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Items by Alexis Madrigal

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10 Gory Surgical Triumphs on YouTube

Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 6:21pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Not for the squeamish! And some of it is NSFW. These 10 videos contain some of the most grisly, graphic and gripping minutes on the internet. From a leg amputation to a sex-change operation, step into the operating room and watch surgeons at work.
Old, Brutal Surgeries Inspire Elegant Modern Devices

Posted: April 1st, 2009, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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New venture-capital-backed companies are looking into the history of brutal surgeries and physical knowledge of the body to come up with new treatments. Using new medical-device technology, they're getting the same results as surgeons from the '30s and '40s without all the nasty cutting and sawing.
Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion

Posted: March 30th, 2009, 10:30pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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The deformed fossil skull of a child suggests that our ancient ancestors cared for disabled children. The 530,000-year-old skull is from a child who was at least 5 years old at death, and the severity of the skull deformity indicates the child would have needed extra care to survive that long.
Bad News: Scientists Make Cheap Gas From Coal

Posted: March 26th, 2009, 6:45pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A new, more efficient process for turning coal into liquid fuel uses less energy. That could make the environmentally unfriendly fuel more feasible to adopt than cleaner alternatives.
Scientists Crawl the Web to Foretell Ecosystem Collapse

Posted: March 20th, 2009, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Researchers hope to mine the internet for enough bits of information about the environment that they can identify ecosystems on the verge of collapse. Recognizing that people are good sensors, the experiment would add human observations to more official data from fisheries and other ecological reports to spot weakening systems.
Researchers Want to Add Touch, Taste and Smell to Virtual Reality

Posted: March 5th, 2009, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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British virtual reality researchers say they have a scheme that could trick your brain into believing in the "realness" of a simulation by carefully stimulating all five of your senses at the same time. And no, it's not quite as dirty as it sounds.
How NPR Stays on Air as Sun Blanks Sat Transmission

Posted: February 27th, 2009, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Twice a year, the sun knocks NPR's geosynchronous satellite off the air for a few minutes, but does it even matter in the age of digital radio?
Without Tears, Is There Still Sadness?

Posted: February 24th, 2009, 7:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A new study finds that photoshopping the tears out of pictures of crying people transforms how viewers interpret what they see. The emotional read of the pictured faces changes considerably.
Carbon Burial Research Grows as Huge Experiment Begins

Posted: February 15th, 2009, 9:07pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A new carbon sequestration project, sponsored by the Department of Energy, is underway in Illinois. It's a sign of the agency's continued support for the controversial climate-change tech.
The Hunt for E.T. Comes Home to Earth

Posted: February 15th, 2009, 2:15pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Some scientists think our best bet for finding alien life forms is in our own terra firma. If life evolved independently more than once on Earth, finding this "weird life" could be as easy as hunting in the most unusual places on the planet, such as unexplored deep sea vents.
Cross Words: Talking About Bad Feelings Helps Control Them

Posted: February 15th, 2009, 1:30am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Talking about your feelings might not be a self-indulgent exercise. New psychological research suggests that the mere act of naming your negative feelings helps your brain control their impact on you.
Think You'd Remember the Face of Your Torturer? Think Again

Posted: February 14th, 2009, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Human memories can change when fed misinformation. A new study of prisoners in a mock prisoner-of-war camp showed they often didn't remember the people who interrogated them if they were shown a picture of someone else.
Global Shipping Industry Makes World Flat, Biologically

Posted: February 13th, 2009, 9:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The global shipping industry makes it so easy for organisms to trot the globe, it's destroying the geographic patterns that fuel evolution. The problem is acute in the Great Lakes region, which could be a major problem for the area's economy, according to scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting.
First Near-Full Face Transplant a Success

Posted: February 13th, 2009, 3:20pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A woman with a transplant to reconstruct 80 percent of her face recovers her sense of smell and other basic functions. The plastic surgeon explains the procedure and its results at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
Suntan Drug Greenlighted for Testing

Posted: January 29th, 2009, 5:25pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A pill that tans your pasty flesh has been approved for testing, but you'll still have to drag yourself to the beach for the time being.
FDA OKs First Human Trials of Embryonic Stem Cells

Posted: January 23rd, 2009, 4:10pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The day after Barack Obama's inauguration, the Food and Drug Administration approves the first clinical trial of a treatment derived from embryonic stem cells, a major boost for a biotech industry that languished under Bush administration regulations.
Gallery: Robotic Sub Installs Deep-Sea Webcam

Posted: January 22nd, 2009, 8:25pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired Science brings you on-the-spot coverage of a robotic submarine rover installing a deep-sea webcam on the floor of Monterey Bay, California, that will bring scientists unprecedented views of the bioluminescent creatures that live deep in the ocean.
U.N. Says 'No,' Climate Hackers Say, 'Yes We Can'

Posted: January 9th, 2009, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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In defiance of a United Nations moratorium, a German and Indian expedition is heading toward Antarctica to experiment with fertilizing the open ocean with iron. They hope to find out if plankton can help pull CO2 out of the air and sequester it in the deep ocean.
Self-Replicating Chemicals Evolve Into Lifelike Ecosystem

Posted: January 8th, 2009, 2:43pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Chemists have created a group of synthetic enzymes that self-replicate, compete and evolve like a natural ecosystem — just minus the life (as we know it).
Garage Invention Turns Restaurants Into Power Plants

Posted: January 7th, 2009, 6:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A garage inventor has built a new generator that converts a restaurant's used deep-fryer oil into electricity and hot water, and he says it could shave hundreds of dollars a month off your average Mickey D's utility bill.
Milky Way Now 50 Percent Larger, Astronomers Discover

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 6:23pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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New, more precise measurements of the Milky Way indicate that it's 50 percent more massive and spinning 100,000 miles an hour faster than previously thought. Scientists presented the discovery at the American Astronomical Society meeting.
Pink Iguana That Darwin Missed Holds Evolutionary Surprise

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 3:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A pink iguana overlooked by Charles Darwin turns up on the Galapagos Islands. The iguana's color isn't the only thing that distinguishes it from other iguana species: New research shows that it separated from the others genetically 5 million years ago, much earlier than most Galapagos species.
Nation's First 'Underwater Wind Turbine' Installed in Old Man River

Posted: December 23rd, 2008, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The first ever dam-less hydro-power plant splashed into the Mississippi River this week, after its giant turbine got the OK from government regulators.
High Times in Ag Science: Marijuana More Potent Than Ever

Posted: December 22nd, 2008, 2:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The THC content of marijuana is nearing 10 percent, setting a record for pot potency, reports the Department of Justice. Maybe this will settle that long simmering argument between you and your buddy, Nate.
Surfers Rejoice: Some Extreme Waves Getting Bigger

Posted: December 19th, 2008, 5:34pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Some of the biggest waves in the Pacific Northwest are getting even bigger, according to research presented Friday at the American Geophysical Union meeting. Scientists don't know why the waves have grown, or if wave heights in other parts of the world are increasing, but the big waves are a potential threat to coastal areas.
HD Eruption Video Gives Clues to How Volcanoes Work

Posted: December 19th, 2008, 2:45pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A high-definition video of an eruption shows new details of how volcanoes work. Scientists are learning about the mechanics of eruptions by connecting a frame-by-frame analysis of the video with seismic recordings.
Google Shutters Its Science Data Services

Posted: December 18th, 2008, 5:20pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Google quietly shuts down its fledgling scientific data service that would have helped scientists handle terabyte-size datasets. The move comes as a surprise to scientists who had been testing the service.
Could the Electric Grid Support Far More Wind and Solar?

Posted: December 18th, 2008, 3:27pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The U.S. power grid could likely handle much more than the 20 percent analysts have said is the maximum it could support without having technical problems, according to new research presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting.
World Coal Reserves Could Be a Fraction of Previous Estimates

Posted: December 17th, 2008, 6:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The world could have far less coal to burn in the coming decades than previously estimated, according to a new model from a Caltech engineer. The new data could transform the climate models that scientists use to estimate future global warming.
Oil Not the Climate Change Culprit — Coal Is the Real Bad Guy

Posted: December 17th, 2008, 2:54pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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New climate change projections presented Wednesday at the American Geophysical Society meeting support the idea that oil is not the worst global warming culprit. Coal is the real bad guy, and emissions are just a blip in comparison.
WiSci Event Tonight: Fossil Cities in the Distant Future

Posted: December 17th, 2008, 2:39pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired Science live event TONIGHT in San Francisco: Reporter Alexis Madrigal will be interviewing geologist Jan Zalasiewicz about what the human race's mark on the planet will look like 100 million years from now. Join us from 7 to 9 p.m. PST at Swissnex, located at 730 Montgomery Street.
Dark Energy Could Be Einstein's Cosmological Constant

Posted: December 16th, 2008, 3:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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New data from the X-Ray Chandra Observatory sheds light on dark energy, the enigmatic stuff that makes up almost three quarters of the universe. It appears dark energy has some weight -- and it looks a lot like Einstein's cosmological constant, which Einstein thought was an error.
Drillers Accidentally Create First Live Magma Observatory

Posted: December 16th, 2008, 2:28pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Drillers on Hawaii's big island who were working on a geothermal energy field hit an unexpected live magma chamber that could offer geologists insights into the poorly understood process of how the Earth's crust is formed.
Sun Induces Strange 'Breathing' of Earth's Atmosphere

Posted: December 15th, 2008, 7:17pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Satellite measurements have revealed a rhythmic expansion and contraction of the Earth's atmosphere that scientists think is caused by solar activity.
Lightning-Storm Gamma Rays Could Harm Air Travelers

Posted: December 15th, 2008, 4:34pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Gamma rays discovered in lightning storms could be intense enough to give air passengers radiation sickness, according to new research presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
Oil Consumption to Drop for First Time in 25 Years

Posted: December 11th, 2008, 4:21pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Oil use is slated to drop for the first time since 1983 when the collapse of oil prices hobbled biofuel research for decades. This time around may be different, with Barack Obama as president rather than Ronald Reagan.
MIT: Your Meteorologist Needs an Army of Drones

Posted: December 11th, 2008, 2:06pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles could soon be the newest tool in your heretofore always-wrong meteorologist's toolkit.
Dog Unto Others: Canines Have Sense of Fairness

Posted: December 8th, 2008, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Dogs know when they're getting the short end of the stick, according to new research out of the Clever Dog Lab in Austria. When a dog doesn't get the same reward for doing a trick as another dog, he's less likely to perform the behavior when asked again.
Food vs. Fuel: Saltwater Crops May Be Key to Solving Earth's Land Crunch

Posted: December 4th, 2008, 8:02pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Crops that thrive in salt water could alleviate the tension between food and biofuel farming. The salt-loving plants could grow in 480,000 square miles of land that is unfit for regular crops.
The First Aid? Iceman May Have Dressed His Own Wounds

Posted: December 1st, 2008, 6:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The 5,000-year-old iceman may have been his own doctor, according to a new analysis of his intestinal tract. Bog moss used to dress wounds as recently as the 20th century may have gotten into the digestive tract of Otzi the Tyrolean iceman, after being used to stanch a wound and then getting stuck to his fingers by blood.
Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner

Posted: November 25th, 2008, 8:33pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The size of the average American turkey has more than doubled in the last 80 years, at the expense of flavor. The corn, potatoes and likely everything else on your plate this Thanksgiving has also changed significantly since the Pilgrims sat down with Wampanoag Indians, and even since Lincoln invented the holiday in 1863.
How Biology and Technology Shape Sex and War

Posted: November 22nd, 2008, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The authors of the new book "Sex and War" talk with Wired Science how biology and technology have shaped violence and war in the past and likely will in the future.
Excerpt: Science Defines Future of War

Posted: November 22nd, 2008, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The future of war is filled with poison gas, germ warfare and nuclear weapons. Each technological change shapes the risk calculations of our primate brains.
Gallery: The First Decades of Seeing the Unseen

Posted: November 21st, 2008, 9:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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: Photo courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
What are the social consequences when science allows us to see things that had previously been invisible?
Scientists have revealed microscopic life, nanoscale molecules and galaxies billions of light-years away. These images have revolutionized the disciplines in which they were made, but they also transformed the public's imagination, giving common people new things to think and dream about.
The intertwined social, scientific and artistic impacts of 19th century photography is the subject of a new exhibit, Brought to Light Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900, at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art.
This gallery looks at some of the more astounding images and stories from the exhibit.

Left:
Hermann Schnauss, Electrograph of a brass wire gauge, 1900 As the men of industry attempted to harness electricity for profit, the public — which knew electricity primarily as lightning — had to be persuaded that this powerful, invisible force was something to invite into their homes. Electrographs like this one, produced by exposing a photographic negative with electricity, helped the public visualize and understand the mysterious electromagnetic waves that scientists were discovered populating the air.
"This is a moment where [scientists] are trying to harness electricity for practical purposes, but the general public was kind of skeptical," said Corey Keller, curator of the Brought to Light exhibit. "Their experiences with electricity were generally through lighting, which they knew could burn things down and kill you, if you weren't careful. So a great deal of time and money was spent trying to make electricity understandable and approachable."
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
In the early history of photography, capturing motion was out of the question. The photographic negatives of the time were not sensitive enough to light to be exposed over the short time periods required to capture fast action.
"If you look at 19th century cityscapes, you would think that Armageddon had taken place. You don't see any people," Keller said. "It's not that they aren't there, it's just that they don't show up because they walked through too quickly."
But by the end of the 1870s, more sensitive negatives brought motion within reach. Edward Muybridge was one of the first photographers to take advantage of the new abilities.
In this photo, we see one of Muybridge's motion studies: two men boxing in jock straps. Historians note that despite the scientific trappings, Muybridge's work was just art; it did not produce good scientific evidence about bodies' movements.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
The ability to capture motion in photography opened up a previously invisible source of scientific data. Etienne-Jules Marey was a scientist trying to understand biomechanics, or the motion of the body, and he used photography to acquire information he couldn't get any other way, as in this photograph of a man on a stationary bicycle.
"What happens in this picture is that each split second exposure is layered on top of each other, so you get the sense of the full arc of the motion," Keller said. "And he's put a piece of tape down the arm and torso and the leg where the joints articulated, so as the leg went around and around the whole pedal stroke is outlined."
This wasn't just to create beautiful pictures; Marey was on a committee in France to improve the ergonomics of the newly popular bicycle.
"So by studying the motion of the leg, he would have been able to improve the engineering of the bicycle," Keller concluded.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
While forward-looking scientists like Marey were using photography to understand, for example, how animals moved, as in this photo, others were less enthused about this new technology.
In particular, photographers' ability to capture images beyond what the human eye could perceive called into question an important tenet of 19th century science.
"What's amazing is that this is a moment where empirical observation in science is the most important thing, that idea of objective observation. And this kind of photography proved how completely useless a human observer was," said Keller. "So you end up with this photographic data that cant' be corroborated in any other way. It exists independently of any kind of perceptual experience."
Technology's ability to capture detail and motion more accurately than our eyes has only accelerated, of course, as anyone who has seen incredible ultra-slow-motion YouTube videos can attest.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
When William Roentgen announced his discovery of X-rays, a photo of his wife's hand accompanied his paper as it made its way into the scientific community.
Over the next few years, images like this one of a skeletal hand with the ring came to symbolize X-rays. Practically, the hand is relatively flat and therefore easy to X-ray, but it was the aesthetics and grim-reaper symbolism that Keller said hit a nerve with the upper classes.
"It became fashionable to have an X-ray portrait taken of your hand," she said, calling attention to x-ray hand portraits of the last tsar of Russia and his wife.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
The discovery of X-rays also touched off a lower-brow commercial craze. Within three months, DIY X-ray kits were available on the market. Photographers, who had access to most of the tools needed to make the images, began to train this new form of light on just about anything that might be beautiful.
"They were X-raying everything just to see what it looked like," Keller said.
One stunning example is this X-ray of a foot in a shoe from 1897. In fact, the connection between X-rays and extremities has remained strong. Even into the 1960s, shoe stores kept X-ray machines in their lobbies, both as marketing tools and to help their salesmen fit their patrons' feet correctly.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
Throughout the second-half of the 19th century, photographers strived to unite the camera with the telescope. The moon, in particular, held a lasting fascination for astronomers and artists alike.
Imaging the moon, after all, was an immensely difficult task. The Earth rotates and the moon is actually a relatively faint object. It wasn't until John Adams Whipple and George Phillips Bond figured out how to rotate their camera ever so slightly to cancel out Earth's movement that simple images of our only satellite became possible.
What's interesting is that despite the fascination with creating pictures of the moon, like this striking image created in Spain, the images didn't add much for science beyond what detailed drawings could already do.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
If you wanted close-up photos of the moon any time before the Apollo missions, you were pretty much out of luck. Unless, of course, you built incredibly detailed plaster models of lunar craters and then snapped carefully lit pictures of them. And that's exactly what an engineer and astronomer did in 1874 to tremendous acclaim.
James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer, and James Carpenter, then at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, released a hugely successful book, The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite, illustrated by their incredible moon mock-ups. The august journal Nature gave the book a rapturous review.
"No more truthful or striking representations of natural objects than those here presented have ever been laid before his readers by any student of Science," the reviewer wrote.
But what's really appealing about the images isn't their "truthfulness" but their "truthiness."
"Astronomers were perfectly aware of what they were looking at," Keller said. "But they felt that because they were photographed, it added a layer of authenticity to the undertaking that simple drawings didn't have."
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
At the other end of the scale of size from the moon, other photographers were pushing their discipline into the microscopic realm. They had to devise new emulsion chemistries and types of equipment to capture clear images of tiny things.
Leading the charge was Auguste-Adolphe Bertsch, who worked to overcome any challenge that scientists threw at him. Unfortunately, he died during social unrest in France in 1871, and his images lay in a photographic archive until Keller brought them to the US for the exhibition.
: Photo courtesy SFMOMA
Even as they solved technical challenges, the photomicrographers faced social resistance. The idea of representing a specific living thing instead of a generalized abstraction of an organism forced scientists to let go of long-held notions about their discipline.
"Prior to the 19th century, the scientific illustrations tend to represent a type, an ideal. So if you were going to do a picture of a flower, for example, the illustrator would look at 20 flowers and then take the common features and make an ideal flower," said Keller. "So, if that particular one happens to have a defective petal or something peculiar to it, you never really know: Does that photograph substitute then for that type of flower in general, or does it only represent that one specimen?"
While it may have posed a challenge for scientists of the 19th century, it's the unique nature of each photograph taken during this early period that wows us, even now.
NASA Test-Fires Next-Gen Ejector Seat

Posted: November 21st, 2008, 3:33pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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NASA test-fires its next-generation ejector seat, sending flames shooting into the Utah desert. Designed to get the crew of the space shuttle's replacement as far away from the launch vehicle as possible in case of an emergency, the motor delivers half a million pounds of thrust, expelling nearly all its fuel in just three seconds.
Fake Lunar Photos Sent Astronomers Over the Moon

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 7:53pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Mocked-up photos of models of the moon's surface in the 19th century were widely acclaimed for their authenticity, and inspired astronomers to do better with the real thing.
X-Ray Discovery Sparked 19th-Century DIY Craze

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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After the discovery of the X-ray in 1895, princes and paupers X-ray everything within reach "just to see what it looked like." The curator of a new exhibit on early scientific photography at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art explains in this multimedia slide show.
Alt Energy Is Expensive, but Coal May Soon Be Worse

Posted: November 14th, 2008, 5:24pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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An EPA panel's ruling that blocks a Utah coal plant from expanding, coupled with a court order to set a nationwide standard for carbon dioxide emissions, may make coal plants more expensive to operate than alternative energy installations.
Extreme Resolution Photos and Lasers Create Virtual Yosemite

Posted: October 31st, 2008, 12:45am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Geologists use a 40-foot long, 96-GB photo mosaic of Yosemite with airborne laser mapping to learn what causes rock falls. Eventually they hope to predict where slides may occur.
Want a Chimp? Endangered Animals for Sale Online

Posted: October 21st, 2008, 4:11pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Endangered animals including chimps, rhinos and tigers, as well as elephant ivory are being bought and sold online, according to a new report. Ebay announces Monday it will start policing the illegal ivory trade on its site.
Video Podcast No. 8: Huge Toys for High-Tech Quake Survival

Posted: October 21st, 2008, 1:52pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired Science visits Berkeley's earthquake engineering research center, where scientists crush, shake and deform the walls, steel beams and columns that form our houses. Along the way, they've pioneered the technologies behind earthquake-proofing buildings.
Video: 192 Lasers, Nuclear Weapons, and Fusion Power

Posted: October 10th, 2008, 7:24pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired Science visits the high-security National Ignition Facility, which Department of Energy scientists hope will help manage the American nuclear weapons stockpile and provide the key to harnessing fusion power.

Wired.com
Climate Models Trump Financial Models Phew!

Posted: October 10th, 2008, 5:20pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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While earth scientists and investment bankers both employ data-heavy computer models, climate models are on much firmer ground than their shaky financial counterparts.

Wired.com
The Loneliest Organism on Earth

Posted: October 9th, 2008, 1:19pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Scientists discovered the only known ecosystem that consists of just one organism. Found in a gold mine in South Africa, the ecosystem could be a model for early life on Earth or other planets.

Wired.com
Bailout Bill Rife With Tasty Green Pork

Posted: October 8th, 2008, 7:10pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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The financial bailout bill that passed on Oct. 3 has a wide range of obscure green energy provisions, in addition to the better-known wind and solar credits, that seed the field for future green energy legislation.

Wired.com
U.N. Report Frames Biofuels for Rising Food Costs

Posted: October 7th, 2008, 4:30pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A new report from the United Nations lays much of the blame for rising fuel costs on biofuels, but the data in the report do not support that assertion. Biofuel production is just one factor among many and does not account for the majority of the cost increases.

Wired.com
Solar Goes From Gardens to Gigabucks

Posted: October 7th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A California company has a billion dollars worth of orders in hand for a new solar product that could soon blanket the tops of flat-roof buildings across the nation.

Wired.com
Gallery: Inside Secretive New Solar-Tech Factory

Posted: October 7th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com FREMONT, California -- Solar photovoltaics make up a tiny percentage of the world's power largely because they just cost too much. Burning fossil fuels remains cheaper than even the best solar panels. But Solyndra's new thin-film technology could substantially cut the cost of manufacturing and installing solar electricity, perhaps reaching the cost of standard power within a few years. The venture-backed company, which came out of stealth mode today, gave Wired.com access to their new whirring fab, installed in a former hard-drive factory. Most of the equipment was designed in-house by Solyndra's 500 employees with the aid of more than $600 million in venture capital. "We've put a lot of effort into very sophisticated process control," Kelly Truman, VP of business development told Wired.com. "We design and build all the critical equipment in the factory ourselves." Left: Solyndra's solar modules enter the factory as simple glass tubes a few feet long, seen here awaiting a special cleaning process. : Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Designed with automation in mind, the factory's many robots do much of the work in transporting the panels of glass tubes around the floor. : Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com The glass tubes are dipped in a series of solutions including coatings of copper indium gallium diselenide, known as CIGS. Here we see finished tubes, which have lost their transparency. : Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com As the panels receive...

Wired.com
Mobile Dirty-Bomb Detectors Patrolling in New Jersey

Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 1:49pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Nuclear Chemists at Livermore Lab have designed a mobile radiation detecting truck that can spot a sand-grain-sized amount of radioactive material 12-feet away at 45 miles per hour. The trucks have been deployed in New Jersey for a year and in one other unidentified western state.

Wired.com
Video Podcast: Happy Penguin Tech

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 6:11pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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In this Wired Science video podcast, we delve into the technology necessary to keep penguins happy at the California Academy of Sciences' new African penguin display.
Hurricane Ike Storm Surge Risk Maps

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 5:09pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Hurricane Ike is set to hit Galveston, Texas late Friday night. Forecasters fear the flooding from the surge could be devastating. Here, we present worst-case scenario storm surge maps provided to Wired Science by a risk management firm.
Maps: Storm Surge Risk From Tropical Storm Gustav

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 6:30pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Storm surge maps developed by a insurance risk management firm show that Tropical Storm Gustav, if it continues strengthening, could have a devastating impact wherever it hits along the Gulf Coast.
Mars Phoenix Heads Into Extra Innings

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 12:03am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Having finished its nominal mission time of 90 days this week, Mars Phoenix enters extra innings as one of NASA's most successful missions, even if it didn't discover evidence for past or present life on Mars. Review the mission with this story and interactive timeline.
Tropical Storm Gustav Takes Aim at U.S. Energy Infrastructure

Posted: August 27th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Three days before the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, the Gulf of Mexico braces for another storm that could hit the energy industry particularly hard. Kinetic Analysis Corporation, a disaster risk-management company, estimates that there is a one-in-three chance that Gustav will hit with sufficient force to shut down 10 percent or more of total U.S. oil production this year.
Bolt's Record Tests Theories of Human Speed

Posted: August 25th, 2008, 5:10pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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As astonishing as Usain Bolt's record-breaking 100-meter sprint was, his time of 9.69 seconds is nowhere near what biostatisticians predict is the natural limit for the human body. But because he broke the mathematical model that had fit 100-meter record data for almost a century, Bolt's incredible performance could reset how fast researchers believe humans ultimately can run.
How the Soviets Drilled the Deepest Hole in the World

Posted: August 25th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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In the Cold War '60s, as the space race heated up, another race began: to the center of the earth.
Well, perhaps the Soviets and Americans couldn't drill quite that deep, but they could try to get to the so-called Moho, more formally the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, the theorized but much-disputed boundary between the mostly solid crust and the magma-filled mantle.
After the launch of an American drilling program to reach the boundary, the Russians joined the race to drill the deepest hole in the world.
"Between 1960 and 1962, the combination of economic interest and national pride during the Space Race period inspired scientists of the Soviet Union to plan drilling a "Russian Mohole" whose objective was to reach the Mohorovicic Discontinuity before the American drilling program," Dean Dunn writing in the book, Science of the Earth.
The original goal was soon subsumed by the desire to learn more about how valuable ores formed, so the hopes of the Russian effort eventually landed in the middle-of-nowhere mining region, Pachenga. There, the Soviets drilled the deepest hole in the history of the world, more than 7 miles deep.
At the Kola Institute, pictured, the Russians drilled for more than 15 years to reach a crust depth of 40,226 feet, a record that's never been broken. But however successful the mission was as an exploration, the geological findings from the site remain murky and obscured by the way they emanated out of the fading Soviet scientific machine.
Stanford geologist and drilling expert, Mark Zoback, said that the Kola borehole was "an anomaly" even within the rather grandiose field of superdeep drilling projects.

Photo: Kola Institute
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The process for drilling a borehole is conceptually simple. A rotary drill bit, like this one, is placed into a shaft. When it reaches the bottom, a powerful motor destroys the bottom of the hole and the hole grows deeper. Fluids are circulated into and out of the hole to cool the drill and maintain the stability of the borehole. When a bit is worn out, it's swapped out.
Though the basics are well-known, superdeep drilling is a difficult enterprise. The Soviets encountered a host of technical problems drilling so deep into the earth's surface. Foremost is the high heat that deep in the crust. The Kola engineers, working with limited resources, came up with cooling processes and dozens of special bits that could work at temperatures of over 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

Photo: Kola Institute
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The Soviet drilling program began in the early '60s and continued all the way through the slow dissolution of the USSR. But the geopolitical circumstances of the day have kept much of the work shrouded in mystery. Despite the publication of a now out-of-print and hard-to-obtain book, The Superdeep Well of the Kola Peninsula, edited by Yevgeny Kozlovsky, a Soviet minister of geology, little of the project's data has ever made it out of Russia.

Photo: Kola Institute
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The workers of Kola, like those pictured here with a piece of the drill, also had to live in the remote region. In fact, a sort of company town sprung up around the superdeep hole. As described in the Kozlovsky-edited tome:
"Sanitary facilities and shower rooms, a first-aid station, a canteen to cater for staff day and night, a meeting hall and rooms for preventative medical aid provide normal living conditions for the operating personnel of the rig."

Photo: Kola Institute
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Here we see the Kola Institute's technological control room. The computers you see were the hub for data coming up from miles below. As computer technology advanced and the drilling became more complex, the Soviets began to monitor dozens of data points ranging from simple depth measures to a variety of measures for how hard the drill was working.

Photo: Kola Institute
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While drilling programs were being conducted across the globe -- notably in Germany -- the Soviet team created their own custom tools, like these alloy drill pipes. Because they were literally boring to unseen depths, the method they usually employed was trial and error. That goes a long way toward explaining how unusually long the project took.
Still, Kozlovksy bragged, "The complex scientific-technological experiment of the Kola superdeep drilling was accomplished solely by Soviet technology and technique."

Photo: Kola Institute
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The deep drilling programs were part of a concerted effort by some geologists to get funding for the large-scale facilities, like Kola's Byzantine machinery, that were delivering such spectacular results for astronomers. As recorded in the book, Super-Deep Continental Drilling and Deep Geophysical Sounding, Karl Fuchs made the space analogy explicit in his opening remarks to a conference on Kola and superdeep drilling.
"Earth science have [sic] a telescope: deep drilling and deep geophysical probing!" Fuchs said. "Are we dedicated enough to use this telescope to go beyond our present limitations, to reach for new frontiers of the earth sciences."

Photo: Kola Institute
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Kola's engineers could swap out drill bits depending on the type of rocks they were trying to move through. They describe a dozen types of core heads such as the KC-212.7/60 TKZ-NU, which "is designed for low rpm drilling in hard rock interbedded with extremely hard rocks." Most of the bits had four roller-cones, like this one, while some had six.

Photo: Kola Institute
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Even though drilling deeper became impossible, the Kola well remains open and structurally intact. Rocks from the hole -- known as cores -- are even still stored at the institute. Instruments still take seismic and other measurements, but state resources have ebbed away from the institute to other geologists who have helped build Russia's oil and gas production. The country now produces about 9.7 million barrels of oil a day, up from 6.1 million back in 1998.

Photo: Kola Institute
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The Kola borehole produced a wealth of seismic measurements, cores from deep within the Earth, and intriguing results that there might be liquid water in the depths of the earth.
Yet for all the effort and years of drilling, modern American and European geologists don't often reference or use Kola data, preferring the more tightly regulated information generated by Germany's KTB deep-coring program. Findings from Kola were just never systematically presented enough for Western scientists.
It raises the question: Why put all that effort in to ultimately produce little of value to global science? Zoback, the Stanford geologist, said Kola's goals weren't as defined as those of some other projects, perhaps because the project was more about the triumph of just doing than about a particular scientific objective.
"You have to acknowledge the fact that it may have been the sense of discovery, the idea that they might discover something [that drove them]," he said.
Or maybe, as the old minister of geology, Kozlovsky, explained in the introduction to the book on Kola, perhaps geology was just a Russian thing.
"The Soviet Union has always been more consistent in carrying out large-scale studies of the structure and regularities of the evolution of the continental crust than other countries," he wrote. "This is a deeply rooted tradition in our country, and it is still very much alive."

Photo: Kola Institute
Large Hadron Collider Begins Testing

Posted: August 10th, 2008, 12:30am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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The Large Hadron Collider, soon-to-be the world's most powerful atom smasher, begins testing this weekend.
UAVs Search for Scientific Silver Lining in Beijing Pollution Clouds

Posted: August 9th, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A professor begins sending unmanned aerial vehicles into the pollution clouds emanating from Beijing to measure the impacts of the government's industrial shutdowns and traffic bans on the region surrounding Beijing.
Gallery: Rain Forest, Coral Reef and Planetarium Under One Green Roof

Posted: August 5th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Academy of Sciences is practicing what they preach.

The organization's new 410,000-square-foot eco-friendly facility in Golden Gate Park is a living, breathing science experiment. The Renzo Piano-designed structure is the only building in the world to house a planetarium, museum of natural history and aquarium under the same roof. It's a fitting home for the 155-year-old academy and a proper tribute to the science wonders in its collections.

Click through the gallery for a sneak preview of this gorgeous building, which features a rain forest biodome, a coral reef, an underwater tunnel and one of the greenest roofs ever built. You can check it out in person on opening day, Sept. 27, 2008.

Left: The rain forest biodome is kept hot and humid with special lighting and atmospheric control systems. It has four levels designed to mimic different rain forest environments. A 100,000-gallon tank serves as home to Amazonian river dwellers. Stacked on top of it, and accessible via curving ramps, are biomes patterned on habitat in Borneo, Madagascar and Costa Rica.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The central plaza of the building features an open roof, seen in the center of this photo. The design isn't just for show; it's a key part of the building's natural ventilation system, which CAS hopes will keep energy costs down for the enormous building.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The "green roof" on the CAS building spans 2.5 acres and uses a complicated rainwater catchment system to reduce its water needs. Planted only with plants native to Northern California, the lines of rocks visible in this picture will help prevent erosion. The CAS planetarium sits underneath the "hill" to the far left.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The planetarium sits atop the coral reef tank. Seven high-definition projectors will provide an immersive space trip beginning in San Francisco and zooming all the way through space to the edges of the universe.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The circular windows in the roof automatically open and close to help regulate the temperature of the building.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The coral reef tank visible here is partially heated by high-powered lights placed close to the water. The lights are like football stadium lights that have been tuned to more closely emulate the sunlight that the coral needs.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
This pulley system will be used to lower alligators into the so-called Swamp exhibit at the back of the museum.
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The reef exhibit features the deepest coral colonies created by human beings. The corals were grown off-site and delivered into position by scuba-diving biologists.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
This ugly mug belongs to Bocolo, the museum's 35-year-old giant sea bass, a species native to the coast of California.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
This 25-foot tunnel underneath the Amazonian flooded-forest tank allows visitors to gaze up at the anacondas, piranhas and giant catfish in the exhibit.

Little-known fun fact: Most piranha species, including the fish in the tank, are actually vegetarians. Pity the fool papaya that falls into this tank though, because the herbivorous fish can still take care of business.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The view from inside the tunnel underneath the Amazonian flooded-forest exhibit. Until all the fish species are introduced into the tank, the ecosystem is slightly out of balance, resulting in the out-of-control algal growth you see here.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The rainforest biodome is a fascinating mix of natural and human-produced parts. Live trees intermingle with concrete habitat, small exhibit spaces and humidifiers. Natural rainforest sounds will be piped into the space via special randomized algorithms.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
When this area opens to the public, birds and butterflies will be released to fly free within the 90-foot dome.
: Photo: Annaliza Savage/Wired.com
The Tusher African Center is a room filled with dioramas featuring stuffed animals like these antelope, which are still under wraps. The academy has had these specimens since they underwent preservation decades ago.

To touch them up for the new building, they were sent to a taxidermy cleaning center, where they were essentially dry-cleaned to look like new. But not all the dioramas feature stuffed animals: The academy's live African penguin exhibit also makes its home in the center.
Sensors, Photos Prove Beijing's Anti-Smog Efforts Failing

Posted: August 4th, 2008, 8:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Despite major efforts by the Chinese government to clean up Beijing's air ahead of the Olympics, independent sensors and photographs confirm that the anti-smog program is having little impact.
Rumors Abound About 'Potential for Life' on Mars

Posted: August 3rd, 2008, 2:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired Science investigates the rumors flying this weekend that Mars Phoenix has made a major discovery relating to the potential for life on Mars
The Digg Science Review, Volume 2

Posted: August 2nd, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired Science contributors, Brandon Keim and Alexis Madrigal, help you parse the headlines for the top 20 science stories on Digg in this weekly series.
Cheap Catalyst Could Turn Sunlight, Water Into Fuel

Posted: July 31st, 2008, 2:33pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A new, cheap catalyst developed by MIT chemists could make storing the energy from solar panels feasible.
Study Promises Benefits of Exercise in a Pill

Posted: July 31st, 2008, 11:02am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Scientists say that a pill designed to mimic exercise's intracellular impacts increased the endurance of out-of-shape mice by 44 percent.
New Geoengineering Scheme Tackles Ocean Acidification, Too

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A geoengineering scheme that could fight ocean acidification and climate change has resurfaced -- and it's got some early backing from a big oil company.
Seafloor Zombie Microbes May Look Like Exo-Organisms

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Primitive organisms found on the sea floor have a metabolism so slow that it might be more accurate to call them undead rather than alive. And how they live may be a model for how life might survive on Mars or a Jovian moon.
'Tongue Drive' Controls Computers and Wheelchairs

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 11:36am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Researchers at Georgia Tech have created a new control system that could allow severely disabled people to control computers and wheelchairs by moving their tongues -- taking advantage of the tongue's agility and nearly direct connection to the brain.
Pigeons: The Next Step in Local Eating (No, Really)

Posted: July 18th, 2008, 6:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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With global demand for meat threatening to topple the food system, it's time we put Pollan on steroids and remembered: pigeons are fowl.
Gallery: VC Money Drives Solar-Tech Innovation Around the World

Posted: July 18th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- Despite uneven support from the U.S. government, solar power is experiencing a global explosion. Concerns over climate change and rising energy prices have driven billions of dollars into developing the efficiency and variety of technologies that capture power from the sun.

And we're not just talking about new photovoltaic panels. The entire production chain is being re-engineered, from materials to manufacturing process to solar tracking.

Check out the hottest advances in sun-energy harvesting on display at this week's Intersolar North America conference.

Left:

China's Red-Hot Solar Water Tech

These strange-looking pipes are actually part of a solar hot-water heater produced by the Chinese company WesTech. Stick these on your roof, and they collect heat energy from the sun, heating the water inside, and insulating like a thermos to keep warm.

While U.S. residential setups usually employ other, more-expensive technologies, Chinese systems often just use evacuated tubes like these. Lower price points have helped drive the Chinese domestic market: An estimated one in 10 Chinese households owns one. And now, Chinese companies with big manufacturing capacity are trying to bring their low-cost tech to the United States.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
Solar-panel placement is like sunbathing: You want maximum exposure to the sun's most direct rays. That’s the idea behind this rotating rack for solar panels. As the sun moves across the sky, the superstructure and circular track rotate to keep the panels in the most direct sunlight.

SunCarrier (pictured) and RW Energy, which make similar systems, claim the rigs increase the efficiency of solar panels by 30 percent.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
Photovoltaics have long been the province of scientists and green idealists. That's one reason why less than 1 percent of the world's energy is derived from solar power. To make a dent in the world energy market, solar players are going to have to scale up -- and fast.

One major way, said Ian Chen of Multicontact, which makes solar-panel connectors, is the way industry has always done it: automation. It's not just "doing the same process you've been doing in a garage but at a larger scale," he said. To cut costs and increase production, solar companies are having to design processes for automation from the ground up.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
This machine from Adept uses machine vision and a vacuum to pluck solar cells off a conveyor belt. This speedy, spidery robot -- the Quattro -- can be had for under six figures, according to Jay Sacharia, the company's head of corporate marketing.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
You could be staring at the future of solar power. SolFocus' concentrating solar panels use mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a small amount of highly efficient photovoltaic material. First, the primary mirror -- the curved backstop -- concentrates the light onto a smaller mirror that you can see the back of in the image. That second mirror bounces the light down the unit's optical rod to the waiting PV cell.

The setup allows SolFocus to capture light over a large area while keeping costs down. How much? Stephanie Southerland, head of corporate development, said the company's goal is "cost parity with fossil fuels by 2010." Talk like that has tickled investors' imaginations: They've already poured $95 million into the company through two rounds of financing.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
Lumeta's new solar panels are the first "solar stickers." Developed by a roofing-and-construction company for easy installation, contractors simply peel-and-stick the panels onto flat roofs. While the panels are lighter than traditional racked systems, they lose the optimal angle to the sun by sticking flat on the roof. Lumeta COO Stephen Torres told Wired.com in May that this downside costs his company's panels about 5 percent of their power production.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
"Integrated solar" has been a catch phrase for a long time. It refers to solar panels that can be manufactured directly into buildings and products. At the conference, Global Solar was showing off a thin-film, building-integrated product it calls PowerFlex Solar Strings. These striplike solar cells offer 70 to 90 watts per meter of material, according to the company.

Global Solar also uses its technology in solar chargers like the one pictured, which generates 6.5 watts and goes for about $100. Charles Gambill, the company's corporate product director, said it could charge a cellphone in two to three hours. And most important, it looks just like Wall-E's fold-up charger.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
Considering that Intersolar was held in conjunction with Semicon West, it's no surprise that semiconductor companies were crawling around the showroom floor. What was surprising was the buzz surrounding Applied Materials' entrance into the photovoltaic market.

One show participant, Nathan Singsen of SolarFrameWorks, even went so far as saying, "Applied Materials will probably take over the whole solar industry." Chris Beitel, Applied Materials' thin-film manager, would probably agree. He argues that Applied's experience scaling and optimizing semiconductor production will be directly applicable to similar problems in PV. "We can go to a new level of scale."

As proof, Applied showed off this extra-large thin-film panel, which Signet Solar manufactured with Applied technology. Solar companies appear to buy the rap: Beitel said they've already signed $3 billion worth of contracts.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
As solar companies receive more venture capital, they can afford to invest in new materials that could drive innovation. That's where Agilent's Nano Indenter comes into play. It measures the mechanical properties, like stiffness and elasticity, of ultrathin materials. The indenter presses on the material at nanoscale and measures the shape and nature of the impression that it makes.
: Photo: Emily Lang/Wired.com
Silicon wafers have to be sliced and diced in order to become the chips that go into your PC and phone. A similar process has to occur to make solar cells. Chipmakers used to use diamond blades, but the German company Jenoptik has a new way: thermal laser-beam separation. The company's representatives said using lasers instead of diamonds provides a cleaner cut, which reduces the amount of wasted material.
22 iPhone Apps for Science Geeks

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 3:44pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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We highlight 22 iPhone apps for the fancy phone-toting science lover.
Ambitious California Emissions Plan Could Boost Economy, Chart National Policy

Posted: June 26th, 2008, 8:30pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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California's blueprint for slashing greenhouse-gas emissions could transform the world's seventh-largest economy -- and be a model for a nationwide plan in 2009.

The state presented its plan Thursday morning to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by about 30 percent by 2020. Based on legislation passed in 2006, the state is proposing a slate of changes including a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, a requirement that renewable sources power one-third of the state's grid, and taxes on gas-guzzling cars. The state's approach could become a model for the nation, if climate-change legislation of some sort gets passed by Congress and is signed by the next president in 2009 -- as is widely expected.

The state anticipates that implementing the plan will not only attack climate change, but also provide a net benefit to the California economy.

"Setting California ahead of the curve on global warming will give our state a competitive advantage," said Mary Nichols, chair of the Air Resources Board.

That conclusion flies in the face of conventional wisdom that the costs of combating climate change will be high, perhaps several percent of a country's total economic output. That said, most of the debate over the costs of climate change and mitigation has been until now slightly more sophisticated than back-of-the-napkin calculations.

California's Air Resources Board, on the other hand, undertook a detailed, near-term look at the state's infrastructure to decide exactly how to get emissions cuts without economic pain. It was required to do so by the groundbreaking AB32, the "Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006," signed into law in September of that year.

If California's numbers hold up to scrutiny, it could be a major boost for the proponents of fighting climate change.

"The key thing with the AB32 scoping plan is that it really helps California create green jobs, green dollars and a clean environment," said Spencer Quong, a Union of Concerned Scientists analyst.
Quong also noted that consumers stand to economically benefit. The state estimates that car owners will save about $30 per month if all the plan's car regulations are deemed legal.
One intriguing way that California made the numbers look prettier was to include the health benefits of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Cutting down emissions could save over 300 lives and up to $2.4 billion dollars, ARB staffer Edie Chang said. The savings would come mostly from decreasing asthma and lost-work days.
Despite the overall triumphant tone that colored the unveiling of the long-awaited plan, there are some areas where environmentalists, green-tech types and old-line industries continue to disagree.
As with national legislation battles, the issue of emission permits is looming large. In a cap-and-trade system, the government sells or gives away permits to discharge a certain amount of CO2 into the air. As you might expect, utilities and industry want to get these permits for free, while most public advocates and environmentalists want the state to sell the permits, then use the proceeds for green-tech investment or taxpayer refund.
"We think that auctioning is a key element of a plan" that maximizes the public interest, said Chris Busch, another Union of Concerned Scientists analyst.
Meanwhile the industry countered that they would need the permits given to them so that they could make the necessary changes to their businesses to keep costs for consumers low.
"Auction revenues, which are a very scary thing for us ... should be left 100 percent in the hands of those utilities," Bruce McLaughlin, representing the California Municipal Utility Association, told the board.
The issue is unlikely to go away, but most seem to expect somewhere between 25 and 75 percent of the permits to eventually be auctioned.
That number could be the standard that John McCain or Barack Obama looks to when he signs a bill that puts a price on carbon, as either is expected to do if elected.
In that way, the nitty-gritty details of a board meeting in Sacramento could end up having a major impact on the entire globe.

"We believe that this scoping plan is going to be an important milestone, an important framework for other states," said Nichols, the board chair.
Video: Watch Fire Researchers Torch Homes, Offices and Warehouses

Posted: June 21st, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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To model how flames turn buildings into ashes, the nation's leading fire researchers don't play with matches over the sink. Instead they burn down entire homes, cubicles and warehouses.

At the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies, researchers set huge fires under a 40-foot-long by 30-foot-wide exhaust hood that is connected to an $8 million control unit.

Using measurements of oxygen consumption, the researchers can precisely determine the temperatures inside the room as well as the heat-release rates of different materials. Then, using software like Fire Dynamics Simulator and Smokeview, the researchers run virtual and real-world side-by-side comparisons of how combustion works.

By modeling the way flames and smoke travel under real conditions, the fire scientists are creating new strategies and technologies for fighting tough blazes.

In this video gallery, you'll see Christmas trees fires, dorm rooms ablaze, and cubicles melting.

Poor Bunny

In this clip, we see how quickly a dried out Scotch-pine Christmas tree can light a room on fire. Within 30 seconds, the room is engulfed in flames. According to the NIST, holiday trees account for more than 400 fires, 10 deaths and $15 million in property damage every year.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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At the end of the nerd-classic Office Space, Milton, the much-abused office loser, sets fire to the cubes of Penetrode, where the main characters work. Here, fire scientists give you an unintentional peek inside the movie's end. The video shows how quickly flames spread from ignition to a point known as flashover, when the room becomes engulfed in flame, in an open office plan.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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When you can't trust your college roommate not to accidentally drop a lit cigarette into a trash can, this video proves that you don't need to -- as long as your college has sprinklers installed.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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Following a six-fatality fire in Chicago in 2003, NIST modeled what happened on the 12th story of the Cook County Administration building. To understand how the fire got out of hand, the researchers measured the heat release rate of different components of the office building. In this video, we see four workstations with chairs in a 23-foot by 24-foot enclosure.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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Here's another video from the series of tests intended to model the Cook County Administration building fire. This time the researchers tested a single workstation that wasn't enclosed. Eventually, these tests helped NIST recommend safety changes that should prevent future fires from turning deadly in similar environments.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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Part of NIST's mission is to educate the public about how fires work. In this video, we watch as a living room goes from spark to flashover in mere minutes.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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When firefighters lit up this Phoenix warehouse, they employed infrared cameras, lasers, sonar, vibration sensors and video to look for clues about how to predict structural collapse. They didn't find any dead giveaways, even with all that tech, but their conclusions and data can be seen here (.pdf).

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
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For firefighters, one of the worst things that can happen is the building collapsing on top of them, so figuring out how and when that's going to happen has been a focus of NIST research. In this video, dummy firefighters on top of a burning house fall through the roof before being pulled out by ropes.

Video courtesy Daniel Madrzykowski
Regulators Take Aim at Infant DNA-Testing Industry

Posted: June 18th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the crowd today at BIO, the world's largest biotechnology conference, "If you have anything to do with biotech, California is one of the best places to set up shop."

But the actions and tough talk of his public health department have biotech companies in one of the most promising areas of the field -- genetic testing -- questioning whether they can do business in the state at all.

Last Monday, the state's laboratory field services group issued 13 cease-and-desist letters to genetic testing companies. Wired.com obtained a copy of the letters (pdf.) from two recipients. And a recent teleconference among regulatory officials confirms the seriousness of the department's intent.

"We [are] no longer tolerating direct-to-consumer genetic testing in California," Karen Nickles, Chief of Laboratory Field Services at the health department, told members of the Clinical Laboratories Advisory Committee on June 13.

Targeted companies include personal genomics startups 23andMe and Navigenics. These services are seen as the leading edge of a new type of health care in which consumers can use their genetic profile to tailor their medical and lifestyle choices. The established medical community, however, is wary of the technology arguing that the medical utility of some tests is unproven. Doctors also complain that direct-to-consumer services bypass them as the gatekeepers and analysts of medical information, which they worry could confuse consumers, not to mention cost them a billing event.

The health department's actions are a direct challenge to the viability of the infant DNA-testing industry, for which physician involvement is shaping up to be a major battleground. As far back as a September 2006 meeting, health department officials were voicing concerns over "nutrigenetic tests that analyze a limited number of genes to give personalized nutritional and lifestyle recommendations."

But genetic testing companies say they are "information services" that simply provide data about their customers' DNA. Genetic testing companies argue that they should be subject to a similar level of oversight as over-the-counter tests, like those available for determining paternity. Only New York requires a prescription for a paternity test.

The cease-and-desist letter, signed by Nickles, cites seven California statutes, beginning with the Business and Professions Code Section 1241, which requires that "all clinical laboratories in California ... possess a clinical laboratory license."

But the letter's strongest wording is reserved for a section of the law, Business and Professions Code Section 1288, which requires a doctor's note for all laboratory tests, unless, like pregnancy tests, they are specifically exempt from that law.

"Genetic tests are NOT exempt," the letter reads. "As such, the test must be ordered by a physician or surgeon."

Kristine Ashcraft, director of operations for another genetic testing company, Genelex, which was not sent a cease-and-desist letter, criticized New York's policy and the application of that framework to genetic testing in California.

"All they've done is created an extra billing event for the doctor," Ashcraft said.

As Navigenics CEO Mari Baker put it, "You hope [the health department officials] understand the difference between a genetic risk assessment and a diagnostic test."

Nevertheless, Baker says that her company has taken pains to involve a California-licensed physician in its process. Furthermore, she stated that her company outsources its laboratory work to Affymetrix, which does possess a licensed clinical laboratory in California. Affymetrix, we confirmed with a company source, was not served with a cease-and-desist letter.

In a June 13th health department conference call, officials stated that 25 "genetic businesses" were part of an extensive investigation.

In a summary of the regulatory action, Nickles said that 13 companies were to immediately cease testing and "desist from ever doing it again."

Nickles added that the state had talked with the state of New York, which sent similar letters, and looked forward to federal regulation.

While Nickles took issue with the testing business, she said that "public interest in personalized medicine" was driving the use of genetic information.

Though the health department has stated that the investigation of genetic testing companies came as a result of "multiple" consumer complaints -- no specific incidents were mentioned in the call.

DNATraits.com managing partner Bennett Greenspan, whose company received a letter from the health department, said that he didn't believe that consumer outcry sparked the investigation.

"If we could find out who put the bee in their bonnet, my guess it's the medical community," Greenspan said. "I think that the medical community doesn't want to lose control of who orders the test."

Reporter's note: No transcript or online version of the June 13 call is available, but interested parties can call 866-837-8032 and enter Access 123-9562 until July 8th to listen to a recording of the whole three-plus-hour call. (Be forewarned: There's no skipping ahead, and the genetic testing discussion follows a variety of procedural discussions before it gets to the relevant information.)
Gallery: Satellites Document War, Destruction From Outer Space

Posted: June 13th, 2008, 6:45pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
If your town was bombed out of existence, would anyone care?
If you live in one of the dusty, poor corners of the world, maybe not. Carnage in developing countries often goes unnoticed in the more wired, wealthy parts of the world.
That's where the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences' Geospatial Technology and Human Rights Project comes in. It is charged with using the latest in technology, primarily high-resolution satellite photography, to detect and call attention to possible human rights violations.
"I don't consider what we look at to be war in the sense that it's two armies [or] groups of soldiers. These things are slaughters, genocides, butchery and the like," said Lars Bromley, director for the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, who was profiled in Wired 15.12. "Women and children are the primary targets. It's rare we look at anything that approaches an actual battle."
This gallery presents a variety of before and after satellite photographs spanning the globe, including the most recent photographs from Ethiopia, which helped make the case for what Human Rights Watch declared "crimes against humanity" by government soldiers in the Ogaden region of the country. When before and after pictures are shown, the before shot is above the after shot.

Left: In this before-and-after sequence, you can see the aftermath of a visit by Ethiopian troops to the town of Labigah. In the after shot at the bottom, taken six months after the attack, Bromley's team counted dozens of destroyed buildings. Bromley believes that the blue-grey color of some rubble indicates the presence of ash.
"You still have apparent ash on the ground six months after the attack took place," he said. "It was probably a pretty significant burning event."
That's backed up by the team's ability to pull out the infrared signature from the raw satellite data, and in that spectrum, Bromley said that burned material has a distinctive spectral signature.
"Really what we do is stare at these things forever and verify each structure from one image to another," Bromley said.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
Burma's military junta has long been suspected of waging a campaign of repression against its political adversaries in the state of Keren, which borders Thailand. In April, Bromley got reports that the town you can see in the top left image had been attacked. During a break in the monsoon-season clouds, a satellite snapped this shot of the village's former site. All that remains of the village is burn scars.
"This place was attacked and wholesale burned to the ground, which is relatively rare for Burma," he said. "Most of the attacks are shelling and mining and shooting."
Despite presenting this evidence in the United Nations, which caused an international stir, the government in Burma, also known as Myanmar, remains in power.
"We're getting images of human misery on pretty much a daily basis and where do we go from here?" Bromley asked. "Governments are less confident that they can hide these things, but they are more confident they can get away with it."
The settlement in the image pair at left shows burn scars for about 12 to 14 structures. This corresponds with reported attacks in the area on April 22, 2007 (Lat: 18.54 N Long: 97.05 E).
The before image was taken on Dec 13, 2006. The after image is from June 24, 2007.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
In July 2006, intense fighting broke out between Israeli troops and the Hezbollah paramilitary group in Lebanon. As rockets rained down on northern Israel, the Israelis responded with a devastating aerial attack on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut.
Referring to the neighborhood pictured here, Bromley said, "The so-called Hezbollah suburb in Beirut is the most catastrophic destruction we've ever looked at."
A strange amendment to the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, which governs U.S. satellite image distribution, prevents the commercial distribution of high-resolution satellite images of Israel, so Bromley's team was unable to assess the damage that Hezbollah rockets did to Israeli towns. Human Rights Watch placed the death tolls of the short conflict at 1,200 Lebanese and 39 Israelis.
As an indication of scale, you can see a soccer field in the lower left-hand corner.
Pictured are close-up satellite images of part of Beirut City before (June 19, 2006) and after (August 12, 2006) attacks.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
Since coming to power in 1980, Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist. These aerial photographs show the erasure of the town of Porta Farm, a settlement that had the bad luck of being in a known opposition area. Bromley wryly called it Mugabe's version of "gerrymandering."
"He destroyed all the homes, because if you don't have a home, you're not gonna vote there," he said.
While seeing the destruction can be easy once you know where to look, finding areas in distress can be difficult. And once they are found, local informants have to be very careful to avoid getting caught distributing this type of information.
"We had really good communications with the people inside, [who were] writing to us on Hotmail accounts in the middle of the night, that kind of stuff," Bromley said.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
In February 2008, the Sudanese government launched a military campaign in Western Darfur to drive out rebels fighting under the name the Justice and Equality Movement. The images show the damage from a single town in the region, Abu Suruj. The areas in red show all of the areas that burned during the conflict.
A UN report on the attacks (.pdf) noted the Sudanese offensive included "aerial bombardments by helicopter gunships and fixed-wing aircraft." In addition to showing the ashy remains of homes, the close-up picture shows what is probably a rebel stronghold in the upper-right portion of the image. Crater impacts, probably from mortar fire, are visible within the ring-like defensive perimeter.
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
Back in 2000, during a two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea over what Bromley described as "literally 10 square miles of the most desolate place on Earth," Ethiopian troops occupied a portion of Eritrea. In the process, they destroyed several Eritrean towns. One of them, Serha, is shown in these images. The seven buildings clearly visible in the top photograph from June 2000 had been destroyed when a new satellite image was taken in August. These images were used in international legal proceedings against Ethiopia that resulted in a monetary settlement for Eritrea, which was never paid. Relations between the countries remain tense.
"The Ethiopians and Eritreans are about to go at it again, hammer and tongs," Bromley said.
He did note, however, that at least in the case of actual national armies, blame can be assigned to countries and politicians. That's not always an option that his team has.
"When you get into Darfur and some of these other places where it's just five thousand kids with guns, you get a more horrific medieval situation."
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
From 2000 to 2004, the Israeli Defense Forces began the construction of a security wall around Israel. As part of that effort, they removed about 2,500 homes in the Gaza Strip. "The Israeli security forces wanted to clear a perimeter and they went in with bulldozers and cleared what they needed to clear," Bromley said.
Bromley did note, however, that the missing buildings in this case were not caused by burning or bombing but by "bulldozers surrounded by tanks."
: Photos: Courtesy AAAS Science and Human Rights, © 2007 DigitalGlobe
Satellite images of North Korean prison-labor camps, like this one, helped human-rights groups show the extent of what they called the "hidden gulag" system. By showing the images to escaped prisoners, the researchers were able to estimate the layouts and capacities of the camps. Their stunning estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 people were being held focused attention on the scale and gravity of the situation.
"Governments are less confident that they can hide these things," Bromley said.
But, he noted, atrocities that have long been documented in satellite images and from on-the-ground accounts still rage on.
"We're getting images of human misery on pretty much a daily basis," Bromley said. But his organization can't stop the fighting, and neither can nongovernmental organizations or (generally speaking) the UN.
"Have we ended all human suffering? No. Does that bother me? Yes," he concluded.
Phoenix Lander Presents: Mars in High-Res

Posted: May 27th, 2008, 8:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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The Phoenix Mars Lander, which completed a heart-stopping, autonomous landing on the Martian surface on Sunday, has begun beaming pictures the millions of miles back to Earth.
If you missed the landing, this gallery should provide a photographic catch-up on a mission that is likely to allow scientists to examine extraterrestrial water for the first time ever during this initial exploration of a Martian polar region.
Now that the lander is in position, NASA will use the craft's robotic arm to dig into the red planet's regolith to look for the subsurface ice that scientists believe exists there. If they find it, instruments aboard the craft will melt the ice and analyze the water to look for organic compounds, which contain carbon, the building block of life.
These photos take an amazing path to get to your desktop. First, the Surface Stereoscopic Imager snaps them. Then the Lander sends data at about 15 kilobytes a second via an UHF antenna to two spacecraft orbiting Mars. The orbiters relay the data to NASA's Deep Space Network antenna arrays in Canberra Australia, Madrid, and in California's Mojave Desert.
Raw images are sent to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and posted to the Phoenix Mars Mission website.

Left: The small blue object in the center of the Martian Arctic plain pictured is NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, as seen from above by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The lander touched down safely and scientists have been delighted to find all its instruments in working order. Now, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and University of Arizona scientists will race to do as much research as possible over the next three months before the Martian winter incapacitates the lander.
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This image shows where the Phoenix Mars Lander touched down in the desolate northern polar region of Mars. The region was targeted as part of NASA's long-stated "follow the water" exploration strategy for Mars. Scientists believe that ice exists underneath the flat surface of this plain. The "polygonal cracking" visible in the picture has also been observed in permafrost terrains like the Siberian tundra, so scientists believe it results from seasonal freezing and thawing of surface ice.
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While the Mars Phoenix Lander does not have a true video camera, NASA scientists can pan around a very high resolution image to create a video like this one of the Martian arctic plain.
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In a space-exploration first, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the Phoenix Lander, and its parachute, during its descent to the Martian surface. It marks the first time that a spacecraft has visualized the descent of another craft.
After two previous landers were lost entering the Martian atmosphere, the Phoenix mission has gone smoothly.
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In an image that has circulated around the world, this picture shows one of the Phoenix Mars Lander's "feet" settled on Martian rock and soil. It was essential that the craft land in an area where it could dig into the soil because the lander, unlike the Mars rovers, can't move. It appears that the area within the lander's reach -- a mere 160 square feet -- will provide scientists with their shot at touching Martian ice.
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The lander touched down at 4:53 pm Pacific Time on May 25 in an arctic region called Vastitas Borealis. Some scientists believe the area was once covered with water in the distant Martian past. Now, it features polygonal patterns that look similar to icy ground in earth's arctic regions.
This image was one of the first color images released by NASA.
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After nine months and 422 million miles of travel, the lander reached the ground near its intended touchdown spot. The Martian landscape around the landing site is barren except for small pebbles and polygonal lumps that are widely associated with permafrost regions on Earth.
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Here we see one of the Phoenix Mars Lander's octagonal solar panels. After it touches down, the two panels unfold on either side of the spacecraft to unveil a total solar-cell area of 45 square feet. The panels are the sole means the craft has of recharging its two 25-amp-hour lithium-ion batteries. Each battery stores about five times as much power as your correspondent's MacBook battery, so the lander has about 10 MacBooks' worth of stored power.
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This image shows a small-scale polygonal pattern in the ground near NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. It was acquired on what NASA is calling Sol 0, the first Martian day of the mission.
While the rocky, lifeless surface is similar to images delivered by the Mars rovers, scientists believe the warping of the land is due to water ice under the surface. The prospective ice has raised hopes that some liquid water, which is required for life as we know it, exists under the surface.
"There's this idea that there are reservoirs of liquid water down there and as soon as you see liquid water, you say, 'Why couldn't there be microbes?'" Edward Young, the principal investigator of the UCLA IGPP Center for Astrobiology, told Wired.com. (Young is not involved with the Phoenix mission.)
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Mars is roughly half the size of Earth, yet the Phoenix Mars Lander will only end up excavating a tiny living room-sized slice of the planet. Still, the lander is loaded with a variety of instruments, including a gas analyzer and a weather station, that scientists hope will turn this barren landscape into a rich scientific tapestry that adds whole new chapters to what we know about Mars, the rest of the solar system and the possibility for life on other planets.
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After a decade of tough luck for Martian missions, Phoenix team members celebrate the craft's landing on Mars, May 25, 2008. Wired.com brought you live coverage of the team's giddy press conference.
This image is a screen capture taken from NASA TV just after radio signals were received from the lander.
: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Now, with the initial excitement of the landing over, the Phoenix team is settling in to do the heavy scientific lifting that got the mission $420 million in funding. Digging for ice could begin as early as next week, and that investigation could provide a host of surprises about the history of the water and life on Mars.
Like previous missions, the Phoenix Mars Lander has a message for future Martian explorers in the form of the mini-DVD that you see next to the American flag. It was created by the Planetary Society and contains video of Earth's visionaries like Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke talking about the future. For the earthbound present, NASA has embraced Twitter to send out status messages on the mission. The Mars Phoenix Twitter stream has amassed almost 8,000 followers.
A Close Look at the Colossal Squid

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
Scientists at the national museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, have recently completed dissections of several enormous squids, including pieces of a colossal squid -- the largest invertebrate ever caught. The female specimen weighs more than 1,000 pounds and measures 26 feet long.
The squid's resemblance to fiction's monsters of the deep, including its dinner-plate-size eyes, has attracted global interest. Scientists now believe the cephalopods can grow even larger, to more than 45 feet long, with a corresponding increase in weight.
In this gallery, we take you into the gritty, visceral business of defrosting and preserving this Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, known in English as the colossal squid.

Left: Researchers at Te Papa had to custom-build a tank in which they could defrost the enormous squid -- and preserve it in formaldehyde.
The colossal squid is not to be confused with the giant squid, which is longer but less massive. The colossal squid pictured is almost twice as heavy as the largest giant squid discovered.
An international team of scientists was flown to New Zealand to assist in the examination of this unique find.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
The squid was accidentally caught in the Ross Sea off the coast of Antarctica by fishermen searching for Chilean sea bass. The ship's captain, John Bennett, was understandably excited.
"Being alongside a creature like this is just awesome," he told Newsweek. "It's easy to see why outlandish stories about them get stretched out."
After its capture, seen here, the squid was blast-frozen aboard Bennett's boat to keep it from rotting. While necessary, it created a headache for scientists who spent days figuring out how to defrost what they call "the squidcicle."
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
Scientists didn't perform a full dissection of the new colossal squid, but they did cut up two other specimens while the largest squid was defrosting.
At left is a smaller colossal squid, which is only a partial specimen -- it was damaged in transit. Still, even the partial specimen is a boon for researchers. Only 10 of this type of squid have ever been found.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
The researchers also dissected a giant squid, a cousin of the colossal variety. The giant squid is often longer than the colossal squid but significantly lighter.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
The colossal squid lives on a diet of fish, caught at depths below 6,000 feet. The squid's arm tentacles, which it uses to catch and hold prey, are lined with dozens of powerful, clawed hooks.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
Here we see the colossal squid's beak.
Squid bodies are rarely found, but squid beaks turn up in the stomachs of marine predators like sperm whales. They providing much-needed data about the size of this elusive animal because the size of the beak corresponds to the overall size of the animal.
This specimen's lower rostral beak is only 1.7 inches across, considerably smaller than the largest found in a sperm whale stomach, suggesting that much larger colossal squid exist.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
The colossal squid's eye measures 10.6 inches across -- the largest eye in the animal kingdom. Scientists believe the squid is an almost entirely visual predator and needs the huge eye to spot prey in the dark depths of Antarctic waters.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
The squid's eye was well-preserved. Here, the single lens of the creature is presented in two halves. In a living squid, the larger piece of tissue drapes over the smaller one to form a single lens.
"When this squid was alive, the lens was almost certainly spherical and possibly of a size similar to an orange," professor Eric Warrant explained on the dissection team's blog.
But scientists don't know much about the animal's eye yet because, as an expert told USA Today, "This is the only intact eye (of a colossal squid) that's ever been found."
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
In this shot of the viscera of the smaller colossal squid, we can see its striped gills and orange ovaries, which can hold thousands of tiny white eggs.
: Courtesy Te Papa Museum
The record-breaking colossal squid specimen is nearly thawed in this picture. The plastic bags are serving as floaties for the squid's delicate arms so that they don't break before defrosting.
After three more weeks immersed in a formaldehyde-based solution, the colossal squid will be moved to a special tank at the Te Papa museum for permanent display.
From Welding to Weddings, DIY Rules at Maker Faire

Posted: May 1st, 2008, 8:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Hundreds of crafters, hackers and nerds are putting the finishing touches on elaborate contraptions for the Maker Faire: a huge, two-day gathering of people who love welding, soldering and sewing.

With almost 500 exhibits of homemade arts, crafts and electronics, ranging from the klunky to the sublime, the Maker Faire is probably the largest gathering of hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers in the country. It all happens May 3 and 4 at a suburban fairground site in San Mateo, California, and is expected to draw more than 60,000 people.

"It's sort of the engineering and art part of Burning Man, without the dust, raves and drugs," said Jeremy Faludi, a product designer and researcher who is attending the show. "It's pinnacle geek culture that you can't find anywhere else in the world."

Artists Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito demo their 6-ton, 20-foot-tall flaming sculpture Epiphany for Wired.com ahead of Maker Faire at their Oakland, California, industrial-arts space.
For more, visit video.wired.com.

Maker Faire is put on by O'Reilly Media's popular magazine Make and is dedicated to the do-it-yourself ethic in all its forms. In the two years since its inception, Maker Faire has drawn up to 40,000 attendees to watch robots, play with fire, and hobnob with the tech-savvy weirdos the event attracts.

Exhibitors have been logging hundreds of hours in preparation to perfect their creations. The mostly offbeat projects, like Bob's Electric Vehicle Corral, a solar-powered chariot pulled by a bobble-headed puppet that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, aren't always useful, but they're always thought-provoking and geeky -- and inspiring to other hobbyists and wannabes.

"What I'm looking forward to most is the camaraderie of being in the company of a bunch of DIYers who've been working in their garages until 1 or 2 in the morning getting stuff ready," said Brett Levine, co-founder of video software company Dovetail and a contributor to False Profit Labs, which has two exhibits at the Faire. "I have this feeling that there are all these garages right now with the lights on, drills humming, lathes turning, far and wide across the Bay Area."

Both of False Profit Labs' pieces -- Pyrocardium, which uses a stethoscope to send flames dancing in time with a person's heartbeat, and the Hydrogen Economy, which features exploding bubbles of hydrogen inside a clear plastic enclosure -- are being funded by Burning Man, highlighting the connection between the two events.

"Both have that breakaway spirit of, 'I can do this better if I do it myself,'" Levine said.

One couple has decided to do things not by themselves, but together. Hallie McConlogue, an independent programmer and designer, and Corey McGuire, a NASA Ames researcher, who together have contributed to a half-dozen Maker Faire projects, have decided to get married at the Faire.

The ceremony will take place on a self-propelled, three-story Victorian home called the Neverwas Haul. The hundred or so people attending the wedding will all be wearing costumes, including the bride and groom. McGuire will be dressed in a Napoleonic diplomat's coat while McConlogue will wear an early-20th-century creation. The bride's mother is attending in "full-up Sense and Sensibility style," McConlogue said.

While the location and costumes are decidedly steampunk, the wedding feast will be a bit more modern.

"We're going to have pizza, because we're geeks," said McConlogue.

McGuire said that he spent many hours volunteering his time on various Maker Faire projects last year, in an effort to woo his bride-to-be.

"You have to try really hard when you are trying to woo a woman with nerdiness," McGuire said.

For a vision of their future, newlyweds might look to husband-and-wife industrial-arts team Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito, who are bringing their 6-ton, 20-foot-tall sculpture Epiphany to the Maker Faire. (A preview video of the fiery creation is embedded above.)

The team considers the fire-spewing figure a manifestation of the current state of an oil-dependent economy.

"She could be fearful or hopeful, worshipping either a tree or oil derrick," said Cusolito, "but either way, she's engulfed in a state of fervor."

Fire technicians Danya Parkinson and Joe Bard of art collective Pyrokinetics were responsible for rigging Epiphany's pyrotechnics: They installed a pilot light in the cardiac region of her 20-foot-tall frame that, when triggered, radiates fire outwards through her hands. The blazes are supposed to mimic a fiery vascular system, and are rigged to a control board that regulates the intensity and frequency of the flame. The larger-than-life sculpture will burst into flames every half hour over the course of the Faire's two days.

The duo, along with their art collective, the Headless Point Artist's Retreat and Labor Camp, spent roughly two months crafting Epiphany using donated salvaged materials like hunks of steel, pulleys, gears and car parts.

Exhibiting (or getting married) at Maker Faire is clearly a lot of work, but the participants say it's a labor of love. For many, it's a way of rethinking how manufactured consumer products are used, reused or abused, a spirit shared by the members of False Profit, a registered limited-liability corporation.

"We decided that we were going to change the way that corporations work by focusing on the goal of creating joy, happiness and meaningful experiences instead of money," said False Profit member Stephen Trichter.
Olympic-Torch Security Troops Block Everest Bloggers' Climb

Posted: April 29th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Climbers on Mount Everest's south side are surreptitiously blogging a standoff with Nepalese soldiers ahead of China's Olympic torch run on the opposite side of the mountain next week.

With a news blackout in effect since Monday at the Everest base camp -- and no news media at camps farther up the mountain -- the situation is being chronicled only by a smattering of international climber/bloggers.

"We saw lots of military staff and one solider carrying a very sophisticated sniper type of gun," Jim Curtin wrote on his blog Monday.

Curtin has been blogging his ascent of Everest for several weeks but is now stuck at Camp 2, at 21,000 feet.

Over the last several days his blog has chronicled the frustrating wait as Nepalese soldiers block climbers from ascending the mountain.

Nepalese soldiers have closed the summit until the Chinese torch run is made, which is expected between May 1 and May 10, depending on the weather. Italian bloggers captured a picture of Nepalese soldiers on the 27th, seen above.

Soldiers have posted a hand-drawn sign, saying, "Dear Climbers. All of you are not allow to go forward from this point till 10 May 2008. Thank you for your cooperation," according to Curtin, who posted a picture). PeakFreaks also noted the existence of the sign.

"Should someone blow past the sign and start climbing the Lohtse face, the skilled sniper may come into play," Curtin wrote.
Mountain teams are supposed to be under a communications blackout, but a group called Climbers Without Borders have set up an anonymous information service that allows climbers to posts updates to MountEverest.net.

In addition, several climbers have their equipment stashed away, according to a climbing-equipment salesman who requested anonymity to protect clients in the field.

Nepalese soldiers arrived at the mountain on the 20th with the orders from Nepal's Home Ministry to stop pro-Tibet protests by "any means necessary" according to the Associated Press.

One young American climber, William Brant Holland, was found carrying a sign that read "Free Tibet, Fuck China" last Friday, and deported back to the United States. Despite the presence of soldiers, Holland said that he was not scared.
"The soldiers are just plainclothes. They're not carrying machine guns, maybe just have one side-arm," Holland told Wired.com by cellphone Tuesday. "They're not gonna shoot anybody."

A combination of small, high-tech gadgets powered by solar panels are enabling wired climbers to keep blogging and remain in touch with their loved ones.

Luis Benitez, a climber who has ascended Everest six times, said that all the technology necessary to run a blog could be stowed in a tiny bag.

"You need a satellite phone, a PDA, special compression software, one cable and a solar panel and that's it," Benitez said.

Benitez said that despite the blackout, he continues to receive phone calls from friends at Camp 1, where Nepalese authorities do not have a military presence.

"People are hiding sat phones in their socks," he said.

While the bloggers on the mountain have generally refrained from directly criticizing the Nepalese or Chinese governments, Benitez, who has previously run afoul of the Chinese government, was more open.

"The Chinese bribed the Nepalese to make the mountain a police state," Benitez said. "I've been a mountaineer my whole life and I've never seen anything like it."
Scientists Flesh Out Plans to Grow (and Sell) Test Tube Meat

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 2:05pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Biomedical engineers and food scientists join forces to take vat-grown meat from scientific curiosity to ethical meat consumer option.
Tooth Regeneration May Replace Drill-and-Fill

Posted: April 2nd, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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A dental researcher is working on a technique for regenerating the minerals in teeth -- which may eliminate the need for patching cavities with metal fillings.
Investor Eric Janszen Says Clean Tech Is Collapsing Economy's Only Hope

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 5:00pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Angel investor and iTulip.com founder Eric Janszen explains how the U.S. economy needs to restructure itself away from finance, insurance and real estate, and towards a new "green" technology infrastructure.
Exascale Computing Requires Chips, Power and Money

Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 7:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Scientists at two national laboratories are launching an effort to create new computers capable of completing one million trillion calculations per second.
Gallery: The Hard Science Behind Videogame Technologies

Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 3:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Wired.com takes a look at some of the real-world scientific applications of the latest gaming gear on display at the Game Developers Conference.
New Super-Efficient Chip Could Run on Body Heat

Posted: February 4th, 2008, 8:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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MIT researchers have developed a new ultralow-voltage chip that could improve the energy efficiency of low-power electronics tenfold.
Study: Climate Change Escalating Severe Western Water Crisis

Posted: January 31st, 2008, 11:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A new paper from climate scientists finds that dropping water supplies in the West are primarily due to manmade global warming through the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Mapping the Most Complex Structure in the Universe: Your Brain

Posted: January 24th, 2008, 3:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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An elite group of researchers wants to create a map of how your brain is wired. To do it, they've built a custom robot that peels 3-D brains like an apple, and pushes the resulting brain "tape" through an electron microscope.
Scientists Build First Man-Made Genome; Synthetic Life Comes Next

Posted: January 24th, 2008, 11:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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The first synthetic genome is pieced together by scientists, the next-to-last step in creating man-made life.
Ranch Sells Beef for Dinner, Bones for Surgery

Posted: January 16th, 2008, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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An upscale beef company finds a new market for its humanely bred cows: the pharmaceutical and medical-device industry.
Personalized Medicine Company Gets Cash to Predict Diabetes

Posted: January 10th, 2008, 6:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A biotech startup receives a pile of cash to develop a technology it says can prevent people from getting diseases.
Red Wine Drug Shows Proof That It Combats Aging

Posted: January 8th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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A derivative of an ingredient in red wine can combat symptoms of aging according to a new study from Sirtris Pharmaceuticals.

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Posted: March 20th, 2009, 12:00am EDT by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: March 5th, 2009, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 27th, 2009, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 24th, 2009, 7:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 15th, 2009, 9:07pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 15th, 2009, 2:15pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 15th, 2009, 1:30am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 14th, 2009, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 13th, 2009, 9:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: February 13th, 2009, 3:20pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 29th, 2009, 5:25pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 23rd, 2009, 4:10pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 22nd, 2009, 8:25pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 9th, 2009, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 8th, 2009, 2:43pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 7th, 2009, 6:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 5th, 2009, 6:23pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: January 5th, 2009, 3:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 23rd, 2008, 12:00am EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 22nd, 2008, 2:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 19th, 2008, 5:34pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 19th, 2008, 2:45pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 18th, 2008, 5:20pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 18th, 2008, 3:27pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 17th, 2008, 6:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 17th, 2008, 2:54pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 17th, 2008, 2:39pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 16th, 2008, 3:30pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 16th, 2008, 2:28pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 15th, 2008, 7:17pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 15th, 2008, 4:34pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 11th, 2008, 4:21pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 11th, 2008, 2:06pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 8th, 2008, 8:00pm EST by Alexis Madrigal

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Posted: December 4th, 2008, 8:02pm EST by Alexis Madrigal