Truly Madly Deeply

MLTR - Nothing To Lose

2010-08-04T19:10:00.002+05:30

There are times when you make me laugh
there are moments when you drive me mad
there are seconds when I see the light
though many times you made me cry

There's something you don't understand
I want to be your man

Chorus:
Nothing to lose
your love to win
hoping so bad that you'll let me in

I'm at your feet
waiting for you
I've got time and nothing to lose

There are times when I believe in you
these moments when I feel close to you
there are times I think that I am yours
though many times I feel unsure

There's something you don't understand
I want to be your man

Chorus:
Nothing to lose
your love to win
hoping so bad that you'll let me in

I'm at your feet
waiting for you
I've got time and nothing to lose

I'll always be around you
keep an eye on you
cos my patience is strong
and I won't let you run
cos you are the only one

Nothing to lose
your love to win
hoping so bad that you'll let me in

I'm at your feet
waiting for you
I've got time and nothing
Download Link-
http://www.4shared.com/audio/kAaODrtu/MLTR_-_Nothing_To_Loose.htm

African Lion

2010-08-02T15:07:00.000+05:30

African Lion
Lions are unique in that they are the only cats to live in groups (prides). They are the largest member of the cat family and the largest of all the African carnivores. They are are the top predator in any African ecosystem where they live.
Photo by Villiers Steyn
Description and Characteristics:
Lions are Tawny in colour, varying from silvery yellow to reddish brown with paler undersides (female belly yellowish to almost white); yellow to black mane. Faint, leopard like spots are generally found on the young which is sometimeskept into maturity.

Males have thick mane around the head that extend down the chest between the forelegs and varies in colour from blond to black, whereas females do not have manes

Lions have massive shoulders and strong forelimbs, long, sharp claws, and short, powerful jaws. A Lions' roar can be heard by humans more than 8 km away.

Prides of lions are generally composed of related females, whilst a typical prides contains around 13 lions, large prides can contain as many as 40 lions, while some prides will have a few as two members. A prides home range varies in size from 20-400 km².

Lions are mainly nocturnal and are reputed to sleep or rest for about 20 hours a day. You will often find them lying under a shady bush, particularly after they've fed following a kill.
Feeding/drinking Habits:
As carnivores, feeding entirely on the flesh of other mammals, lions have 30 teeth, including large piercing canines to grab and kill prey, scissorlike molars to slice into flesh, and small incisors to scrape meat from bones. Much of their hunting is done at night and in the very early dawn. When feeding on a large kill, a lion can eat almost 36 kg of meat in one feeding and then not need to eat for several days. On average, a lion needs to eat about 5 kg of meat daily.
Habitat:
The lion is found throughout the south Sahara desert and in parts of southern and eastern Africa. They are generally seen on grassy plains, savannas, and dry woodlands but never seen in heavily forested areas. The lion can be found in most of the National Parks and Reserves in Africa.
Size & Lifespan
Males reach up to a shoulder height of 1.2meters and weight between 150-250kgs, females are smaller and reach a shoulder height of 1.05m and weigh up between 120 -180 kgs. Lions live for 12-16 years in the wild and 25 years in captivity.
Reproduction:
A lioness has a gestation period of about 110 days, after which she can gives birth to up to four cubs. Generally she gives birth in a secluded areas away from the group and introduces the cubs to the pride when they are about eight weeks old. Very often, several females give birth at about the same time, and they share the duties of protecting and nursing the cubs. Mothers nurse for up to 8 months, although they begin to take cubs to eat at animal kills when they are as young as 3 months old. At about 11 months of age, cubs start learning to hunt with the pride. Females take care of their young until they are about two, when the mother is ready to produce a new litter.
Predators and Threats:
Although the population of lions is declining, they are not currently listed as endangered or threatened. Threats include hunting, loss of habitat and human encroachment
.

Photos of Lion

New Flying Car Aims to Save Lives in the Amazon

2010-07-31T20:01:00.000+05:30

New Flying Car Aims to Save Lives in the Amazon

In the 1950s, Nate Saint, adventure pilot and protestant missionary, barnstormed the Amazon. Now, his son plans to transform jungle aviation and save livesÂ—with help from a flying car.

"Gather around, everyone," Steve Saint says. "Let's say a prayer about these flights." Saint, a thin, gray-bearded 58-year-old, is wearing khakis and a salmon-colored shirt and holding a red crash helmet with a radio headset. He is standing with a dozen employees and well-wishers in front of a candy-apple-red vehicle parked beside a crumbling strip of tarmac at a sleepy little airstrip near Dunnellon, Fla., 87 miles northwest of Orlando. The contraption looks like a dune buggy, but one with a propeller in back like an Everglades airboat and, billowing above, a rainbow-colored flex wing--essentially a double-canopy parachute--held aloft on a mast.

"Jay, how about you?" Saint says, peering through wire-rimmed glasses. "You built this thing. You know what can go wrong." Jay Dyck, the project's chief designer, steps forward, closes his eyes and drops his chin. "Father and God," he booms, warming to his task, "we have tried to do our best." A prop plane buzzes into the blue Florida sky behind him. "Father, we leave it to you. Help Steve stay alert and be safe." His entreaty done, Dyck scrutinizes the driveshaft and chute lines one last time. "You can design something on paper, but it's just a thing until you get it in the air," he tells me, his animated face growing sober. "If something goes wrong up there, you can't park it. You're gonna come down."

Saint climbs into the driver's seat. The Federal Aviation Administration approved the craft for testing a couple of days earlier, and this will be its first official flight, though the team briefly flew earlier versions. Stretching across the aluminum dash in front of him is EXPERIMENTAL in bold, black stick-on letters.

Steve Saint is a missionary--and yes, that's his real name. He's also a pilot, a former real estate developer and the one-time owner of a lime rock mine near Ocala, Fla. He grew up in Ecuador, where his family moved in the 1950s as Protestant missionaries to work with indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. At first, they focused on Quechua Indians. But it was another group, the Huaorani, then referred to by outsiders as "Aucas" or "savages," to which the Saint family would become linked by tragedy. Half a century ago, the story became a subject of articles and sermons, and Saint recently wrote a book and helped make two films about it.

Today Saint is working to fulfill a long-standing promise he made to the Huaorani: helping them find a better way to travel in a land where villages can be a month's walk from medical help. The bush plane is considered the modern missionary's pack mule, but Saint's group, the Indig-enous People's Technology and Education Center (I-TEC), is trying to build a more versatile vehicle. I've come to see I-TEC's progress with the hybrid aircraft they call the Maverick. Saint says the vehicle will hit highway speeds on pavement, burn up dirt tracks like an all-terrain vehicle and, when the road ends, take to the air. The finished craft should have the carrying capacity of a Cessna 172--fuel plus 550 pounds--without the plane's expense and need for an airstrip. And nonpilots will be able to fly it. In Huaorani territory right now, Saint says, "If you get sick and don't have an airstrip, you're dead."

It's time for the flight. "Clear!" Saint yells, and the 128-hp Maverick roars to life, its five-bladed carbon-fiber prop blasting sand and grass in its wake. The buggy chugs across the weedy runway as the ram-air cells in the canopy fill. The idea that a colorful curl of ripstop nylon attached by spaghetti straps can lift an 1100-pound off-road vehicle seems almost absurd. But soon the front wheels are leaving the ground, and the gleaming frame is climbing--100, 200, 300 feet--into the white glare of the sky.

Steve Saint was 5 years old when his father, Nate Saint, a man of restless energy and a big-toothed smile, launched a secret plan that he and four missionary buddies earnestly dubbed Operation Auca. Saint was flying for the Mission Aviation Fellowship in the eastern lowlands of Ecuador. In 1955, using a trick called the bucket drop that he had dreamed up as a young pilot back at Wheaton College in Illinois, Saint began lowering gifts to a Huaorani village from the cockpit of his yellow Piper Cruiser. A partner would spool out 1200 feet of cord with a canvas bucket filled with axe heads, colorful buttons, machetes and more. Then Saint would cut tight circles in the air until the line formed an inverted cone with the bucket hanging at its point--motionless--just above the ground. One day, the Huaorani filled the bucket with their own presents--a toucan headdress, smoked woolly monkey meat and a live parrot that Nate gave to Steve as a pet. The time had come: If the five evangelists were ever going to bring Jesus to the Aucas, they would have to meet them face-to-face.

On Jan. 3, 1956, Nate pointed the nose of his plane toward a narrow gap in the jungle canopy cut by the path of the muddy Curaray River. He aimed for a sliver of beach along the river's south bank, hoping that his wheels wouldn't sink in soft sand, or, worse, flip his plane. The wheels bit into the sandbar and rolled 600 feet, stopping a pebble's toss from the water's edge. Over the next few hours, the group ferried in food, two-way radios, materials for building a treehouse shelter, and gifts seemingly suited for a child's Christmas stocking, including a harmonica, a yo-yo and a View-Master with picture reels.

Back in Shell Mera, a former oil settlement with a gravel airstrip, Steve waited for Nate's plane to reappear over Penny Ridge, as it did every afternoon. Why isn't daddy coming home? the boy wondered. That evening, the missionaries radioed Nate's wife, Marj, to say that they had landed safely and made camp. After several days, a young man and two women, naked except for strings around their waists, stepped out onto the sand. The excited Americans tried out the few Huao words they knew and gave the curious trio lemonade and peanut butter sandwiches. Nate took the man, Nenkiwi, up in his plane, buzzing the village as Nenkiwi yelled down to his clansmen below.

Three days later, Nate flew over the village and saw a group of about 10 Huaorani moving swiftly along a trail leading toward the beach. He radioed Marj excitedly: "Looks like they'll be here for the early afternoon service. Pray for us."

Nate promised to radio again at 4:30 pm. The call never came. A search party found the plane five days later looking like a skeletal bird, its fabric cover shredded. They found the bodies of the missionaries in the river and buried them by the water's edge. The men had been speared to death.

The Maverick has flown as high as 1000 feet and as far as 20 miles, staying in the air for half an hour. On the ground, it can go up to 80 mph. (Photograph by Brad DeCecco)

I really wish I'd buckled in. I'm sliding all over the back seat of the Maverick while I-TEC administrator Troy Townsend whips the buggy left, then right, at 50 mph, wheels kicking up sand, to demonstrate the vehicle's agility. Thin, with a preternatural calm, the 42-year-old Townsend is Saint's fellow test pilot--as staid "as a CPA," jokes Saint, "until you get him in something with a motor." Townsend fractured his heel last year trying mast designs on a powered parachute, then emergency-landed the flying dune buggy when the drive belt snapped during a short test flight. "We'll keep breaking the Maverick," he says, after we've parked the vehicle and I've scraped the gnats off my teeth. "We'll find the weak spots, and then we'll fix them."

In the hanger that I-TEC calls home, Townsend and Dyck, an old friend of Saint's and a self-taught engineer, pop an aluminum panel off the front of the buggy's chromoly tube frame to show off the innovative hydraulic steering system. It allows the steering wheel to turn the wheels while in road mode, then flare the canopy wing tips for turning in the air. Another first is the 22-foot hinged mast that holds the ram-air chute aloft for quick, safe takeoffs. And the Subaru engine's splined driveshaft can be shifted from wheel drive to fan drive by pulling a cotter pin and slipping a lever.

"We're working on the easy button," Dyck says. The idea is to shift to flying mode without ever leaving the driver's seat. In addition to the Huaorani, the Maverick may serve missionaries around the world, as well as farmers and ranchers, pipeline inspection crews, hunters--anyone with a lot of rugged ground to cover.

Technology aside, not everyone is a fan of I-TEC's work. Andy Drumm, president of a Quito, Ecuador-based travel company called Tropic Journeys in Nature, thinks the Maverick "sounds innovative and potentially applicable" to the Amazon, but he has larger concerns. Drumm, a native of Wales who lives in Arlington, Va., has spent the past 15 years helping Huaorani communities support themselves through ecotourism. "The religious fundamentalists' support seems conditional on the Huaorani adopting Christianity," he says. "I've seen how evangelists have opened up territory with airstrips and worked hand-in-glove with the oil companies that exploit the indigenous people."

Saint acknowledges that he is out to promote his faith, but he says that he is a new kind of missionary. Instead of crates of Bibles in the hangar, I see boxes of reading glasses and a patented dental chair equipped with a solar-powered drill that can be carried in a backpack. I-TEC trains indigenous people to use the equipment to do basic dentistry. There's also a pair of large crates containing the fuselage and wing of a Van's RV-10 kit airplane. They were shipped from Shell Mera, where I-TEC runs a builder-assist program to give indigenous people, including the Huaorani, jobs helping U.S. amateurs build kit planes. It's all part of what Saint calls his "engineering ministry."

After Nate Saint was killed, Marj moved with her children to Quito, Ecuador's capital, but Nate's older sister, Rachel, remained in her outpost on the edge of the jungle, still committed to missionary work. "I thought, you've got to be kidding," Steve recalls. "They killed my dad, and now they're going to kill my Aunt Rachel."

Remarkably, within three years, Rachel Saint had moved into a Huaorani village on the Tiwaeno River, and her neighbors had begun adopting Christianity. When he was 9 years old, Steve started flying into the remote area during long school breaks and befriending Huaorani children, who used the rain forest as their playground. By that time, a strange thing had happened. "I was thinking, I've got to know these people who were so special that my dad was willing to die for them, my mom went on praying for them, and my aunt was willing to risk her life to live with them," Saint says.

Another turning point in Saint's relationship with the Huaorani came a year later. Two of his companions, the sons of a hunter named Mincaye, convinced Steve to take their father's blowgun for a day of hunting. The Huaorani shared nearly everything--firewood, floor space--but a man's blowgun was his own, a precision weapon he might spend a month shaping to fit his hands. Fearful but not wanting to be left behind, Steve screwed up his courage, entered the thatched hut and took the 8-foot weapon.

As he trod through the dim light, thorns clawed at Steve's shorts and vines ensnared his feet. The boys left the trail in search of a fruiting tree where birds might feed, navigating muddy bluffs and moss-covered logs bridging ravines. At the end of the day, they returned bearing a single woodpecker. When he entered Mincaye's hut, Steve saw the barrel-chested warrior and thought, oh, no, I'm caught.

"I had been `nettled' once," Saint says. He had ruined a dugout canoe while playing with a hatchet. "The whole community encircled me, laughing and scolding while they swatted me with the plant. The barbs set my skin on fire. If that was good for a nettling, I figured taking Mincaye's blowgun really meant trouble." But Mincaye acted as if he hadn't noticed the blowgun's absence. Steve didn't understand why, but in the following months and years, Mincaye steadily drew him into his orbit. Eventually the boy came to see the hunter and warrior as an adoptive father.

Saint's Aunt Rachel died in 1994. At the funeral, in Ecuador, Saint learned more details about his father's killing, but the full story became clear only a dozen years later, after Marj Saint, too, had passed away. Among her papers, Steve's sister found a letter Rachel had written in the early 1960s. It described a conversation she'd had with Mincaye. "Your nephew is totally ignorant," the hunter had said. The boy could not track animals, make poison darts, shoot a blowgun or even start a fire with sticks. "Who's going to teach him how to live?"

Rachel replied, "You, having spear-killed his father, who do you say should teach him how to live?"

"It is true," Mincaye said. "Having spear-killed his father, I myself will teach him how to live."

After his Aunt died, Saint began to feel the tug of the old family trade. He sold his share of the mining business and uprooted his family to help Mincaye and other Huaorani build their own airstrip. In 18 months, he flew more than 3300 flights in a patched-up Cessna 172, shuttling people and supplies. But the Huaorani wanted more.

"When your father came, he went fast from place to place," Mincaye told him. "In your plane you go fast from place to place. We ourselves want to go fast from place to place." Fifty years after Nenkiwi flew briefly with Nate Saint, Steve taught Nenkiwi's son Tementa to operate a powered parachute. Soon Tementa saved a life by evacuating a boy who had been bitten by a lethal fer-de-lance snake.

The day after the Maverick's test flight, Saint takes me flying. FAA rules bar me from going up in the experimental vehicle at this stage, but there are no such restrictions on Steve's shiny gold RV-10, a single-prop plane with a leather interior and digital instruments. "When I tell people I'm flying a plane built in the Ecuadorian jungle, they expect some piece of junk," Saint says proudly, his voice crackling in my headset. Then he punches it up to 200 mph, slows to 60 mph and speeds up again, climbing and banking so quickly that I grab for the dash.

Nate Saint was a daredevil as well as a dreamer, and so is Steve. In college, he used to take friends up in his Piper J-3 Cub, then charge them 10 bucks if they held on. These days, Steve rarely flies for fun. But he'll be returning to Ecuador soon, and if he's lucky he'll get some time alone in his plane. Perhaps he'll fly above the Curaray River, as he often does. But now, before returning to the ground, Saint pulls back on the stick one more time. The nose goes high and the horizon disappears. We see only the deep blue air.

Jet Pack for Sale: Only $100,000 !

2010-07-31T19:57:00.000+05:30

Jet Pack for Sale: Only $100,000!

It’s not actually a jet pack—it runs on gasoline to power two ducted fans—but if you want to soar in the skys with a flying machine strapped to your back, you can. And all for $100,000!

New Zealand—based Martin Aircraft Company announced a $12 million joint venture to build a factory for producing a new kind of jet pack. Only, the pack doesn't have a jet engine at all. The craft uses a 200-hp engine running on ordinary gasoline to power two ducted fans. Riders can cruise for 31.5 miles at the FAA-mandated maximum speed of 63 mph, controlling pitch and roll with one hand and yaw and throttle with the other. The company is charging around $100,000 for the first units. Owners won't need a pilot's license, but they will have to pass a mandated training program.

Richard MARX, - Angelia .mp3

2010-07-31T19:37:00.001+05:30

	MARX, Richard - Angelia .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Memories of you and me
Tumble inside my head
Way that we used to be
Things that we said

No one has ever
Made me believe so strong
You left me to wonder
How did our love go wrong?

Angelia, where you running to now?
Angelia, got to make you turn around

I lie awake at night
Wait for the sun to shine
I still feel you next to me
Your lips on mine

Without a warning
You made our love a lie
Then you said, you were sorry
But you never told me why

Angelia, where you running to now?
Angelia, got to make you turn around

Maybe my love is in vain
Maybe you're the hurting kind
Can't take no more of this pain
I've got to get you off my mind
Get you off my mind

Tried to be what you wanted
I gave you all I had
Girl, you left me with nothin'
Nothin' but a photograph

Angelia, where you running to now?
Angelia, won't you please turn around?

Angelia, where you running to now?
Angelia, where you running to now?
Where you running to now?

Angelia, where you running to now?
Where you running to now?

Download -Click Here

MLTR - Blue Night.mp3

2010-07-31T10:45:00.000+05:30

Lately you have been asking me
if all my words are true
Don't you know I'll do anything for you

Sometimes I haven't been good to you
Sometimes I've made you cry
And I am sorry for everything

but I promise you girl
I promise you this
[Chorus:]
When the blue night is over my face
on the dark side of the world in space
When I'm all alone with the stars above
you are the one I love

So there's no need to worry girl
My heart is sealed for you
And no one's gonna take it away

cos' I promise you girl
I promise you this
[Chorus:]
When the blue night is over my face
on the dark side of the world in space
When I'm all alone with the stars above
you are the one I love

Your voice is calling to me in my dreams
My love is stronger than it's ever been

Download- Click Here

Indian Birds

2010-07-30T14:06:00.001+05:30

2 Bee Eaters

Painted Storks

Egret

Kingfisher

Kite

Indian Roller

Indian Vulture

Eurasian hobby

Shrike

Parakeets

Spotted Owlets

Pratincoles

Bulbul

Fishing Eagle

Crested Kingfisher

Flameback

Black Red start

Osprey

Pipit

Turtle Dove

Peacock(National Bird)

Himayalan Griffons

Many thanks to Vandit Kalia(Photographer)

Indian Wildlife

2010-07-30T13:49:00.001+05:30

Leopard cub on tree

Tibetan Wolf



		Indian Hare Dhole-Indian Wild Dog

Chital

Blue Sheep

Great Indian Elephant

Sloth Bear

Nligai

Indian Jackal

Super Monkey

Jungle Cat

Many thanks to Vandit Kalia(Photographer)

Indian tigers

2010-07-30T13:32:00.001+05:30

Many thanks to Vandit Kalia(Photographer)

Cheetah will run again in India

2010-07-30T13:18:00.003+05:30

Cheetah will run again in India

The cheetah, eradicated in India by hunting nearly a century ago, will run again in the country, as three sites are earmarked for its reintroduction.

The government has approved wildlife groups' recommendations of two sanctuaries in Madhya Pradesh and an area in Rajasthan as potential homes.

The government will spend 30m rupees ($0.6m; £0.4m) to restore these sites before the animals are imported.

The plan is to import the cats from Africa, Iran and the Middle East.

Kuno Palpur and Nauradehi wildlife sanctuaries in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and Shahgarh area in Jaisalmer, in the northern state of Rajasthan, have been selected as the sites to house the animals.

Trophy hunters

Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said the reintroduction of the world's fastest land animal would "restore the grasslands" of India.

Wildlife experts say the two sanctuaries in Madhya Pradesh had the capacity to accommodate nearly 80 cheetahs, although 23 human settlements will have to be moved from the one in Nauradehi.

Scores of nomadic human settlements would also have to be cleared at the site in Rajasthan on the international border with Pakistan.

"The return of the cheetah would make India the only country in the world to host six of the world's eight large cats and the only one to have all the large cats of Asia," MK Ranjitsinh of Wildlife Trust of India told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Pursued by trophy hunters and herdsmen to the brink of extinction during the Raj, the Asiatic cheetah vanished from India many decades ago.

Conservationists say less than 100 of the critically endangered subspecies remain in Iran, roaming the central deserts.

The vast majority of the 10,000 cheetahs left in the world are in Africa.

Critics of the reintroduction scheme in India say that without restoring habitat and prey base, and reducing the scope for man-animal conflict, viable cheetah populations will not flourish.

Mars site may hold 'buried life

2010-07-30T13:11:00.001+05:30

'Mars site may hold 'buried life'

Researchers have identified rocks that they say could contain the fossilised remains of life on early Mars.Is Nili Fossae the site where life on ancient Mars was buried and preserved?

The team made their discovery in the ancient rocks of Nili Fossae.

Their work has revealed that this trench on the dark side of Mars is a "dead ringer" for a region in Australia where some of the earliest evidence of life on Earth has been buried and preserved in mineral form.

They report the findings in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

The team, led by a scientist from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (Seti) in California, believes that the same "hydrothermal" processes that preserved these markers of life on Earth could have taken place on Mars at Nili Fossae.

The rocks there are up to four billion years old, which means they have been around for three-quarters of the history of Mars.

When, in 2008, scientists first discovered carbonate in those rocks the Mars science community reacted with great excitement; carbonate had long been sought as definitive evidence that the Red planet was habitable - that life could have existed there.

“Start Quote

This is the place that we should be checking out for life on early Mars”

Adrian BrownSeti Institute

Carbonate is what life turns into, in many cases, when it is buried - if it does not turn in to oil. The white cliffs of Dover, for example, are white because they contain limestone, or calcium carbonate.

The mineral comes from the fossilised remains shells and bones and provides a way to investigate the ancient life that existed on early Earth.

In this new research, scientists have taken the identification of carbonate on Mars a step further.

Adrian Brown from the Seti Institute, who led the research, used an instrument aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter called Crism to study the Nilae Fossae rocks with infrared light.

Then he and his team used exactly the same technique to study rocks in an area in north-west Australia called the Pilbara.

"The Pilbara is very cool," Dr Brown told BBC News. "It's part of the Earth that has managed to stay at the surface for around 3.5 billion years - so about three quarters of the history of the Earth."

"It allows us a little window into what was happening on the Earth at its very early stages."

Scientists believe life could have existed on Mars almost four billion years ago

And all those billions of years ago, scientists believe that microbes formed some distinctive features in the Pilbara rocks - features called "stromatolites" that can be seen and studied today.

"Life made these features. We can tell that by the fact that only life could make those shapes; no geological process could."

This latest study has revealed that the rocks at Nili Fossae are very similar to the Pilbara rocks - in terms of the minerals they contain.

And Dr Brown and his colleagues believe that this shows that the remnants of life on early Mars could be buried at this site.

"If there was enough life to make layers, to make corals or some sort of microbial homes, and if it was buried on Mars, the same physics that took place on Earth could have happened there," he said. That, he suggests, is why the two sites are such a close match.

'Geological olympics'

Dr Brown and many other scientists had hoped that they would soon have the opportunity to get much closer to these rocks. Nili Fossae was put forward as a potential landing site for Nasa'a ambitious new rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, which will be launched in 2011.

The site was championed by other geologists, including John Mustard from Brown University in Rhode Island, whose team made the case to Nasa to have it included in the landing site shortlist for MSL.

But Nilae Fossae was eventually deemed too dangerous a landing site and it was finally removed from the list in June of this year.

The shortlist of four landing sites (labelled in white) and the position landers and rovers already on Mars (in yellow)

"The rover is being landed remotely - so there's no human pilot involved; it's all up to the robot. And [that's] a very dangerous thing," said Dr Brown. "You need 20km of smooth terrain and unfortunately at this site it is pretty rocky - those ancient rocks are pretty weathered and the surface is rocky and uneven."

"It will be visiting another interesting site when it lands, but this is the place that we should be checking out for life on early Mars."

John Grant, a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and a member of the planetary sciences panel that advises Nasa on the MSL mission, spoke to BBC News earlier this year about the choice of landing site.

He said that the objective of mission was a search for "habitability". It was not, he said, a life detection mission.

"[It] entails looking at geologic environments that may not only have been habitable but where signals associated with that habitability have been preserved," he told BBC News in February.

But that does not alleviate the disappointment that many feel over having Nili Fossae and all its secrets taken off the table for the mission.

And what makes Mars Science Laboratory even more of a crucial mission for scientists is the fact that it will be the last rover to explore the surface of Mars until 2018 - partly because funding the mission has been so extraordinarily expensive.

Dr Brown described the experience of having his favoured landing site removed from the shortlist as the geological equivalent of having "your city's Olympic bid rejected".

MSL will be lowered onto Mars with a landing system called a sky crane

"I also see a race happening here," he said. "It might take us a couple of decades to build our capability to land [unmanned] rovers somewhere geologically interesting on Mars.

"And in those decades, human space flight capabilities are going to develop and we could have the capability to send humans to Mars."

So in this race of the human versus the robots, which will win?

"It's my personal belief," said Dr Brown, "that by the time real human geologists get to go to Mars, the question of whether there is life on Mars will still be open."

Source-BBC

MLTR-Breaking My Heart-Mltr--Greatest hits.mp3

2010-07-30T11:34:00.000+05:30

I’m on the floor
Counting one minute more
Noone to break the silence

Staring into the night
All alone but that’s alright
It’s the feeling deep inside I don’t like

Chorus:
There is no excuse my friend
For breaking my heart
Breaking my heart again
This is where our journey ends
Your breaking my heart again

Here in my bed
Counting the words you’ve said
They linger in the shadows

Coming home late at night
Drunk again but that’s alright
It’s the look in your eyes I don’t like

Chorus:
There is no excuse my friend
For breaking my heart
Breaking my heart again...

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Band of Bots: Two Military Robots Team Up to Cover Land and Air

2010-07-26T21:22:00.000+05:30

Band of Bots: Two Military Robots Team Up to Cover Land and Air

In war, teamwork is everything, even if you're a robot. Just as human soldiers and airmen support each other, teams of robots will likely roam future battlefields, helping each other on missions.

In recent tests at Ft. Benning, Ga. a Northrop Grumman Fire Scout unmanned helicopter ferried a ground robot, the QuinetiQ's Dragon Runner, to its deployment point. The helicopter scanned the ground for obstacles before setting down, releasing the Dragon Runner when the Fire Scout's on-board skid sensors detected contact with the ground. Within seconds, the UAV was hovering overhead, providing a communication relay between the ground surveillance robot and its human distant human controller.

How the U.S. Military Can Win the Robotic Weapon Revolution: Pictures

2010-07-26T21:18:00.002+05:30

How the U.S. Military Can Win the Robotic Weapon Revolution: Pictures

In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq with just a handful of unmanned vehicles. Now, less than a decade later, we have 7000 robots overseas in the air alone. The U.S. dominates the robot war room, for now.

US Army soldiers unload a robot to deactivate an IED they discovered on a main road in Yosef Khel district of Paktika province.

(PHOTO BY MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

A remotely-operated TALON explosives ordinance disposal robot prepares to defuse a roadside bomb during an IED-clearing mission by US soldiers from Fox company, 4th squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in western Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.

(PHOTO BY ALI YUSSEF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

A robot prepared by a US soldier from the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, patrols to check a suspected road side bomb, in a street of Baghdad.

(PHOTO BY JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

A remotely-controlled US Army robot moves in to deactivate an IED discovered on a main road in Yosef Khel district of Paktika province.

(PHOTO BY MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

An anti-IED robot known as the 'Dragon Runner' on display during a photocall on military technologies in London.

(PHOTO BY GEOFF CADDICK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

U.S. Marine Sgt. Nicholas Bender launches a Raven surveillance drone from Marine base perimeter near the remote village of Baqwa, Afghanistan.

(PHOTO BY JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES)

U.S. Air Force Maj. Casey Tidgewell prepares an MQ-9 Reaper for a training flight at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada.

(PHOTO BY ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES)

A full-scale model of The RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned plane is displayed during a presentation at PiO Exhibition Center in Tokyo, Japan.

(PHOTO BY KOICHI KAMOSHIDA/GETTY IMAGES)

On May 10th, Boeing unveiled the fighter-sized Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system, a test bed for advanced technologies. Phantom Ray is designed to support potential missions that may include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; suppression of enemy air defenses; electronic attack; strike; and autonomous aerial refueling.

Golden Eye 50 UAV

The British Autosub autonomous submarine robot.

The Robotic Hull Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming tool, or HULL BUG, is being tested by the Office of Naval Research as a hull-cleaning device. The HULL BUG is similar in concept to an autonomous robotic home vacuum cleaner and uses a biofilm detector to differentiate between the clean and unclean surfaces on the hull of a ship.

World's Largest Cruise Ship Pulls 360s with Joystick

2010-07-26T21:13:00.000+05:30

World's Largest Cruise Ship Pulls 360s with Joystick

Click here to go behind the scenes with five more of the most ambitious engineering projects on earth—from the earthquake-ready Bay Bridge to the world's biggest science project and the deepest tube tunnel!

BY JEFF WISE

GENESIS

Price Tag: $1.2 billion
Completion Date: 2009
Total Length: 1180 feet
Passengers: 6400

In the cruise ship industry, the battle for bragging rights has turned into a QE2-size slugfest. In 2003, Cunard stole the crown for world's largest cruise ship when it launched the 151,410-ton Queen Mary 2; three years later Royal Caribbean topped it with the 154,000-tonFreedom of the Seas. Now, Royal Caribbean is set to raise the stakes yet again with the 220,000-ton Genesis, slated to launch in 2009 from a shipyard in Turku, Finland. (A second Genesis will launch a year later.) Why is bigger better? "Having more real estate, we can provide more deck area," says Royal Caribbean's Harri Kulovaara. "That means more entertainment options and better amenities."

Make no mistake, Genesis will be no lumbering behemoth. The ship's three main propellers will swivel 360 degrees on independent bearings. All will be driven by electric motors powered by the ship's central bank of six diesel generators, and steered by an integrated navigation and control system. From the bridge, the captain will be able to move the ship in any direction — forward, backward, sideways — with the flick of a joystick. No tugboats required.

Sizing Up: Boats

Knock Nevis

Claim to fame	Largest ship ever (now retired)
Length	1504 feet
Displacement	564,763 tons
Launched	1981
Capacity	4.1 million barrels

Emma Maersk

Claim to fame	Longest ship (in service)
Length	1303 feet
Displacement	156,907 tons
Launched	2006
Capacity	11,000 shipping containers

USS Ronald Reagan

Claim to fame	Largest warship
Length	1092 feet
Displacement	98,235 tons
Launched	2003
Capacity	85 aircraft and a crew of over 6000

The World's 18 Best Stadiums

2010-07-25T19:58:00.002+05:30

The World's 18 Best Stadiums

Stadiums, it seems, are the new cathedrals. "[A stadium is now] like a civic building, in the way people used to construct churches or town halls or centers of government," says Jon Niemuth, principal at the architecture firm AECOM Ellerbe Becket. Breaking ground last December, the new stadium being constructed in Hangzhou, China, which will be the country's largest, exemplifies the trend, serving as an architectural centerpiece to the city's new park district. Hangzhou's new stadium, which resembles the petals of a flower, shows that the days of stripped-down, cookie-cutter stadiums like the Kingdome in Seattle or Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati are gone. While we wait for this latest stadium from China to open (in 2013), we circle the globe to find the most innovative, eclectic—and, yes, strangest—venues open right now.

1. Guangdong Stadium

Location /// Guangzhou, China

Background: Guangdong Stadium, located in China's third largest city, opened in 2001 and can seat 80,000 to watch soccer and track and field events. This fall, it will host the 16th Asian Games, a quadrennial event that's the continent's version of summer Olympics.

Why it's unique: The stadium's signature design element, its flowing, ribbon-like, cantilevered roof, represents "an image of a runner breaking the tape," says Jon Niemuth, principle at the architecture firm AECOM Ellerbe Becket, which won an international competition to design the stadium. Additionally the upper section of the stadium's seating bowl is shaped like petals in honor of Guangzhou's title of "The Flower City."

(PHOTO BY STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

2. Sapporo Dome

Location /// Sapporo, Japan

Background: The aerodynamic Sapporo Dome has been around for nearly a decade, playing host to matches during the 2002 World Cup. It has since been the home of the soccer team Consadole Sapporo and of Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Japan's Pacific Baseball League.

Why it's unique: Architect Hiroshi Hara designed the dome to allow the near 20 feet of snow the Northern Japanese city averages each year to sheet off of the roof more easily to lessen stress on the structure. Despite the unique exterior design, "the inside is a building that's in some ways modeled off of the multiuse stadiums you'd see in America that can do baseball, soccer and concerts," Niemuth says, but with a twist. The dome has a retractable grass field that slides into the stadium and rotates 90 degrees to maximize sightlines for soccer matches.

(PHOTO BY MARTIN ROSE/GETTY IMAGES)

3. Soccer City Stadium

Location /// Johannesburg, South Africa

Background: Reimagining the original stadium that was built back in 1986, Soccer City's massive remodel finished just in time for the 2010 World Cup, where the 94,000-seat stadium will host the tournament's opening ceremony, first match and final.

Why it's unique: The panels that constitute the stadium's façade are made of a highly compressed, fibrous concrete with gaps between that allow light to shine out at night. "We took colors and textures from the natural landscape of South Africa and took inspiration from the randomness of the stars in the Johannesburg night sky," says Damon Lavelle, the stadium's architect at the firm Populous.

(PHOTO BY ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

4. Beijing National Aquatics Center

Location /// Beijing, China

Background: More commonly known as "The Water Cube," the aquatic center was the site of Michael Phelps's unprecedented eight Olympic gold medals in 2008.

Why it's unique: Inspired by an image of bubbles clustered together, the Sydney-based firm PTW Architects won an online vote by the Chinese public to build the Aquatics Center. The Water Cube's square form was created in order to play off of the roundness of the Beijing Olympic Stadium located just a few hundred feet away, creating the "yin and yang of the Beijing Olympics," Niemuth says. 100,000 square meters of the thin, UV-resistant ETFE plastic comprise the walls of the arena, held together with a maze of 22,000 steel beams for a breathtaking effect when lit up at night. "That exterior image is on par with the Bilbao Art Museum," Niemuth says.

(PHOTO BYCHINAFOTOPRESS/GETTY IMAGES)

5. Beijing National Stadium

Location /// Beijing, China

Background: The centerpiece of the Beijing Olympics' stunning stadiums, the "Bird's Nest" showcased an epic opening ceremony and possibly the Games' most electrifying athlete, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.

Why it's unique: Designed by Pritzker Award-Winning architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, the stadium's shape and latticework form are inspired by Chinese ceramics. The bold originality of the stadium derives from the games' planning committee wanting its stadiums to be statements of China's rise and assertion of national pride. "Rarely does a building become the defining element of the games," Niemuth says.

(PHOTO BY MONICA RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES)

6. Allianz Arena

Location /// Munich, Germany

Background: The home of soccer teams Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich, the 66,000-seat stadium was built for the 2006 World Cup where it hosted the opening match and France's semifinal victory over Portugal.

Why it's unique: Like the Beijing National Stadium, Allianz was designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, which created a stadium with 2874 inflated ETFE plastic panels, giving it a billowy, cloud-like form. Those translucent panels also allowed the architects to change the appearance of the stadium by adjusting illumination. Allianz "accentuated what we can do with light technology," Niemuth says, "to completely transform these buildings with the color of lighting instead of just hanging a sign on it."

(PHOTO BY SANDRA BEHNE/GETTY IMAGES)

7. Munich Olympic Park

Location /// Munich, Germany

Background: Located just north of the city center, the park hosted the 1972 Olympic Games and its stadium, formerly the home of German Soccer's most successful club, Bayern Munich, is the only one in the world to have hosted the Olympics, the World Cup Final and the European soccer championships final.

Why it's unique: Combining stainless-steel cable nets, acrylic glass and supports, architect and structural engineer Frei Otto's design of the Munich Olympic Park is a masterwork in tensile architecture. Never before had work like it been done on such a massive scale, and it's a design that continues to permeate Otto's pieces, according to Niemuth.

8. Ericsson Globe

Location /// Stockholm, Sweden

Background: Opened in 1989, the 14,000-seat arena serves as the home arena for Sweden's national men's hockey team and for the last three years has been the venue for Sweden's version of American Idol.

Why it's unique: Not only is the Globe the largest spherical building in the world, it also serves as the sun in the world's largest scale model of the Milky Way. The solar system is at 1:20 million scale with the planets located throughout Stockholm and Sweden. Forty-eight 90-foot curved pillars provide support for the aluminum panels that make up the arenas facade, and they hold up the Globe's cupola, which has 144 skylights.

(PHOTO BY PAUL GILHAM/GETTY IMAGES)

9. The Burj Al Arab Hotel Helipad

Location /// Dubai, UAE

Background: In preparation for the 2005 Dubai Championships, the Burj Al Arab converted its helipad into a tennis court for Roger Federer and Andre Agassi to hit around.

Why it's unique: Sure, it may be a bit of a stretch to call this a stadium (there are, for starters, no seats for an audience), but attached to the opulent Burj Al Arab Hotel and suspended 650 feet in the air this one-time tennis court provided one of the most scenic venues in sports. When the helipad isn't a tennis court, guests can use it to shuttle to the airport for about $2700. The hotel is located on a man-made island just off the coast of Dubai and derives its sail-like shape from the region's nautical history. The Burj's "form has set in motion a number of other projects that look very similar," Niemuth says. "When you're in the Middle East you'll see other buildings that were inspired by it."

(PHOTO BY DAVID CANNON/GETTY IMAGES)

10. Estadio Municipal de Braga

Location /// Braga, Portugal

Background: Built for the 2004 European soccer championships the 30,000-seat stadium is the home of the soccer team Sporting Braga.

Why it's unique: Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura wanted to integrate the natural and the manmade with his stadium design, so to build it construction crews carved out a section from the quarry at Monte Castro and fit the stadium into the space. To further that integration, the stadium's scoreboard was mounted on the granite cliff at the edge of the stadium. "In and of itself the stadium design is very simple, but it's a really powerful image," Niemuth says.

(PHOTO BY ALEX LIVESEY/GETTY IMAGES)

11. The Float

Location /// Marina Bay, Singapore

Background: The Float, which opened in 2007, will be converted to a stage to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010.

Why it's unique: Built as part of a land reclamation project that began in the 1970s, the Marina Bay development extends Singapore's Central Business District. On the edge of the bay, the Float, a 30,000-seat grandstand faces a nearly 33,000-square-foot steel platform that sits atop 200 pontoons.

12. Sprint Center

Location /// Kansas City, Missouri

Background: Built to lure an NHL or NBA team to Kansas City, Sprint Center, completed in 2007, still awaits a major-league anchor tenant. The stadium has been successful in luring NCAA basketball back to Kansas City after the sport had grown disinterested in playing games at the outdated Kemper Arena.

Why it's unique: Sprint Center was built to be the centerpiece of the redevelopment of downtown Kansas City. In a rare collaboration some of the world's biggest sports architecture firms, which are headquartered in Kansas City, teamed up to design the arena. "Sports architecture is what we do in Kansas City, it may be our No. 1 export to the rest of the world," Niemuth says. The result proved quite different than the brick and mortar designs of American sports arenas, with a shimmering venue encased in 140,000 feet of glass.

(PHOTO BY JAMES SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES)

13. Ingalls Rink

Location /// New Haven, CT

Background: Built in 1958, the "Yale Whale" continues to be the home of the Yale Bulldog hockey team.

Why it's unique: Finnish-American Eero Saarinen, himself a Yale grad and architect of St. Louis' Gateway Arch, designed the distinctive Ingalls Rink, which the Architectural Institute of America selected as one of America's 150 favorite pieces of architecture. Ingalls "was from a time when there were buildings that were highly figural and expressive," Niemuth says, "They were more than just sports buildings."

(PHOTO BY WOROBOD)

14. Pengrowth Saddledome

Location /// Calgary, Canada

Background: The home of the NHL's Calgary Flames, the Saddledome was completed in 1983 and hosted ice skating and hockey during the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Why it's unique: The Saddledome's shape evokes Calgary's western heritage, which includes the world famous annual rodeo and fair the Calgary Stampede. Yet the signature saddle-like form also serves an important function, as the arena's designers Graham McCourt Architects shaped the concrete roof as an inverse hyperbolic paraboloid so its weight would be supported without internal pylons that would block fans' views.

(PHOTO BY BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)

15. Mellon Arena

Location /// Pittsburgh, PA

Background: The arena known as "The Igloo" has been the home of the three-time Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins since the team's inception in 1967. This season marks the Pens last at Mellon before the team moves to Consul Energy Arena.

Why it's unique: Located in Steel City, Mellon Arena proudly boasts the world's largest stainless steel retractable dome roof, the first retractable roof for a major indoor sports arena. "It's a half a sphere, divided into three parts and it rotates in stacks," Niemuth says. "It's so simple and effective you think, 'hey, why don't we still do it that way?'"

(PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)

16. Estadio Algarve

Location /// Faro, Portugal

Background: Now the home of two teams in the lower divisions of Portuguese soccer, Sporting Clube Farense and Louletano Desportos Clube, the Estadio Algarve was the southernmost stadium constructed for the 2004 European soccer championships.

Why it's unique: Estadio Algarve exemplifies vernacular architecture, which calls on local culture to inform a building's design. With masts in the corners and translucent cloth stretched over the arched roofs to resemble sails, "the stadium calls upon the maritime setting and the history of Portugal's great discoveries," says Lavelle, the stadium's architect. "Vasco de Gama took off from Faro on one of his first expeditions so the forms that derive from those cultural aspects." But it wasn't just ships that inspired the stadium design, Lavelle says, Southern Portugal's gustatory delights are present too. "It's almost crustacean-like as well, to match the local cuisine."

(PHOTO BY ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES)

17. University of Phoenix Stadium

Location /// Glendale, AZ

Background: The stadium has been the home of the Arizona Cardinals since 2006 as well as the annual Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Additionally, it's hosted the BCS Championship game and Super Bowl XLII, which saw the New York Giants beat the previously undefeated New England Patriots.

Why it's unique: The sleek, silver stadium in the desert boasts the first retractable field in North America. Planted in a 2-acre tray that rolls on 16 rails, the idea of constructing a moving field began with the ownership's desire and belief that football should be played on natural grass," says Dennis Wellner, founding principal of the architecture firm Populous. The team also wanted a retractable roof to protect fans from the heat; however, "the opening in the roof would not be large enough for sunlight to fall on the field sufficiently so that the grass could remain healthy," Wellner says. By having a field that rolled out of the stadium to fully bask in sunlight, the Cardinals could have a retractable roof and natural grass.

(PHOTO BY MIKE MOORE/GETTY IMAGES)

18. Cowboys Stadium

Location /// Arlington, TX

Background: The $1.2 billion behemoth, dubbed "Jerryworld" after the Dallas Cowboys eccentric owner Jerry Jones, opened in 2009 and, with a capacity of over 100,000 it became the largest stadium in the NFL.

Why it's unique: The centerpiece of Jerryworld is the massive scoreboard hanging over the field that features the world's largest HDTVs. The two 2100-inch 1080p LED displays span 60 yards, weigh 600 tons and in the course of one game use more energy than the average American consumes in four months. And for the screen's manufacturers, Mitsubishi Diamond Vision, fabricating them stretched the company to the limit. "There were times when every single one of our production lines were taken up with the Cowboys' display," says Dave Belding of Mitsubishi.

(PHOTO BY FELIX JONES/GETTY IMAGES)

The High-Tech, Luxury, Surveillance Hotel

2010-07-25T19:54:00.002+05:30

The High-Tech, Luxury, Surveillance Hotel

The Aria Resort and Casino, within MGM's new City Center complex on the Las Vegas Strip, may be the most technologically advanced hotel ever built. Its mix of gadgets and cutting-edge networks blends centralized convenience with personalized luxury (and even a squeeze of energy-saving sophistication) to offer a glimpse of what all hotels could look like in the future.

The Aria opened on Dec. 16 last year, marketing itself as a high-tech alternative to Vegas's more traditional resorts, with a data and communication system driven by 283 individual telecom rooms and a broadband antennae network covering 140 million square feet. And while the technology brings many high-tech luxuries to visitors—omnipresent wireless connectivity, 3D monitors and smart touchscreen interfaces—it also crosses into potential Big Brother territory (even by Vegas standards). Here is a close look at some of Aria's biggest technological advances and the issues they raise.

The Autonomous Smart Room

Aria technicians ran primary and redundant fiberoptic networks to each of the hotel's 4004 guest rooms, allowing for extensive in-room automation. When a guest enters a room, curtains automatically open, music plays, the TV activates and climate controls bring the room to a preset temperature.

If a guest leaves, the lights go out, curtains close, the TV and music shut off, and the temperature reverts to a preset, personalized setting. All room features (including the "Do Not Disturb" sign) can be manipulated with a Control 4 touchscreen room-automation remote control, or directly through the room's HDTV. A forthcoming iPad app will also allow the tablet to double as a room remote.

Since guests register with the Aria's data system, the hotel can store all room setting information indefinitely. If a guest returns a year later, their room can be prepped with the same lighting, entertainment and climate settings as during their previous stay.

Other elite hotels offer such advanced automation, but the Aria is the first to run the service to every room. On one level, it's a gimmick. You can always get up to close the curtains or turn off a light. But, the real advance is still to come—hotel technicians are working on systems that would allows guests to control their room settings from across town through their cellphones. This could result in energy savings by allowing guests to turn off their a/c-saving energy usage as they could turn off their a/c when they leave—and turn it back on before they return to their rooms.

Augmented Realty

Once a guest's smartphone is registered with the Aria, hotel attractions could push personalized notifications to the user. All the guest has to do is hit a button, and the agreement will be akin to a signature. And since the Aria is able to track cellphones while on resort grounds, the hotel will easily be able to send guests special features and offers depending on who they are and where they are standing at any given moment. Are you a known blackjack player? The resort can let you know about empty player chairs at the $25 tables. Like buffets and standing near the dining area? They can send you a digital coupon for $2 off your brunch.

The House Always Wins

Players will find slots, video poker and the other gambling standards throughout the Aria (after all, this is Vegas). But these aren't just any gambling stations—they have updatable, changeable games controlled and monitored by the Aria's 3000-square-foot data center. The stations, which have hi-def screens that are each run by a Mac Mini, give the house stats on which games are the most popular, allowing the control room to change them accordingly. One-dollar slots not doing well? Change them to a quarter. Video Poker beating out slots? Turn slot machines into poker machines with a keystroke.

Flexible gambling tech will be essential to other massive Vegas casinos in the future. Gambling is no longer the primary revenue producer in Sin City, with big-budget shows, spas and restaurants now eclipsing the gaming floor.

Visitors with a limited vacation budget want something for their money—like the memory of a special event or a lavish meal, and not a pile of vanishing quarters at the video-poker machine. When these risk-averse tourists gamble, they tend to weigh their chances and select their games more carefully. So, giving a casino the opportunity to create a more popular gambling machine should allow them to increase revenue.

Smartphone Key Cards

Over the next two years, biometric smartphones will drive further features at the Aria and other tech-forward hotels. "We want to get to the point where we can encode your cellphone so you can use it as your credit card, you room key and your Player's Club card," says John Bollen, CityCenter's vice president of technology. "Guests would open their door or pay for a product or service with a specially developed app." According to Bollen, an Aria app should also work at other MGM properties in Vegas.

And since every inch of the Aria is covered by what the hotel calls a "heat-sensitive" Wi-Fi network, phones are less likely to find themselves in dead spots. That heat-sensitive technology reads the density of activity on the network, and adds Wi-Fi muscle to parts of the grid that require more bandwidth.

While using a smartphone as a keycard or credit card certainly sounds appealing, it has obvious security risks, and it could prove difficult for customers to get comfortable with the idea. Hotels like the Aria will have to install multiple levels of encryption and data protection to prevent fraud and privacy violations.

Watching What You Eat

All dining facilities feature digital menus on the casino floor, at every gaming station and in the restaurants themselves. The Aria's data-hub tracks how many people access the menus, what they access, when they access and what they order. The hotel's food mavens can calculate how many people read the menu compared to how many eat in the restaurant, track what items are selling, and easily adjust menu selections and prices on the fly.

So far, hotel statistics indicate patrons who scroll through an entire menu tend to move on to something else. Those who stop halfway, though, often get a table.

In the recent past, it would have taken weeks of record keeping and analysis for chefs and restaurant managers to deduce what their top earners were. Now, the real-time, data-linked menus can immediately read trends from the dinner table and analyze it with a quick and easy cost–benefit table. This could be a problem for guests who enjoy less popular fringe items, which could be pushed off the menu.

Who's Watching You?

The Aria's Honeywell camera surveillance system—and those like it at other hotels—could eventually be used for more than security monitoring. The cameras can use facial recognition software to tell who's coming and going, and to home in on VIPs to whisk them to the front of a line or shower them with special treatment.

But there are perks to Big Brother watching you—if you're a VIP, that is. For example, if a guest has a Player's Club Card, and his or her face is ID'd (or a smartphone detected), there'll be no need to stand in line at the club. A concierge will scan for the right faces and phones before escorting those chosen people in ahead of the crowd.

When you combine such cameras with the smartphone network, no one—especially frequent guests—will be able to move around the property with anonymity. And for frequent guests, the hotel might know an uncomfortable amount of personal information—from what they eat, to what TV stations they watch.

Virginia Tech's Lumenhaus Wows Crowds in Times Square

2010-07-25T19:50:00.003+05:30

Virginia Tech's Lumenhaus Wows Crowds in Times Square

After a solid performance at the 2009 Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C., the solar-powered, net-zero home built by the Virginia Tech Hokies travels to New York's Times Square for a public reception on Broadway—and it's a hit.

(Photo by Alden Haley, Virginia Tech)

"This house is from the future," observed a fourth-grader as she and fellow classmates toured the Lumenhaus, a net-zero home built by students at Virginia Tech University for the 2009 Solar Decathlon. The home had its first public reception among engineers and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., where it took the bronze in architecture and came in 13th overall in the 20-school contest this October. But some time around midnight on Jan. 27, the trailer-hitched house rolled across the George Washington Bridge and down Seventh Avenue for a 48-hour stint in the middle of Times Square. As the school children toured the 650-square-foot structure, oohing and aahing as cabinetry slid away to reveal a flat-screen television, one child remarked that the house "is perfect for New York City," and another said, "it's perfect for me."

That seemed to be the general sentiment among passersby. New Yorkers, instantly interrogating designers about how much the house cost, reacted with piqued interest at the locally reasonable $250,000 to $300,000 asking price—a figure that elicited groans in D.C. A Times Square security guard, tempted by the fantasy of buying a nice little spread upstate and plunking this self-sufficient beauty down in the middle of it, pledged to bring his wife and five children back to tour the house before it gave up its stake by the Theater Development Fund's TKTS booth the following night. Another guard, asked if he liked the house, responded, "hell yeah," stating that the house trumped a Ferrari, a Bentley, and even a flying Bentley. "You could have a Bentley with wings, and still, if you said, 'I got a solar house,' that takes it. Nothing beats a solar-powered house." The first security guard added, "It's incredible. Nothing goes to waste."

He's right. Outside the skyscraper shade of Manhattan, the house's solar panels generate enough juice to power its efficient appliances and its surprisingly homey, diffuse fluorescent lighting. It channels rainwater via a waterfall into a collection tank for irrigation, and its sliding exterior panels can adjust to embrace warm outdoor temperatures or batten down to shelter the home in harsh weather. The sliding panels' exteriors are studded with LEDs, transforming the building into a low-slung lighthouse at nightfall. Daylighting is used throughout, from the skylight over the slick central bathroom to the windows running the length of the long walls. On a chilly afternoon in Times Square, with the intricately fabricated metal screens splayed open, visiting Virginia Tech students and faculty lounged on a living room couch while lights and noise exploded soundlessly beyond the insulated glass. It was, for the day at least, one of the most enviable addresses in the city. Student designer Corey McCalla claimed he'd like to live in this location, "for a while," he said. "I'd at least like to sleep one night here."

This glowing facade pierced the darkness during its evenings on the National Mall, but the lights of Times Square eclipse the home critiqued by Solar Decathlon rivals in D.C. as "a house that glows in the dark—whoopie." Here in Manhattan, beneath blinking Brobdingnagian underwear advertisements and the luminous latest in American Eagle apparel, the bright house just blended right in. "It's humbling," said McCalla, when contemplating a perch in one of just a few places, Blacksburg excluded, where the Lumenhaus wouldn't light up the night sky.

It's almost a shame the shack couldn't stick around a bit longer, as sales of replica models through the weekend could surely have funded the next several Solar Decathlons solely on the backs of real-estate-hungry New Yorkers. But it's probably for the best that the house didn't plant roots on 47th Street—this house is due at the international Solar Decathlon in Madrid this June, where it will compete against homes built in China, Finland, Florida and other exotic architectural locales. We hope that students at Virginia Tech took note of New Yorkers' constructive criticism, or at the very least noted one fourth grader's observation in the bedroom: "If this were a water bed, that'd be awesome." There is still time for a few design tweaks before Madrid.

Top 8 Skyscrapers That Will Push the Limits of Design

2010-07-25T19:50:00.000+05:30

Top 8 Skyscrapers That Will Push the Limits of Design

This month, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai climbed higher than any other previous structure ever built. But architects won't rest there. Here are eight building plans trying to capture the title as the next tallest tower.

Burj Mubarak al Kabir in Kuwait. (Photograph by Eric Kuhne and Associates)

The Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest tower in the world, officially opened in Dubai on Jan. 4 amid an impressive pyrotechnics display that highlighted the tower's 2716.5-feet of aluminum and steel, and its 26,000 hand-cut glass panels. The Burj Khalifa blows away the next-nearest skyscraper, which is Taiwan's 1670-foot Taipei 101, and the building has even surpassed ultra-tall, ground-cable-supported radio antennas.

Architects' vertical leapfrogging, however, isn't likely to stop at the Burj Khalifa. While the tower will be a tough one to beat, it is likely to remain at the pinnacle for only about another half-dozen years. Developers around the world have proposed numerous new skyscrapers. Some projects have leapt off the drawing boards, though plans for many record-breaking towers have been scuttled because of the global economic spasms of the past couple years. (The original name of the Burj Khalifa, the Burj Dubai, was changed at the last minute to recognize United Arab Emirates president Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who as emir of Abu Dhabi gave struggling Dubai a $10 billion bailout last month.)

So what buildings could be the next to rise up and steal the Burj Khalifa's crown? Here are eight future contenders.

1. Burj Mubarak al Kabir

Location /// Madinat Al Hareer (City of Silk), Kuwait
Projected Height /// 3284 ft

(Photograph by Eric Kuhne and Associates)

This mammoth structure will rise to exactly 3284 feet, or 1001 meters. The height, in meters, is an allusion to the classic collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, says London-based architect Eric Kuhne, whose firm designed the tower. To break the kilometer-high mark (which is 3281 feet), the $7 billion-plus Mubarak al Kabir will have three interlocked towers that support the overall structure. These towers, or "blades," pinwheel about a triangular central shaft that holds elevators and mechanical equipment. Each blade twists 45 degrees as it rises, for strength, and expands slightly at the top. This Kuwaiti landmark will therefore place more mass and usable space near its zenith compared to other towers, says Kuhne, to avoid the structure having too thin and flexible a tip. To dissipate high-altitude, tower-buffeting gales that could blow at 150 miles per hour, the Mubarak al Kabir will see the first architectural deployment of vertical ailerons—the normally horizontal flaps airline passengers see on a plane's trailing wing edge that help counter wind disturbances. "They will look like continuous ribbons running vertically along the six leading edges of the three blades," Kuhne says. "As [the ailerons] are constantly moving, and catching the sun while they adjust, sunlight will glint off their surfaces. It will add a gentle rippling reflection to the edges of the blades that will add dynamic sparkle to the tower," Kuhne says. The Burj Mubarak has a projected completion date of 2016.

2.1 Dubai

Location /// Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Projected Height /// Three towers: 1969 ft, 2625 ft and 3281 ft

(Photograph by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture)

Building higher also means building wider. That is why the 3280-foot 1 Dubai will be built with three towers. "What tends to happen is as these buildings get taller, the base needs to be wider, but it gets to the point that it's just too wide to be a single building and you start to pull things apart or separate them," says Peter Weismantle, director of supertall building technology at Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture. The smallest tower of 1 Dubai will come in at around 1970 feet and the tallest at about 3280. All three emerge from a tripedal base architects call the saddle. A canal will flow between 1 Dubai's three legs, letting boats sail underneath. Further support for the towers comes from the connecting skybridges where tower residents will be able to congregate. Designers envision building the skybridges at the saddle and then using a jacking mechanism to hoist them into place. Clearing the site for the project began in 2008 but has since been put on hold thanks to the state of the world economy. If and when construction begins in earnest, 1 Dubai will take somewhere between seven and 10 years to complete.

3.Miapolis

Location /// Miami, USA
Projected Height /// 3000 to 3281 ft

(Photograph by Kobi Karp/Thornton Tomasetti/EDSA/Miapolis)

The 160-story Miapolis will rise nearly 3300 feet on Watson Island in Biscayne Bay, just west of Miami Beach and east of downtown Miami. The $22 billion Miapolis complex will host an indoor amusement park, luxury condos and apartments, office space, a performing arts center, and a marina. With Miapolis, planners hope to demonstrate the potential economic benefits of high-profile real estate: developers say it could bring in nearly a billion in annual tax revenue and pump over twice that into the local economy as visitors flock to South Florida's newest attraction. For now, the project remains on the drawing board at architectural firm Kobi Karp, and there is no shortage of artist's impressions of the many facets of Miapolis. The designers want the complex to be environmentally responsible and intend to have the building receive a LEED Platinum rating by the U.S. Green Buildings Council. Further information about Miapolis is scant for now as developers are tight-lipped about the project, though lead developer Guillermo Socarras says he will be announcing new details in a few weeks. Meanwhile, Socarras is in talks with the Federal Aviation Administration about getting clearance on Miapolis' soaring height, given the proposed site's proximity to Miami International Airport.

4.Nakheel Tower

Location /// Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Projected Height /// 3281 to 4593 ft

(Photograph by Woods Bagot / Nakheel Harbour & Tower)

This cylindrical megatower has eight spires that come to a point at the building's peak. Though an official target height has not been revealed, the Nakheel Tower is likely to crest 3280 feet. Its designers, the international firm Woods Bagot, aim for the Nakheel Tower to be the first true realization of a vertical city. Over 15,000 people will live, work and socialize in this spire with a ground footprint the size of a New York City square block. The placement of support columns is based on a radially symmetrical 16-point star pattern and is inspired by Arabic patternmaking. The pattern makes engineering sense because a symmetrical building bears the load evenly among its structural units, according to a 2009 case study on the Nakheel Tower published in the journal of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The trickiest part about designing the Nakheel Tower, according to the study, was dealing with so-called vortex shedding from winds, which can cause damaging vibrations. Instead of funneling wind around its metal and glass skin, the Nakheel Tower takes the uncommon approach of having large gaps in the midst of the building, with a double set of slots that let gales pass right through. Every 25 floors or so, big disk-like skybridges bind the towers together and serve as village squares for high-rise dwellers, as in 1 Dubai. Also as in 1 Dubai, the Nakheel Tower's completion date has been held up because of unfavorable market conditions, though some early construction work did get underway before the stall. A completion date has not been announced and the project may never resume.

5.Sky City 1000

Location /// Tokyo, Japan
Projected Height /// 3281 ft

(Photograph by Takenaka Corporation)

The Takenake Corporation proposed Sky City 1000 back in 1989 to tackle Tokyo population-density problems. Tokyo-like congestion prompts a demand for green space and office space that vastly exceeds supply, and also introduces a host of environmental and social issues, from pollution to uncomfortably packed commuter trains. Takenake's solution: Build up—way up—and place green spaces in the sky. "The feature of our proposal was making artificial land in the air," says Masato Ujigawa, manager of the engineering department at Takenaka. To achieve this, Takenake will first start with a base that is 1300 feet per side, a footprint that equates to several city blocks (Burj Khalifa's triangular footprint is just 300 feet or so). Then, in accordance with its name, Sky City 1000 will rise a full thousand meters (3281 feet), consisting of 14 levels stacked on top of one another. Each level will act as its own "town," with a park-like plaza area in its center ringed by residences, schools and businesses. The structure would hold 10,000 homes and be used in some capacity by 130,000 people. Construction has not begun on Sky City 1000 since Japan's population has begun shrinking as of 2005, Ujigawa says. Nevertheless, Ujigawa says that ideas originally espoused by the Sky City 1000 project have since been used in more conventional construction. These include concrete reinforced with carbon fibers instead of iron to cut down on weight, and self-contained water-service systems in buildings that treat sewage and reclaim water.

6.Bionic Tower

Location /// (Originally Proposed For) Shanghai, China
Projected Height /// 4029 ft

(Photograph by Eloy Celaya)

The roughly $15 billion Bionic Tower will break from traditional engineering principles, introducing radical design elements for the 4029-foot-tall tower, according to Eloy Celaya, an architect with ECE Arquitecturas and one of three principal Spanish designers of the Bionic Tower. Instead of vertical foundations, Celaya envisions a "floating foundation" similar to a tree's roots, with a tangle of many hundreds of anchors in the ground. For supportive, criscrossing trusses, the Bionic Tower will draw inspiration from bird bones, which are light and hollow. The twelve stacked neighborhoods within this vertical megalopolis will receive water, energy and other supplies by means of 92 vertical columns (much like the xylem and phloem transport systems in vascular plants), which will double as structural supports. Though the concept for the Bionic Tower was originally pitched to Shanghai, China about a decade ago, at present the prospects for this tower being erected someday are iffy.

7.Kingdom Tower

Location /// Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Projected Height /// 3281-plus ft

This is a photo of the existing Kingdom Centre in Riyadh. Images of the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah are not yet publicly available. (Photograph by Ameen Mohammad)

This skyscraper was initially billed as the Mile-High Tower in 2008, though the record-setting height ambitions have since been cut by nearly 2000 feet. Updated design plans have not yet been revealed for the Kingdom Tower, but the winner of a design contest between Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture should be announced in a few weeks. Marshall Gerometta, of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the group that certifies supertall building heights, says that the Kingdom Tower probably is the best bet in the near term to overtake the Burj Khalifa. Funding appears secured for this building, which will be the centerpiece of a new $27 billion planned urban area in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, overseen and financed by the Kingdom Holding Company. The first mile-high setup called for the creation of two stabilizing mini-towers to support the main tower. The mini-towers, at nearly 1000 feet each, about the height of the Eiffel Tower, will be dwarfed by the central spire. Many supertall building tops have an "expected" lateral movement of 10 feet or so, and to mitigate this swaying effect, a massive, computer-controlled object called a damper will be placed within the mile-high structure. What the eventual building will look like and how it will be engineered remain open questions, though Gerometta says he heard the Kingdom Tower was going to represent "a new generation of skyscrapers."

8.Millennium Challenge Tower

Location /// TBD
Projected Height /// 6076 ft

(Photograph by Omero Marchetti Workshop)

This concept tower has also been referred to as the Al Jaber Tower in accordance with its possible placement in Kuwait. This tower would soar to a full nautical mile, 1852 meters, or over 6000 feet. Italian architect Omero Marchetti, the founder of the Millennium Challenge 1852 project, says "to reach [a marine mile] you cannot use concrete, orthogonal grids, traditional systems, mortars, [and] cranes." The building would dispense with right angles and perpendicular planes as these structural engineering norms make large quantities of cast iron and concrete "follow an unnatural and twisted geometry," Marchetti says. He has instead looked to the hexagonal matrices of snowflakes, which as structurally supported objects combine high volume with low weight. Marchetti says that currently three groups of investors in different parts of the world are interested in making the Millennium Challenge Tower a reality, a step he believes is necessary to make a sustainable planet. "I think we have not a second chance, or if you prefer, we have not a second planet," Marchetti says. "I tell you that this is the future, which is up to us to capture now."

How to Stop a Hurricane With Cold Water

2010-07-25T19:45:00.000+05:30

How to Stop a Hurricane With Cold Water

Intellectual Ventures, a private company funded in part by Bill Gates, is in the business of chasing wild scientific ideas and, through research, finding out how feasible they are. Their latest project: How to stop hurricanes with cold water. Here is more on this idea and some others down the pipeline from the company.

BY BRIAN THEVENOT

Bill Gates has dominated the software industry, become one of the wealthiest men in the world and remade his image as a master philanthropist. But can he stop a hurricane?

How It Works: The vessel fills with water as waves slap over the sides. The pressure of the water's weight forces water down a tube, where the downward current turns a turbine. That turbine sucks cool water from the depths into the tub.

Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, is steering company funds to Intellectual Ventures, a private company that buys and licenses patents and inventions. Gates himself participates in the firm's brainstorm sessions. Next on the list: killing hurricanes. Warm surface water fuels big storms, so Intellectual Ventures proposes to suppress them by dumping cool water from massive floating bowls of unspecified size, deployed by airplane in front of a storm's path. It would take a water surface temperature drop of 4.5 F to diminish a hurricane's force, says Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, and hundreds of bowls would have to be deployed over hundreds of miles. "I actually don't think it's feasible," says George Mellor, a Princeton professor who envisioned a similar system years ago. "But it's worth researching, and, hey, if Bill Gates is investing ..."

INTELLECTUAL VENTURES
Employees: 500-plus Funding: $5 billion in venture capital from investors (including Microsoft)Revenues: Company officials told a newspaper earlier this year it has made more than $1 billion in licensing fees since inception.

Other Ideas from Gates's Idea Factory

Mosquito Laser Defense Researchers at a recently opened Intellectual Ventures lab in Bellevue, Wash., are building the ultimate bug zapper. The "photonic fence" combats malaria by surrounding houses or villages with a perimeter guarded by lasers that shoot mosquitoes from the air. The computer-guided laser can track the flight of individual mosquitoes, and distinguish harmless males from biting females by measuring the frequency of their wing beat. Crucially, the laser beam is weak enough that humans can pass through the perimeter unharmed. The system has been successfully tested in the firm's labs.

Super-Strength Semiconductors Intellectual Ventures recently purchased the entire patent portfolio of Transmeta, a trailblazing manufacturer of low-power microprocessors. Transmeta was purchased in 2009, but the company that bought it was only interested in microprocessors for video displays, and sold 140 other patents to Intellectual Ventures. The technologies could lead to powerful, efficient computer chips to use in expendable remote sensors, medical devices inside human bodies and nano-scale manufacturing.

Basalt Vaults Could Store CO2—And Turn it to Rock

2010-07-25T19:40:00.002+05:30

Basalt Vaults Could Store CO2—And Turn it to Rock

With cap and trade legislation looming, carbon emissions seem on a track to becoming currency. But the problem lingers: Where to safely stash the vast amounts of carbon dioxide still pouring forth from coal-fired power plants? A new analysis suggests basalt formations off the east coast of the United States could store billions of tons of the greenhouse gas—and then transform it into rock.

In an 1889 travel article, the New York Times waxed enthusiastic about a nearby but, it said, little visited attraction: "the wondrous Palisades…. basaltic precipices of the Hudson." Rising on the west side of the lower Hudson River for 20 miles in New Jersey and New York, the towering Palisades are actually the visible remnants of enormous floods of magma that flowed hot about 200 million years ago, cooling into a vast expanse of basalt that extends to Europe, Africa and South America, much of it buried deep under the Atlantic Ocean.

Early Dutch New Yorkers called the staircase-like basalt of the Palisades "trap rock"; not because it trapped anything, but after their native word for "step". But a new scientific analysis suggests that the related basalt formations buried under the U.S. east coast and extending out to sea might someday be doing some critical trapping after all—of greenhouse gas emissions from the likes of giant coal-burning power plants.

The analysis, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that expanses of basalts along and just beyond the heavily populated east coast might be ideal for locking-up billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Advocates of "clean coal" technology see carbon sequestration—capturing and then storing CO2 deep underground—as a way for the world to keep burning the cheap and abundant fossil fuel without aggravating global warming. Whether carbon capture and storage will ever turn out to be economically or environmentally feasible remains open to often-fierce debate. But the prospect of injecting CO2 into basalt formations could at least resolve one major fear: that the gas might eventually escape to the surface.

The Ultimate Repository

Basalt, it turns out, is capable of performing what seems like sheer alchemy: It can transform normally buoyant CO2 dissolved in water into something decidedly non-buoyant—solid rock. Essentially, a series of chemical reactions combines carbon dioxide with calcium in the basalt to form calcium carbonate, or limestone.

Dennis Kent, a professor of geological sciences at Rutgers University, and one of three co-authors of the study, says that transformation from gas to solid could make basalt formations "the ultimate repository" for excess carbon.

Although the report notes that some basalt formations on land might suffice as storage sites, the deeper formations under sea beds could be particularly attractive when it comes to preventing CO2 from escaping, according to study co-author David Goldberg, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

Hundreds or even thousands of feet of sediment can lie atop undersea basalt formations. In addition to a thick cap of solid basalt that would lie above any suitable deeper injection site, those thick blankets of sediment could serve as an additional impermeable cap during the years the CO2 was becoming mineral. (Research has yet to fully detail just how long it would take for a volume of CO2 to transform into rock.)

The new study points to an array of expansive east coast basalt formations, including four undersea of more than 380 square miles each off New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, as well as large formations on land and under the seas in and around Georgia and South Carolina.

Globally, potential for carbon storage in formations of basalt and other "ultramafic" rocks (those with minerals that react with carbon dioxide to form more minerals) could be enormous. Goldberg and Columbia scientist Angela Slagle have estimated that basalt formations under oceans worldwide alone have the potential to store tens of trillions of tons of CO2.

According to the analysis, a single formation buried under the coastline near Sandy Hook, N.J., just south of the city of New York, could store 900 million tons of CO2, or 40 years of emissions from three to four large coal-burning power plants, although the report also notes that a great deal of research, including drilling to map and characterize formations, still lies ahead.

Elsewhere in Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East, research on whether basalt and similar formations can indeed offer a safer pathway to carbon storage is accelerating.

Real-World Testbeds

Until recently, the only real-world attempts to study basalt injection have been small experiments in test wells in the Pallisades rock by Columbia geochemist Juerg Matter and fellow scientists. But beginning in February, Matter and a team of researchers from France and Iceland plan to kick off a larger-scale pilot project at a geothermal power plant owned by Reykjavik Energy. (In this case, the CO2 isn't a by-product of combustion, but comes up from underground as traces of geothermal gas in the huge volumes of steam that provide most of Iceland's heat and electric power.)

Over about nine months, the "CarbFix" project will inject about 2000 tons of CO2 into a 2000 foot hole bored into an island that itself is more than 90 percent basalt. According to Matter, the researchers will use additional holes drilled a few hundred yard away to monitor changes in groundwater, which should show how effectively and quickly chemical reactions are occurring.

Meanwhile, in the United States, environmental engineer B.P. "Pete" McGrail, at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, reports that his team has completed drilling and prep work for another experimental project to inject about 1000 tons of CO2 into a basalt formation under the southeastern corner of the state of Washington. McGrail is waiting for permits to be finalized, but noted in an email, "If our permit is approved, CO2 injection would occur sometime this summer."

McGrail says he concurs with the new report's suggestion that undersea basalt formations could someday become major repositories for carbon, but suggested that "those opportunities would develop later down the road after pilot and commercial studies show feasibility in terrestrial settings."

Basalt isn't the only rock that reacts with carbon dioxide. As PM reported in 2008, Columbia's Peter Kelemen continues to investigate the potential for a type of rock called peridotite, not only to lock-up carbon captured from the likes of power plant emissions, but even to yank volumes of the greenhouse gas directly out of the atmosphere, with some help from water and heat from the earth's interior.

Notably, about half the nation of Oman lies atop formations of this rock. If it turns out to work, what Kelemen calls "air capture" could effectively help neutralize, as he told us, the "substantial portion of CO2 that comes from places where we wouldn't have any hope of capturing it—CO2 emitted by cars, for example."

How 4 Climate Control Plans Could Crash and Burn

2010-07-25T19:37:00.002+05:30

How 4 Climate Control Plans Could Crash and Burn

In an effort to globally cool the earth, scientists’ ideas know no bounds as they conduct fringe studies and produce next-gen technologies. Heck, a few of these geo-engineering plans even boast proven results. But faster than geo-engineers come up with radical ideas, researchers and skeptics are exposing the risks that come with these global cures. Here is how four geo-engineering ideas could back-fire and hurt as much as they help.

Illustration by Rui Ricardo/Folioart.co.uk

The term geo-engineering—direct technological interventions to reshape the planet—calls to mind the dark laughter of a science-fiction villain. But researchers are pondering ways to use geo-engineering to counter the effects of global warming. This past year, three European institutions released reports on the benefits and risks of “climate engineering.” Recommendations vary, but the reports each conclude that the most promising technologies should be tested on small scales. Scientists worry that some nation’s future unilateral geo-engineering project could cause frightening side effects that cross national boundaries. “If a country’s leaders feel some existential threat, they might resort to desperate measures,” says Ken Caldeira, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. “What if Greenland is sliding into the ocean? And what if you could stop it?”

Is the Earth Ready for these Global Warming Fixes?

Dim the Sky

Objective: Block solar radiation to drop Earth’s surface temperature.

Proposal: Unmanned airships or air-bursting artillery rounds inject sulfur-dioxide particles into the stratosphere. A former Microsoft executive proposes lofting a hose with helium balloons to pump liquefied sulfur dioxide into the sky.

Blowback: Global temperatures could spike as soon as treatments stop. Seeded areas may see redder, hazier skies.

Proposed by: Copenhagen Consensus Center

Soak the Clouds

Objective: Decrease the amount of sunlight—and heat—absorbed by cloud cover.

Proposal: Funnel salt water into the air with robotic ships, brightening clouds to cool specific areas, such as the Arctic.

Blowback: The tactic is likely to alter weather patterns, nudging rainfall from one region to another in unpredictable ways. The good news is that seawater droplets cycle out of clouds within a few days.

Proposed by: Copenhagen Consensus Center

Grow Algae Everywhere

Objective: Suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to warming.

Proposal: Deploy vast algae farms on land and at sea. Strips of algae could be built onto buildings, and miles of algae-filled plastic bags could stretch across an ocean’s surface.

Blowback: To work well, a continent of algae is needed, and that’s more pricey than other carbon-capture schemes.

Proposed by: NASA (algae farms); Institution of Mechanical Engineers, U.K. (buildings)

Whitewash Everything

Objective: Deflect solar radiation to cool the surface of the planet.

Proposal: Installing white or otherwise reflective roofs on buildings and replacing less reflective crops with ones engineered to be glossier could lower summer temperatures in the U.S. by nearly 2 F.

Blowback: Large-scale genetic modification of crops could face stiff resistance, and there might not be enough rooftops to make a difference.

Proposed by: University of Bristol, U.K. (crops); U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (roofs)

Extreme Treehouses

2010-07-25T19:36:00.000+05:30

Extreme Treehouses

There's no better proof of our primate heritage: Man sees tree, man climbs tree, man uses opposable thumbs to build clubhouse in tree. Here are four masterpieces of the form. And yes, the other apes are probably jealous.

Peter Lewis's treehouse, built in a 105-ft. pine tree in southern Maine, rests on a steel hexagon base suspended by cables. Joists made of 5 x 5 hemlock timbers form more hexagons that support the structure. The massive trusses below were built with 5 x 5 and 5 x 7 timbers. (Photograph by Russell Kaye)

Any kid in Bridgton, Maine, would want to have Peter Lewis's playhouse in his backyard. And no wonder. Lewis has tricked it out with a drawbridge and two spiral staircases. Best of all, the whole thing floats 21 ft. off the ground.

Lewis, however, is no kid, and his masterpiece--a two-story, 6000-pound clubhouse slung from an Eastern white pine--bears scant resemblance to the banged-together shacks of childhood. His treehouse is held aloft by a well-engineered suspension system that imparts nary a scratch to the pine's bark. Hearty beams and mortise-and-tenon joints lend built-for-the-ages solidity. Weather-sealed windows, insulation and a coal-burning stove deliver year-round enjoyment, even in icy Maine.

Big kids with power tools are going airborne, and in most cases it is adults, not kids, who are the intended beneficiaries. When money is no object, there are at least three firms nationwide specializing in treehouses that will design and build customized perches ranging from a basic $10,000 kid's model on up to a $500,000 deluxe, home-quality treehouse--some furnished with electric wiring and even bathtubs. Business is booming.

Steel-and-wood suspension system. (Illustration by Matteo Pericoli)

But treehouse building remains essentially a backyard enterprise, usually carried out by do-it-yourselfers who possess a few hundred board feet of lumber and a vision. Among these arboreal architects, the best bring ingenuity and a passion bordering on obsession.

Lewis's aerial ambitions began modestly. The 46-year-old publisher and author merely wanted a good place to take a nap and recapture a part of his youth. "My kids were watching Apollo 13, when Walter Cronkite's voice triggered a memory of a treehouse my dad built for me. I thought, 'I need to do that again.' I put my book down, and went poking around in the woods in the middle of the night until I found the perfect tree. From that point on, there was no stopping."

A plan for a simple one-story shed soon morphed into something bigger and more elaborate. Lewis's first challenge was figuring how to hang a treehouse without wounding the tree. "I thought bolting the tree was the easy way out," he says. A prominent fork 37 ft. up in his white pine suggested a solution. Together with his father, Nelson, a retired mechanical engineer, Lewis devised a collar made of six lengths of angle-iron fastened at the corners with welded eyebolts to form a hexagon. From those eyebolts, five cables loop up and over to lasso the tree fork. At friction points, the cables run through PVC pipe to protect the tree.

Off the steel suspension collar Lewis laid a hexagon-shaped platform formed by trusses held tight by an interior and perimeter rim joist. The trusses were built of hefty 5 x 5 hemlock milled locally. Hoisting such heavy timbers into a tree is more than a one-man job, and Lewis was able to enlist plenty of volunteers. A potential obstacle to recruitment--working while hanging from climbing harnesses--turned out to be a major drawing card. "If I was building something on the ground, I wouldn't have had as much help," he says.

The treehouse took shape over three summers. In frugal Yankee tradition, Lewis scavenged most of his materials. Some windows he found stacked beside the road; others were left over from previous projects. Tongue-and-groove cedar flooring was donated by a carpenter friend. Metal roofing he had on hand after recladding his house. Railings and staircases were built using branches scavenged from the forest floor. In all, Lewis figures he spent $6000.

"Nobody needs a treehouse, so it's truly pointless in a way," says Lewis. "But a switch flicks when people go up there. Everybody gets instantaneously quiet and just looks out the windows. Leave the ground, and you leave the rest of the world behind."

The collar at the heart of the structure is formed from 3 x 1/4-in. steel. The cables hold 3 tons of treehouse. (Photograph by Russell Kaye)

Sophisticated engineering meets organic design with curved railings and other details made from naturally bent tree limbs. (Photograph by Russell Kaye)

Bill Compher reaches his 100-ft.-high Cascade Range aerie via this 44-ft.-long suspension bridge, strung from a nearby Douglas fir.

High-Concept Cascades
"It's beautiful on the forest floor beside my creek. But once you're up in the canopy, it's a whole other world," says Bill Compher, 55, who recently finished his second high-flying treehouse on a 5-acre lot tucked within Washington state's Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Compher and his former wife lived in his first treehouse, a three-room cabin built 50 ft. up in a Western red cedar, until their baby began to crawl. He began using the structure as a bed and breakfast, then aimed higher with his next project, shown here.

Compher chose an arrow-straight, 5-ft.-thick Douglas fir as the support for the 100-ft.-high observatory, which is outfitted with 46 windowpanes. He preassembled key parts on the ground, including eight wall sections, each 10 ft. tall x 4 ft. wide. To crown his creation, Compher visited his "candy store": Boeing Surplus in Kent, Wash. He departed with superstrong, aluminum jetliner siding, which he formed into a domed roof. The interlocking sections help the structure withstand the 70-mph winds of the region's winter storms.

When Compher completed the observatory, he quickly found that the climb by ladder was too daunting for all but the most vertigo-immune. The solution: a spiral staircase consisting of 84 steel-bracketed treads on an adjacent tree, connected to the observatory by a suspension bridge. The result of two years of labor is a dramatic outpost with a broad view of the Cascade Range. "With a spotting scope, I can see mountain goats and climbers on Mount Rainier a dozen miles away," he says.

Creating this off-kilter treehouse in a backyard 30 miles from Philadelphia required a long summer, nearly $3000 and an unlimited fund of imagination.

Built for Neverland
Sticker shock compelled Alister Orme of Royersford, Pa., to reach for a toolbox rather than his wallet when his kids clamored for a backyard playset. To this carpenter turned stay-at-home dad, spending thousands on a chintzy plastic and wood "play system" made no sense. With a pencil, fond memories of a childhood treehouse built with his three brothers back in New Zealand, and a long winter for planning, Orme went the DIY route. The result is an elevated playland that would do Peter Pan proud.

The core of the Orme family entertainment complex is a cockeyed treehouse that's been squeezed through Alice's looking glass. Hardly a right angle can be found on the 7 x 6-ft. structure. The roof tilts this way, the windows bend that way, and the chimney makes a dogleg left, then right. Orme tested his notions for the treehouse with a scaled-down cardboard model, then constructed the frame on his driveway. When he was satisfied, he reassembled the framework 10 ft. up on a sturdy platform. "The house is definitely whimsical. I wanted it to look like a treehouse, not like a house stuck up in a tree," he says.

Adventurers can approach the treehouse on two swinging bridges strung from nearby trees. Two strands of 3/8-in. galvanized aircraft cable undergird each bridge, to which Orme attached wooden brackets and planking. "It took more time and money, but by this point the treehouse was taking on a life of its own," he says.

Orme continued adding features, and today, his 6-year-old triplets--Gareth, Meredith and Callum--offer the coolest play date in town. Kids can jump into a cargo net, dash across a suspension bridge to a fort, shoot down a slide made of slick aluminum siding, or rip 130 ft. through the woods in a swing seat clipped to a zip line.

However, Orme's imagination doesn't run completely unchecked. "I've been eyeing those four trees over there," he says, "but apparently we need a new bathroom first."

Twenty-five of the 50 triangular panels in this Wisconsin treehouse can be opened. Riveted plates connect the panels. (Photograph by 02sustainability.com)

Lantern in the Sky
The spirit of visionary architect Buckminster Fuller is riding high above Pewaukee, Wis. When 23-year-old Dustin Feider, a furniture designer by trade, set out to build a treehouse 45 ft. up in an ash, he turned to Fuller's geodesic dome for inspiration. "I envisioned a Japanese lantern," he says.

To make it, Feider bolted 1-in. aluminum conduits into triangles and fastened the triangles together to form the skeleton. He used translucent panels of recycled polypropylene to sheath it, then suspended the 650-pound sphere from the tree's branches with nine cables. To reach his creation, Feider travels in a basket lift powered by an electric winch. The floor of the lift docks neatly into a pentagon-shaped hole in the floor of the treehouse. His favorite time is sunset. "Branches and leaves cast purple shadows that move across the panels, and the sun illuminates the interior in yellow," he says. "It's quite psychedelic."

(Illustration by Matteo Pericoli)

Lagscrew

A galvanized lagscrew with a washer forms a solid union between tree and joist. Choose 1/4-in.-dia. screws, about 4 to 6 in. long. Trees can react badly to two closely spaced puncture wounds, with the space between rotting out. Use a single strong bolt instead.

Garnier Limb

This 1-1/4-in.-thick bolt was created by professional treehouse designer and builder Michael Garnier ($85, treehouses.com). The flange rests against the tree, giving the bolt 8000 pounds of load-bearing capacity. A variety of metal poles and brackets fit the protruding anchor.

Cabled Support

You can use cables to support overhanging platforms and to create suspension systems such as the designs by Peter Lewis and Dustin Feider that are featured on these pages. The system is anchored with eyebolts; turnbuckles allow you to adjust the tension.

Flexible Joints

A variety of bracket designs allow beams to move slightly, to keep a tree's swaying (and growth) from pulling apart the structure. The one shown here permits rotation. Other brackets allow a joist between two trees to slide horizontally.

LESSON 2: FIND A HEALTHY TREE

Decay is the enemy when it comes to deciding where to build, says pro builder and arborist Jonathan Fairoaks. Avoid trees laden with fungus or moss. Tap with a mallet to listen for a dampened sound, which indicates rot. A broad root system is good. Still unsure? Many arborists will check a tree for free or for a small price.

Best species: Beech, fir, maple, ash and oak are deep-rooted with strong wood.
Worst species: Birch, buckeye, cotton-wood, willow and poplar suffer from weaker wood or a short life span.

LESSON 3: TREAT GRAVITY WITH RESPECT

What goes up can come down--including you. Here are a few tips to avoid a smashed drill, or worse, when the job site is high in a tree.

Rent scaffolding, at least to build the platform. Ladders plus round trunks can lead to disaster.

Wear a climbing harness. A model made for tree work will be more comfortable, but a rock-climbing harness will do. Create a convenient safety system by tying lengths of "static" climbing rope or nylon webbing to the tree at various points. As you move about, unclip from one anchor and clip into another using locking carabiners.

But a harness isn't enough. This is dangerous work--and we don't recommend you try it until you've done your own homework in safety and technique. Take a climbing class to learn knots and ropework. Wear a hard hat. Never work alone.

Hang tools in 5-gal. buckets from nearby branches to avoid dropping tools--a major inconvenience. Put pencils on a string leash. Hoisting heavy beams requires a block-and-tacklesetup. The one shown here is providing a 4-to-1 mechanical advantage (ignoring friction)--it theoretically would allow you to lift 100 pounds using only 25 pounds of force.

The High-Tech Weather Forecasting in the 2010 Winter Olympics

2010-07-25T19:27:00.002+05:30

The High-Tech Weather Forecasting in the 2010 Winter Olympics

Weather forecasting during the Olympics is always critical, but Vancouver is the warmest city to host the winter games yet, and the region's weather is incredibly complex because of the region's varied terrain.

BY ANNE CASSELMAN

Whistler Resort, Vancouver, British Columbia (Photograph by Julie Bishop/Getty Images)

Weather forecasting during the Olympicsis always critical, but it will be even harder than usual this time around. Not only is Vancouver the warmest city to host the winter games yet but the Vancouver-Whistler region's weather is incredibly complex because of the region's varied terrain, which spans ocean, islands and fjords and rises to 6500-foot-high mountains.

Enter nowcasting, short-term weather forecasting that predicts the weather over the next 0 to 6 hours in fine temporal and spatial detail by combining in-depth current atmospheric conditions with high-resolution computer models. For Environment Canada, the official weather-service provider for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, nowcasting is the Olympics' best bet at removing the element of surprise from the weather. It's the first time that the Winter Games will have nowcasts. "We're trying to be very precise as to when and where something is going to happen," says Paul Joe, a scientist with the cloud physics and severe weather research group of Environment Canada.

"There's a great need for on-the-spot, very short-period forecast for the Olympics," says James Wilson, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "You gotta know if you can run that event in the next hour." Wild cards such as wind gusts, rain or visibility of less than 65 feet can force events such as the downhill slalom to be temporarily called off. Wilson wants to see nowcasts move beyond the games and into every weather person's toolkit. "What happened before is the forecaster said ‘scattered showers.' Well, that didn't tell you anything," Wilson says. "Now we're trying to pinpoint the forecast more."

At the Beijing Olympics, nowcast weather models successfully steered events clear of the heavy thunderstorms that roll through the city in the summer months. Other nowcasting applications include those for airports, road conditions and fire weather, according to George Isaac, a senior cloud scientist at Environment Canada.

To that end Environment Canada has deployed an extensive array of over 60 weather stations, including a Doppler weather-radar system and wind profiler. The end result is a detailed CT scan of all event venues and the Vancouver–Whistler corridor.

Typical weather forecasts predict an entire day's weather using models that operate at a spatial resolution of 9 miles. Nowcasts for the Winter Games will detail hours of weather in 15-minute intervals at a spatial resolution down to six-tenths of a mile. To produce these detailed reports, scientists combine up-to-the-minute data from weather-monitoring instruments on the ground with computer weather models crunched by Environment Canada's IBM supercomputer located in Dorval, Quebec.

The standard operational measurement for snowfall involves collecting snow in a bucket over 24 hours and melting it. Not so this time around. The winter games will have five new, different snowfall sensors in operation. The gadgetry used on the slopes to measure snowfall will include measuring light scatter from laser beams, a vertically pointing radar that's derived from a police radar, and a miniature hotplate that measures the energy output required to melt snowfall. All of these instruments measure snowfall at 1-minute intervals, a thousandfold increase in temporal resolution.

For Isaac, nowcasting during the Olympics is the golden opportunity to showcase how science and technology can better predict the weather. "At the moment there's a lot of art to the way the forecasters do it," Isaac says. "We're trying to make [weather forecasting] more of a science."

5 Natural Disasters Headed for the United States

2010-07-25T19:17:00.000+05:30

5 Natural Disasters Headed for the United States

Think mother nature has dealt us her worst? Think again. Five natural disasters poised to hit the U.S. and like nothing we've ever seen.

Mount Rainier mudslide

Earth is one rough place. Even the most devastating storms of recent years pale in sheer destructive power against outsize natural disasters of the past, such as continent-smothering ice sheets, ocean-raising floods, super volcanoes and the occasional asteroid. Because cataclysms will always be a regular feature of life on Earth, PM consulted with leading scientists to detail five more disasters that may be in store. Some will be beyond human control; others could be disasters of our own making. Either way, prepare for a real doozy.

40-Mile-Long Mudslide, Washington State

Movin' Mountain

On an overcast afternoon high on Mount Rainier, a rocky slope slumps and then cuts loose from the mountain. Small rock slides are common on the volcano's steep flanks, but this one is different. Most of Mount Rainier's west face is in motion. Into the tumbling maelstrom go millions of tons of ice from the Puyallup and Tahoma glaciers. House-size rocks disintegrate in the downward crush. "With Rainier's active hydrothermal system saturating the rock, the landslide would reach the base of the slope as a flowing mass of watery, muddy debris," says Kevin Scott, scientist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascade Volcano Observatory (CVO).

So a lahar is born--a volcanic mudflow--and a nightmare realized for the approximately 150,000 Washington residents who live and work on the solidified debris of past flows. The mass of roiling mud, rock and trees, traveling at 60 mph, would quickly funnel into the canyons of the Puyallup and Carbon rivers, where it would rise 180 ft. high before spreading into the lowlands as a 15-ft. wave. The 5000 residents of Orting, at the rivers' confluence, would have less than 45 minutes to evacuate. People downstream, in towns such as Puyallup and Sumner, might have twice that long.

Despite its iconic standing, 14,410-ft. Mount Rainier is pocked with corroded, unstable rock capped by a cubic mile of ice and snow. The mountain--weakened from the inside out by acids resulting from upwelling magma--has partially collapsed many times in the last 5600 years, unleashing mudflows that have inundated five of six major drainages. Six of those lahars surged at least 45 miles to reach Puget Sound.

The USGS gives a 1-in-7 chance of a similar event occurring in anyone's lifetime. And, says Dan Dzurisin, a CVO geologist: "There's no guarantee there would be any advance warning."

80-Ft.-High Tsunami, Atlantic Coast

Coast Buster

Cumbre Vieja, the most active volcano in the Canary Islands, lurches as a violent earthquake wracks its upper slopes. A third of the mountain breaks away and plunges into the Atlantic Ocean, pushing up a dome of water nearly 3000 ft. high. They don't yet know it, but tens of millions of Americans from Key West, Fla., to South Lubec, Maine, have just 9 hours to escape with their lives.

The collapse of Cumbre Vieja unleashes a train of enormous waves traveling at jetliner speed. The first slam into nearby islands, then the African mainland. By the time they reach the East Coast of North America, the waves are up to 80 ft. high, and in low-lying areas, sweep several miles inland.

When tsunamis strike the United States, it is usually Hawaii or Alaska that take the hit. But topography and population density put the East Coast in a special risk category. "More Easterners are exposed to potential tsunamis--from the Canary Islands or the Cape Verde Islands--than the people on the West Coast, which has a steep coastline and few lowlands," says Steven Ward, a geophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A Cumbre Vieja eruption in 1949 opened a mile-long, 20-ft.-deep fissure near the crest, forcing the volcano's western face to slump several feet. A 1971 eruption didn't budge it.

Marine geologists at Southampton Oceanography Center in Great Britain have a different take. They conclude the volcano would collapse in stages-- at worst threatening nearby islands. Ward calculates only a 5 percent chance Cumbre Vieja will trigger a tsunami in a given century, but that when it does a chunk of earth 15 miles long, 9 miles wide and nearly 1 mile thick will plunge into the sea--a landslide 250 times larger than the collapse of Mount St. Helens.

Left: The tsunami's probable trajectory within 5 hours of the collapse of Cumbre Vieja. Right: The tsunami's potential range of destruction 9 hours after the collapse of Cumbre Vieja.

Magnitude 6.9 Earthquake, Mississippi River Valley

Stress Test

Ten miles beneath Caruthersville, Mo., stress along an ancient rift zone releases in a violent spasm. Shock waves from the magnitude 6.9 earthquake roll 160 miles up the Mississippi River Valley to St. Louis, and 75 miles downriver to Memphis, Tenn. The soils under Memphis ripple like a shook rug. Century-old brick buildings heave, then crumble. Sewer and water lines rupture. Gaslines snap. Downtown, the 14-story federal building, a decade overdue for quakeproofing, rains 3-ton panels.

While all eyes are fixed on California as the site of the next "Big One," damage from a quake along the New Madrid Fault--which runs for 150 miles between Marked Tree, Ark., and Cairo, Ill.--may be greater. The hot, shattered crust beneath California absorbs seismic energy quickly and focuses it at an epicenter, says Gary Patterson, a geologist at the University of Memphis. But, he says, "the relatively hard, cold slab of rock beneath the central U.S. allows that energy to travel great distances." A quake's impact zone is at least 10 times larger on the New Madrid Fault than on the San Andreas, and its shock waves reverberate longer.

The New Madrid Fault has produced the strongest earthquakes in the contiguous states: three tremors near magnitude 8.0 that struck from December 1811 to February 1812. Odds of a quake of that scale are small: 7 to 10 percent in the next 50 years. But factor in unprepared citizens and infrastructure and even a 6.0 earthquake, which has a 25 to 40 percent chance of occurring, would be a disaster.

"There's a lot about the New Madrid we don't know," Patterson says. "But what we do know is very concerning."

195-MPH Hurricane, Florida

Tropical Terror

Packing maximum sustained winds of 195 mph, Hurricane Lyle slams into Coral Gables just south of Miami. The breadth and intensity of the storm dazzles meteorologists, who rank it the strongest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. mainland.

On the north side of the storm's eye, Miami Beach, which has the second highest housing density in the country, is in shambles. Many residents don't evacuate, believing they are safe in concrete high-rises. They are wrong. Then it is too late, as the causeways connecting them to the mainland wash out. Waves riding a 15-ft. storm surge gut oceanfront condos up to the third story; windows blow out, allowing wind and rain to ravage upper floors. The storm surge sweeps over the island, carrying wreckage into downtown Miami, where the 70-story Four Seasons Hotel and Tower is reduced to a sodden shell.

Block after block of homes in Coral Gables, West Miami and Sweetwater--many not yet retrofitted to the tough codes imposed after Hurricane Andrew in 1992--are blasted down to roofless frames. Waist-deep floodwater inundates areas as far north as Fort Lauderdale. Insured losses exceed $100 billion--nearly twice the amount caused by Katrina--making Lyle the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Katrina should have been a wakeup call, but coastal development has continued unabated, exposing the 4 million people in Florida's Miami-Dade and Broward counties to deadly monster storms. Warm water is rocket fuel for hurricanes, and global warming is predicted to heat tropical oceans by 4 F in the next century. Sea surface temperatures in the tropics have already risen by about 1 F since 1970.

Researchers at Georgia Tech and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., have measured a near doubling in the annual number of Category 4 and 5 storms during the past 35 years. And Kerry Emanuel, professor of meteorology at MIT, has found that Atlantic storms today wield twice the destructive force as those in 1970.

Some scientists dispute the global warming-hurricane connection. They attribute the intensity of recent hurricanes to natural cycles, or they contest the accuracy of early data and the objectivity of techniques used to analyze it.

Supercharged or not, hurricanes promise to wreak unprecedented damage in the decades ahead for one simple reason: More people have put themselves in harm's way. Coastal zones from Texas to North Carolina have gained 24 million residents since 1950.

Wind speeds increase with altitude, and so a Category 4 storm at ground level can be a full category higher at the top of a building. While the storm surge scours the first two stories, overpressure blows out windows in the highest floors, exposing the interiors to wind and rain.

Climate-Changing Ocean Disruption, North Atlantic

Sea Change

Winters in the Northeast begin to bite with a ferocity last seen during the deep freezes of 1936 and 1978, when icebreakers plied the Mississippi and Hudson rivers. Winter temperatures in Washington, D.C., begin to approximate those of Boston. Extreme drought grips the Midwest, sending grain commodity prices soaring; crops fail and farmers spin into bankruptcy. Climate patterns go haywire. London, Paris and the Scandinavian capitals shiver through their coldest winters since 1850. Summer monsoons in India and China weaken, affecting harvests that feed hundreds of millions of people. Fisheries decline when plankton populations collapse. Drought and flood push worldwide agricultural losses to $250 billion.

The cause of the big chill is an unlikely culprit: global warming. The northeastern States, eastern Canada and, primarily, Europe enjoy warmer climates than they otherwise would because of an ocean-based system of heat delivery called thermohaline circulation. This vast ocean conveyor sweeps warm, salty water from tropical latitudes north along the surface. After shedding heat to the atmosphere, the chilled brine becomes denser and sinks. Thousands of feet beneath the surface it flows back toward the equator, completing the loop.

But as the climate warms disproportionately at the poles, the gears of the system begin to wobble. Freshwater runoff from Greenland's ice cap and from melting glaciers across the Arctic, combined with increased precipitation, could form a thick, buoyant cap over the North Atlantic. Already, the great gyre may be sputtering. The surface of the North Atlantic is becoming noticeably less salty, and thus less driven to sink.

Thermohaline circulation shut down as recently as 8200 years ago, and some scientists contend that the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1850 was due to a hiccup in the system. The chance of another collapse is hotly debated. Terrence Joyce, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, calls it "unlikely" if Greenland's ice cap continues to melt at the current pace. However, "Greenland is a wild card," he says--its melt rate remains unpredictable. Michael Schlesinger, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, calculates a 45 percent chance of the system shutting down in the next century if nothing is done to slow global warming.

Ice core samples indicate the switch from temperate to bitter could be measured in mere years--and last for centuries. The timing of such an event will determine the severity of its consequences. "If the shutdown happens 100 years from now, it will bring us back to where we are now, canceling 4 to 6 F of atmospheric warming [predicted] in the Northeast," Joyce says. "If it happened tomorrow, that would be something more significant."

Are You Disaster-Proof?

How to ride out an emergency

In the event of calamity, be prepared to hunker down for one week without utilities or access to grocery and hardware stores. Besides supplies necessary for basic survival, have tools for repairing the highest priority home damage.

• Extra batteries (including cellphone batteries)
• Niosh-N95 dust mask
• Duct tape
• Multitool
• 50 ft. of heavy-duty rope
• Chain saw and fuel or bow saw and ax
• Assortment of nails, screws and bolts
• Flexible repair clamps for burst pipes
• Tarp large enough to cover half of your home's roof
• Scrap framing lumber
• Rain gear
• Work gloves

Go kit
These items are essential for evacuation. Three days of water for four people weighs close to 100 pounds, so line up a rolling ice chest, backpacks or other method to carry the load. Also, count on being separated. Choose a location where family members can reunite, and designate one out-of-town person for everyone to check in with.

• Bottled water (1 gal. per person per day)
• Nonperishable food
• First-aid kit
• Battery-powered or hand-cranked radio
• Flashlights
• Cash
• Prescription medications
• Vital documents in a waterproof bag (deeds, birth certificates, phone numbers)