Eyewitnesses Not Buying FAA's Hole-Punch Cloud Explanation For O'Hare UFO

During one late afternoon at Chicago's bustling O'Hare Airport, pilots, managers and mechanics at the United Airlines terminal saw an odd, disc-shaped object hovering silently overhead, just below the dense cloud layer. A pilot announced the sighting over the radio; a United taxi mechanic moving a Boeing 777 heard radio chatter about the craft and saw it; so did a pilot waiting to take off who opened the cockpit windscreen to get a better view. Minutes later, the wingless vehicle shot straight up at an incredible speed and disappeared, leaving a crisp hole through the clouds with blue sky visible at the top. It was definitely not an airplane, witnesses said of the Nov. 7 incident, many of them shaken by what they saw. "I immediately called our operations center to confirm the sighting, and the FAA was contacted while I drove to the other concourse to talk to the witnesses," a United management employee wrote to the National UFO Reporting Center.

Record Power For Military Laser

A laser developed for military use is a few steps away from hitting a power threshold thought necessary to turn it into a battlefield weapon. The Solid State Heat Capacity Laser (SSHCL) has achieved 67 kilowatts (kW) of average power in the laboratory. It could take only a further six to eight months to break the "magic" 100kW mark required for the battlefield, the project's chief scientist told the BBC.

Robots Could Soon Be Calling The Shots

Someday you could be taking orders from a robot ... but in a nice way. For example, imagine a body suit with sensors that can guide you through a golf swing like Tiger Woods'. Or a robo-birdwatcher that can tell you where to look for that rare ivory-billed woodpecker. Or an android gardener that can show you where to plant your seeds. Those are just some of the examples of robot-human interaction sketched out by experts in the field — examples that may well become reality in the next 10 years. The next big trends in human-robot interaction were among the topics covered here last weekend during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, featuring such pioneers as Cynthia Breazeal from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The technology is becoming virtually ubiquitous," she said. "Before, when the first computers came out, there were rooms and rooms of computers. ... Now, they're [embedded] in the doorknobs. Robotics is going to be the same way. You're already seeing robotics integrated into your car today." The anticipated rise of the robots in everyday life already has sparked worries that automatons could someday become overlords rather than underlings. Prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil projects that computers will match the capability of the human brain by the year 2029, leading to a socio-technological "singularity" that cannot be anticipated.

High Tech Monitoring System Protecting Students

A drivers license and a fingerprint are now needed to enter Cooper North Elementary. The school is the first in the area to use a high-tech computer system to track school visitors. One parent said, "I think it's wonderful, I think the more security we have around, the better." That's the same thought Lubbock Cooper ISD had when they chose Cooper North Elementary School as the pilot school for a new high tech visitor monitoring system. Principal Rita McDaniels is the principal of Cooper North and she said, "We chose this particular system because it did two things. It scan's the DPS, the Texas database but it also scans the national sex offender registry." Lisa Edmunds, Cooper North secretary said, "What this will do is it'll tell us today we've had 46 visitors, 22 still here in the building, 24 have signed out and we have our volunteers on here, any visitors, substitutes are on here," and they track everyone who comes and goes, "If we've had an incident, if they know the date, we can pull up that data and we'll have a picture ID of everybody who has been in the school that day," Edmunds added. Cooper North is the first school in the area to try out this program. However, Lubbock ISD is looking into similar programs.

Film and producers state Jesus's Tomb and bones discovered

A highly guarded new documentary film jointly produced by Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and Oscar winning director James Cameron, claims that the cave in which Jesus Christ was buried has been found in Jerusalem. "If it proves true," one news report says, "the discovery, which was revealed at a press conference in New York Monday, is shaking up the Christian world as one of the most significant archeological finds in history. The coffins which, according to the filmmakers held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene is being displayed for the first time in New York." According to the filmmakers, the film’s claim is based on close work with world-famous scientists, archeologists, statisticians, DNA specialists and antiquities experts.

Great Barrier Reef Polluted by Pesticides

The Great Barrier Reef, already under threat from global warming, is also being affected by pollutants and pesticides from the land carried into the sea by flooded rivers, satellite images show. Pictures taken this month by NASA and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites indicate that coral is being affected by the run-off at a greater rate than previously thought.

World's tiniest RFID tag unveiled

The world's smallest radio frequency identification tags have been unveiled by Japanese electronics firm Hitachi. The minute devices measure just 0.05mm by 0.05mm (0.002x0.002in) and to the naked eye look like spots of powder. They are thin enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper, Hitachi spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi says. RFID tags store data about the objects they are attached to, and companies are vying to create increasingly tiny versions. Recently, Hitachi unveiled another RFID tag, the Mu-chip, which measures 0.4mm by 0.4mm (0.02x0.02in). But the latest chips, which are yet to be named, can hold the same amount of data as the Mu even though they are much smaller. They have one major issue, however - they need an external antenna to work, and the smallest antenna developed so far is about 80 times bigger than the tags. Hitachi says it wants to study the tags' possible uses, but it does not yet have any plans to put its latest creation into commercial production. Unlike its predecessor, the barcode, an RFID tag's data can be extracted from afar - sometimes from hundreds of metres away - by radio-reading devices, and the technology is already widely used. Stores use it to track stock in warehouses and shops. Some countries are using the tags to hold passport data or for payments in transport systems, and they are even being used for animal identification.

Electric Shock For Internet Addicts In China

In a treatment that equates Internet addicts to mentally ill people, China is giving electric shocks to people who spend more time on the Internet than required. The Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to treat "Internet addiction" and many Internet-addiction clinics have been opened in this regard. A recent survey found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet. The Communist Youth League calls it a "a grave social problem" that threatens the youth of this Asian country. According to the Washington Post, one such clinic in Daxing, a suburb of Beijing, the capital, is the oldest and largest and is located on an army training base. It has 60 patients on a normal day and as many as 280 during peak periods. The country has also gone to the extent of implementing control programs that logs teens off networked games after five hours. The Communist government has limited programs for Web access and also censors sites to seek online control. The "addicts" are treated by counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks. The clinic also has metal grates and padlocks on every door and bars on every window.

Making Martial Law Easier

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law. The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights. The newly enacted provisions upset this careful balance. They shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.”

Russia Warns Neighbors Against Role In U.S. Scheme

Poland and the Czech Republic could be targeted by Russian missiles if they allow elements of the planned U.S. missile defence system to be sited on their territory, the commander of Russian strategic missile forces recently warned. The warning came as both Warsaw and Prague signalled they were likely to respond positively to U.S. requests for them to host anti-missile defence bases. Germany also expressed concern about the stand-off over the missile defence project, with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foreign minister, criticising the U.S. and Nato for not addressing Russia's worries over the system earlier. Russia continued to make clear its deep opposition to the system as General Nikolai Solovtsov warned that basing parts of it in eastern Europe risked undermining strategic stability. "If the governments of Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries make this decision . . . [Russia's] strategic missile troops will be able to target those facilities," he said.

Anti-American Feelings Soar By Muslims

The War on Terror has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted. Seven per cent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”. In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US. Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised. The surveys were carried out in 2005 and 2006. Along with an earlier Gallup survey in nine other countries in 2001, they represent the views of more than 90 per cent of the world’s Muslims. A further 1,500 Muslims in London, Paris and Berlin are involved in a separate poll to be published in April. The findings come in a climate of growing mistrust between Islam and the West. Another recent survey in the US found that 39 per cent of Americans felt some prejudice towards Muslims.

Killerbee UAV Flies At Camp Pendleton

Swift Engineering has demonstrated its blended-wing KillerBee 3 (KB3) on February 17th at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in California. Flying in support of Northrop-Grumman's Electronic Systems' Beyond Line-of-Sight Tactical UAV Communications Relay (BTCR) program in an Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored demonstration. Simultaneously an EPLAR and Motorola's Meshnet network relays were demonstrated. With the payload capacity of the KB3 crossbanding of these two networks was also demonstrated in the plane. Validating a tactical KB UAS can be used to enable over-the-horizon communications connectivity between troops on the move and their commanders within in a multiple network environment. The KB3 flights at Camp Pendleton marked the first time that a KillerBee UAS has flown at the historic home of the First Marine Expeditionary Force and 1st Marine Division. Looking forward, the slightly-larger blended-wing KillerBee4 (KB4) UAS will be Swift's entry in the Navy/USMC Small Tactical UAS/Tier II competition. The KB4 will provide tailored and more cost-effective support to Navy and Marine units prosecuting missions at sea and ashore.

U.S. Not Prepared For The Next 'Big One'

An estimated 90 percent of Americans now live along the coast, near flood zones and earthquake fault lines, or in other locations that are at a high or moderate risk of being hit by a major natural disaster. But since 9/11, we have been acting as though the only serious threat we face is terrorism and that the only way to manage that threat is by military efforts abroad. When an aggressive offense against terrorists is our only defense, homeland security and planning for natural disasters end up as lesser priorities.

Iran has speeded up Nuclear plans, says UN

Iran has speeded up its nuclear programme and plans to complete a large-scale uranium enrichment facility by May, the United Nations atomic watchdog recently said. By that time, according to a long-awaited report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran plans to install and start using 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium – despite UN demands that it suspend uranium enrichment related activities. If they functioned smoothly, the 3,000 centrifuges – organised into “cascades” of 164 machines apiece – could produce sufficient highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb within a year. The report said Iran intended “to continue progressively with the installation of the 18 cascades of the 3,000 machine hall and to bring them gradually into operation by May 2007”.

Skipping School May Get Your Child A Tracking Chip

Let's say your teenager is a habitual truant and there is nothing you can do about it. A Washington area politician thinks he might have the solution: Fit the child with a Global Positioning System chip, then have police track him down. "It allows them to get caught easier," said Maryland Delegate Doyle Niemann (D-Prince George's), who recently co-sponsored legislation in the House that would use electronic surveillance as part of a broader truancy reduction plan. "It's going to be done unobtrusively. The chips are tiny and can be put into a hospital ID band or a necklace." Niemann's legislation mirrors a bill sponsored by state Sen. Gwendolyn Britt (D-Prince George's). Both would provide truants and their parents with better access to social services, such as mental health evaluations and help with schoolwork.

Kinetic Energy Missile Successful In Final Flight Test

The U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin has conducted a successful flight test of the Compact Kinetic Energy Missile (CKEM) against a T-72 tank recently at Eglin Air Force Base, FL. All objectives for this test were achieved. The T-72, equipped with Enhanced Reactive Armor, was engaged at a range of 3400 meters. The flight evaluated CKEM's lethality while also gathering missile guidance and performance data. This was the last scheduled launch under the current CKEM Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD), and was conducted with the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center. Two key advantages of CKEM are its deployability and tremendous overmatch in lethality. The CKEM Weapon System provides increased countermeasure effectiveness and survivability while allowing the soldier to engage the toughest and most sophisticated targets. CKEM's ATD demonstrated a path forward for a smaller, lighter KE missile that can be integrated on to both current and future combat platforms and has the ability to fill current lethality gaps against enhanced reactive armor and active protective systems. CKEM will be particularly effective in bridging the Army's capability gaps identified for the Infantry Brigade Combat Team and the Stryker Brigade Combat Team by ensuring lethality at both close and extended ranges.

Ocean 'Dead Zones' Spell Disaster As Wind Patterns Change

A few months ago, the clear blue Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of Oregon suddenly turned a thick greenish brown. A swell of nutrients produced a bizarre blooming of plankton that reached levels never seen before by scientists. Then the plankton died and sank, causing oxygen levels in the water to plummet to zero. The living ocean was transformed into a dead zone. Scientists conducted a submarine survey and found only the bodies of crabs and marine worms scattered across the ocean floor. There were no signs of any fish. Nothing had survived the cataclysm. Nor has this been the only such disaster to strike a marine ecosystem in recent years. As scientists reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco yesterday, unprecedented changes to ocean currents are having a devastating effect on finely balanced marine ecosystems all over the globe. Similar upheavals have been recorded in other parts of the world, particularly off South America and Africa. Marine researchers are convinced the evidence points to one culprit: global warming. Man-made changes to the climate are throwing previously predictable seasonal winds out of kilter.

Robots With 'Feelings' In 10 Years

As a depressed machine roaming through space in the fictional Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Marvin the Paranoid Android popularised the concept of a robot with feelings. However, the real thing will be available far closer to home in just 10 years, scientists predicted yesterday. They now claim it is essential to give robots their own emotions if they are to be capable of running independently and efficiently enough to take on a variety of domestic tasks. As well as Marvin, robots with feelings were envisaged by the -science fiction movie I, Robot, in which they delighted in performing tasks such as cleaning, walking the dog and even caring for elderly relatives. At present, commercially available robots such as automatic vacuum cleaners are little more than drones capable of carrying out only one task. However, speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco yesterday, a panel of robotics experts said robots capable of multiple domestic tasks, that can also provide companionship for their owners, will be available within 10 years. And the scientists claim it is already possible to give robots such "feelings". A number of groups around the world are now developing robots that have basic emotions in a bid to motivate the machines.

Wizards and Diviners Abound in Britain, Says Psychic Survey

Britain's image as the home of sensible and practical types takes a knock today, with the publication of data showing just how many of us think we are wizards, time-travellers or able to divine water. Norse and Celtic influences moving down the centuries have led almost 10% of people in some areas to believe they can teleport their neighbours as well as read minds, crystal balls and tarot cards. The scale of a return to an island of ley lines and Merlin comes to light in a survey of psychic organisations backed by polling and research into cases of supposed witches, enchanters and close encounters of the third kind that have made the media, scientific and alternative journals in the past 100 years. Published by the SciFi TV channel to mark a drama series on the subject, the project was supervised by the Rev Lionel Fanthorpe, an Anglican priest who chairs numerous bodies concerned with unidentified flying objects and "anomalous phenomena".

New Credit Cards Can Broadcast Your Personal Information

You may be carrying a new type of credit card that can transmit your personal information to anyone who gets close to you with a scanner. The new cards--millions of which have been issued over the past year--use RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, technology. RFID allows scanners to use radio signals at varying distances to read information stored on a computer chip. According to a study from academic and business researchers at the University of Massachusetts, RSA, and Innealta, many of the cards will transmit your name, credit card number, and expiration date (but not the three-digit security code) in the clear to anyone nearby with a scanner. One of the researchers, Kevin Fu of the University of Massachusetts, provided an electronic copy of the report's just-finished final version to PC World. The draft version is available online. RFID is widely used to track shipments and store inventory--and now it's in credit cards, allowing customers to swipe the cards past readers in McDonald's restaurants, CVS pharmacies, and elsewhere, making for quick and easy transactions. Visa says more than 6 million "contactless" cards exist worldwide, and their number is growing rapidly.

Grocery Industry Prepares For Bird Flu Pandemic, Encourages Preparedness

Stocking up on food is as simple as a trip to the grocery store, a veritable land of plenty for Americans. But will fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, milk and other household staples still be available if the U.S. is hit with an anticipated bird flu pandemic? If state and federal officials urge people to stay away from public places, like restaurants and fast-food establishments, will they be able to get the groceries they need to prepare food in their homes? Unlike other critical infrastructure sectors like water, energy and health care, the food industry isn't getting much help from state and federal governments when it comes to disaster planning. That puts the burden on individual supermarket chains and wholesalers to deal with a potentially large number of sick workers that could affect store operations and disrupt the food supply. "The industry is actively thinking through contingency plans, so if it should happen, our members would be well prepared to deal with it," said Tim Hammonds, president of the Food Marketing Institute, an advocate for grocery wholesalers and retail supermarkets nationwide.

U.S. To Stage Biggest Anti-Terrorism Exercise On Guam

The world's biggest anti-terrorism exercise will be held this year on Guam, underscoring the Pacific island's growing importance to Washington, officials recently said. Exercise TopOff4 is part of a series of large-scale maneuvers established to strengthen the U.S. ability to respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. William Marhoffer, the U.S. Coast Guard commander in Guam, said the TopOff4 exercise would be bigger than last year's Valiant Shield war games, in which the United States mobilized 30 ships, 280 aircraft and 22,000 military personnel. "It will be bigger in some ways. Valiant Shield was a military exercise. It was a show of force. It was the first time we had three carrier strike groups in combined operations in the Pacific since the Vietnam War," he said. TopOff4 "is a domestic counterterrorism exercise. It involves the intelligence communities, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Coast Guard." The exercise is expected to simulate a maritime terrorist attack.

Spacecraft Could Be Used To Deflect Killer Asteroids

An unmanned "tractor spacecraft" could eventually be used to drag an asteroid off course before it slams into Earth with catastrophic consequences, experts said Friday. NASA astronaut Edward Lu said Hollywood-style solutions such as detonating a nuclear bomb in outer space to destroy an oncoming asteroid could increase the chances of a hit on Earth. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting, Lu said the most viable tactic would be to use the gravitational pull of a spacecraft to alter the asteroid's trajectory. U.S. scientists are closely monitoring the progress of Apophis, which is scheduled to pass within about 32,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) of Earth in 2029. Experts have said previously it is possible that Apophis, which could obliterate a country the size of England if it struck, may change its orbit when it swings by Earth in 2029, putting it on a collision course with the planet when it is due to pass by again in 2036.

EU Air Passengers May Be Tagged

Questions have been raised at the European Union about a Brussels-funded project, in which Greece is participating, that could lead to air passengers being electronically tagged when they check in for flights. The project, known as Optag, is based at a research center at University College London but the telecommunication systems institute of the Technical University of Crete in Hania is also taking part in the scheme. Hungarian and French firms are also participating in the program, which began in 2005. The main aim of Optag is to allow airports to be fitted with a network of cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of passengers inside the airport. Travelers would be issued with a tag at check-in and the surveillance system would allow airport authorities to track them within the terminal buildings. The system is being designed so that airlines can quickly locate late passengers, who are estimated to be responsible for 10 percent of flight delays. However, electronic tagging can also be used for security purposes and there are fears that this may lead to the constant monitoring of passengers and an invasion of their privacy.

RFID 'Powder' - World's Smallest RFID Tag

The world's smallest and thinnest RFID tags were introduced yesterday by Hitachi. Tiny miracles of miniaturization, these RFID chips (Radio Frequency IDentification chips) measure just 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters. These tiny RFID tags could be worked into any product; combined with RFID readers built into doorways, theft of consumer goods would be practically impossible. These devices could also be used to identify and track people. For example, suppose you participated in some sort of protest or other organized activity. If police agencies sprinkled these tags around, every individual could be tracked and later identified at leisure, with powerful enough tag scanners.

Army Seeks Drone "Human-Immobilizing High-Intensity Spotlight"

U.S. Army researchers want to fit a human-immobilizing searchlight to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to create a remotely operated or autonomous non-lethal weapon system to help insert and extract fighting forces from enemy-held areas. Officials of the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate at Fort Eustis Va., are looking to Peak Beam Systems Inc. in Edgemont, Pa., to modify the company's hand-held Maxa Beam high-intensity light for aircraft use. The Maxa Beam system is a Xenon based searchlight that can be pulsed with a unique modulation strobe effect that results in immobilization to those within the beam. The super-bright light features a programmable strobe function that will immediately disable and disorient those within its beam. The light can shift from normal power to high power or strobe, and can spread the beam from a 1-degree spot to a 40-degree flood, and can vary its strobe rate.

Iowa Senate Approves Bill Promoting Human Cloning

The Iowa state Senate has approved a bill that would promote human cloning for research purposes. Backers of the bill say it would help promote embryonic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of human life. "It's the beginning of human cloning," said Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby during the debate. "This is the first step on a slippery slope."

Brave, New Biotech World – Human-Animal Mix Ethics

Most parties to the debate seem to agree in rejecting two extremes – one, a Luddite panic about chimeras that would squelch valuable and ethically harmless research; the other, an “anything goes” attitude that would open the door to Crichtonesque monstrosities. The problem, as always, is where exactly the “just mean” lies, with scientists pushing the envelope, and ethicists and spiritual leaders pulling in the reins. Doerflinger said that beyond the science involved, something deeper is at stake in the chimera debate. “Some would like to render the sanctity of human life technologically obsolete by demonstrating that species membership is fungible,” he said. “If so, then the idea of natural law based on a fixed human nature is over. You’d have to come up with some other basis for rights, like sentience.” Doerflinger called that prospect a “real threat, a real motivation on the part of some,” and hence “something worth worrying about.”

Physicist Hopes To See Time Travel In Near Future

Ronald L. Mallett didn’t reveal his desire to build a time machine for decades, fearing that he would be labeled a crackpot by fellow physicists. But that’s all in the past. Now Mallett, professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, is poised to conduct an experiment that could confirm his concept of a device that could bend time back on itself — the essential job of a time machine. Mallett has calculated that a circulating beam of laser light should produce enough gravity to twist space. With the energy stepped up, the swirling space should yield closed time loops. A closed time loop would allow information, a particle, and someday, a person, to return to the moment that the machine was switched on. What happens to the person is extremely strange, but it solves potential paradoxes that arise in time travel.

U.S. Is Ready To Attack Iran

American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran could be implemented any day. They extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran's military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons. The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerised plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).

DNA Data Deal 'Will Create Big Brother Europe'

Police across the EU are to be given free access to Britain's DNA, fingerprint and car registration databases in a move denounced last night as the creation of "Big Brother Europe". At a meeting in Brussels, the Home Office agreed to a deal that will set up a network of national crime records across 27 states. All member states will have access to other countries' DNA and fingerprint data, as well as direct online access to vehicle registries. The exchanges could be up and running as early as next year and might eventually lead to the creation of a single Euro-wide database. Police in one country will be able to find out whether another has data matching the profile of a suspected offender. But critics last night questioned whether access to the databases would have the same security safeguards throughout the EU. They also said British tourists fingerprinted in the UK as witnesses may find themselves sucked into foreign police investigations after innocently leaving prints, or DNA, at a location that later becomes a crime scene. British police have millions of fingerprints on file – and this number will grow when they are taken for passport applications from 2009. Britain also has by far the largest criminal DNA database in the world – 50 times the size of the French equivalent. When Labour took office in 1997, it held only 700,000 samples. By next year, it will hold the samples of some 4.2 million people – seven per cent of the population – and is growing by about half a million a year.

Nanobattery Created To Power RFID Tags

A nanotechnology company is developing a nanobattery which could prolong the shelf life of radio frequency identification (RFID) applications. New Jersey-based mPhase Technologies is working on the creation of a new version of its Smart Nanobattery product in order to provide an energy source which is long-lasting but quick to activate. The firm aims to integrate the battery within an RFID security solution which could then be used in tracking systems on cars, shipping containers and large-scale or costly medical equipment. "We are working with an active RFID vendor who is placing specific requirements on the nanobattery designs in order to extend the life of the active RFID tag," commented Ronald A Durando, chief executive of the company. He added that the reserve capability of a nanobattery provides the ideal energy unit for supplying power to active RFID tags in a variety of different locations. As an automatic method of identification, RFID tags can also be used on animals or people for verification via radio waves, with active applications requiring an independent power source.

Dark Matter And 'God Particle' Within Reach

The boundaries of knowledge in particle physics look set to be broken soon with scientists around the globe locked in a multi-billion-dollar race to solve two great mysteries. Their quest: find the secrets of dark matter and the 'God particle' - a sub-atomic particle that is fundamental to understanding the nature of matter, but so elusive that, physicists quip, it can only be compared to divinity.... Engineering studies for the ILC will start later this year with the idea of making a decision in 2010 on whether to press ahead with building the machine. If all goes well, ground will be broken in 2012 and the collider itself will be fired up at the end of the next decade. "The ILC probably represents the maximum that can be achieved with this type of technology," said Guy Wormser, head of France's Linear Accelerator Laboratory, who took part in the Beijing meeting. Scientists in the U.S. and Europe, meanwhile, are grappling to be first to detect the most eagerly-sought particle in physics - the Higgs Boson. Construed in the 1960s by a British physicist, Peter Higgs, the Boson is thought to exist in an all-pervading field, giving all other particles their mass.

Al-Qa'ida Targets Canada Oil To Cripple U.S.

Al-Qa'ida has called for terrorist strikes against Canadian oil and natural gas facilities to "choke the U.S. economy." An online message, recently posted by the Al-Qa'ida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, declares: "We should strike petroleum interests in all areas that supply the United States ... like Canada," the No. 1 exporter of oil and gas to the U.S. "The biggest party hurt will be the industrial nations, and on top of them, the United States." The same group, the Saudi arm of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, claimed responsibility for last February's failed attack on the world's largest oil processing facility, at Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia's eastern province. The attack was foiled when guards opened fire on the terrorists, blowing up their vehicles filled with explosives before they could get through the site's gates.

Star Wars Cloaking Devices Sought For Satellites

As it happens, Advanced American Enterprises (AAE), a company DefenseReview has been writing about for some time now, believes that its optical cloaking technology (a.k.a. invisibility cloak, a.k.a. adaptive camouflage, a.k.a. electro-optical camouflage a.k.a. active camouflage a.k.a. chameleonic camouflage) may be able to assist in protecting U.S. military satellites from enemy ballistic missile and laser threats, provided that it's combined with anti-radar stealth technology.

Survey Predicts Majority of Retailers Will Accept RFID Payments by Fall 2008

Retailers are embracing RFID technology, with a growing number accepting or planning to accept RFID-enabled (contactless) payments in the coming months. Relatively few, however, have a clear roadmap on how to maximize a return on the investment required to adopt the payment technology, according to a new report from the Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based market research firm. More than 20 million RFID-enabled American Express, MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards have been issued over the past 20 months to consumers in the United States alone. Last fall, Aberdeen interviewed 160 retailers—most located in the United States, with a few based in Europe or Asia. Of those surveyed, nearly 20 percent said they are already accepting RFID payments.

Solar flares might knock out cell phones and more

Solar flare activity is expected to build for the next three years to a crescendo that some scientists say could be cataclysmic, causing a telecommunication blackout that would down mobile phones and navigational systems. "The solar flares are expected to be at its maximum intensity by the year 2010," Markus Aschwanden, a solar physicist at the Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, told the Hindu News. "These solar flares and Coronoal Mass Ejections from the sun have the ability to travel all the way to the earth and create a black-out of cellular phone services and navigational systems like the GPS. Solar flares and CMEs occur when magnetic energy built up in the Sun's atmosphere is suddenly released. The flares carrying high amount of energy, travel at high speeds and reach the Earth in a matter of hours.

Chertoff Defends Biometric ID Mandate for 2008

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently defended the federalization of driver's licenses and asked a Senate panel not to block the Real ID law, but he urged members to make security changes in the visa waiver program. Mr. Chertoff said he is "pretty adamant" that the new identification for all U.S. citizens go into effect May 2008. "We don't want to keep kicking the can down the road," Mr. Chertoff told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Arizona May Outlaw Freedom Of Speech

Classrooms should not be forums for schoolteachers and college professors to espouse political opinions, a group of lawmakers concluded today. A House committee approved a bill that would prohibit any public school or college instructor from advocating one side of a social, political or cultural issue that's part of a partisan debate. The measure would also ban teachers from openly supporting any political candidate.

Biotech Will Drive Software Security In Post-Humans

As the IT industry continues to grow and become more profitable, the role of security will take on ever greater importance than it does today, and the human evolutionary process is a good place to look for guidance on what to expect. Software security will be even more important as humans become more of a hybrid of non-biological and biological technology and intelligence, said Ray Kurzweil, inventor, author and futurist, in a keynote speech Wednesday at the RSA 2007 conference in San Francisco. This convergence is already happening with neural implants designed for Parkison's Disease sufferers that are capable of downloaded software updates. "As devices shrink and get more powerful, software security is going to be more important," he said. Computational power in the 21st century will have more than enough power to simulate all functions of the human brain, and reverse engineering these processes into software will be a key challenge for the developers of the future. Already, 20 of the hundreds of known regions of the brain have been simulated in this fashion, Kurweil said.

Kodak Files Patent for Edible RFID Tag

The idea is that the RFID tag antenna -- the critical component which allows data to broadcast -- be composed of organic material that would dissolve as a result of certain chemical reactions within the human body. Once dissolved, the tag antenna, and therefore the tag itself, would stop transmitting a signal, indicating that the targeted chemical reaction had occurred. Kodak calls them "fragile tags" This invention is a system that uses intentionally fragile tags to provide useful information by identifying when such tags are destroyed. The system then responds to this basic change of state by providing a useful service. Such intentionally fragile tags can be composed of materials that can be not only be ingested but also digested with the understanding that breakdown is a desirable quality and one that enables the tag materials to be eliminated in the standard manner. Such a fragile tag that is also digestible lends itself to applications such as being included in objects meant to be ingested, such as pills, lozenges, and glycol strips.

January Weather Hottest by Far

It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January ever. The broken record was fueled by a waning El Nino and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who report the data. Records on the planet's temperature have been kept since 1880. Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That didn't just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees, which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time. "That's pretty unusual for a record to be broken by that much," said the data center's scientific services chief, David Easterling. "I was very surprised." The scientists went beyond their normal doublechecking and took the unusual step of running computer climate models "just to make sure that what we're seeing was real," Easterling said.

Computer Based on Quantum Physics to be unveiled

"Quantum Computing." It's one of those things that bring a sparkle to the eyes of propellerheads -- and make the rest of us just scratch our heads. But it's been a holy grail in the arcane world of supercomputers -- and a Canadian firm claims it will be unveiling one in a day or so. Nevermind that most engineers thought quantum computers were decades away. D-Wave Systems, Inc., based near Vancouver, is the company that's been working on the project. Its machine is described as a computer that can perform 64,000 calculations at once. Following the odd laws of quantum mechanics, the digital "bits" that race through its circuits will be able to stand for 0 or 1 at the same time, allowing the machine, eventually, to do work that is orders of magnitude more complex than what today's computers can do. "There are certain classes of problems that can't be solved with digital computers," said Herb Martin, the firm's CEO, over a decidedly-noisy digital cell phone. "Digital computers are good at running programs; quantum computers are good at handling massive sets of variables." The prototype is as big as a good-sized freezer, and a lot colder. It uses superconducting circuits that have to be refrigerated, close to absolute zero. That's the kind of temperature at which electrical resistance fades nearly to nothing (think of the heat generated by a conventional laptop), so that massive calculations can be done.

Scientists Create Clone From Hair Follicle Stem Cell

Researchers report this week that they have cloned mice using stem cells from the rodents' hair follicle region. "This work opens the door for generating embryonic stem cells (easier than cloning mice) from adult skin stem cells," said Elaine Fuchs, co-senior author of the paper and head of the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at Rockefeller University in New York City. "If researchers overcome the current technical hurdles of making human embryonic stem cells by nuclear cloning, it may one day be possible to generate tailor-made embryonic stem cells from a patient's skin stem cells," she said.

The brain scan that can read people's intentions

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act. The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future. The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way. "Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall," said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University. The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain imaging has been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying, violent behaviour and racial prejudice. The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuroscience is progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate into the ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology.

EU devices will dictate car speeds and gear changes

Motorists are to be forced to change the way they drive to help car manufacturers to meet strict new emission targets, the European Union announced yesterday. All new cars will be fitted with devices that tell drivers when to change gear, what speeds to drive at and even when to pump up their tyres. The introduction of new technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ordered by Brussels yesterday, could add more than £2,000 to the price of a typical family car, manufacturers said. But the European Union said this would be offset by a reduction in fuel bills. Brussels also dismissed industry claims that the plans put up to 12 million European jobs at risk.

New York to Test Ways to Prevent Nuclear Terror

New York City is about to become a laboratory to test ways of strengthening the nation’s defenses against a terror attack by a nuclear device or a radioactive “dirty bomb.” Starting this spring, the Bush administration will assess new detection machines at a Staten Island port terminal that are designed to screen cargo and automatically distinguish between naturally occurring radiation and critical bomb-building ingredients. And later this year, the federal government plans to begin setting up an elaborate network of radiation alarms at some bridges, tunnels, roadways and waterways into New York, creating a 50-mile circle around the city. The effort, which could be expanded to other cities if proven successful, is a major shift of focus for the Department of Homeland Security. As it finishes installing the first generation of radiation scanners at the nation’s ports and land border crossings, the department is trying to find ways to stop a plot that would use a weapon built within the United States.

Raytheon Unveils ID Card, Fortifying RFID With Biometrics

The Intelligence and Information Systems business division of government defense, aviation and technology company Raytheon has unveiled a new RFID-based identification card. Dubbed the PAD—whic