantages over donated cells, which require finding a matching donor and carry the risk of rejection.

Stem cell transplants from a person's own cells would allow the workers to avoid taking drugs to suppress the immune system, helping them to better resist infections. The cells could quickly restore normal function to the body's machinery for making blood cells.

And the workers' cells could be banked and stored in case they develop leukemia, which could happen years down the road.

But the solution is not perfect, the team admits. High exposure to radiation would also attack cells in the gut, skin or lung -- problems a stem cell transplant could not fix.

Yet, with containment and clean-up efforts at the damaged plant expected to drag on for months or even years, Tanimoto and Taniguchi say taking steps to protect the workers' from future harm is paramount.

"The most important mission is to save the nuclear workers' lives and to protect the local communities," the team wrote.

"Such an approach would be the industry's best defense: if a fatal accident happened to the nuclear workers, the nuclear power industry of Japan would collapse."

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Congress votes to lift federal wolf protections (Reuters)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) ? The gray wolf will become the first creature ever taken off the U.S. endangered species list by an act of Congress, rather than by scientific review, under legislation sent to the White House on Thursday.

The measure, attached to a budget deal given final congressional passage by the Senate, would lift federal safeguards for more than 1,200 wolves in Montana and Idaho, placing them under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals.

It also bars judicial review of the de-listing. The measure, which essentially restores a 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision struck down in court last August, would take effect within 60 days of being signed into law.

It was not immediately clear how many wolves would be subject to licensed hunting. But state management plans now sanctioned by Congress would allow wolf numbers in Montana and Idaho to fall to 150 each, said Gary Power, a member of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.

"In all likelihood, I doubt it would go that low," he told Reuters in speaking of the wolf population in Idaho. That state has an estimated 700 wolves. Montana has over 550.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill, which contains funding to keep the entire federal government operating through the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

The de-listing is being hailed by ranchers who see the growing wolf population in the Northern Rockies as a threat to their herds. Cattle producers, hunters and state game wardens say wolf packs in some places are preying unchecked on livestock and other animals such as elk.

"This provision is the responsible thing to do to address a very specific problem," U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat and a chief sponsor of the measure, told reporters shortly before the budget bill passed on a vote of 81-19.

De-listing the wolf through legislation was generally opposed by environmentalists, who say it takes the process of determining the health of a species out of the hands of biologists and puts it in the hands of politicians.

The wolf is the first animal to be de-listed through legislation, as opposed to a process of scientific review established under the Endangered Species Act.

"This rider is not sound science, it's political interference," said Sierra Club wildlife expert Matt Kirby.

The Obama administration had sought to quell the dispute by urging wildlife advocates to accept management plans of Montana and Idaho as adequate to keep wolf numbers healthy -- without federal protections -- now that they exceed recovery targets.

A number of conservation groups reluctantly embraced that approach, in part to avert congressional action they saw as setting a bad precedent.

But a federal judge in Montana blocked the plan as recently as last Saturday. An earlier version put in place by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 was thrown out last August.

In both instances, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that de-listing violated the Endangered Species Act because it treated wolves in Montana and Idaho separately from those in Wyoming. Because scientists consider all wolves in the Northern Rockies to be part of a single population, they cannot be listed or de-listed on a state-by-state basis, Molloy said.

Wyoming was left out of the de-listing because that state would have let most of its 300-plus wolves be shot on sight.

Under the bill passed Thursday, Wyoming's wolves will remain federally protected for the time being. But the Fish and Wildlife Service is required to consider a revised management plan Wyoming is expected to present soon.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Scientists map volcanic plume under Yellowstone (AP)

HELENA, Mont. ? Scientists using electric and magnetic sensors have mapped the size and composition of a vast plume of hot rock and briny fluid down to 200 miles below Yellowstone National Park's surface, according to a new study soon to be published.

The so-called "geoelectric" imaging of a plume to this extent is a first, giving researchers a clearer picture of the material that feeds Yellowstone's volcanic features, said Robert B. Smith, the study's co-author, a University of Utah professor emeritus and a coordinating scientist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The information will help scientists better understand the evolution of these hot spots that are an integral part of continental drift and are active in 20 places around the world from Hawaii to Iceland, he said.

"This is the first time that an electrical image has been made of a plume anywhere in the world, period," Smith said. "We're getting much more information on the composition and evolution of the earth."

The plume is made up of solid rock, partly molten rocks and briny fluid that conducts electricity like seawater, said Smith and principal author Michael Zhdanov, a University of Utah geophysics professor. The plume rises from the earth's depths at a 40-degree angle and extends 400 miles from east to west, the data found. The image of the plume reaches a depth of 200 miles, the limit of the technology.

A previous study by Smith using seismic waves measured the plume's depth to at least 410 miles below the Montana-Idaho border.

The study will be published in Geophysical Research Letters within the next few weeks, according to the American Geophysical Union.

The new data, which measured the plume's electrical conductivity to create the image, supplements Smith's seismic data that gave scientists their first detailed look at the plume in 2009. Both seismic and electrical conductivity are imaging technologies that reveal different things.

Together, the data reveal a plume that is larger and contains more brine and fluid than previously believed.

"All this is very important to better understand the physics of this plume," Zhdanov said. "We are just learning. It's a very new phenomenon and now we've got another tool to get an image and better understanding of the composition and geographical shape."

That tool may help lead one day to developing a way to better forecast eruptions and other volcanic activity, he said.

Derek Schutt, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, said others have used the geoelectric technology but not to these proportions. The technology is a useful supplement to seismic measurements and will lead to a better understanding of how the earth is forming, he said.

"I think what this will be particularly useful for is we can understand much better the magma distribution of what's under Yellowstone," he said.

The research says nothing about the chance for a large eruption happening at Yellowstone, which draws millions each year to see its bubbling pots and spouting geysers. Yellowstone's caldera, a 37-by-25-mile volcanic feature at the center of the park, has erupted three times since the North American continent drifted over the hot spot. The last eruption was 642,000 years ago.

The plume stops rising about 60 miles below the surface. Some of that melted rock then leaks up, possibly through a series of rock fractures, to a chamber about five miles below the surface of the Yellowstone caldera, Smith said. That magma chamber feeds the volcanic activity on the surface.

If enough of the plume breaks off and rises to the chamber, an eruption could happen. But that accumulation happens very slowly over thousands of years and there is no indication of when an eruption could occur, Zhdanov said.

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Alaska to ban firing stun guns at wild animals (Reuters)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters Life!) ? Officials in the state of Alaska are moving to outlaw the use of stun guns to zap wild animals in America's last frontier.

It's not clear whether anyone in Alaska is wielding stun guns against wild beasts, but the regulation approved at a state Board of Game meeting last week is aimed at stopping a problem before it starts.

"This was a proactive measure," Larry Lewis, a wildlife manager with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said on Tuesday. "With new, emerging technology, there's always potential for misuse."

The regulation, which applies to stun guns such as Tasers and other electronic devices, will go into effect July 1.

Among other things, the new rule seeks to prevent what Lewis called "catch-and-release hunting," a potential use of the devices on animals.

"It is conceivable that, as this technology evolves and becomes more and more available, someone could do that," he said.

He added that an animal which has been hit with a Taser might react in surprising ways.

The pending ban will not apply to trained professionals doing field research or to certain emergency situations.

"This does not prohibit somebody from using an electronic control device as a defensive tool," Lewis said.

Since 2005, when state biologists started using electronic control devices in Alaska, they have found wild beasts usually flee when hit with the current, he said.

"However, there's no guarantee," he said.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen: Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Jerry Norton)

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Rocket launches from California coast (AP)

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. ? A rocket carrying a national security payload has been successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California's central coast.

The Atlas 5 rocket blasted off shortly before 9:30 p.m. Thursday. Vandenberg officials said the satellite was carrying a classified payload from the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees the nation's constellation of spy satellites.

The rocket appeared as a brilliant light streaking across a clear Southern California night sky.

A live video feed of the launch showed exhaust pouring out of the engines and lingering in the atmosphere as the rocket climbed.

The launch, which was scheduled for Tuesday, had been delayed because of a problem with the rocket's avionics that has since been fixed.

After liftoff, the rocket, flying with a single solid rocket booster, headed south on 1 million pounds of thrust ? equal to the energy of about two dozen Hoover Dams.

The mission is classified and no other details are available about the satellite's purpose or cost.

United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of rocket builders Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., said it's the fifth defense payload it has launched for the reconnaissance office in the past seven months.

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The Air Force Wants Tiny Drones That Can Squirt Their Prey With Trackable Sensor Goo

Having a target painted on one?s back just took on a whole new literal meaning. The Air Force wants a new kind of tracking tech in which a tiny drone surreptitiously ?paints? an individual with some kind of signal-emitting powder or liquid that allows the military to keep tabs on him or her. Or perhaps upload their coordinates to a hellfire missile.

On Tuesday, the AF put out a call for proposals for such technology, though it didn?t specify exactly what kind of drone might deliver the magic powder, or what the magic powder might be. But as Danger Room notes, there are a range of experimental technologies that could potentially serve both purposes (for a more thorough rundown of that tech, click through to DR?s piece).

Regular readers of PopSci know that tiny insect drones, while not yet perfected, abound in the lab. From larger hummingbird drones to other tiny ornithopters to DARPA?s remote-controlled beetle, the delivery system for such a technology isn?t so far away from being a reality. What most of these tiny drones lack is range, and that will only improve with advances in battery life and materials science.

What?s less clear is how the tracking might go down, though as has also been noted right here in PopSci the Pentagon is hard at work on a range of what they call ?Clandestine Tagging, Tracking, and Locating? (TTL) technologies. Some Pentagon ideas include marking targets with biological paints or micromechanical sensors. Other ideas proposed by outside groups are equally out there. To quote:

One such proposal, from a University of Florida researcher, uses insect pheromones encoded with unique identifiers that could be tracked from miles away. Other plans employ biodegradable fluorescent ?taggants? that can be scattered by UAVs. Voxtel, a private firm in Oregon, has already made available a product called NightMarks, a nanocrystal that can be seen through night-vision goggles and can be hidden in anything from glass cleaner to petroleum jelly.

DARPA is even looking into ?smart dust? which is essentially a cloud of dust mote-sized sensors that could be sprayed into the air near a target in hopes that he or she might walk through the cloud and be tagged, meaning the drone or delivery system wouldn?t even have to make direct contact with the target (think bird-like drones that can crop dust a vehicle or person).

Of course, the Air Force also notes that the technology it is fostering will be useful for things like tracking wildlife, though why anyone would want to fire a hellfire missile at a flock of migrating birds is unclear.

[Danger Room]

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NASA spared cuts in US spending bill passage (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) ? NASA breathed a sigh of relief on Friday after Congress approved a government spending bill that secured $18.5 billion for the US space agency, sparing it from the prospect of cuts.

"We appreciate the work of Congress to pass a 2011 spending bill," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement after the passage of the bill Thursday, adding that it "gives us a clear path forward to continue America's leadership in human spaceflight, exploration and scientific discovery."

The bill, which was only passed after months of partisan bickering and negotiations, "lifts funding restrictions that limited our flexibility to carry out our shared vision for the future," Bolden noted.

The funding means NASA will "continue to aggressively develop a new heavy lift rocket, multipurpose crew vehicle and commercial capability to transport our astronauts and their supplies on American-made and launched spacecraft," he said.

The space agency is currently working on securing a robust US-funded and operated spaceflight program, as the end of the space shuttle program in June means astronauts will be relying on Russia's Soyuz craft for access to the International Space Station for years to come.

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Parts of Angeles National Forest to be restored (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Two years after arson led to the largest fire in Los Angeles County history, officials are expected to announce an effort to restore tens of thousands of acres in some of the most severely charred areas of the Angeles National Forest.

The National Forest Foundation, government leaders, conservation groups and corporate sponsors are expected on Friday to announce a five-year effort to plant 3 million trees on 10,000 acres and restore habitat on another 40,000 acres in the Big Tujunga Canyon watershed.

Workers have been collecting and sending seeds to a nursery which has been growing saplings that will be replanted in the forest this year. Officials hope to plant 4,200 acres this year.

An estimated 161,000 acres were destroyed during the 2009 Station Fire.

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iFixit's Transparent Replacement Back Panel Shows Off Your iPhone's Guts

iPhone 4 With Transparent Back iFixit

The iPhone 4's front and back panels might be made of ultra-strong glass, but they're also a bit brittle, and a badly-angled drop can lead to a brutal shattering. Apple will often replace the back panel for free or cheap, but why not spring for a new transparent panel from the teardown whizzes at iFixit? It'll show off your iPhone's elegant internals (and massive battery, wow) while still protecting it. It's available now for GSM (AT&T) iPhones for $30.

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Award-Winning Sculpture Created with Scotch Tape (LiveScience.com)

The judges of the annual Scotch Tape sculpture contest have announced this year's grand prize winner ? an elaborate scene of a brother and sister fishing. The life-size sculpture was made using 12 rolls of the brand's packaging tape.

Called "The Big One," the sculpture, created by Kent Hathaway of Oklahoma City, Okla., depicts a young boy reeling in a fish while his sister hangs on to the back straps of his overalls to keep him from falling into the water. Scotch judges said the sculpture "stuck out" from dozens of other entries, thanks to its intricate details, such as the boy's rolled jeans and the bows in his sister's pigtails. [See the winning sculpture]

The Scotch "Off the Roll" tape sculpture contest's winning entry was chosen by a panel of experts based on creativity, execution, presentation and more than 11,000 online public votes, which accounted for 10 percent of the final scores.

Following Hathaway's $5,000 grand prize were three first place winners, who each received a $500 cash prize. Their Scotch tape sculptures consisted of a scene depicting people at a live concert, a mermaid mechanic building a 12-foot-long clockwork sea dragon, and a triangulated torus shape that took 13-and-a-half rolls of tape to make.

This article was provided by Life?s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.com. Follow Remy Melina on Twitter @RemyMelina

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Congress votes to lift federal wolf protections (Reuters)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) ? The gray wolf will become the first creature ever taken off the U.S. endangered species list by an act of Congress, rather than by scientific review, under legislation sent to the White House on Thursday.

The measure, attached to a budget deal given final congressional passage by the Senate, would lift federal safeguards for more than 1,200 wolves in Montana and Idaho, placing them under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals.

It also bars judicial review of the de-listing. The measure, which essentially restores a 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision struck down in court last August, would take effect within 60 days of being signed into law.

It was not immediately clear how many wolves would be subject to licensed hunting. But state management plans now sanctioned by Congress would allow wolf numbers in Montana and Idaho to fall to 150 each, said Gary Power, a member of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.

"In all likelihood, I doubt it would go that low," he told Reuters in speaking of the wolf population in Idaho. That state has an estimated 700 wolves. Montana has over 550.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill, which contains funding to keep the entire federal government operating through the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

The de-listing is being hailed by ranchers who see the growing wolf population in the Northern Rockies as a threat to their herds. Cattle producers, hunters and state game wardens say wolf packs in some places are preying unchecked on livestock and other animals such as elk.

"This provision is the responsible thing to do to address a very specific problem," U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat and a chief sponsor of the measure, told reporters shortly before the budget bill passed on a vote of 81-19.

De-listing the wolf through legislation was generally opposed by environmentalists, who say it takes the process of determining the health of a species out of the hands of biologists and puts it in the hands of politicians.

The wolf is the first animal to be de-listed through legislation, as opposed to a process of scientific review established under the Endangered Species Act.

"This rider is not sound science, it's political interference," said Sierra Club wildlife expert Matt Kirby.

The Obama administration had sought to quell the dispute by urging wildlife advocates to accept management plans of Montana and Idaho as adequate to keep wolf numbers healthy -- without federal protections -- now that they exceed recovery targets.

A number of conservation groups reluctantly embraced that approach, in part to avert congressional action they saw as setting a bad precedent.

But a federal judge in Montana blocked the plan as recently as last Saturday. An earlier version put in place by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 was thrown out last August.

In both instances, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that de-listing violated the Endangered Species Act because it treated wolves in Montana and Idaho separately from those in Wyoming. Because scientists consider all wolves in the Northern Rockies to be part of a single population, they cannot be listed or de-listed on a state-by-state basis, Molloy said.

Wyoming was left out of the de-listing because that state would have let most of its 300-plus wolves be shot on sight.

Under the bill passed Thursday, Wyoming's wolves will remain federally protected for the time being. But the Fish and Wildlife Service is required to consider a revised management plan Wyoming is expected to present soon.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Apple Denies Tracking iPhone Users, Will Issue Software Update to Discontinue Tracking iPhone Users

iPhone Location Tracking Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan

In response to the hubbub surrounding the iPhone's unwanted tendency to transcribe your every move and remember it for years, Apple today issued a curious statement--mostly a blanket denial of wrongdoing, though that's undermined a bit by Apple's promising to issue a software update that'll solve the issue. Apple claims the data logging is a crowdsourcing effort to improve location services, and that both the excessively long memory for location data and the problem of logging even when location services are turned off are bugs that will be fixed. All in all, a totally Apple response: Sometimes wrong, but never uncertain.

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Video: Caterpillar-Inspired Soft Robot Flips Out to Move At Breakneck Speeds

Inspired by nature's dramatic "ballistic roll"

GoQBot Lin et al.

Plenty of people are designing robots inspired by nature?s designs, but most of them are rigid machines made of metal, plastic or polyester film. Fleet-footed robots or hoverbots are unable to bend and squish into tight spaces, but squirmy, agile ones like snakebots can?t move very fast.

A new soft-bodied silicone robot aims to change that, squirming into tight spaces with ease and covering great distances quickly, flipping out like a caterpillar under siege.

The GoQBot, designed at Tufts University, employs a ballistic rolling technique to move super-fast. It is modeled after the escape behavior employed by some caterpillars, which hurl themselves into the air, contorting into a wheel shape and rolling away from a perceived threat.

It is one of the fastest self-propelled wheeling behaviors in nature, according to Huai-Tin Lin, who designed the GoQBot. It was named for the Q shape it takes when it rolls up.

The 4-inch long robot is made of silicone rubber, and its actuators are made of embedded shape-memory alloy coils, according to the Institute of Physics, which is publishing a paper on the robot this week. GoQBot puts track stars to shame with a push-off time of less than 250 milliseconds. It spins at breakneck speed, with an angular velocity of 300 rpm.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, DARPA funded Tin's research, which could be used to design fast recovery or reconnaissance robots.

GoQBot has infrared emitters on its side to allow motion tracking ? and also a pretty cool visual effect. It's so fast we were unable to grab a screen capture of it in action, so you'll just have to watch the video below. Lin believes soft robots like this one could be used for faster search and recovery efforts after disasters, like the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.

?The robot can wheel to a debris field and wiggle into the danger for us,? he said.

The study is published in Wednesday?s edition of the Institute of Physics journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

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iFixit's Transparent Replacement Back Panel Shows Off Your iPhone's Guts

iPhone 4 With Transparent Back iFixit

The iPhone 4's front and back panels might be made of ultra-strong glass, but they're also a bit brittle, and a badly-angled drop can lead to a brutal shattering. Apple will often replace the back panel for free or cheap, but why not spring for a new transparent panel from the teardown whizzes at iFixit? It'll show off your iPhone's elegant internals (and massive battery, wow) while still protecting it. It's available now for GSM (AT&T) iPhones for $30.

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Award-Winning Sculpture Created with Scotch Tape (LiveScience.com)

The judges of the annual Scotch Tape sculpture contest have announced this year's grand prize winner ? an elaborate scene of a brother and sister fishing. The life-size sculpture was made using 12 rolls of the brand's packaging tape.

Called "The Big One," the sculpture, created by Kent Hathaway of Oklahoma City, Okla., depicts a young boy reeling in a fish while his sister hangs on to the back straps of his overalls to keep him from falling into the water. Scotch judges said the sculpture "stuck out" from dozens of other entries, thanks to its intricate details, such as the boy's rolled jeans and the bows in his sister's pigtails. [See the winning sculpture]

The Scotch "Off the Roll" tape sculpture contest's winning entry was chosen by a panel of experts based on creativity, execution, presentation and more than 11,000 online public votes, which accounted for 10 percent of the final scores.

Following Hathaway's $5,000 grand prize were three first place winners, who each received a $500 cash prize. Their Scotch tape sculptures consisted of a scene depicting people at a live concert, a mermaid mechanic building a 12-foot-long clockwork sea dragon, and a triangulated torus shape that took 13-and-a-half rolls of tape to make.

This article was provided by Life?s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.com. Follow Remy Melina on Twitter @RemyMelina

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Video: Caterpillar-Inspired Soft Robot Flips Out to Move At Breakneck Speeds

Inspired by nature's dramatic "ballistic roll"

GoQBot Lin et al.

Plenty of people are designing robots inspired by nature?s designs, but most of them are rigid machines made of metal, plastic or polyester film. Fleet-footed robots or hoverbots are unable to bend and squish into tight spaces, but squirmy, agile ones like snakebots can?t move very fast.

A new soft-bodied silicone robot aims to change that, squirming into tight spaces with ease and covering great distances quickly, flipping out like a caterpillar under siege.

The GoQBot, designed at Tufts University, employs a ballistic rolling technique to move super-fast. It is modeled after the escape behavior employed by some caterpillars, which hurl themselves into the air, contorting into a wheel shape and rolling away from a perceived threat.

It is one of the fastest self-propelled wheeling behaviors in nature, according to Huai-Tin Lin, who designed the GoQBot. It was named for the Q shape it takes when it rolls up.

The 4-inch long robot is made of silicone rubber, and its actuators are made of embedded shape-memory alloy coils, according to the Institute of Physics, which is publishing a paper on the robot this week. GoQBot puts track stars to shame with a push-off time of less than 250 milliseconds. It spins at breakneck speed, with an angular velocity of 300 rpm.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, DARPA funded Tin's research, which could be used to design fast recovery or reconnaissance robots.

GoQBot has infrared emitters on its side to allow motion tracking ? and also a pretty cool visual effect. It's so fast we were unable to grab a screen capture of it in action, so you'll just have to watch the video below. Lin believes soft robots like this one could be used for faster search and recovery efforts after disasters, like the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.

?The robot can wheel to a debris field and wiggle into the danger for us,? he said.

The study is published in Wednesday?s edition of the Institute of Physics journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

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Obama says U.S. must be cautious about oil reserve (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama, in an ABC interview aired on Friday, said the United States must be "very careful" about releasing oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a time of uncertainty in the Middle East.

"We are monitoring the situation very closely. The strategic petroleum reserve was designed for when oil actually shuts off," Obama told ABC.

"The reserves, I think, are something that we've got to be very careful about. And what we don't want to do is catch ourselves in a situation, particularly when things are uncertain in the Middle East, where we're using it now and it turns out we need more later."

Obama said tax cuts enacted in 2010 have helped buffer the strain on American consumers posed by rising gasoline prices.

The cautious tone of his remarks, in an interview recorded on Thursday, marked a change from a month ago when Obama said a plan to tap the reserve was "teed up" and vowed to move quickly to address rising U.S. gasoline prices.

The United States and its allies have since taken military action in Libya, an OPEC member, and increased pressure on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at a time of spreading unrest in the Middle East.

The price of oil has since skyrocketed with North Sea Brent crude trading around $122 a barrel on Friday.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Scientists map volcanic plume under Yellowstone (AP)

HELENA, Mont. ? Scientists using electric and magnetic sensors have mapped the size and composition of a vast plume of hot rock and briny fluid down to 200 miles below Yellowstone National Park's surface, according to a new study soon to be published.

The so-called "geoelectric" imaging of a plume to this extent is a first, giving researchers a clearer picture of the material that feeds Yellowstone's volcanic features, said Robert B. Smith, the study's co-author, a University of Utah professor emeritus and a coordinating scientist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The information will help scientists better understand the evolution of these hot spots that are an integral part of continental drift and are active in 20 places around the world from Hawaii to Iceland, he said.

"This is the first time that an electrical image has been made of a plume anywhere in the world, period," Smith said. "We're getting much more information on the composition and evolution of the earth."

The plume is made up of solid rock, partly molten rocks and briny fluid that conducts electricity like seawater, said Smith and principal author Michael Zhdanov, a University of Utah geophysics professor. The plume rises from the earth's depths at a 40-degree angle and extends 400 miles from east to west, the data found. The image of the plume reaches a depth of 200 miles, the limit of the technology.

A previous study by Smith using seismic waves measured the plume's depth to at least 410 miles below the Montana-Idaho border.

The study will be published in Geophysical Research Letters within the next few weeks, according to the American Geophysical Union.

The new data, which measured the plume's electrical conductivity to create the image, supplements Smith's seismic data that gave scientists their first detailed look at the plume in 2009. Both seismic and electrical conductivity are imaging technologies that reveal different things.

Together, the data reveal a plume that is larger and contains more brine and fluid than previously believed.

"All this is very important to better understand the physics of this plume," Zhdanov said. "We are just learning. It's a very new phenomenon and now we've got another tool to get an image and better understanding of the composition and geographical shape."

That tool may help lead one day to developing a way to better forecast eruptions and other volcanic activity, he said.

Derek Schutt, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, said others have used the geoelectric technology but not to these proportions. The technology is a useful supplement to seismic measurements and will lead to a better understanding of how the earth is forming, he said.

"I think what this will be particularly useful for is we can understand much better the magma distribution of what's under Yellowstone," he said.

The research says nothing about the chance for a large eruption happening at Yellowstone, which draws millions each year to see its bubbling pots and spouting geysers. Yellowstone's caldera, a 37-by-25-mile volcanic feature at the center of the park, has erupted three times since the North American continent drifted over the hot spot. The last eruption was 642,000 years ago.

The plume stops rising about 60 miles below the surface. Some of that melted rock then leaks up, possibly through a series of rock fractures, to a chamber about five miles below the surface of the Yellowstone caldera, Smith said. That magma chamber feeds the volcanic activity on the surface.

If enough of the plume breaks off and rises to the chamber, an eruption could happen. But that accumulation happens very slowly over thousands of years and there is no indication of when an eruption could occur, Zhdanov said.

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Things Fire Ants Behave Like: Gore-Tex, a Liquid, a Woven Material, and a Waterproof Raft

Ant Pour Nathan Mlot, Georgia Institute of Technology

Fire ants might be infuriating little beasts, an invasive species we'd all be pleased to see banished to its native Brazil, but it turns out a fire ant colony has some pretty amazing properties. In groups, they knit together, more like a fabric than anything else, and are waterproof, totally flexible, and nearly indestructible. A mechanical engineer describes these groups as behaving like a thick liquid.

Nobody has really bothered to study fire ants before, having been generally more interested in cursing at them and running quickly away from them, but a couple of mechanical engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology noticed some pretty incredible properties upon examination. Turns out fire ants, when in groups, grasp onto each other using their mandibles, forming an intricate and precise pattern something like a Gore-Tex fabric.

This fabric-like bunching is even weirder than it sounds: The group of ants can be molded almost like a thick liquid (Wired compares it to honey or ketchup), and it will retain that shape even when manipulated. To undergo a waterproofing test, the engineers simply spun a bunch of ants in a cylinder, forming them into a near-perfect sphere in the same way you might form a meatball, if you used scientific equipment and not your hands while cooking. These ant-balls, with about 500-8,000 stinging bugs per ball, were dropped into a vat of water, where they assuredly did not drown.

Instead, the ant-ball almost instantly spread out into a raft, enhancing the ants' already hydrophobic waterproofing. Ants can survive for days on the water in this way, never at risk of drowning. In fact, the engineers even poked this ant-raft with a stick (which would have been your first instinct too, don't lie) and found that it was so hydrophobic that it merely bent the surface of the water rather than pushing the ants underneath it.

So how is this useful? Well, given how much we love biomimicry, we could easily see some of the properties of these ants used for commercial fabrics, but the engineers suggest military microbots could have a lot to learn from these ants as well.

Oh, and if you're concerned about a bunch of engineers manhandling, poking, and doing their damnedest to drown these animals, don't be. The fire ants, collected from the Georgia road-side, are a highly overpopulated invasive species in that region, and the engineers say they further "lost sympathy for them" after more than a few bites.

[PhysOrg via Wired]

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Amateur Photo Displays a Full Day's Worth of Celestial Splendor

Photographer shoots and assembles an entire day of skies

By Caitlin Kearney Posted 04.26.2011 at 10:51 am

Time Lapse Chris Kotsiopoulos

Amateur photographer Chris Kotsiopoulos created this continuous image of the sky over Sounio, Greece, a town near his home. Late last December, he recorded the sun?s path across the sky during the day and an 11-hour star trail at night.

With his DSLR camera on a tripod, Kotsiopoulos snapped a photo every 15 minutes while the sun was in the sky. An astrosolar filter softened the sun?s glow, but he removed it for a more dramatic image when the sun was near its highest point. For the night image, he took 500 consecutive 90-second exposures. To make the little planet, Kotsiopoulos took 25 horizon shots during a 360-degree pan of the landscape. He stitched the image together using Photoshop, Startrails and PTGui image software, but Kotsiopoulos relied on some low-tech help, too: An alarm clock kept him awake for the nighttime part of the shoot.

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NASA spared cuts in US spending bill passage (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) ? NASA breathed a sigh of relief on Friday after Congress approved a government spending bill that secured $18.5 billion for the US space agency, sparing it from the prospect of cuts.

"We appreciate the work of Congress to pass a 2011 spending bill," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement after the passage of the bill Thursday, adding that it "gives us a clear path forward to continue America's leadership in human spaceflight, exploration and scientific discovery."

The bill, which was only passed after months of partisan bickering and negotiations, "lifts funding restrictions that limited our flexibility to carry out our shared vision for the future," Bolden noted.

The funding means NASA will "continue to aggressively develop a new heavy lift rocket, multipurpose crew vehicle and commercial capability to transport our astronauts and their supplies on American-made and launched spacecraft," he said.

The space agency is currently working on securing a robust US-funded and operated spaceflight program, as the end of the space shuttle program in June means astronauts will be relying on Russia's Soyuz craft for access to the International Space Station for years to come.

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New Fog-Harvesting Devices Could Provide Clean Drinking Water for the World's Poor

MIT engineer takes advantage of a mist opportunity

Shrouded in Fog Wikimedia Commons

Clean drinking water is arguably the most basic human necessity, yet in developing countries it?s a rare and precious resource ? nearly 900 million people worldwide live without it, according to the World Health Organization. One MIT researcher has a solution: Drink the fog.

Improved fog-harvesting materials could make it easier to collect water from morning dewdrops or coastal water vapor. Drawing inspiration from nature, MIT engineer Shreerang Chhatre is designing devices that attract water droplets and pool them together. Villagers could then collect water at their homes rather than lugging it across great distances, as an MIT News article explains.

Chhatre has been studying the materials used in fog-harvesting devices, which typically consist of a fine mesh panel that attracts droplets, which collect inside receptacles. Chhatre is studying the ?wettability? of materials, seeking a combination that attracts and repels water. Fog harvesters would not do much good if they only soaked up water; you?d also need a surface that repels it so it can be collected later.

Fog harvesters are already available in Chile, where they are made of a nylon or polypropylene netting, according to the Organization of American States, which has promoted the technology in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala, among other places.

The concept is at least 30 years old, but Chhatre has recently published papers in which he describes improving the efficacy of some fog harvesters. They work best in coastal regions, where winds move water vapor inland. But Chhatre is testing materials that could also work in arid climates that experience early morning fog, and in high-altitude areas where moisture collects on mountains and in valleys.

In some tests, fog harvesters have captured one liter of water (roughly a quart) per one square meter of mesh, per day, according to MIT.

Several high-tech solutions promise to provide potable water for the world?s poor, yet they are often expensive, cumbersome or otherwise impractical. Fog nets could be a simpler solution, Chhatre believes ? as long as there?s enough investment to develop the technology. That?s where developed countries come in: Environmentally conscious communities might try fog harvesting to reduce the costs and emissions associated with transporting water and powering massive water treatment facilities.

If Chhatre can sell enough fog harvesters to affluent customers, their price could drop enough to make the technology more viable in poor countries, MIT says. Calling all San Franciscans!

[MIT News]

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Congress votes to lift federal wolf protections (Reuters)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) ? The gray wolf will become the first creature ever taken off the U.S. endangered species list by an act of Congress, rather than by scientific review, under legislation sent to the White House on Thursday.

The measure, attached to a budget deal given final congressional passage by the Senate, would lift federal safeguards for more than 1,200 wolves in Montana and Idaho, placing them under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals.

It also bars judicial review of the de-listing. The measure, which essentially restores a 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision struck down in court last August, would take effect within 60 days of being signed into law.

It was not immediately clear how many wolves would be subject to licensed hunting. But state management plans now sanctioned by Congress would allow wolf numbers in Montana and Idaho to fall to 150 each, said Gary Power, a member of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.

"In all likelihood, I doubt it would go that low," he told Reuters in speaking of the wolf population in Idaho. That state has an estimated 700 wolves. Montana has over 550.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill, which contains funding to keep the entire federal government operating through the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

The de-listing is being hailed by ranchers who see the growing wolf population in the Northern Rockies as a threat to their herds. Cattle producers, hunters and state game wardens say wolf packs in some places are preying unchecked on livestock and other animals such as elk.

"This provision is the responsible thing to do to address a very specific problem," U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat and a chief sponsor of the measure, told reporters shortly before the budget bill passed on a vote of 81-19.

De-listing the wolf through legislation was generally opposed by environmentalists, who say it takes the process of determining the health of a species out of the hands of biologists and puts it in the hands of politicians.

The wolf is the first animal to be de-listed through legislation, as opposed to a process of scientific review established under the Endangered Species Act.

"This rider is not sound science, it's political interference," said Sierra Club wildlife expert Matt Kirby.

The Obama administration had sought to quell the dispute by urging wildlife advocates to accept management plans of Montana and Idaho as adequate to keep wolf numbers healthy -- without federal protections -- now that they exceed recovery targets.

A number of conservation groups reluctantly embraced that approach, in part to avert congressional action they saw as setting a bad precedent.

But a federal judge in Montana blocked the plan as recently as last Saturday. An earlier version put in place by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 was thrown out last August.

In both instances, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that de-listing violated the Endangered Species Act because it treated wolves in Montana and Idaho separately from those in Wyoming. Because scientists consider all wolves in the Northern Rockies to be part of a single population, they cannot be listed or de-listed on a state-by-state basis, Molloy said.

Wyoming was left out of the de-listing because that state would have let most of its 300-plus wolves be shot on sight.

Under the bill passed Thursday, Wyoming's wolves will remain federally protected for the time being. But the Fish and Wildlife Service is required to consider a revised management plan Wyoming is expected to present soon.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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At The 2011 New York Auto Show, Exciting New Signs of Life

Lexus LF-Gh Concept Seth Fletcher

It?s been a brutal few years for the auto industry. But at this year?s New York International Auto Show, the world felt right again. The crowds were thick, the parties were plentiful, and the cars were appropriately flashy. Here are some of the highlights.

Click here to explore the latest, coolest cars.

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Rocket launches from California coast (AP)

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. ? A rocket carrying a national security payload has been successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California's central coast.

The Atlas 5 rocket blasted off shortly before 9:30 p.m. Thursday. Vandenberg officials said the satellite was carrying a classified payload from the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees the nation's constellation of spy satellites.

The rocket appeared as a brilliant light streaking across a clear Southern California night sky.

A live video feed of the launch showed exhaust pouring out of the engines and lingering in the atmosphere as the rocket climbed.

The launch, which was scheduled for Tuesday, had been delayed because of a problem with the rocket's avionics that has since been fixed.

After liftoff, the rocket, flying with a single solid rocket booster, headed south on 1 million pounds of thrust ? equal to the energy of about two dozen Hoover Dams.

The mission is classified and no other details are available about the satellite's purpose or cost.

United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of rocket builders Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., said it's the fifth defense payload it has launched for the reconnaissance office in the past seven months.

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Fiber-Optic Transatlantic Cable Could Save Milliseconds, Millions by Speeding Data to Stock Traders

By Matt Dellinger Posted 04.25.2011 at 1:00 pm

Speed Sells Fiber-optic cables allow stocks to be bought and sold in an instant. Joshua Lott/Reuters

Traders used to all buy and sell stocks in the same crowded room. Everyone received information at the same time, and the first guy to shout or signal got the sale. Today, using algorithms that exploit slightly different prices changing at slightly different speeds, and computers connected to exclusive fiber-optic lines that can buy and sell stocks within fractions of a second, high-frequency traders are able to buy low and sell slightly higher in virtually the same instant.

?A couple of milliseconds can roll out to a $20-million difference in [a trader?s] account at the end of the month,? says Nigel Bayliff, the CEO of Huawei Marine Networks, one of the companies laying down superfast fiber-optic lines.

Companies like Bayliff?s are looking for ways to shave time, and the easiest method is to build a more direct route. Last year, Mississippi-based Spread Networks opened a shorter connection between New York and Chicago that saved about three milliseconds and was estimated to have cost $300 million to develop. Huawei is working with another company, Hibernia Atlantic, to lay the first transatlantic fiber-optic submarine cable in a decade, a $400-million-plus project that will save traders five milliseconds.

To do this, Hibernia is laying nearly 3,000 miles of cable across the Grand Banks off Canada and the North Atlantic, a shorter route that most companies have avoided because it traverses relatively shallow waters. Undersea-cable companies prefer to work at greater depths; they can just drop naked cable down to the ocean floor. At less than a mile deep, though, they must bury armored cable to protect it from ship anchors, fishing trawls, dredging gear, and attacks from sharks, which are drawn to the line?s electricity.

Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle (ROV): �Courtesy Global Marine Energy

For all the money Hibernia and its clients will make from a 60-millisecond trip across the Atlantic, the installation will be slow. Crews on two ships, the Sovereign and the Cable Innovator, will deploy 24-ton ploughs to cut a trench up to six feet into the seabed, into which they will lay the cable. The top speed is about one mile an hour.

Each ship is outfitted with a dynamic positioning system that keeps it in place while laying cable, regardless of currents or winds. If something gets in the way, such as another submarine cable, the crews will use a remotely operated vehicle equipped with a pair of high-pressure water ?swords? to break apart sediment. The ROV then uses a mechanical arm to bury the new cable underneath the obstacle and into the temporarily softened earth. ?The seabed always throws up something unexpected,? says Stuart Wilson, the manager of cable-route engineering for Global Marine Systems, the company installing the Hibernia line.

Hibernia says its cable will go live next year, connecting it to Hibernia?s Global Financial Network, which has fiber optics running 15,000 miles between financial centers from Chicago to Frankfurt. But the New York-to-London line could be the company?s biggest draw, providing a competitive advantage of just five milliseconds?about the amount of time it takes a bee to flap its wings.

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Banking stem cells could save Japan nuclear workers (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) ? Health officials should collect blood from workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in case they are accidentally exposed to high levels of radiation and need a stem cell transplant, Japanese researchers said on Thursday.

They said gathering blood from the workers would give them a ready source of their own stem cells that could help rebuild their bone marrow should they become exposed to high levels of radiation.

"The danger of a future accidental radiation exposure is not passed, since there has been a series of serious aftershocks even this April," Dr Shuichi Taniguchi of Toranomon Hospital in Tokyo and Dr Tetsuya Tanimoto of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research wrote in the Lancet medical journal.

A series of strong aftershocks this week has rattled eastern Japan, slowing the recovery effort at the Fukushima Daiichi plant due to temporary evacuations of workers and power outages.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said this week the situation at the nuclear plant, wrecked by a 15-meter (49.2-foot) tsunami on March 11, had stabilized. The crisis is now rated par with the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, although the total release of radiation at Chernobyl was far greater.

The researchers say transplant teams are standing by in Japan and Europe to collect and store the nuclear workers' cells, but so far the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan is balking because it would cause a "physical and psychological burden for nuclear workers," the team wrote.

Collecting cells from the workers has several advantages over donated cells, which require finding a matching donor and carry the risk of rejection.

Stem cell transplants from a person's own cells would allow the workers to avoid taking drugs to suppress the immune system, helping them to better resist infections. The cells could quickly restore normal function to the body's machinery for making blood cells.

And the workers' cells could be banked and stored in case they develop leukemia, which could happen years down the road.

But the solution is not perfect, the team admits. High exposure to radiation would also attack cells in the gut, skin or lung -- problems a stem cell transplant could not fix.

Yet, with containment and clean-up efforts at the damaged plant expected to drag on for months or even years, Tanimoto and Taniguchi say taking steps to protect the workers' from future harm is paramount.

"The most important mission is to save the nuclear workers' lives and to protect the local communities," the team wrote.

"Such an approach would be the industry's best defense: if a fatal accident happened to the nuclear workers, the nuclear power industry of Japan would collapse."

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Paul Simao)

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A Synthetic Brain Synapse Is Constructed From Carbon Nanotubes

Synthetic Synapse USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Building a synthetic brain is no easy undertaking, but researchers working on the problem have to start somewhere. In doing so, engineers at the University of Southern California have taken a huge step by building a synthetic synapse from carbon nanotubes.

In tests, their synapse circuit functions very much like a real neuron--neurons being the very building blocks of the brain. Tapping the unique properties of carbon nanotubes, their lab was able to essentially recreate brain function in a very fractional way.

Of course, duplicating synapse firings in a nanotube circuit and creating synthetic brain function are two very different things. The human brain, as we well know, is very complex and hardly static like the inner workings of a computer. Over time it makes new connections, adapts to changes, and produces new neurons.

But while a functioning synthetic brain may be decades away, the synthetic synapse is here now, which could help researchers model neuron communications and otherwise begin building, from the ground up, an artificial mimic of one of biology?s biggest mysteries.

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Award-Winning Sculpture Created with Scotch Tape (LiveScience.com)

The judges of the annual Scotch Tape sculpture contest have announced this year's grand prize winner ? an elaborate scene of a brother and sister fishing. The life-size sculpture was made using 12 rolls of the brand's packaging tape.

Called "The Big One," the sculpture, created by Kent Hathaway of Oklahoma City, Okla., depicts a young boy reeling in a fish while his sister hangs on to the back straps of his overalls to keep him from falling into the water. Scotch judges said the sculpture "stuck out" from dozens of other entries, thanks to its intricate details, such as the boy's rolled jeans and the bows in his sister's pigtails. [See the winning sculpture]

The Scotch "Off the Roll" tape sculpture contest's winning entry was chosen by a panel of experts based on creativity, execution, presentation and more than 11,000 online public votes, which accounted for 10 percent of the final scores.

Following Hathaway's $5,000 grand prize were three first place winners, who each received a $500 cash prize. Their Scotch tape sculptures consisted of a scene depicting people at a live concert, a mermaid mechanic building a 12-foot-long clockwork sea dragon, and a triangulated torus shape that took 13-and-a-half rolls of tape to make.

This article was provided by Life?s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.com. Follow Remy Melina on Twitter @RemyMelina

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Scientists map volcanic plume under Yellowstone (AP)

HELENA, Mont. ? Scientists using electric and magnetic sensors have mapped the size and composition of a vast plume of hot rock and briny fluid down to 200 miles below Yellowstone National Park's surface, according to a new study soon to be published.

The so-called "geoelectric" imaging of a plume to this extent is a first, giving researchers a clearer picture of the material that feeds Yellowstone's volcanic features, said Robert B. Smith, the study's co-author, a University of Utah professor emeritus and a coordinating scientist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The information will help scientists better understand the evolution of these hot spots that are an integral part of continental drift and are active in 20 places around the world from Hawaii to Iceland, he said.

"This is the first time that an electrical image has been made of a plume anywhere in the world, period," Smith said. "We're getting much more information on the composition and evolution of the earth."

The plume is made up of solid rock, partly molten rocks and briny fluid that conducts electricity like seawater, said Smith and principal author Michael Zhdanov, a University of Utah geophysics professor. The plume rises from the earth's depths at a 40-degree angle and extends 400 miles from east to west, the data found. The image of the plume reaches a depth of 200 miles, the limit of the technology.

A previous study by Smith using seismic waves measured the plume's depth to at least 410 miles below the Montana-Idaho border.

The study will be published in Geophysical Research Letters within the next few weeks, according to the American Geophysical Union.

The new data, which measured the plume's electrical conductivity to create the image, supplements Smith's seismic data that gave scientists their first detailed look at the plume in 2009. Both seismic and electrical conductivity are imaging technologies that reveal different things.

Together, the data reveal a plume that is larger and contains more brine and fluid than previously believed.

"All this is very important to better understand the physics of this plume," Zhdanov said. "We are just learning. It's a very new phenomenon and now we've got another tool to get an image and better understanding of the composition and geographical shape."

That tool may help lead one day to developing a way to better forecast eruptions and other volcanic activity, he said.

Derek Schutt, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, said others have used the geoelectric technology but not to these proportions. The technology is a useful supplement to seismic measurements and will lead to a better understanding of how the earth is forming, he said.

"I think what this will be particularly useful for is we can understand much better the magma distribution of what's under Yellowstone," he said.

The research says nothing about the chance for a large eruption happening at Yellowstone, which draws millions each year to see its bubbling pots and spouting geysers. Yellowstone's caldera, a 37-by-25-mile volcanic feature at the center of the park, has erupted three times since the North American continent drifted over the hot spot. The last eruption was 642,000 years ago.

The plume stops rising about 60 miles below the surface. Some of that melted rock then leaks up, possibly through a series of rock fractures, to a chamber about five miles below the surface of the Yellowstone caldera, Smith said. That magma chamber feeds the volcanic activity on the surface.

If enough of the plume breaks off and rises to the chamber, an eruption could happen. But that accumulation happens very slowly over thousands of years and there is no indication of when an eruption could occur, Zhdanov said.

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