Blow Your Mind: Pope on a Cosmic Rope

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Robert Lamb also co-hosts the "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" podcast and blog.

Theology in space? (Stephen O. Cist/Creative Commons)

It only took the Catholic Church close to four centuries to apologize over the whole Galileo fiasco, but today's Vatican seems to have some fairly progressive ideas regarding our place in the cosmos. Vatican astronomers Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father Gabriel Funes continue to stir up discussion with talk of planetary exploration ethics and the possible existence of alien life.

Would it be cool to convert extraterrestrials to Christianity or might they already exist in a sinless state? These questions both seem fair game among Vatican scientists, and Consolmagno doesn't seem to think twice about dismissing intelligent design as "bad theology" hijacked by religious fundamentalists.

So what are we to make of all this? Is the Catholic Church ahead of the curve on humanity's future amid the stars? Does the pope really have nothing to fear from the discovery of alien life? Is the Vatican testing the waters or merely letting a few progressive voices off the leash for some positive PR?

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I will contemplate the Vatican's current stance on the cosmos and what it means for the future of belief on planet Earth. You can grab the episode on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed.

Originally posted at HSW: Blow Your Mind: Pope on a Cosmic Rope

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View the original article here

Remains may be NY killer's 5th victim

Remains may be killer's 5th victimNEW: Police are investigating human remains found on a New York beachThe remains were found near where four corpses found last yearPolice are still searching for a potential serial killerThe search for Shannan Gilbert led to the discovery of the four bodies

New York (CNN) -- Police say they have discovered more human remains on a Long Island, New York, beach near where the corpses of four women were discovered last year.

The remains of a fifth body were located west of Cedar Beach, Long Island, approximately one mile from where the other corpses were discovered in December, according to Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer.

"There may be clues available now with this body that will help the homicide investigation and will help it move forward," Dormer said.

An investigation will be conducted to identify the remains.

Meanwhile, police say, the hunt for a potential serial killer continues, as does the search for Shannan Gilbert, 24, whose disappearance resulted in the finding of the other bodies within a quarter mile of each other.

The four bodies have since been identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut; Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Erie County, New York; Amber Lynn Costello, 27, of North Babylon, New York; and Megan Waterman, 22, of Scarborough, Maine.

All four women found dead advertised for prostitution services on the website Craigslist, police said. The bodies were found in various stages of decomposition, and at least one could have been there for as long as two years, Dormer said.

CNN's Leigh Remizowski contributed to this report

Fukushima shines light on U.S. problem

 Could Japan nuclear disaster occur in US?Events in Japan have raised questions about spent-fuel storage in the United StatesThe U.S. has 104 nuclear reactors, which rely on pools of water and dry casks for storageAn estimate by the NRC said some 63,000 tons of spent fuel was stored in the U.S.The NRC and industry critics disagree on whether spent fuel pools are safe

Washington (CNN) -- The Fukushima Daiichi disaster is focusing attention on a problem that has bedeviled Washington policymakers since the dawn of the nuclear age -- what to do with used nuclear fuel.

Currently, spent fuel -- depleted to the extent it can no longer effectively sustain a chain reaction -- is stored in large pools of water, allowing the fuel to slowly cool and preventing the release of radiation.

But events in Japan, where two of the six spent fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi facility were compromised, have raised questions about practices at the nation's 104 nuclear reactors, which rely on a combination of pools and dry casks to store used fuel.

"I truly believe we must re-think how we manage spent fuel," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday.

In California, Feinstein said, fuel removed from reactors in 1984 is still held in spent-fuel pools, well beyond the minimum five to seven years required by federal regulators. "It's hard to understand why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not mandated a more rapid transfer of spent fuel to dry casks," Feinstein said.

Currently, there is no maximum time fuel can remain in spent fuel pools, the NRC said Wednesday. As a result, critics say, nuclear plants have made fuel pools the de facto method of storing fuel, crowding pools with dangerous levels of fuel, industry critics say.

As of January 2010, an estimated 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel was in storage at U.S. power plants or storage facilities, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"For the history of our nuclear power program, I would say, the storage of spent fuel... has been an afterthought," Ernest Moniz, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testified. "I believe we should really start thinking hard about consolidated storage, presumably in federal reservations, to solve a host of problems."

The NRC and industry critics differed on whether spent fuel pools are safe.

"Spent fuel pools are considered 'safety significant' systems, so they meet a lot of the same standards that the reactor itself would have to meet," said Greg Jaczko, chairman of the NRC. "For example, the spent fuel pools themselves are required to withstand the natural phenomena like earthquakes and tsunamis that could impact the reactor itself."

David Lochbaum, a nuclear physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, disagreed.

"At many sites there is nearly 10 times as much irradiated fuel in spent fuel pools as in the reactor core," he said. "The spent fuel pools are not housed in robust concrete containment structures designed to protect the public from the radioactivity they contain. Instead the pools are often housed in buildings with sheet metal siding like that in a Sears storage shed," Lochbaum said.

"I have nothing against the quality of Sears storage sheds but they are not suitable to nuclear waste storage," he said.

A nuclear industry representative said the "lack of a national strategy" on waste storage is exacerbating the problem, since it does not know whether to place spent fuel in permanent, on-site containers, or containers suitable for transport.

"We want to limit the number of times we have to handle used fuel. We want to be able to take it out of the pool once, put it in a cask... Not all casks are designed for transportation for example," said William Levis, a power company president speaking for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Jaczko said spent fuel pools don't endanger the public. "We don't have a maximum time (fuel can stay in the pools)," he said. "But we do analyze the fuel. (Fuel) goes through a very rigorous analysis to ensure that (it can be added to the pool) safely and securely."

A high-ranking energy department official, meanwhile, said a commission studying the issue of spent fuel will issue an interim report by July 29. The commission was formed after the Obama administration killed a plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Report: Blacks faring worse than whites

  African-Americans trail whites the most in economics and social justice, according to the National Urban League.The index measures how African-Americans fare relative to whitesIt is published by the National Urban LeagueThis year's index stands at 71.5%, down from 72.1% last yearA number of social factors are behind the decline

(CNN) -- African-Americans are faring slightly worse relative to their white counterparts than they did last year, according to an index released Thursday by the National Urban League.

The group's 2011 Equality Index stands at 71.5%, compared to a revised index last year of 72.1%, the league said as it released its annual report, called The State of Black America.

An equality index of less than 100% suggests blacks are doing worse relative to whites, while an index greater than 100% suggests blacks are doing better.

The league attributed the 2011 drop to a decline in the economics index, driven by housing and wealth factors, and to a decline in the health index, driven by children's health.

Economics and social justice continue to be the areas in which blacks trail whites the most, with ratings of 56.9% and 58% respectively. Those are followed by health at 75% and education at 78.9%.

Since the Equality Index was introduced in 2005, researchers have found growing equality between blacks and whites in the unemployment rate, the percentage of uninsured, the incarceration rate, and prisoners as a percentage of arrests, the league said.

The index has also charted growing inequality over that period in rates of poverty, home ownership, school enrollment (both "preprimary" and college), and the level of educational attainment (both high school diplomas and bachelor's degrees).

The index of median household income has remained unchanged, the league said.

In 2010, the index measured Hispanics in America for the first time. This year's index finds them faring slightly better than last year compared to their white counterparts, at 76.8% compared to a revised 2010 index of 76.6%, the league said.

It attributed the rise to improvements in health and social justice indices, but said those were offset by declines in economics and education.

In the past year, the league said it has observed growing gaps in the relative status of blacks and whites in the areas of loan access, wealth and children's health.

For Hispanics, there have been growing gaps in the areas of loan access and college enrollment, it said.

The 2011 State of Black America report includes essays from a variety of authors including League President Marc Morial and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

Source: CIA operating in Libya, consulting with rebels

Weather prevents new coalition airstrikesCIA operating in Libya, in contact with opposition, source saysLibyan foreign minister quits, U.K. saysOpposition says it is carrying out "tactical withdrawal"

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- CIA operatives are providing intelligence from Libya, where opposition forces are on the run and the defiant government suffered the embarrassing defection of its foreign minister Wednesday.

The NATO-led coalition, which is enforcing a no-fly zone and protecting civilians from the intense fighting, got no help from the weather in its ongoing efforts to protect the fragile opposition movement.

"The weather conditions did not allow close combat support by aircraft in the last couple of days," said Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Moammar Gadhafi's government, for its part, kept up the war of words.

State-run Libyan TV late Wednesday quoted a military source as saying a "civilian location was shelled tonight in the city of Tripoli by the colonizing crusader aggression."

Amid debate on whether the allies will arm the retreating and undertrained rebels, a U.S. intelligence source told CNN the CIA is in the country to increase the "military and political understanding" of the situation.

"Yes, we are gathering intel firsthand and we are in contact with some opposition entities," said the source.

The White House refused to comment on a Reuters report that President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel troops.

"I will reiterate what the president said yesterday -- no decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya," said White House press secretary Jay Carney in a statement. "We're not ruling it out or ruling it in. We're assessing and reviewing options for all types of assistance that we could provide to the Libyan people, and have consulted directly with the opposition and our international partners about these matters."

According to the Reuters report, Obama signed the covert aid order, or "finding," within the past few weeks. Such findings are required for the CIA to conduct secret operations, the report said.

A U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly could not confirm the finding, but noted when there are crises like this, "you look at all instruments of national power."

In early March, a U.S. official told CNN "the intelligence community is aggressively pursuing information on the ground" in Libya.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons that he has not ruled out arming the Libyan opposition, but added that Britain has not made the decision to do so.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided classified briefings to House and Senate members who asked whether the United States intended to arm the rebels, participants told CNN.

Clinton and Gates made clear that no decision had been made, and Congress members from both parties said they believed it would be a bad idea, according to participants.

Regarding the committing of U.S. forces to the U.N.-backed operation, the White House has said Obama acted within his authority under the War Powers Act. It notes that the president and other officials consulted congressional leaders several times in the run-up to the March 19 deployment of U.S. forces to the U.N.-authorized Libya mission.

Clinton told members of Congress the administration acted within the requirements of the War Powers Act and needed no authorization for further decisions on the mission, lawmakers said.

The opposition got a boost Wednesday with news that Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa willingly traveled to London and told the government there that he has resigned, the United Kingdom Foreign Office said.

CNN's Ben Wedeman, who has been reporting from Libya for several weeks, said that Koussa's departure is a significant blow, but not a critical loss to the regime.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said Koussa was one of the most senior figures in Gadhafi's government "and his role was to represent the regime internationally -- something that he is no longer willing to do."

The department provided no other details on the surprise move.

CNN's Nic Robertson, who previously met with Koussa, said the former head of intelligence once was a stalwart defender of the government.

The Senate's Rogers called Moussa's defection "huge news."

Libya's opposition said its fighters are executing a "tactical withdrawal" from a swath of territory they once controlled, a move that comes as Gadhafi's forces relentlessly pound them.

Col. Ahmed Bani, speaking at a news conference in the opposition capital of Benghazi on Wednesday, said his forces are being outgunned by the superior military power of loyalists, spared the wrath of coalition airstrikes.

They have been pushed eastward over the last two days after CNN reported on Sunday that rebels took Brega, Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad and reached a town just east of Sirte.

Rebel forces have now lost Bin Jawad and the key oil town of Ras Lanuf and are backed up to the Brega area, Bani said. Ajdabiya, which is east of Brega, will be prepared as a "defense point" if the withdrawal continues farther east, he said.

CNN's Wedeman said the rebels continue to have no effective command and control.

Bani called on the international community to supply opposition fighters with better and more powerful weapons to hold off the Gadhafi forces. He said the opposition was open to foreign troops training rebel fighters. Bani asked for tanks, heavy artillery and communications and logistics equipment.

The rebels have been demanding an end to Gadhafi's almost 42-year rule in Libya, but they have been facing "sustained attacks in the face of the coalition bombing" in Misrata, Ras Lanuf, and Bin Jawad, Robertson reported.

In an address to the House of Commons in London on Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that "regime forces have intensified their attacks, driving back opposition forces from ground they had taken in recent days." He cited the violence in the western town of Misrata.

"Misrata also came under heavy attack yesterday, with further loss of civilian life, including children, from mortars, sniper fire and attacks on all sides from regime tanks and personnel carriers," Hague said.

In the outskirts of Ajdabiya -- which was recently taken over by opposition forces -- Gadhafi's regime planted several dozen land mines, Human Rights Watch said in a statement Wednesday.

"Given the pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the area, the mines were clearly laid while government forces were in Ajdabiya," the group said.

Human Rights Watch also said 370 people are missing in the eastern part of the country, with some suspected to be in government custody. That list includes rebel fighters and civilians, including doctors, the group said.

Two states report radiation in milk

The Environmental Protection Agency is increasing monitoring nationwideIt is monitoring milk, precipitation, drinking water, and other outletsMilk sample from Washington state, California shows "miniscule" amounts of radiationTests confirm the milk is safe to drink, officials say

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is increasing its nationwide monitoring of radiation as two states reported very low levels of radiation in milk.

The agency said Wednesday it is boosting its monitoring of radiation in milk, precipitation, drinking water, and other outlets. It already tracks radiation in those potential exposure routes through an existing network of stations across the country.

Results from screening samples of milk taken in the past week in Spokane, Washington, and in San Luis Obispo County, California, detected radioactive iodine at a level 5,000 times lower than the limit set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, officials said.

The I-131 isotope has a very short half-life of about eight days, the EPA said, so the level detected in milk and milk products is expected to drop relatively quickly.

FDA senior scientist Patricia Hansen also said the findings are "miniscule" compared to what people experience every day.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said tests confirmed the milk is safe to drink.

"This morning I spoke with the chief advisers for both the EPA and the FDA and they confirmed that these levels are miniscule and are far below levels of public health concern, including for infants and children," Gregoire said in a statement.

"According to them, a pint of milk at these levels would expose an individual to less radiation than would a five-hour airplane flight."

Similarly, the California Department of Public Health reassured residents that the levels do not pose a threat.

"When radioactive material is spread through the atmosphere, it drops to the ground and gets in the environment. When cows consume grass, hay, feed, and water, radioactivity will be processed and become part of the milk we drink. However, the amounts are so small they pose no threat to public health," the department said.

At least 15 states have reported radioisotopes from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in air or water or both. No states have recommended that residents take potassium iodide, a salt that protects the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine.

Iodine-131 has been found in eastern states from Florida to Massachusetts as well as in western states like Oregon, Colorado, and California, according to sensors and officials in those states.

None of the levels poses a risk to public health, they said.

The Japanese plant has been leaking radiation since it was damaged in the earthquake and resulting tsunami earlier this month.

CNN's Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report

Toxic levels in seawater hit record

 NEW: A village official is irked with Japan's government after high radiation readingLevels of iodine-131 in the sea off the nuclear plant are 4,385 times the normal limitCesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years, is measured at 527 times above the standardAuthorities do not know what's caused this radiation spike or exactly how to stop it

Tokyo (CNN) -- The levels of radiation in ocean waters off Japan's embattled Fukushima Daiichi plant continue to skyrocket, the nation's nuclear safety agency said Thursday, with no clear sense of what's causing the spike or how to stop it.

The amount of radioactive iodine-131 isotope in the samples, taken Wednesday some 330 meters (361 yards) into the Pacific Ocean, has surged to 4,385 times above the regulatory limit. This tops the previous day's reading of 3,355 times above the standard -- and an exponential spike over the 104-times increase measured just last Friday.

Officials have downplayed the potential perils posed by this isotope, since it loses half of its radiation every eight days.

Yet amounts of the cesium-137 isotope -- which, by comparison, has a 30-year "half life" -- have also soared, with a Wednesday afternoon sample showing levels 527 times the standard.

"That's the one I am worried about," said Michael Friedlander, a U.S.-based nuclear engineer, explaining cesium might linger much longer in the ecosystem. "Plankton absorbs the cesium, the fish eat the plankton, the bigger fish eat smaller fish -- so every step you go up the food chain, the concentration of cesium gets higher."

On Thursday, Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Japanese nuclear safety official, reiterated that seawater radiation doesn't yet pose a health risk to humans eating seafood.

Fishing is not allowed within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the plant, and he claimed that waterborne radiation should dilute over time.

Still, authorities don't know where the highly radioactive water is coming from.

Nishiyama said it may be flowing continuously into the sea. Another explanation is that water, which authorities have pumped and sprayed in by the tons in recent weeks to stave off a meltdown, became contaminated by overheating nuclear fuel in the process and ended up in the ocean without having any room to settle in the nuclear plant.

"They have a problem where the more they try to cool it down, the greater the radiation hazard as that water leaks out from the plant," said Jim Walsh, an international security expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Persistent rain and wind forced the plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, to postpone Thursday a new fix to contain the spread of radiation: a water and synthetic resin mix to envelop radioactive particles. The plan is to spend at least three weeks spraying the solution on the grounds and sides of reactors at the Daiichi facility.

The nuclear plant has been in a state of perpetual crisis since being rocked by the March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, and there's no clear end in sight.

This has all left the plant's owner reeling, with the ordeal taking a significant toll on both its reputation and bottom line.

On Wednesday -- the same day the company announced that its president, Masataka Shimizu, had been hospitalized due to "fatigue and stress" -- Tokyo Electric's chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said it had no choice but to decommission four of the plant's six reactors.

He acknowledged reports Japan's government is mulling nationalizing the company after the disaster, saying, "We want to make every effort to stay a private company."

Beyond the recovery and clean-up expenses, Toyko Electric will likely be asked to pay those who suffered because of the nuclear crisis.

A report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates the utility firm will face 1 trillion Japanese yen ($12.13 billion) in compensation claims if the recovery effort lasts two months, rising to 10 trillion yen if it goes on for two years, said Takayuki Inoue, a spokesman with the financial giant.

That might include farmers, their livelihoods shattered after the detection of high radiation in several vegetables prompting the government to ban sales. Contaminated tap water also has prompted officials to tell residents in some locales to only offer bottled water to infants. Businesses have been hit hard, too, by rolling blackouts tied to the strained power grid.

But those most affected have been the thousands, living within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the stricken plant, who have been ordered to evacuate.

The International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday urged Japanese authorities to "carefully assess the situation" -- and consider expanding the evacuation zone further -- after high radiation levels were found in Iitate, a town of 7,000 residents 40 kilometers northwest of the nuclear facility.

The U.N. agency did not say how much radiation it had detected, though the environmental group Greenpeace said Sunday it found levels more than 50 times above normal.

Koboyashi Takashi, Iitate's manager for general affairs, said radiation levels in soil and water were decreasing. Residents had temporarily evacuated, but later returned to take care of livestock, he said.

Another village official, who declined to be named, was irked Thursday after the earlier radiation readings surpassed the IAEA's evacuation criteria but not those of the Japanese government. He said local officials have urged tests on soil from 70 locations around the village.

"We (have to) believe what the government tells us," said the Iitate village official in apparent frustration. "There is no other way."

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Thursday the "IAEA results will be taken into consideration," but said "there is no plan" to expand the evacuation zone to 30 kilometers or beyond.

"There is no immediate health hazard," Edano said. "If the exposure continues for a long period of time, (a negative) impact can occur. We will continue to survey the situation."

CNN's Kyung Lah, Yoko Wakatsuki and Ram Ramgopal contributed to this report.

Funeral today for Geraldine Ferraro

 Albright recalls feisty friend FerraroPrivate service will be held for family and friendsFerraro died Saturday after a 12-year battle with blood cancer

(CNN) -- Funeral services for former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro will be held Thursday morning in New York City.

The 9:30 a.m. service at the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer will be for family and friends and will closed to the press, a family statement said.

A resident of New York City, Ferraro died in Massachusetts General Hospital Saturday.

Ferraro's cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer she had battled for 12 years, according to the statement released by her family from Boston.

In 1984, the congresswoman from New York became the first female vice presidential candidate from a major U.S. political party when she was picked as the running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale.

Small plane crashes into N.C. homes

 A small plane crashed into a house in a High Point, North Carolina. neighborhood. The people in the house weren't hurt.The plane had been diverted from Winston-Salem to GreensboroResidents of the home hit in nearby High Point escaped without injuries

(CNN) -- A twin-engine propeller plane crashed into a house in North Carolina on Wednesday, killing two people on board, authorities said.

The small plane crashed into a High Point neighborhood -- clipping one home before crashing into a second and sparking a fire, said Capt. Denita Lynch of the city's fire department. The people in the house were inside at the time of the crash, but were able to escape unscathed.

The fire was extinguished.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane was a Hawker Beechcraft BE58 en route to nearby Winston-Salem, but was diverted to nearby Greensboro's Piedmont Triad International Airport because of severe weather.

Priests put on leave in abuse inquiry

 The two priests, who were not identified, are retiredDozens of current and former priests have been placed on leaveWednesday's action is part of an ongoing investigationThree civil suits have also been filed against priests and the archdiocese

(CNN) -- Two more priests have been placed on administrative leave by the Philadelphia Archdiocese as part of an ongoing investigation into the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, announced that the two unnamed priests, who are currently retired, have been placed on administrative leave, effective immediately, pending a more thorough independent investigation.

That investigation is being conducted by Gina Maisto Smith, a former child abuse prosecutor in Philadelphia, and a team of experts.

"These steps are interim measures and are not in any way final determinations or judgments," Rigali said in a written statement.

Earlier this month, 21 other priests were also placed on administrative leave following a review of sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Church in Philadelphia.

The archdiocese says that Wednesday's actions are a part of an ongoing investigation with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

According to the archdiocese, one of the priests retired in 2005 due to health reasons and is no longer involved in the ministry. The other priest retired in 2006, and has assisted at parishes in another diocese.

Earlier this month, Rigali said that he wished "to express again my sorrow for the sexual abuse of minors committed by any members of the church, especially clergy."

"I am truly sorry for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, as well as to the members of our community who suffer as a result of this great evil and crime," he said.

In February, three Philadelphia priests and a parochial school teacher were charged with raping and assaulting boys in their care, while a former official with the Philadelphia Archdiocese was accused of allowing the priests to have access to children, the city's district attorney's office said.

CNN Senior Vatican Analyst John Allen said the charges against the former church official appeared to be unprecedented and could have national implications.

"This is apparently the first time that a Catholic leader has been charged criminally for the cover-up as opposed to the abuse itself," he said.

"It sends a shot across the bow for bishops and other diocesan officials in other parts of the country, who have to wonder now if they've got criminal exposure, too."

Edward Avery, 68, and Charles Engelhardt, 64, were charged with allegedly assaulting a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish from 1998 to 1999.

Bernard Shero, 48, a teacher in the school, is charged with allegedly assaulting the same boy there in 2000, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said at a press conference in February.

James Brennan, another priest, is accused of assaulting a different boy, a 14-year-old, in 1996.

Monsignor William Lynn, who served as the secretary for clergy for the then-Philadelphia Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the alleged assaults, Williams said.

From 1992 until 2004, Lynn was responsible for investigating reports that priests had sexually abused children, the district attorney's office said.

The grand jury found that Lynn, 60, endangered children, including the alleged victims of those charged last week, by knowingly allowing the priests to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to kids.

Avery, Engelhardt and Shero were charged with rape, indecent sexual assault and other criminal counts following the results of a grand jury investigation of clergy sexual abuse, Williams said. The names of the alleged victims, who are now in their 20s, have not been publicly released.

The grand jury believed that more than 30 priests remained in ministry in Pennsylvania despite solid, credible allegations of abuse, according to Williams.

Williams on Tuesday said Rigali's actions "are as commendable as they are unprecedented."

"Going forward, in cases involving allegations of abuse by clergy, my office and the Philadelphia police will investigate, and where appropriate we will charge and prosecute. I intend to use the resources of this office to the greatest extent possible to protect the children of Philadelphia," Williams said in a statement.

Three civil suits against the priests and the archdiocese have been filed.

Blow Your Mind: Pope on a Cosmic Rope

Theology in space? (Stephen O. Cist/Creative Commons)

It only took the Catholic Church close to four centuries to apologize over the whole Galileo fiasco, but today's Vatican seems to have some fairly progressive ideas regarding our place in the cosmos. Vatican astronomers Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father Gabriel Funes continue to stir up discussion with talk of planetary exploration ethics and the possible existence of alien life.

Would it be cool to convert extraterrestrials to Christianity or might they already exist in a sinless state? These questions both seem fair game among Vatican scientists, and Consolmagno doesn't seem to think twice about dismissing intelligent design as "bad theology" hijacked by religious fundamentalists.

So what are we to make of all this? Is the Catholic Church ahead of the curve on humanity's future amid the stars? Does the pope really have nothing to fear from the discovery of alien life? Is the Vatican testing the waters or merely letting a few progressive voices off the leash for some positive PR?

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I will contemplate the Vatican's current stance on the cosmos and what it means for the future of belief on planet Earth. You can grab the episode on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed.

Originally posted at HSW: Blow Your Mind: Pope on a Cosmic Rope

Mars Rover Down? Spirit Stays Silent

 

Despite NASA's best efforts to wake her, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit remains silent on the Red Planet's surface. It's been a whole year since we last heard from the little wheeled robot and hope has all but faded for her revival.

For the next month, NASA will continue to listen out for Spirit, but after that time search operations will be scaled back to focus on sister rover Opportunity. Opportunity continues her marathon drive to Endeavour Crater, over seven years since she landed on Mars.

BIG PIC GALLERY: Saving Spirit

Spirit became stuck in a sand trap in Gusev crater in 2009 and an epic mission began to try to dislodge the rover's buried wheels from the trap, aptly named "Troy." Despite the combined efforts of rover drivers, scientists and engineers, the wheels kept spinning in the loose Martian soil.

For a time, Spirit was able to do some valuable science despite her stationary predicament. Indeed, Mars rover driver Scott Maxwell said, "This has been very much like your car breaking down right next to Disney Land," in a 2009 "Free Spirit Update", when commenting on the amazing science that could still be carried out where Spirit stood. However, this didn't last for long as she couldn't adjust her position to face the sun as the Martian winter crept in.

As the Martian nights drew shorter, and the sunlight barely reached Spirit's solar panels, by March 2010 her batteries drained and she dropped into a self-preservation hibernation state. Communications with Earth and other activities were suspended and any remaining energy was utilized in keeping the batteries warm and mission clock ticking.

NASA has repeatedly tried to revive the rover, but after months of flyovers by Mars satellites, there's been no signal from Spirit. It's looking as if she has succumbed to a lack of energy and freezing temperatures.

In light of this bad news, today Scott Maxwell remarked:

"Spirit was so close to us, just a year ago. Snap your fingers, and she's a hundred million miles distant and we can't even prove she's alive."

If this is indeed the end of the road for Spirit, it is a sad time for Mars exploration. But it's only sad because that little rover has become synonymous with the Martian landscape, epitomizing the spirit of planetary exploration.

Most recent Spirit update:

No communication has been received from Spirit since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010), over a year ago.

Deep Space Network X-band listening and recovery commanding continue. The project has been systematically conducting commanding over a range of frequencies and over a range of local solar times on Mars. This covers the possibility that the rover's receiver has degraded and/or the clock has drifted significantly since March of 2010.

The project is continuing the commanding of extra-long ultra-high frequency (UHF) relay passes to account for possible rover clock drift or clock error and to make the rover responsive to UHF relay (if it is has experienced a mission-clock fault). The project is also commanding the backup solid-state power amplifier, in case the primary X-band transmitter has failed. Peak solar energy production for Spirit at the Gusev site is estimated to have already occurred back around March 10, 2011.

Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles).

Image: This synthetic image of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover on top of a rock called "Jibsheet" was produced using "Virtual Presence in Space" technology. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

Disaster Relief: Contrasting Haiti and Japan

An earthquake and tsunami struck Japan's northeastern Honshu island. credit: Corbis

Japan and Haiti are both islands that recently suffered massive earthquakes, though the disasters—and the responses to the devastation—have been very different.

In Japan, rescuers and relief workers who mobilized to treat thousands of badly injured victims soon discovered that their preparations were not needed. There were very few injured people to care for because most of those directly hit by the tsunami were killed outright.

According to New York Times writer Martin Fackler, "few of the survivors who crowded into schools and other makeshift shelters needed emergency medical attention. The Americans said they evacuated only a small number of injured."

NEWS: Wide Angle: Japan in Crisis

(A similar situation occurred in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. In the days following, the Red Cross collected hundreds of thousands of blood donations to treat survivors, though it was soon clear that much of the blood was going to be wasted; only five people were pulled alive from the Twin Tower rubble.)

This is a direct consequence of another contrast between Haiti and Japan: While Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, Japan is one of the richest. The government has billions of dollars at its disposal, not only to help its stricken citizens, but also to pay for earthquake-resistant buildings and bridges.

Wide Angle: Haiti Earthquake Disaster

Japan is perhaps the best-prepared country for such a disaster; in Haiti, the nature of the disaster was very different. Poorly-built structures across the island collapsed on people during the earthquake, leaving thousands of injured and maimed.

Of course just because Japan is rich does not mean that doesn't need help, for it surely does; any country, rich or poor, that has suffered such devastation should receive humanitarian aid—assuming they want it.

And this brings us to yet another difference: while Haiti immediately issued a plea for international assistance, the Japanese government and Red Cross made it clear from the first day that it does not need nor want assistance from other countries.

As of about a week ago, Japan had accepted aid from fewer than 20 of the over 100 countries that had offered it. Holden Karnofsky, a founder of GiveWell, a Web site that scrutinizes charities, told the New York Times, “The Japanese government has made it clear it has the resources it needs for this disaster.”

Eventually the outpouring of aid and good will broke down even the stoic Japanese; after nearly two weeks of pressure—and millions of dollars raised—the Japanese Red Cross eventually agreed to accept donations.

2011 Arctic Sea Ice Maximum Joint Lowest On Record

Sea ice cover in the Arctic appears to have reached its maximum extent for the year, and according to scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, that extent ties 2006 for the lowest on record.

Watching a time-lapse movie of sea ice as it waxes and wanes over the course of a year is a little like watching a lung breathe in and breathe out. Over the fall and winter months, it steadily expands until it achieves its greatest extent - generally somewhere in March - and then it retreats until it reaches its lowest area, generally in September.

Arctic Ice Is Younger, Thinner, and Disappearing

As Arctic temperatures warm, particularly in summer, the minimum sea ice extent has decreased precipitously. It is presently declining by 11.5 percent per decade relative to the 1979-2000 average. That decline has in turn affected sea ice recovery in the winter, as the ice that reforms is now younger and thinner, and thus less likely to persist. However, because the Arctic remains an extremely cold environment in the winter months, winter sea ice decline is less than in summer: about 3 to 4 percent per decade since 1979, when satellite measurements began.

Since the start of the satellite record, the maximum Arctic sea ice extent has occurred as early as February 18 and as late as March 31, with an average date of March 6. This year, it appears to have reached its maximum on March 7. At 14.64 million square kilometers (5.65 million square miles), the extent was 1.2 million square kilometers (471,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average of 15.86 million square kilometers (6.12 million square miles), and equal to 2006 for the lowest maximum extent in the satellite record.

NSIDC will publish a full analysis of the 2010-11 winter season, and graphics comparing this season to the long-term record, in early April.

Photograph by Andy Mahoney/NSIDC

Is All of Human Knowledge on the Internet?

Like a nerdier Nostradamus, H.G. Wells practically predicted the Internet in his 1937 essay “World Brain: The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopedia.”

In it, Wells describes this futuristic encyclopedia (made possible in his mind by revolutionary microfilm) as a "world organ to 'pull the mind of the world together,' which will be not so much a rival to the universities, as a supplementary and coordinating addition to their educational activities -- on a planetary scale."

And in many ways, Wells' vision has been realized by the Internet. Digital archives scattered among servers around the world house innumerable books, documents, records, photographs and films that collectively represent an outpouring of human knowledge.

HOWSTUFFWORKS: How Does the Internet Work?

"That (H.G. Wells) essay collection is utopian, but really, if you look at what we're all trying to do, this idea of a permanent world encyclopedia that he has, it's really a template for what’s happening," said Paul Jones, director of the Ibiblio.org digital archive and associate professor of information science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

"The real question is can that ever be accomplished, and the answer is 'no' -- but why not try?" Jones told Discovery News.

DNEWS VIDEO: BLIND SURF THE WEB

For the past 18 years, Jones and others working with Ibiblio have been digitally preserving collections as well as "vernacular work," which are freely accessible works in the public domain. A well-known example of vernacular work is the collection of songs composed by Roger McGuinn, former leader of The Byrds, which he’s published under a Creative Commons shared licensing agreement.??

Although establishing digital libraries depends on server space, real tug-of-war over how many knowledge works (books, recordings, other documents) will end up accessible online happens between librarians and lawyers.

Why? One word: copyright.

TOP 5: Tech Initiatives From Obama

"One of the primary roadblocks (to expanding digital libraries) is copyright," said Maura Marx, a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center and lead organizer of its Digital Public Library of America initiative. "Its one-size-fits-all nature locks up all works as if they will remain commercially viable for extended periods of time. Not everything is "Harry Potter" -- there is no provision, for example, for circulation of scholarly works after an initial period of commercial distribution, or for any other deviation from locking things up for life, plus 70 years."

While the legal system hashes out copyright issues, establishing The Digital Public Library of America could bring together many disparate archiving initiatives, such as digital collections at universities and other institutions, into a single unified resource.

The European Council, Norway and the Netherlands have already made significant strides toward national and international digital databases like this, and Marx thinks that a similar resource in the United States would broaden awareness and use of the wealth of knowledge works archived online.
This type of nonprofit resource is distinctly different than commercial digital repositories like Google Books, Marx says.

TECH NEWS: Free Internet for All

"Amazon and Google are commercially driven and have a responsibility to shareholders, the bottom line," Marx said. "A knowledge commons can support the emergence of other types of transactions."

But setting aside legal and cooperative issues, what is the current sum of all this archiving? Despite copyright restrictions, how much human knowledge is on the Internet at this point – if it's even quantifiable?

Since the Internet is comprised of an ever-changing number of servers, pinning down the precise amount of data contained online is practically impossible.

"At any rate, you can increase the amount of data on the Internet simply by turning on a new server, which happens every second of the day," said Jonathan Strickland, tech expert at HowStuffWorks.com and co-host of the TechStuff podcast.

Really, the only certainty about the amount of human knowledge online is that it will continually grow.

"I'd compare it to asking the question 'How many books are in the library?'" said Strickland. "If you take the question literally, you'd have to check the library's inventory as well as all the books that had been loaned out and subtract the second figure from the first, and by that time more books will have been returned and loaned out, making the figure meaningless."

Illustration: Images.com/Corbis

After the Tsunami, 'To Be Alive Is Enough'

Ian Thomas Ash, originally from New York, is a freelance documentary filmmaker who has lived in Japan for 10 years. When the 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of north-eastern Japan on March 11, Ian felt its effects in the nation's capital, Tokyo. The impact of the quake, tsunami and the ongoing threat of radioactive fallout from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant 150 miles away is taking its toll.

In a recent guest article for Discovery News, Ian documented the impact the ongoing crisis was having on the populous of the nation's capital. In this new article and video, he has traveled north to Ishinomaki, one of the many cities hit hard by the tsunami to see the devastation that has claimed so many lives.

You can see more of Ian's documentary work by visiting Ian's YouTube Channel. He also regularly updates his personal blog, Documenting Ian.

WIDE ANGLE: Japan in Crisis

The news footage of the March 11 tsunami in the Tohoku region of Japan showed horrendous scenes of destruction. The cars that looked like toys being swept away. Entire houses lifted from their foundations. The boats marooned on downtown streets. The debris.

Does it look the same with the naked eye?

On March 23, the highway to northern Japan was still closed to all traffic except emergency vehicles and those delivering much-needed aid and supplies. I was documenting a group of volunteers who had been given one of the coveted passes that would allow us through the checkpoint and into the Tohoku region.

We traveled to Ishinomaki, one of the many cities devastated by the tsunami. With a population of 160,000, there are more than 2,000 people confirmed dead with nearly 3,000 people still missing. To add to the tragedy, there are 25,000 people who have been left homeless and are living in evacuation centers set up in schools around the city.

On the news, I had seen the images of entire towns being inundated by the tsunami as it was happening, but what about after the waters receded?

It would be impossible to describe in words what I saw, so I will let the images speak for themselves:

You can see more of Ian's documentary work by visiting Ian's YouTube Channel. He also regularly updates his personal blog, Documenting Ian.

Video credit: Ian Thomas Ash

First Practical Artificial Leaf Makes Debut

Researchers have developed a practical "artificial leaf" that turns sunlight into storable fuel. The device splits molecules of water into hydrogen and oxygen. The team still needs to design a system to capture the fuels before the system can be fully commercialized.

The leaf's ability to convert sunlight and water into storable fuel makes it the ultimate in solar energy. Now researchers say they have found a way to mimic this seemingly simple feat.

The technology developed by Dan Nocera of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues could eventually power a house and bring electricity to the developing world with little more than a chip sunk into a bucket of water. The device could even store the energy for when the sun isn't shining.

The new technology copies the process of photosynthesis in which the sun's energy liberates electrons in a leaf, which then split water to form hydrogen and oxygen, providing stored energy for the plant.

"Whether you realize it or not, leaves are buzzing with electricity," Nocera said. "They just don't have any wires in them."

The leaves need two catalysts to make this reaction work, and similarly, so do the solar cells. Nocera's breakthrough is in finding two affordable catalysts that can do the reaction.

The sunlight is captured with the same silicon material that makes up a typical solar panel, but instead of connecting it to wires that can charge a battery, the coated silicon with catalysts is submerged in water.

"I can take the chip and put it in this bottle of water and just go and hold it up to the sun and you would start to see hydrogen and oxygen bubbles coming out," Nocera said.

The hydrogen and oxygen could later be used in a fuel cell to generate electricity as they recombine to form water.

The discovery is significant not because it's the first time researchers have made such a cell, but because it's the first to use materials cheap enough to make the device practical, Nocera said at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, Calif.

The device could match the efficiency of today's solar panels, he added, meaning that an array of panels on a household roof would be enough to power the house.

But a key target for the team's research is to provide energy to people in developing countries, especially India and rural China, he said. A key feature of his system in achieving this goal is that the device runs with whatever water is available; it need not be ultra-pure.

"The fact that you can just go over there and if there's a puddle, begin using it -- that's something that's very powerful for us," he said.

This could also be useful for military applications where it would be cumbersome to lug around ultra-pure water.

A remaining engineering challenge to take this from the lab to the rooftop is to figure out how to capture the oxygen and hydrogen and store them for later use. "That's going to be some tricky engineering," he said. It remains to be seen how expensive this aspect will be.

Today's photovoltaic panels can store solar power in a battery, but "a lot of the cost of a solar panel is in the wiring, the packaging," Nocera said. These expensive parts are eliminated with the artificial leaf. "In principle, that could be much cheaper."

John Turner of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, who first demonstrated an efficient "artificial leaf" in 1998, but using materials too expensive and unstable for commercialization said about the advance, "We may have a path forward towards sustainable low-cost, carbon-free hydrogen production and a hydrogen economy."

He added, "The key will be taking this laboratory device and turning it into a manufacturable prototype."

The company Sun Catalytix of Cambridge, Mass. is commercializing this technology

Higgs Can Run, But It Can't Hide

The Higgs boson is a wily, elusive little particle, but scientists at both Fermilab and CERN are hot on its heels, and if recent experimental results are any indication, the Higgs is fast running out of places to hide -- at least the version of the Higgs predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

Let's check in with Fermilab's Tevatron first, shall we? As regular readers know, after decades of world-class research and pivotal discoveries, the Tevatron's days are numbered. Ongoing budget cuts mean the massive (four miles in circumference) accelerator in Illinois will shut down this fall. So scientists on the two main experiments there, CDF and DZero, are working overtime to pick up hints of this last missing piece to the particle physics puzzle.

ANALYSIS: Could Higgs Particle be a Time-Traveling Assassin?

Earlier this month, scientists with each of those collaborations presented new results that excludes key regions of the range of possible masses for the Higgs, based on additional data collected and more sophisticated techniques for analyzing that data. See, scientists aren't entirely sure where to look for the Higgs; the more they can narrow the target range, the better their chances of finally detecting its telltale signature.

There are two primary scenarios: one that involves a high-mass Higgs boson (heavier than 130 GeV, or giga-electron volts, up to around 600 GeV), and one that predicts a low-mass Higgs (between 114 GeV and 129 GeV). The latest results focused on the high-mass scenario, and based on those findings, Fermilab scientists say they now can exclude a Higgs with a mass between 158 and 173 GeV with about 95% certainty.

There's still a 5% chance the Higgs is hiding there, but the general consensus is that this means the low-mass Higgs is emerging as the more likely scenario. The Tevatron teams will keep taking data from collisions in hopes of reducing the statistical fluctuations over the next few months. According to DZero co-spokesperson Dmitri Denisov of Fermilab, who told Symmetry Breaking, "If the Higgs boson exists, hints of its presence will emerge from the Tevatron data. If it does not exist, the CDF and DZero collaborations expect to rule out the remainder of the allowed mass range and scientists would have to wonder again: how do fundamental particles acquire mass?"

DNEWS VIDEO: LHC COLLIDES AT RECORD SPEEDS

Exciting times! Scientists with the Large Hadron Collider's CMS and ATLAS experiments noted the Tevatron results with great interest, and predict that they, in turn, will be able to further reduce the mass range where the Higgs might be lurking, ruling out masses between 120 and 530 GeV. I think we can all see where this is going: in that case, the Higgs would have to have a low mass of between 114 and 119 GeV, or an uber-heavy mass of 531 to 600 GeV -- or our current models are wrong.

Of course, this prediction comes with a few caveats, namely, it is based on the assumption that the LHC will remain on track to hit its data collection goals in 2011 and beyond. As with the Tevatron, the more data the LHC experiments collect, the more they can narrow target ranges with an ever-increasing certainty, and the better chance they will have at discovering -- or excluding! -- the Higgs predicted by the Standard Model.

But the Higgs isn't the only game in town for the LHC and Tevatron physicists. A paper recently appeared on the arXiv announcing mounting evidence for a potential new particle that nobody was really looking for in the first place. The smoking gun is in the directions that top quarks and their counterparts, antiquarks, travel after a collision; theory predicts that the particles should show a preference for one direction in particular 5% of the time.

However, both the CDF and DZero collaborations at Fermilab found an unexpected asymmetry: 15% of the particles showed a preferred direction, with top quarks showing a preference for moving forward and antitops showing a preference for moving backward. Furthermore, another study showed that above certain energies (greater than 450 GeV), the particles exhibited this weird asymmetry almost half (48%) of the time.

It's not the Higgs, according to CDF physicist Fabrizio Margaroli, because the Higgs wouldn't exhibit that kind of behavior. The most likely explanation is that an as-yet-undiscovered particle -- just heavy enough to escape detection by the Tevatron -- is interfering in some way and causing the asymmetry. But the LHC, with its higher energies, could find definitive evidence of this proposed particle -- possibly in the next few weeks or months.

So if the Higgs keeps playing hard to get, there could be a nice little consolation prize in the mix for the LHC: signs of new physics. Things are definitely getting interesting.

Beams of Electricity Zap Fires

Oscillating electric fields extinguish flames. The electric field may create a wind inside the flame that blows it away from the fuel source. The smokier the fire, the bigger the effect.

Researchers have shown that they can put out a fire by zapping it with electricity -- pointing an electrical wand at a flame and applying a current.

But it's too early to replace a firefighter's hose or an office sprinkler system with a zapping wand.

"It's still very much premature to say how this could affect firefighters in the field," said Ludovico Cademartiri of George Whitesides's research group at Harvard University, who presented his findings this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, Calif.

Previous experiments have shown that applying a constant electric field created small effects on flames, but Cademartiri's work used an oscillating electric field to greater effect.

"When you start using oscillating fields there are new mechanisms that come into play and these mechanisms lead to much stronger effects on flames -- effects that are so strong as to have been shown to suppress fires," Cademartiri said.

The team reported that when they placed an insulated wire at the base of a thin, 19-inch flame and applied about 600 watts of power -- similar to a medium -- sized microwave oven, the flame went out.

Why this happened is still a bit of a mystery. Cademartiri emphasized the complexity of flames, saying no single principle could explain why the flame goes out. However, one key principle may be that the electric field moves charged particles inside the flame in such a way that the flame sort of blows itself out from within.

"This is quite different from blowing air on the flame," Cademartiri said. "When you blow on the flame, you generate flow outside the flame and you push air into this flame. In our case, we generate this flow within the flame."

This flow may be strong enough to separate the flame from its fuel source, which may be why the flame goes out.

During experiments, the researchers found that the smokier the fire, the bigger the effect. This suggested that one application could be extinguishing cockpit fires, said Cademartiri.

The team is now in the process of determining how the electric field works with different sized flames to determine what kind of applications might exist for such a technique.

Derek Dunn-Rankin of the University of California, Irvine, who works with NASA to study the effects of flames in electric fields in microgravity, isn’t sure that there are any practical applications. His team has concluded from their own experiments that "it will not be possible to ever usefully extinguish flames of significant size," he said, because flames naturally have few charged particles to be affected by the electric field.

The exciting part of Cademartiri’s experiments is to show that an electric field can influence a flame from a distance without moving parts. But large-scale firefighting is another matter.

Still, there are many reasons to pursue such studies, he said. Also, understanding these effects has many applications, he noted. Electric fields can help reduce soot formation and pollutant emissions from flames.

Magma Boosts Geothermal Energy

 Molten rock unexpectedly seeped into a geothermal well. Instead of ruining the well, the magma produced super-heated steam that had three times the energy of conventional wells. The magma well could serve as a model for future drilling projects.

Many energy companies would love to double their production. Now, researchers have discovered a way, not to double, but triple production in some geothermal wells. These wells, which are built in regions with high tectonic activity that may produce volcanoes, hot springs and earthquakes, tap into naturally heated water and steam deep in Earth and use it to generate electricity.

The hotter the steam, the more energy a geothermal well generates. So when molten rock, or magma, unexpectedly seeped into a research well in Iceland, researchers realized the well could be a model for future drilling projects around the world.

“It is producing super-heated steam at about 400 degrees Celsius (750 degrees Fahrenheit), and it has about three times the energy content of traditional wells,” said Peter Schiffman, UC Davis geology professor and researcher on the project.

Geothermal wells currently supply energy to 60 million people in 24 countries, and are growing in popularity, according to the Geothermal Energy Association. Geothermal well installations in the United States alone have been increasing 15 percent each year, the group says.

But geothermal energy can only be exploited in regions with high tectonic activity such as California, the Philippines and Iceland, for example. In 2009, Reykjavik, Iceland-based Landsvirkjun Power Company partnered with a research team to study the nature of the fluids deep beneath Earth’s surface. The company began drilling a geothermal well in the Krafla Caldera, a large land basin that is part of an active volcanic system in the northeast of the country. Landsvirkjun planned to drill about 2.5 miles deep, but was forced to stop after only 1.24 miles because magma, molten rock from the Earth's core, began seeping into the well.

The researchers tested the well, known as the IDDP-1, and discovered it produced enough energy to power between 25,000 and 30,000 homes. They were amazed.

“We were months behind schedule and really frustrated by all of the drilling problems. Then we suddenly have this major discovery,” UC Davis geology professor and researcher Robert Zierenberg said.

By drilling closer to magma in areas with higher volcanic activity, energy companies could create a well that produces as much steam as three to four wells, saving millions of dollars in drilling costs and making geothermal energy a more valuable energy source. Zirenberg warns that with all the benefits, there are still some risks involved.

"Wherever magma is close to the surface, there is potential for producing high temperature geothermal fluids,” Zierenberg said. “But building power plants in active volcanic areas does come with some risk due to the potential for future eruptions.”

The wells themselves could also create problems. Conventional turbines used to convert steam into energy cannot withstand the high temperatures and pressures coming out of the IDDP-1 well.

Landsvirkjun’s head of power projects Bjarni Pálsson said in an email that he is confident engineers can develop new turbines that can do just that.

“Higher pressure and temperature are known from nuclear and fossil fuel power generation,” he said. “We believe turbine manufacturers would be able to combine knowledge and experience from these two industries.”

Pálsson said the company plans to build a new power plant to tap into the IDDP-1 well’s energy.

“Landsvirkjun and the Iceland Deep Drilling Project will continue experiments this year with the aim of finding an optimum way of utilizing the potentially erosive and corrosive steam,” he said.

Once this research is complete, Pálsson said, the company will decide whether or not to move ahead its plans for the power plant and the drilling of more triple-power wells.

Food Packaging Harbors Harmful Chemicals

Food packaging is a major route of exposure for people to two toxic chemicals: BPA and DEHP. Eating mostly fresh foods and avoiding cans and plastic containers can drastically reduce the levels of these chemicals in our bodies. A combination of shopping habits and legislation may be key to limiting human exposures to the ubiquitous chemicals.

Plastic wrappers, food cans and storage tubs deposit at least two potentially harmful chemicals into our food, confirmed a new study. By cutting out containers, people can dramatically reduce their exposures to these toxins.

The chemicals -- bisphenol A, or BPA, and a phthalate called DEHP -- are known to disrupt hormonal systems in the bodies of both animals and people, leading to developmental and reproductive problems, as well as cancers, heart disease and brain disorders. And both appear in a wide variety of food packaging materials.

But when people in the new study avoided plastic and ate mostly fresh foods for just three days, the levels of these chemicals in their bodies dropped by more than 50 percent, and sometimes much more.

"What this says is that food packaging is really the major source of exposure to BPA and DEHP," said Ruthann Rudel, a toxicologist at the Silent Spring Institute, a research and advocacy group in Newton, Mass. "The good news is that we provide some evidence that people can make everyday decisions about their kitchens and their diets if they want to reduce exposure to these compounds."

These chemicals appear in a huge range of consumer products. DVDs, eyeglasses and cash-register receipts may contain BPA. PVC toys, medical tubing and pipes can hold DEHP. Previous studies have also found them in foods and food-packaging materials, including plastic wraps, plastic containers and the epoxy linings of metal cans.

To solidify the link from food packaging to human exposure, Rudel and colleagues altered the diets of 20 Bay-Area families, each with two adults and two kids. All of the households reported that they either drank from polycarbonate water bottles, dined out at restaurants, microwaved food in plastic containers, ate canned foods or frozen dinners, or used plastic storage materials -- all of which would suggest exposure to at least some chemicals of concern.

During an eight-day study, the researchers took urine samples from participants on a nightly basis to look for evidence of both BPA and four types of phthalates.

For a couple days at both the beginning and end of the week, families stuck with their normal diet. But for three days in the middle of the study, they ate only food that was prepared for them by a caterer who conformed to specific guidelines.

The majority of food was fresh. Cans were not allowed. Food preparers avoided using plastic utensils or nonstick cookware. Food and drinks were stored in glass or stainless steel containers at levels low enough that the contents did not touch BPA-free lids. Even coffee had to be made in a French press or ceramic drip so that no plastic was involved.

During the three-day intervention, average levels of BPA in people's urine dropped by 66 percent, the researchers report today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The highest measured levels dropped by 75 percent. For DEHP, average levels of certain breakdown products dropped by more than 50 percent, and maximum measured levels dropped by 95 percent.

When the researchers looked at phthalates that show up in places like fragrances, glue and nail polish, but not in food packaging, they didn't detect any change at all during the study -- suggesting that food packaging was indeed the major source of exposure to BPA and DEHP.

The findings align with recent work showing higher levels of BPA in canned foods than in fresh versions, said Arnold Schecter, a public health physician at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas, who has pioneered a series of studies on chemicals in our food supply.

Scientists are concerned about the unknown and accumulative health effects of exposure to multiple toxic substances from many sources, Schecter added. Finding ways to lower levels of any chemical by any amount is encouraging.

"Their study and ours are more or less pointing in the same direction with the conclusion being that we'll probably poison ourselves a little bit less if we use food not stored in BPA-lined cans or phthalate-containing materials," Schecter said. "It seems to me this is good news. From a public health standpoint, if we can reduce our levels of these chemicals, that's a good thing."

As much as food-related choices can help limit the chemical burdens on our bodies, however, it is virtually impossible to eliminate exposures altogether. Many food-processing procedures, including cow milking, use plastic vats and PVC tubing.

That's where policy comes in, Rudel said. Some countries have already banned BPA in cans and DEHP in food packaging. This kind of legislation may ultimately be the only way to keep these chemicals out of our food and our bodies.

"Because we can't really shop our way out of the problem," she said, "I think it's most important to support efforts to replace these kinds of chemicals in food packaging with safer alternatives."

Monkey Barfs and Rechews Food

 The proboscis monkey is the first known primate to regularly regurgitate and rechew its food. Researchers suspect the behavior permits greater food consumption. It's possible that the behavior is a learned tradition, limited to one population of proboscis monkeys.

The proboscis monkey, nicknamed the “long-nosed monkey” due to its huge, protruding nose, now has another claim to fame: it regularly regurgitates and rechews its food.

The proboscis monkey demonstrates the first naturally occurring, ongoing instances of this behavior in a primate, conclude the authors of the paper, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters.

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Gorillas and humans will also sometimes upchuck, rechew, and swallow, but if done on even a semi-regular basis, the actions are considered to be pathological.

“The digestive tract of the proboscis monkey is drastically different from that of humans and great apes,” lead author Ikki Matsuda told Discovery News. “The proboscis monkey has a distinct sacculated (chambered) forestomach where bacterial digestion occurs prior to the glandular stomach.”

Matsuda, a scientist at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute, and his colleagues recorded the behaviors of proboscis monkeys living along a tributary of Kinabatangan River, Malaysia. The researchers collected their data from a boat on the river during early mornings and late afternoons from January 2000 to March 2001.

At least 23 different monkeys were videotaped regurgitating and rechewing. When this happened, the monkey’s abdomen would contract and the primate would stick its tongue outside its pursed mouth.

The regurgitated material stayed in the mouth, but could be seen at times on camera. The monkey then puffed out its cheeks as it rechewed and swallowed the food for the second time.

Matsuda said he and his colleagues “speculate that the behavior served to allow for an increased food intake under yet-to-be-specified conditions.”

He explained the behavior likely allows the monkey to digest larger particles of food faster. This, he theorized, “means the monkey can eat more sooner, because the bacteria do not need as long to digest the material.”

The proboscis monkey’s diet consists of various proportions of leaves and fruits. Some can be quite fibrous. The researchers, however, were not able to associate any particular type of food to the regurgitation/rechewing behavior.

Ruminants, such as cows, digest in a similar way all the time. They tear off plant materials and swallow them. After some processing, a contraction sends the cud material back up to the mouth where it is chewed for a long time before being swallowed again.

Peter Langer, a professor in the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Justus-Liebig University, is one of the world’s leading experts on ruminants and their feeding processes. He is the author of the book “Mammalian Herbivore Stomach: Comparative Anatomy, Function and Evolution.”

Langer told Discovery news that it’s important to make it “clear that rumination in the Artiodactyla (cows and other hoofed animals) and regurgitation and remastication in other mammalian orders, including primates, are different physiological processes.”

Koalas, for example, are not ruminants, but like the proboscis monkey, they too have been observed regurgitating and rechewing their food. They are only believed to do this under certain circumstances, such as when their teeth wear out due to old age, or when lactating females need to consume more food.

Matsuda said that if he and his team had observed the behavior in the monkeys more regularly, “say 10 minutes after waking in the morning, we might have called it rumination.” He added that this study only focused on one population of the monkeys, so the behavior might even be a learned tradition.

He explained, “Traditions, especially related to feeding, have been reported in primates -- like the macaques that wash food and even season it with salt water. We simply cannot exclude such a tradition.”

Japan on 'Maximum Alert' Over Nuclear Plant

 Workers have piled sandbags and concrete blocks around the tunnel shafts to contain the water. Despite earlier seawater contamination, tidal dispersal has lowered radiation levels and there is no immediate health threat from seafood.

Japan said on Tuesday it is on "maximum alert" over a crippled nuclear plant where highly radioactive water has halted repair work and plutonium has been found in the soil.

The earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan's northeast coast and left about 28,000 dead or missing also knocked out reactor cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, which has leaked radiation into the air and sea.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan conceded the situation at the coastal atomic power station remained "unpredictable" and pledged his government would "tackle the problem while in a state of maximum alert".

In a stop-gap measure to contain the crisis at the plant, crews have poured thousands of tons of water onto reactors where fuel rods are thought to have partially melted, and topped up pools for spent fuel rods.

But the run-off of the operation has accumulated in the basements of turbine rooms connected to three reactors and filled up tunnels, making it too risky for workers to go near to repair cooling systems needed to stabilise the plant.

One tunnel alone holds 6,000 cubic metres (212,000 cubic feet) of contaminated water, more than two Olympic swimming pools. Still, the only choice for now is to keep pumping water, said government spokesman Yukio Edano.

"Continuing the cooling is unavoidable... We need to prioritise injecting water," Edano told reporters.

If the rods are fully exposed to the air, they would rapidly heat up, melt down and spew out far greater plumes of radiation at the site, located about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo, nuclear experts fear.

Workers have piled sandbags and concrete blocks around the tunnel shafts to contain the water, the nuclear regulatory body said. They have now also restored light in the control rooms of reactors one to four.

The water out of reactor two has measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour -- four times the recently-hiked total exposure limit for emergency staff, and a level that can cause radiation sickness with nausea and vomiting in an hour.

Adding to the nuclear fears, embattled operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said plutonium had been detected in soil samples that were taken a week ago at five spots in the plant.

Nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said the plutonium data suggested "certain damage to fuel rods", Kyodo News reported.

The US environmental protection agency says internal exposure to plutonium "is an extremely serious health hazard" as it stays in the body for decades, exposing organs and tissue to radiation and increasing the risk of cancer.

TEPCO shares plunged 18.67 percent on Tuesday, and have now lost nearly three quarters of their pre-crisis value. News reports said the government is considering taking a majority stake in the power company.

Fears have grown in Japan over food and water safety, and vegetable and dairy shipments from four prefectures have been halted.

Seawater close to the plant earlier contained iodine-131 as high as 1,850 times the legal limit, but levels fell later and officials say tidal dispersal means there is no immediate health threat from seafood.

Japan's government has evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from within 20 kilometres of the plant, and more recently encouraged those remaining within 30 kilometres to also leave.

Environmental watchdog Greenpeace, which has taken its own measurements in the town of Iitate, 40 kilometres from the plant, urged the government to evacuate the town, especially children and pregnant women.

"Remaining in Iitate for just a few days could mean receiving the maximum permissible annual dose of radiation," Greenpeace radiation expert Jan van der Putte said.

Jitters continued throughout Asia, with China, South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam reporting that radiation had drifted over their territories, even though they emphasised the levels were so small there was no health risk.

"We would like to ask the public not to panic. These are very tiny amounts in the air," Philippine Nuclear Research Institute spokeswoman Tina Cerbolis said, echoing officials in the other countries to have detected the radiation.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently heads the G8 and G20 blocs, will travel to Japan Thursday to meet Prime Minister Kan as a show of solidarity, according to his office.

Fukushima: Sea Contamination Likely to be Local

 Seaweed easily absorbs radioactive iodine, but as the element only has a half-life of 8 days current levels are not expected to pose long-term contamination risk. A greater concern is whether caesium or plutonium is contaminiatng the seafloor, but even then an exclusion zone would likely remain local though it could last for years.

Radioactive contamination of the sea from Fukushima is likely to be only a local problem, but could lead to an exclusion zone if there is a major release of long-term pollutants, scientists say.

So far, the biggest contaminant identified by Japanese officials has been radioactive iodine 131.

Samples of water taken close to the plant have been as high as 1,850 times the legal limit of iodine, but levels have fallen back, Japanese officials said on Tuesday.

Radioactive iodine can enter the marine food chain, especially through seaweed, which absorbs this element readily.

"There is the potential, when you're talking about certain types of seafood, that you can have reconcentration," said Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a respected US NGO that focuses on nuclear safety.

"So, even dilute levels of contamination can be enhanced in certain marine life, you know, just like mercury concentrates in large fish like tuna. Also, plants like seaweed are known to concentrate certain isotopes, and so are certain types of shellfish."

Radioactive elements are hazardous in food because when ingested their radiation can damage DNA in cells, with the potential to cause cancer.

However, the contamination from iodine 131 is short-lived because the element has a half life -- the pace at which it loses half of its radioactivity -- of only eight days.

"This means that after a few months, it will be harmless, basically," said Simon Boxall, a lecturer at Britain's National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, southern England, who praised early measures to stop fishing around the plant after the March 11 disaster.

"What worries me more is if caesium and plutonium get into the system," he said, referring to two radioactive heavy metals whose half-lives are around 30 years and potentially thousands of years respectively.

"That's more concerning, because that can build up in the sediments" of the sea bed at Fukushima, said Boxall.

At high levels, this could lead to the imposition of an exclusion zone of catches of fish and seafood, a measure that could last "years and years," he said.

"It's hard to know (how long) until they start taking measurements and determine how extensive the pollution is.

"You would basically not fish in an exclusion zone, period. And beyond the exclusion zone there would be an additional zone where you would come from time to time and see if there's any radioactivity."

Fukushima's plant operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), reported on Saturday that levels of caesium were almost 80 times the legal maximum. On Monday it also said that plutonium, at very low and harmless levels, had been found at five locations in soil at the plant.

Given the scale of the Pacific -- the world's vastest body of water -- radioactivity in the sea at Fukushima will be flushed out beyond the local area by tides and currents and dilute to very low levels, Boxall said.

"It will get into the (ocean) food chain but only in that vicinity," he said. "Should people in Hawaii and California be concerned? The answer is no."

The Pacific, thanks to its size, is one of the cleanest seas in the world for radioactive contamination, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

In 1990, radiation in the surface North Pacific was four becquerels of caesium 137 per cubic meter, while in the South Pacific it was 1.6 Bq/m3, it says. Most of it came from atmospheric nuclear tests before these blasts were stopped.

The most polluted seas were the Baltic, hit by fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, with 125 Bq/m3; the Irish Sea, with 55 Bq/m3 due to radioactive releases from Britain's Sellafield plant; and the Black Sea, also contaminated by Chernobyl, with 52 Bq/m3.

By comparison, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets a maximum of 3,700 Bq/m3 of caesium in drinking water.

Light Pollution: Time to Turn On the Night?

One of my most memorable shoots for the BBC's "The One Show" was when I traveled up to to the UK's first "Dark Sky Park," Galloway Forest Park in West Scotland. When the sky finally cleared, we were treated with the most amazing sight of a velvety black star-filled sky with the Milky Way brighter than I have ever seen before.

There are eight registered Dark Sky Parks in the world, but is light pollution really that much of a problem for those of us in less rural locations? Is the only solution to turn all the lights off?

For astronomers, light pollution is a major problem and along with the turbulent currents in our atmosphere, it drives professional astronomical observatories to the top of the most remote mountains. For the rest of us though, we have to be content with the skies above our homes.

The problem is that a vast proportion of light fittings shine light above the horizontal and up into the sky. The resulting stray light bounces off particles and industrial pollutants in the atmosphere straight back down to Earth as the characteristic orange color of sky glow. The effect on the astronomer is that it lowers the contrast between it and objects in the sky, making them hard -- if not impossible -- to see.

Lights Off

In a recent shoot for the One Show (which aired Monday night in the UK), I was invited along to a small town called Needham Market, in Suffolk, UK to turn the street lights off!

The driver for this activity wasn't for TV, or to reduce light pollution, but it was about CO2 emission reductions and cost savings. Councils around the UK have been given target CO2 emission reductions and one of the popular ways of doing this is to turn off street lights after midnight.

Suffolk Council owns 55,000 street lights and where appropriate, by April 2012, they will be switching most off after midnight and reducing the output by 60 percent on others. In doing so, they will reduce CO2 emissions by 4,150 tons each year, save around ￡50,000 per year ($81,000), and as a side effect, reduce light pollution.

A lot of the filming was done under the glare of 450 street lights, but as the night closed in, we waited until 11:30 p.m. when the big switch-off was going to happen. Although it was cloudy unfortunately, it was incredible. The sky had some broken cloud, so occasionally we glimpsed the sky behind was noticeably darker. The effect of just turning off the street lights was significant.

I'd taken along a "sky quality meter" which measures how dark the sky is. The darkest skies in the UK have been recorded with one of these devices. For example, the Galloway Forest Park has a reading of 22.72 and at the island Sark (the UK's first "Dark Sky Island") comes in at 21.53 (the higher the reading, the darker the night sky).

The Needham Market reading, although tainted by cloud, showed an increase of almost one, from a little over 18 to a little over 19. This happened just by turning off the streetlights, obviously a great ally in the fight against light pollution, cost savings and CO2 reductions!

Darkness = Crime?

Of course, perception is still one of the biggest challenges as people 'feel' safer when it is lighter. The jury is still out as to whether security lighting is as effective as we think at reducing crime levels.

So it seems that while a reduction of lighting is a good thing -- bringing financial savings, pollution reduction, reduction in energy usage, wildlife benefits (birds can become confused with dusk-to-dawn lighting in built-up areas) and of course, better viewing of the night sky -- the one remaining problem is to challenge the belief that lighting prohibits crime.

In some areas of the UK, studies have even shown that better lighting has very little effect on levels of crime. But, as a rule, people feel safer with lights on. Unfortunately, I think that's an instinctual thing and something that will take a very long time to overcome.

Diamond Could Store Quantum Information

By manipulating atoms inside diamonds, scientists have developed a new way to store information. The technique could lead to quantum computers capable of solving problems beyond the reach of today’s technology.

Could be that diamonds are a geek’s best friend.

Scientists have developed a new way to manipulate atoms inside diamond crystals so that they store information long enough to function as quantum memory, which encodes information not as the 0s and 1s crunched by conventional computers but in states that are both 0 and 1 at the same time. Physicists use such quantum data to send information securely, and hope to eventually build quantum computers capable of solving problems beyond the reach of today's technology.

For those developing this quantum memory, the perfect diamonds don’t come from Tiffany & Co. -- or Harry Winston, for that matter. Impurities are the key to the technology.

“Oddly enough, perfection may not be the way to go,” said David Awschalom of the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We want to build in defects.”

One of the most common defects in diamond is nitrogen, which turns the stone yellow. When a nitrogen atom sits next to a vacant spot in the carbon crystal, the intruding element provides an extra electron that moves into the hole. Several years ago, scientists learned how to change the spin of such electrons using microwave energy and put them to work as quantum bits, or qubits.

In search of a more stable way to store quantum information, Awschalom has now figured out how to link the spin of a electron to the spin of the nearby nitrogen’s nucleus. This transfer, triggered by magnetic fields, is fast — about 100 nanoseconds, comparable to how long it takes to store information on a stick of RAM.

The technique has “a fidelity of 85 to 95 percent,” Awschalom said March 22 in Dallas at a meeting for the American Physical Society.

In contrast to some other quantum systems under development, which require temperatures close to absolute zero, this diamond memory works at room temperature. The spins inside the diamond can be both changed and measured by shining laser light into the diamond. This could make diamond an attractive material for scientists developing nanophotonic systems designed to move and store information in packets of light.

Unlike a diamond itself, this quantum memory isn’t forever. But it lasts for a very long time by quantum standards. The nuclear spin remains coherent for more than a millisecond, with the potential to improve to seconds.

“You can only do your quantum magic as long as you have coherence,” said Sebastian Loth, a physicist at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. “If you have a lifetime of milliseconds, that lets you do millions of operations.”

In addition to stability, diamond may also overcome another hurdle that has faced quantum computing -- it can be scaled up to larger sizes. In a paper published last year in Nano Letters, Awschalom developed a technique for creating customizable patterns of nitrogen atoms inside a diamond, using lasers to implant thousands of atoms in a grid.

Awschalom’s diamond quantum memory could also be useful for building large quantum networks. Currently, quantum information is transmitted by connecting, or entangling, qubits. This scheme is limited to distances of kilometers. Quantum repeaters could potentially use small chips of diamond to catch, store and retransmit this information to extend the range, enabling quantum networks to work over much longer distances.

Gorilla Haven Found in Cameroon

(Western Lowland Gorilla; Credit: Purdue University)

Gorillas are among the world's most endangered animals, but the Wildlife Conservation Society has reported rare good news about these large primates: A population of western lowland gorillas, described as "dense and healthy" by the WCS, has been found in Cameroon's Deng Deng National Park.

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Perhaps most surprising is the fact that these gorillas are living near a logging operation. About 300 to 500 gorillas divide their time between the park and the logging area. A road exists between these two places, however, which puts the gorillas in danger of poachers.

“Protecting this gorilla population and guaranteeing its future absolutely requires protecting the gorillas in the logging concession as well as in the park,” James Deutsch, WCS Director for Africa Programs, said in today's announcement.

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He and his colleagues made that determination after conducting a census of gorillas in the region. To do this, the researchers counted ape nests along line transects. Part of that effort involves analyzing dung samples in the nests. You can see researcher Ambahe Ruffin Dupplex doing that in the below photo. (Credit: Wildlife Conservation Society)

Ape conservation efforts appear to be working, as the density of gorillas found in Deng Deng nearly equals that for Gabon's Lopé National Park and Congo's Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park.

Deng Deng National Park was created in just 2010. One of many reasons for its creation was to protect the gorillas from deadly Ebola epidemics that have wiped out other great ape populations in Central Africa. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List now classifies gorillas as being "critically endangered," mentioning the disease threats, along with problems related to hunting, habitat loss, habitat degradation due to human activities (from agriculture, timber extraction, mining) and possibly climate change.

Deng Deng therefore provides a rare haven for gorillas and other animals to thrive. Chimpanzees, elephants, buffaloes and a reddish-brown antelope known as the bongo also occur in this protected area.

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Roger Fotso, director of WCS’s Cameroon Program, concluded: “For a small area, this is an extremely important site for gorilla conservation. It is also important because this is the northern-most population of western lowland gorillas, and because it is accessible to the capital Yaoundé and so a possible future site for tourism.”

The WCS credits the Cameroon Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife and the French Development Agency for their work over the past three years to help protect gorillas.

In the below video segment from the television series "Life," you can see western lowland gorillas at a site in the Congo Basin.

Airport Body Scanners Not a Health Risk

A new study reports that airport body scanners do not pose a health risk. The scans deliver an amount of radiation equivalent to 3 to 9 minutes of the radiation received on a normal day.

Full-body scanners used to secure airports, about 1,000 of which will be deployed across the United States by year's end, do not pose health risks, a study released has found.

The University of California study appearing in the "Archives of Internal Medicine" found that a traveler would have to go through a body scanner 50 times to receive the same amount of radiation as from a dental X ray.

The researchers also said a lung X ray was equivalent to 1,000 trips through an airport scanner, while a mammogram delivers as much radiation as passing through such a scanner 4,000 times.

The study focused on X-ray machines dubbed "backscatter" which use low-dose X rays, similar to those used in medical imaging. So far there are some 486 full-body scanners in place in 78 U.S. airports.

"The radiation doses emitted by the scans are extremely small; the scans deliver an amount of radiation equivalent to 3 to 9 minutes of the radiation received through normal daily living," the authors wrote.

And "since flying itself increases exposure to ionizing radiation, the scan will contribute less than one percent of the dose a flyer will receive from exposure to cosmic rays at elevated altitudes," they added.

"The estimation of cancer risks associated with these scans is difficult, but using the only available models, the risk would be extremely small, even among frequent fliers. We conclude that there is no significant threat of radiation from the scans," they wrote.

Advanced imaging technology X-ray scanners currently in use at airports around the United States sparked an uproar among travelers because they produce a graphic image of a person's naked body, genitalia and all.

Others have worried the scans might be unsafe.