Popular Science 2009-01.Pdf

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® this month’s guide to innovation and discovery

january ’09 VOLUME 274 #1

Concepts & Prototypes 42 STEALTH REBORN Inside the Air Force’s secret plans for a bomber that will barely register on radar— and might even fl y without a pilot. By Dawn Stover PopSci Predicts 46 YOUR GUIDE TO THE TOP SCIENCE STORIES OF 2009 We forecast the major scientifi c developments of the coming year: the space missions to watch, the invention prizes you can win and, oh, a little study that might show whether 42 your cellphone is killing you. Fieldwork 54 KILLER 54 64 CONNECTION There are far more serial murderers on the loose than we think. The Center for Human Identifi cation uses powerful DNA techniques to examine victims—and closes the coldest, darkest cases in the process. By Jessica Snyder Sachs the future of energy 64 THIS MACHINE How It Works MIGHT SAVE THE 62 DIGITAL WORLD MAPMAKING Two Canadian tinkerers To build the maps for embark on an improbable Google and your GPS gad- quest to create nuclear get, a team of hundreds of fusion in an offi ce-park drivers trolls the streets warehouse. By Josh Dean with cameras on their vans. By Doug Cantor

46 N THEN COVER: NICK KALOTERAKIS; THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NICK KALOTERAKIS; JOHN B. CARNETT; JOHN B. CARNETT AND PAUL WOOTTON; COURTESY X PRIZE FOUNDATION; COURTESY MISSOULA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE O

POPSCI.COM JANUARY 2009 POPULAR SCIENCE 05

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® 20 33

REGULARS MEGAPIXELS 14 A blue chicken embryo; a dark hall to nuclear waste. WHAT’S NEW 19 RECREATION LEAN MACHINE Cooling molten metal faster to build a better motorbike. 20 THE GOODS Our bike expert reviews this ultra-sleek two-wheeler. A 3-D GPS gadget; a guitar that records itself. 22 HOME TECH Power tools get more power, thanks to a new motor. JOIN US FOR A THRILL RIDE 30 GADGETS Resident motorcycle guru Matt Cokeley visited Berlin to ogle the new What’s next for Google’s groundbreaking cellphone? Buell 1125CR, grill its designers about bike tech, and take a high- TOCK; G.K. AND VIKKI HART/GETTY IMAGES S speed test drive. See video of his adventure at popsci.com/buell. I HEADLINES 33 ENVIRONMENT Why climate-change models underestimate the problem. RETURN OF THE BODACIOUS ‘BOTS 34 DEFENSE TECH Can’t get enough alluring photos of female robots? Scanners that check your body to predict criminal acts. We’ve whipped up another gallery showing how 36 WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? science-fiction writers, artists and engineers rep- ; COURTESY TOM RILES; Entrepreneur Elon Musk on Tesla’s new electric sedan. resent women, at popsci.com/fembot. 40 PLANET FIXERS Making electricity from hot streets, and more. BLOGS AND MORE HOW 2.0 CKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OVATION GUITARS; MIKE DICKBERND/AP PHOTO;

73 YOU BUILT WHA T ?! LO C OOZING ANIMALS IKEAHACKER.BLOGSPOT.COM A poker table that turns a card game into a TV event. 76 GRAY MATTER Weak stomachs be warned: We bring you a new and nauseating gallery of “Nature’s Grossest Powder in a ﬂ owerpot becomes titanium metal. Creatures.” Point and stare, at popsci.com/gross. 77 CHEAP TRICKS Connect your Xbox to the Web with an old router. 79 ASK A GEEK INVESTIGATING THE INFOMERCIALS With automated reminders, you’ll never forget anything. Can that treatment really grow your hair back? Do those electronic pest repellers actually work? Our new column “As Seen on TV” reveals the FYI truth behind the late-night ads, at popsci.com/tvtruth. 80 The best job on Mars. Plus: Will corn pop in space? OTHER STUFF FAST FUN: MORE 5-MINUTE PROJECTS 10 FROM THE EDITOR POPSCI’s how-to crew is back with six new videos. 12 THE INBOX Learn how to make a spectrometer, geek-chic cuff links, and more—all in less time than it takes to fix 96 PPX: THE POPSCI PREDICTIONS EXCHANGE a sandwich. Check out popsci.com/freshfiveminutes.

06 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

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*F-150 SuperCrew.

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® 10 TH INNOVATION. IS SERIOUS ABOUT PRESIDENT-ELECT SIGNS THAT THIS ENCOURAGING On October30, if elected, tooverhaul thenation’s electricalgrid. chunk ofaninterviewonevening newsshowtodetailinghisplans, Obama didsomethingthatsnappedmy headback: Hedevoted asolid the White House.I’meagertoseehimgetdown business. this month, we’ll have atrulyscience-minded andtech-savvy presidentin pelling themtobuildcleanervehicles. campaign successful, tousingabailoutofU.S. automakers asaway ofcom- sive government withthekindof Web technology thatmadetheObama tion, there’s talkofeverything fromcreatingamoretransparentand respon- president-elect isseriousaboutinnovation. Inthelead-uptohisinaugura- techno-wonk agendastruck measaparticularlyencouragingsignthatthis spending preciousairtimeinthecampaign’s waning dayspushingsuch a legitimate newalternative-energy economy. And thefactthathewas the gridisoften-overlooked key tothesuccessfulpropagation ofany cated ideasaboutrenewable energy. What’s more, hisanalysisisspot-on—

PO Those arejustafewoftheportentssuggestingthat, asofthe20th Wow, Ithought, he’s makingoffhandreference tosubtleandsophisti- ERE ARE ERE ARE PULAR SCIENCE justfive daysbeforethepresidentialelection, Barack President JANUARY 2009 Te www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® ch batteries back intothegrid.” that’s generatedfromthosecar consumers selltheelectricity want tobeablehave ordinary to useplug-inhybrids andwe to have asmartgridifwe want cago. And we’re goingtohave to populationcenterslike Chi- wind power fromNorthDakota said, “I want tobeableget about renewable energy,” he mark.jannot@ MARK JANNOT “If we’re goingtobeserious bonnier corp.com P and foreign,pleasecall 386-597-4279.Oryoumaywriteto customerservice. You canalsocall800-289-9399;forCanadian Deputy Editor For serviceanytime,pleaseuseourW Associate PublisherAdvertisingW Editor Gr P Associate Web EditorsPaulAdams,AbbySeiff Acting DigitalContentManagerTaylor Hengen Digital ContentDirector MeganMiller POPSCI.COM Photo Intern Bob Sauls,PaulWootton Contributing Artists Senior DesignerStephanieO’Hara Staff Photographer Photo EditorKristineLaManna Art Director ANDPHOTOGRAPHY ART GregEditorial Intern Soltis Contributing Futurist Contributing Troubadour Phillip Torrone, JamesVlahos,SpeedWeed Rebecca Skloot,MikeSpinelli,ElizabethSvoboda,KaleeThompson, Mone, RenaMariePacella,DaveProchnow, JessicaSnyderSachs, Joseph Hooper, SuzanneKantraKirschner, Preston Lerner, Gregory Contributing EditorsEricAdams,Theodore Gray, EricHagerman, Contributing Technology EditorSteveMorgenstern Editor atLargeDawnStover Editorial AssistantAmyGeppert Associate EditorsLauren Aaronson,Carey Bjorn Martha Harbison Senior AssociateEditorsDougCantor, SethFletcher, Copy andResearch Director RinaBander Senior Technology EditorSeánCaptain Senior Editor Editorial Production Manager FeliciaPardo Articles Editor Executive EditorMikeHaney EDITORIAL Creative Director SamSyed Corporate CounselJeremy Thompson Publishing Consultant Brand Director JohnMiller President,Vice CorporateCommunications President,Vice HumanResources President,Vice EnterprisesSystems President,Vice E-Media President,Vice Production President,Vice ConsumerMarketing Chief FinancialOfficer Chief OperatingOfficer Chief ExecutiveOfficer Chairman JonasBonnier Prepress ManagerJoséMedina Group Production Director Production Assistant Senior Production Director Tere B.Alfonso Human Resources Manager Publicity ManagerKendraRomagnola Single CopySalesDirector Weston Vicki Retention ManagerGayleFisher New BusinessManagerCliff Sabbag Senior PlanningManagerRandallJ.D.Logan Andrew Schulman Associate DirectorsThomas Mathew, Lauren Rosenblatt, Consumer MarketingDirector Promotions Manager Marketing ArtDirector Creative ServicesDirector Sales DevelopmentManagersKerriLevine,AlexisSmith Digital SalesDevelopmentManagerBrianGlaser Digital AccountManagersJessicaDeBiase,JesseParker, JennySmith Interactive SalesDirector Direct ResponseSales Classified AdvertisingSalesPatrickNotaro 212-779-5555 Jason A.Albaum404-892-0760 RegionalAdvertisingOffice:Southern Manager Digital AccountManagerJacquelineBoyl415-496-2700 San Fran cisco AdvertisingOffice: JillStankoski415-496-2700 Ad Assistant Detroit AdvertisingOffice: ManagerEdward A.Bartley248-282-5545 Digital AccountManagerKateGregory Los AngelesAdvertisingOffice: ManagerRobertHoeck310-227-8958 312-252-2838 AdAssistant Midwest AdvertisingOffice: ManagerJohnMarquardt Chris Young 212-779-5148,Taryn Young 212-779-5030 Northeast AdvertisingOffice: AlexDeSanctis212-779-5129, President,Vice CorporateSalesandMarketing Business Manager Marketing Director MikeGallic Executive AssistantChristopherGraves OPULAR OPULAR oup PublisherGreggR.Hano S -in-Chief MarkJannot CIENCE S CIENCE Matthew Cokeley IlonaLieberman Diane Pahl Diane Pahl , P Nicole Dyer MichaelMoyer Jacob W .O. Box420235,PalmCoast, FL32142-0235. Connie Lau

PROPER John B. Carnett Kevin Hand,NickKaloterakis,GrahamMurdoch, RandallKoubek Erika Hernandez Erika Hernandez Martin S.Walker Andrew Zolli Eshonda Caraway Terry Snow ard Marie Isabelle800-280-2069 DanAltman Howard Roth Shawn Woznicki LisaEarlywine Jonathan Coulton Rob Pfeiffer Mike Iadanza Krissy Van Rossum Laurel Kurnides TIES Kim Putman Bob Cohn Cathy Hertz FUTURE ShawnLarson NO eb site:popsci.com/ THE endi S.Berger BruceMiller W Dean Turcol Pete Michalsky PO PSCI.COM

JOHN B. CARNETT www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® [email protected]

Electriﬁ ed “Power Struggle” [November 2008], about the quest to build the Chevy Volt’s massive THE YEA OF R N battery, really charged up our IO T A readers, becoming one of the V O most discussed stories online. N N entertainment I While some questioned the Volt’s GRAND feasibility and cost, most agreed AWARD that its environmental beneﬁ ts WINNER are well worth the effort. Weigh in at popsc i.com/powerstruggle .

True, a plug-in would make sense for “Power Struggle” states “Americans a majority of commuters, but there burn 390 million gallons of gasoline are deﬁ nitely hurdles to overcome. every day, each of which pumps 20 The current electric infrastructure pounds of carbon dioxide into the couldn’t handle pumping electricity air.” How is it possible to burn six to millions of cars. Replacing pounds of liquid and turn it into 20

today’s gas-distribution process pounds of CO2? with electric charging stations L.L. Holloway will not be quick, easy or cheap. Vancouver, Wash. Bob Via e-mail Editor Seth Fletcher responds: Most of carbon dioxide’s weight comes from We need to let carmakers know we oxygen in the air, which isn’t included want to get through this “hybrid” in that 6.3-pound gallon of gas. There phase—the transition from gasoline are 5.5 pounds of carbon in each to full electric cars—as soon as gallon. When gas burns, the carbon possible and that we want cars that molecules combine with two oxygen

are designed to have the generators molecules to form CO2, which is 3.7 removed and swapped for batteries. times as heavy as a single carbon billdale atom. Multiplying 5.5 pounds of Comment on popsci.com carbon by 3.7 gives you 20.35 pounds.

Corrections Phone: 800-289-9399 Web: popsci.com/manage HD radio is not “high-deﬁ nition” [Coby THE FUTURE NOW HDR 700; “The Goods,” Oct. 2008]. INTERNATIONAL MAIN OFFICE EDITIONS 2 Park Ave., 9th Floor For inquiries regarding The LHC’s magnet sections each weigh New York, NY 10016 international licensing or 38.5 tons, not 10 [“Breaking Open the Fax: 212-779-5108 syndication, please contact Web: popsci.com [email protected]. ® Unknown Universe,” Oct. 2008]. The Sony Organic LED TV NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS LETTERS revolutionizes television with Phone: 800-289-9399 Send letters to the Beth Noveck is a professor at New York Web: popsci.com/subscribe editor to letters blazing response times, exceptionally Law School, not New York University @popsci.com. Send SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES science questions to vibrant color reproduction, stunning [“Dear Mr. President,” Nov. 2008]. Report changes of add- [email protected]. contrast levels, high brightness and a ress and subscription Comments may be The Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 component problems to: edited for length display as thin as three credit cards. POPULAR SCIENCE and clarity. We regret set [“The Best of What’s New,” Dec. P.O. Box 420235 that we cannot answer unpublished letters. 2008] costs $2,100, not $150. Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235

12 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

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T PHOTOGRAPH BY TOMÁS PAIS DE AZEVEDO organisms. BYSTUART FOX control theoveralldevelopmentofvertebrate order, it’s possibletoseehowvarious genes By trackinghowbonesdevelop, andinwhat the cartilagewillultimatelysolidifyinto bone. dark-blue areasofthechickindicatewhere the embryothroughastereomicroscope. The took threedays, afterwhich hephotographed with adyethatbindstocartilage. The process chicken embryofromitseggandstainedit gal, removedaneight-day-old, two-inch-long tal biologyattheUniversityofLisboninPortu- ate studentinevolutionaryanddevelopmen- 22-year-old Tomás Pais de Azevedo, agradu- vote inthe2008Nikon Small World contest, F EGG TO HEN DEVELOPMENT FROM P o createthisimage, which wonthepopular OLLOWING BIRD OPULAR SCIENCE NKY NKY egapixels t he must-see photos of month the he must-see photos JANUARY 2009 www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©®

COLLEGE OF SCIENCES/UNIVERSITY OF LISBON/COURTESY NIKON SMALL WORLD POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 15 www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® MEGAPIXELS UTERS RE

16 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® TUNNEL VISION THE LONG WALK TO A NUCLEAR-WASTE STORAGE FACILITY At the end of this tunnel, which snakes as deep as 820 feet below the Hungarian coun- tryside, lies a new long-term nuclear-waste facility, set to open in 2010. Located on the outskirts of the village of Bátaapáti, it will store more than 10.5 million gallons of low- and intermediate-level waste produced at the Paks nuclear power plant, which is 40 miles away. The waste consists of protective clothing and contaminated tools and materials from processing. It collectively accounts for 97 percent of the volume of radioactive waste from the plant. (The high-level waste, including spent fuel rods, is stored at the power plant.) After several hundred years, its radioactivity should decay to the level of the planet’s natural background radiation. BY GREG SOLTIS PHOTOGRAPH BY KAROLY ARVAI

See more amazing photos at popsci.com/gallery.

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te ch that puts the future in the palm of your hand AME WORK S ee a video of the CR in action at popsci.com/buell at action in CR the of avideo ee 22 for power tools power for A m ightier motor motor ightier B right after the after aluminumright is rather poured, away mold the rinsing start to them allows formulation new The clay. of place in use to agent bonding awater-soluble developed instead engineers Buell clay. and sand of amold into metal molten pouring by formed body. asturdier create away—to mold the washed it Instead, bike. 1125CRthe racing break the mold when it made made it when mold the break not did uell The frames ofThe other are frames motorcycles www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® t’s neWt’s . 24 T and-shoot and SLR and-shoot he marriage of point- he marriage different components. different ﬁ to cooling water using way, that frame entire the cast to possible It’s even metal. of pound less one requires that frame rear a stronger produce to method the used Buell structure. the weaken can which forming, from cavities preventing manner, acontrolled in and faster alloy the cools Water mold. the breaking then and solidify to cast the for waiting than ne-tune the metal’s strength and rigidity for for rigidity and strength metal’s the ne-tune J ANUARY 2009 POPULAR 2009 SCIENCE ANUARY —M atthew Cokeley 26 Por 911 from the inside out inside the 911 from sche rebuilds the 19 WHAT’S NEW

EASY STEPS Track your daily calorie burn without expending extra energy. Fitbit’s pedometer automatically uploads step counts to your computer whenever you walk by its Bluetooth-enabled base station. Fitbit Tracker LIGHT COLORED $100; See this MP3 player’s dis- ﬁ tbit.com play clearly even in direct sun. It’s the first gadget with Qualcomm’s color Mir- asol screen, which creates images by reflecting THE light—becoming brighter as your surroundings do. Freestyle Audio FA300 GOODS $80; freestyleaudio.com 12 MUST-HAVE PRODUCTS

RECORDING ARTIST SAFETY LINE Save your songs with this acoustic Back up your files just by plugging guitar’s built-in MP3 recorder. A “pickup” one end of this cable into your near the strings, like the one in an PC and the other into any USB electric guitar, converts vibrations into hard drive. A chip inside the cable a voltage signal, and a microphone on holds software that automatically the side captures your crooning. Ovation manages the transfer. ClickFree iDea Guitar $600; ovationidea.com Transformer $60; goclickfree.com

MOTOR HEAD No need to swing a hammer. Slip this tool over a nail, and a small internal weight vibrates up and down 2,000 times a minute. It drives nails without straining your arms and makes it impossible for you to miss and bust your thumb. Craftsman NexTec Auto Hammerhead $100; craftsman.com

20 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

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the movement OP of reflective tags OVER THE HILL P that you strap on your feet. Tiger Other GPS devices show you twisty roads, but finally there’s one that shows you an Electronics upcoming cliff. The 8100T is the first unit to display terrain features all across the U-Dance $80; U.S., such as hills, valleys and drop-offs. It uses a built-in 3-D graphics chip to render hasbro.com topographic data provided by NASA. Navigon 8100T $600; navigon.com

PLUG AND PRINT FASTER FRAMES Connect a printer to this router’s This LCD prevents blurry motion USB port to send documents to it scenes by refreshing images from another room. Software on 240 times per second—twice as your computer streams files over fast as any other set. Because Wi-Fi or Ethernet to the router, which images flash faster, the change converts the data to USB signals. between frames doesn’t appear D-Link DIR-825 $190; dlink.com abrupt. Sony Bravia KDL- 52XBR7 Price not set; sony.com

READY FOR YOUR AUTO WASH CLOSE-UP The first carpet cleaner with Improve your iPhone’s computerized controls begins photos. The built-in lens dispensing water with the flick on this case slides over the of a dial, instead of making you camera and enables it to constantly hold a trigger. Sen- take clear close-up shots— sors alert you when the dirty- such as readable pics of water tank needs to be emptied. business cards—from Hoover Platinum Carpet just four inches away. Cleaner $400; hoover.com Griffin Clarifi $35; griffintechnology.com UNDER PRESSURE You won’t accidentally launch an application by brushing the Storm’s touchscreen. You tap the display to highlight icons but push down firmly to select one. This depresses the entire LCD against a button hidden underneath. BlackBerry Storm Price not set; verizon.com

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EXTREME CLOSE-UP EXTRA-POWER TOOL

A REDESIGNED MOTOR GIVES THIS DRILL A SERIOUS BOOST IN JUICE For guys on a job site drilling hundreds of holes a day, power spins an electromagnetic rotor inside. The ring is typically a matters—it lets them work faster and blow through knots, single piece of metal. Copper coils are inserted through a gap nails and other obstructions. That’s why corded tools, with into slots on each side of the ring, and then slid into place. their bigger, stronger motors, still reign for contractors, and DeWalt instead uses a four-piece steel ring and assembles why DeWalt challenged its engineers to deliver even more it around larger coils, eliminating the need for a gap and oomph. Their answer: a motor that squeezes in extra copper making room for more power-producing copper. to deliver 40 percent more power. The motor is now in two new half-inch drills and a Electric motors send current though copper coils handheld grinder, but it could easily migrate to any tool that embedded in a steel ring, generating a magnetic ﬁ eld that needs some extra kick.—Mike Haney

STOP GAP IN RELATED NEWS: COOL CORDLESS TOOLS In a crosscut of the new motor [fore- RYOBI HYBRID SAW BOSCH MULTI-X ground, right], copper coils ﬁ ll the crescent-shaped slots on each side Like the love child of a recip and a This device can oscillate to provide maximum power. The old jigsaw, this tool pumps standard jig different attachments at up to design [far left] required leaving a blades at 1,850 strokes per minute, 20,000 times a minute. Use tiny gap where the coils were inserted. perfect for cutting holes in drywall. triangular sanding pads for nooks It’s part of an inexpensive set that and crannies or a miniature saw includes an impact driver, compact blade that will cut in places you drill, circular saw and work light. could never cram a hacksaw.

$150 (set); ryobitools.com $200; boschtools.com TOSHI SA

22 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

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PO IS NEW DESIGN BORROWS DESIGN BORROWS IS NEW panasonic.com $800 with lens; GET The bigne you have to compose shotsusingan the viewfi the lens andreflects imagesinto SLRs—the mirror thatsitsbehind companies removed akey partof more-diminutive future models. from Olympus showsthepotential for smaller lenses. Adesignconcept the most petite SLRsbutuseseven Panasonic’s G1,isaboutthesizeof point-and-shoot. Thefi SLR withthecompact bodyofa the interchangeable lenses ofan size and4:3aspectratio), combines (referring to theimagesensor’s wonky name“micro four thirds” pretty small.Anewformat withthe PULAR SCIENCE To shrinkthecameras, the IT:

Pa nder. Thedownsideisthat nasonic G1 ws incameras isactually JANUARY 2009 rst model, www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® as ahigh-endpoint-and-shoot’s. Bigger most SLR’s, isaboutsixtimesaslarge image sensor,thoughsmaller than package. TheG1’s 12.1-megapixel benefits of anSLRinacompact looking rightthrough thelens ofanSLR. LCD screen, whichisn’tasaccurate as On theupside,you gettheother lenses inyour bag. finally have room to packallthose warped fi extreme close-ups to wideshotsto a lenses lets you shootanythingfrom dim settings.Andtheabilityto change richer details andcolors, especially in sensors absorbmore lightto capture a pocket-sized body. into SLR an of workings the from Olympus squeezes camera A concept SHOTLITTLE Price not set; en.leica-camera.com set; not Price cores processesthegiantimages. as portableanSLR. A chipwithtwocomputing biggest SLR’s) intoacompact, ruggedbodythat’s slab that’s oneandahalftimesaslargethe packs amedium-formatsensor(a37.5-megapixel detailed images. Dueoutthis summer, Leica’s S2 fi ne-art photographers usetocapturehyper- A HANDHELD PHOTO STUDIO PHOTO A HANDHELD as medium-formatcamer Even SLRsarepupsnexttothebigdogsknown IN RELATED NEWS: NEWS: RELATED sh-eye view. Best ofall,you’ll —T heano Nikitas heano as, whichfashionand Leica S2 PO PSCI.COM

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INSIDE, PORSCHE’S 911 IS A WHOLE NEW CAR

Look through the 2009 Carrera S’s familiar skin, and you’ll fi nd the biggest redesign in years. The change starts with a dual-clutch transmission, taken straight from Porsche’s racecars, that shifts gears in milliseconds. It’s bolted to a redesigned six-cylinder engine that uses direct fuel injection (a fi rst for Porsche) to churn out higher horsepower while actually getting more miles per gallon. In the cockpit, the company has fi nally added modern gadgetry such as Bluetooth, an iPod cable, and XM Satellite Radio with real-time traffi c updates. What hasn’t changed? The 911 is still one of the most powerful cars on the planet.—seth fl etcher lights LEDs around the headlamps and tail lamps act as daytime running lights.

Suspension Select “Sport” mode, and the shocks compress, bringing the car nearly an inch closer to the ground to provide more stability during high-speed turns.

Transmission Like other double-clutch systems, Porsche’s seven-speed gearbox essentially uses one transmission for the odd-numbered gears and one for the even-numbered. While one is in ﬁ rst gear, the other is already waiting in second. Switch from automatic to manual mode, and choose gears with either the shifter or the buttons on the steering wheel. On the track, we pulled off brutal shifts—say, from sixth gear down to second at 60 mph—instantaneously.

Engine Direct fuel injection sends gasoline straight into the cylinders, increasing compression ratio and efﬁ ciency. That translates to a 0-to-60 time of 4.5 seconds, a top speed of 178 mph and a 15 percent cut in carbon-dioxide emissions. OURTESY PORSCHE CARS NORTH AMERICA C

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GOOD, BETTER, BEST The latest electronic readers let you scrawl in the margins or swipe your ﬁ nger to turn a page, just as with a traditional paper book. Their new realism comes from touchscreens of various kinds, which replace computer-like buttons. And with E-Ink displays that look like pigment on paper, these gizmos could TURNING A convert even die-hard bookworms.—Sean Portnoy NEW PAGE

This spring, Plastic Logic will debut the Weighing just 10 ounces, Sony’s new Write or draw directly on a 6.3-by-8- thinnest e-reader yet—just over a quarter reader is about the same size as earlier inch display. Like iRex’s smaller models of an inch—with a screen the same size versions. But its 4.8-by-3.6-inch screen (previously the only digital books with as an 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper. Its packs resistive sensors that respond to touchscreens), the 1000S uses a sensor E-Ink display sits on a plastic base instead pressure from your ﬁ nger or a stylus. board, placed under the screen, that of glass, making it slimmer, lighter Swipe the screen to turn a page, or drag reacts to a magnetic signal from an and more durable; even the transistors across a word to highlight and copy it. electronic pen. (It’s the same Wacom tech are plastic. The touchscreen relies on You can’t write freehand, but you can that digital artists use.) Navigate pages iPhone-style capacitance sensors, which make notes by tapping on a keyboard with touch-sensitive panels on the react to the electrical conductivity of your that pops up onscreen. $400; sony.com unit’s side. $750; irextechnologies.com ﬁ ngertips. Price not set; plasticlogic.com TOSHI

SCREEN SIZE: PAPERBACK SCREEN SIZE: HARDCOVER SCREEN SIZE: OFFICE PAPER SA

28 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

PARADIGM MAKE THIS PHONE SHIFT YOUR OWN THE “GOOGLE PHONE” IS HERE. NOW PROGRAMMERS CAN MAKE IT INTERESTING

WHAT IT IS G1 in October and this year will improvements to other users through a Android, Google’s cellphone operating power a variety of phones, from download store called the Market. Other system. When we curse at our phones, carriers and manufacturers systems let you install programs such the culprit is usually the impenetrable including Sprint and Motorola. as games. But they don’t allow you to software that requires ﬁ ve button (The latter has hired hundreds of change the phone itself (like replacing presses just to save a number to its Android programmers in the hope of the address book), or how applications address book. But what if you could reviving its foundering business.) communicate with each other and replace the address book with a better with the phone’s hardware. That’s why version —or with something completely Why It’s radical iPhone owners are still waiting for different, like a program that links to Unlike the Apple, BlackBerry and Apple to add basic functions to the OS, your Facebook friends list instead? Microsoft phone operating systems, like cutting and pasting text between That’s the promise of Android, Android is open-source, meaning programs or sending music through the which premiered with the T-Mobile anyone is free to reprogram it and offer Bluetooth chip to a wireless headset. For Example Android also makes it easier to build complex applications that link programs and phone components. Take Wikitude. It uses input from the camera, the GPS chip and orientation sensors to overlay links to Wikipedia articles about the places you see on the phone’s screen, providing a real-time, annotated view of the world. That doesn’t just improve your phone; it turns it into a whole new kind of device.—John Mahoney

GET IT: T-Mobile G1 $180 with two-year contract (from $65/ month); tmobile.com TOSHI SA

30 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

Finally, 1800 mAh in a pocket-sized backup battery! by Richard Thalheimer

Thinking of getting a backup battery for your iPhone or iPod? The new RichardSolo 1800 has capacity and features that distinguish it from the competition. There’s also a separate BlackBerry version as well! Large 1800 mAh capacity will charge the iPhone or BlackBerry completely to full, with more power left over for later charging.

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For iPhone, sturdy support brace holds iPhone and RichardSolo 1800 securely together. And, this is the only snap-on battery available with an actual latching We are here to support you! mechanism for iPhone, to keep the RichardSolo 1800 and iPhone firmly attached. These are actual customer comments: Polymerized lithium-ion battery takes hundreds and hundreds of charges. Three I had read a number of glowing reviews about RichardSolo quality, and am thrilled to discover your support is top notch. Thanks again for the LED lights indicate charge status. RS001 certified for iPhone 2G/3G, and all iPod fantastic customer care — you’ve certainly gained my loyalty. — D.G. models except shuffle. RS007 works with most BlackBerry models except 8830 To have you and your company exhibit such exceptional service is World Edition, and most phones with mini-USB charging port. unbelievably refreshing. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I will be — P.S. Your satisfaction is completely guaranteed, with a 30-day, no-hassle return privilege, highly recommending your company to anyone I encounter. and a 90-day warranty. You will be absolutely delighted. That is my promise to you, Dear Richard and Team: This is what I call great customer support. I wish and you can depend on it! more companies would ﬁgure this out these days. Thank you so much. — D.C. Order now for free USA and Canada shipping: $69.95 You have provided me one of the best services I have ever encountered RS001 for iPhone/iPod RS007 for BlackBerry on any on-line/telephone shopping. — T.K. Order two of the same, and save 15% Richard, thank you. That was the fastest response I have ever received. Hours of use may vary, depends upon many factors, including type of use, network, and connection speed. iPod is a trademark of Great product by the way. Appreciate the assistance. — M.W. Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc. BlackBerry is a registered trademark of Research In Motion Ltd. Free items require purchase. This is absolutely the best customer service experience I have had in a long time. — L.L.

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FREE BUILT-IN FREE On-line ordering and blog reviews BUILT-IN FREE DUAL-PORT SUPER USA LASER AC WALL www.RichardSolo.com USB CAR BRIGHT LED CANADA POINTER CHARGER CHARGER FLASHLIGHT SHIPPING email: [email protected] Key code# PSM010109 www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® headlines discoveries, advances and debates in science 34 36 39 Vital signs expose Tesla’s new Turning old elec- bad guys in a crowd electric sedan tronics into gold

ENVIRONMENT THE OTHER BIG MELTDOWN IS GLOBAL WARMING SHIFTING INTO HIGH GEAR? A FEDERAL PROJECT AIMS TO FIND OUT To predict the unpredictable: That’s the goal of a new government initiative on abrupt climate change. As the atmosphere reels under the infl uence of greenhouse gases, scientists fear the growing risk of dramatic environmental changes occurring within decades—far faster than current computer models predict. Ice sheets might not just melt but collapse wholesale, rapidly raising sea levels and fl ooding entire coastlines. Regional rain shortages could cause megadroughts that choke our water and food supply. William Collins, head of the climate-science department at Law- rence Berkeley National Laboratory, calls the possibility of abrupt climate change “a huge threat to the security and stability of our nation and the world.” Earth is no stranger to the disruptive forces of sudden climate change. Tree- ring data show that sudden drying in the American West from 900 to 1400 induced one of the most tenacious megadroughts on record, turning river basins into sheets of sand and contributing to the collapse of the agrarian Pueblo “cliff-dweller” civilization. Scientists suspect that increased greenhouse gases may be forcing another shift, but no computer model is yet capable of forecasting if, when, and how fast that shift ON THE BRINK Experts might be happening. So with a $2-million-a- warn that a rapid shift year investment by the U.S. Department of in climate could speed Energy, six national laboratories and a host up ice loss, which of universities are joining forces in a predic- would dramatically tion project called IMPACTS (Investigation raise sea levels and increase fl ood risk. of the Magnitudes and Probabilities of Reduced rainfall in Abrupt Climate Transitions). Led by Collins, the American South- IMPACTS will pinpoint the mechanisms that west could also set drive abrupt climate change and add them off severe drought not LOCKWISE FROM TOP: MARCO SIMONI/GETTY IMAGES; GEORGE E. MARSH ALBUM/NOAA; MIKE DICKBERND/AP PHOTO

C to the Community Climate System Model seen since the 1930s . [continued on page 35]

POPSCI.COM JANUARY 2009 POPULAR SCIENCE 33

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® 34 BIOLOGICAL CUES THAT CUES PRECIPITATEBIOLOGICAL CRIME A A N nent threat and a person who’s just having a bad day. abad having just who’s aperson and threat nent immi- an who’s someone between discern to able be should detectors, bomb more-conventional including sensors, multiple system’s the levels. pheromone even and patterns speech tion, dila- pupil analyze to able be eventually to aims FAST that notes but says, he nitty-gritty,” the into get not I’d rather reasons, security speciﬁ very for look “We him. expose that cues biological measurable display will attack a malicious division. Technology and Science DHS the for manager program the Burns, Bob says intent, hostile or deceptive with people out picking for rate accuracy high apromisingly scoring prototype, FAST ascaled-down through volunteers 140 ran DHS the September, In work. will FAST, or Technology, Screening bute Attri- Future called monitor, threat sensor-based and camera- new before he even enters the security building. alerting alarms, trigger and intentions nefarious his betray content sweat and rate heart temperature, body his in irregularities minute But abomb. off set to plans He you. behind 25-year-old well-dressed the for so Not mind. your occupy cars sports hydrogen of visions Show, Auto Angeles Los s you make your way

What if you’re innocently nervous or angry? Working in concert, concert, in Working angry? or nervous innocently you’re if What that planning a on person the theory operates The system its hopes Security Homeland of Department U.S. the how That’s F P DE neck, cheeks andneck, cheeks face. in the micro-movements by tracking of respiration depth and frequency the tors C. heartbeats. between val inter- the in changes and rate BioLIDAR measures heart B. gaze. of direction and rate blink size, pupil in slight alterations A. EW SYSTEM SCANS CROWDS FOR THE FOR THE CROWDS SCANS SYSTEM EW “FAST” LANE “FAST” SE OPULAR SCIENCE AST HAS YOU COVERED HAS AST

Lungs: Heart: Ey FENSE TECH FENSE es: Cameras detect A laser radar called called radar Alaser BioLIDAR moni- BioLIDAR CURITY IN THE THE IN CURITY through the security checkpoint of the 2020 of the checkpoint 2020 through the security JANUARY 2009 c signals,” Burns says. “For “For says. Burns c signals,” D. body expels under stress. under expels body the chemicals the detect to asensor on working are Pheromones: intent. malicious that indicate gestures and gait changes, such cues, as behavioral nonverbal capture cameras E. levels. determine stress to and texture perature tem- skin in changes gauge www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©®

Body language: Skin: Skin: Thermal cameras —A Scientists rnie Cooper Video E C A B Ther mal camera D

GRAHAM MURDOCH HEADLINES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33 Video camera (CCSM),CCSM) one of the country’s two leading computer climate models. Accurate predictions BioLIDAR won’t eliminate changes, but they might give us time to prepare. Megadrought is a high priority for IMPACTS. Current models show that global warming will already make the American Southwest steadily drier, but changes in plant life could speed up and inten- sify the process. During prolonged drought, “ABRUPT plant roots deprived of water CLIMATE cease to grow CHANGE IS A longer and tap deep ground- HUGE THREAT water. “The TO NATIONAL vegetation may actually die off,” SECURITY.” says Ruby Leung, an IMPACTS modeler at the Paciﬁ c Northwest National Laboratory. Without plants to transport groundwater to the top layer of soil, drought conditions could com- pound, setting the stage for a megadrought. Another tipping point may be ice sheets, particularly in the West Antarctic. They’re disintegrating briskly, but current computer models don’t take this into account, in part because the mechanism by which the sheets crumble is still unclear. History shows that sea levels are capable of rising 20 times as fast as the current rate of one tenth of an inch per year, says New York University oceanographer David Holland, who is parsing recent ﬁ eld data on the mechanisms into ice- sheet equations for the CCSM. “At that rate,” he says, “you would have a problem in 100 years.” Given that one in 10 people worldwide live in low-elevation areas, these are important numbers to know. Until recent years, the national research focus has been to characterize trends in gradual warming and its long-term effects. “It’s like learning to drive,” says Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State Uni- versity and a leader in bringing attention to abrupt climate change. “We generally start by trying to control the car. Then we learn about evasive maneuvers to avoid drunk drivers crossing the centerline.” IMPACTS signals that priorities are shifting. The hope is that they’re shifting faster than the climate is.—Laura Allen

POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 35

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® HEADLINES

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?

“WHEN THE ELECTRIC SEDAN COMES OUT, I’LL HAND IN MY PORSCHE.”

WHY DOT-COM BILLIONAIRE ELON MUSK IS BANKING ON AMERICAN-MADE ELECTRIC CARS MAN AND MACHINE If there’s a gene for entrepreneurship, Elon begin selling an electric sedan powered by Elon Musk and Musk has it. From his fi rst project at age 12 lithium-ion batteries with an unthinkable his all-electric creating and selling a videogame called Blaster 240-mile range. The Model S won’t Tesla Roadster. for $500, to his $1-billion-plus sale of PayPal overtake Tesla’s 125mph Roadster, but it to eBay in 2002, the 37-year-old South African will be nearly half the price, at $60,000, California’s special rate for electric cars, is every bit the born mogul. These days he’s and made in America. We spoke with currently seven cents a kilowatt-hour to chairman of Solar City, the largest residential Musk about his push to make affordable charge at night, it costs roughly $5 to go solar-power provider in California. He’s also high-perfomance electric cars and why 250 miles. And we’re zero-emissions. the founder and CEO of Space X, a space- hybrids have no future.—ARNIE COOPER exploration company that made headlines But gas cars are still more affordable. last September when it launched the fi rst Can you be successful selling an Today. Remember, in their early days, privately developed rocket into orbit. But lately alternative-fuel car now that gas prices gasoline cars were really “toys for the it’s Musk’s newly minted role as CEO of the have dipped below $3 a gallon? rich.” All technology gets optimized. The U.K.-based electric-car start-up Tesla Motors Absolutely. The cost difference between typical electric motor is 90 percent more that is drawing the most attention. In October, electric and gasoline is gigantic. When effi cient at converting energy into motion amid global fi nancial tumult, Tesla received we started Tesla in 2003, gasoline was than the internal combustion engine. You

a $40-million cash infusion from private around $2.50. It takes 60 kilowatt-hours get an overwhelming advantage in both CARNETT B. N

investors and announced that by 2011 it would to charge the Roadster’s battery. So at carbon emissions and energy per mile. u JOH

36 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® Actually, it’s called a pulse plug—here’s why its technology should be in your engine.

Until now, every gallon of gas you bought was ignited by a The result: the improved combustion efficiency burns fuel sooner simple spark plug—an outmoded technology that has barely and more effectively, which means better fuel mileage, less CO2 changed in 100 years. But now you can change to a new eco- based emissions, and better overall drivability. For example, here friendly pulse plug that uses an advanced technology to make is the result of a recent, highly-controlled fuel consumption lab test: every drop of gas burn better and cleaner. 2007 Toyota Prius This new technology—with its eight patents—is based on plasma research supported by the world famous Sandia National Laboratories—and yes, that’s definitely rocket science. SPARK PLUG: 44.8 MPG

PULSE PLUG: 49.2 MPG

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WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? CONT’D

Q: Why not go hybrid? out, and replace it with another pack. It’ll so there’s much less uncertainty around A: We looked closely at developing take roughly fi ve minutes—less time than the technology. That said, the recent a hybrid, but we decided it’s a red fi lling your gas tank. For a high-speed economic situation has forced us to push herring. If you stay purely electric or recharge, the car will also have onboard back production six months, to mid-2011. purely gasoline, you’re going to make chargers that let you plug into any wall a better car. As soon as you try to split socket and charge up in 45 minutes. Q: You run a green company. Would the difference, you have something you say you live a green lifestyle? that’s neither fi sh nor fowl. A Prius is Q: Tesla has delivered only 50 Roadsters. A: I’m not too hardcore about being a weak gasoline car with a little bit of How do you plan to get 15,000 Model S green. I think it leads to a very constrained electric charge. And once you’ve used cars out annually? life. I have the Roadster and a Porsche up the electric charge, you have an A: For the Roadster, we made a few Turbo. But once the sedan comes out, underpowered gasoline engine or a architectural errors and lots of I’ll hand in the Porsche. Waste is not weak electric car. mistakes in our choice good, but we can’t conserve our way of suppliers. And we to a solution. If everyone were a Q: How will drivers recharge the were developing the super-green conservationist, it battery pack in the Model S? fi rst version of a would just delay the inevitable. A: You’ll head to a battery-swap station, new technology. We have to fi nd sustainable drive your car onto rails that lock your With the sedan, means of producing and car into position like at a car wash, and we already have consuming energy. p a customized forklift device will grab the powertrain in UNDER WRAPS A sneak the pack from beneath the car, pull it a rolling prototype, peek at the Tesla Model S AN LEVENSON LEVENSON AN AL

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moun G LANDFILLS G tain streams tain streams lms, and + www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® metals, making the paper three times as as times three paper the making metals, a that tightly chemical binds it with to laces he Then apowder. into paper the grinds he First thefrom acid soup using newspapers. Saga University in Japan, extracts metal Inoue, Katsutoshi a chemist at the metals, to up the free metal. the plastic burning Looking for a cleaner way to recycle forLooking a cleaner to way recycle 4ZTUFNT4UBS &QJMPH-BTFS OLD ELECTRONICS OLD UJOHBU Inoue is now look- companies in with talks into the atmosphere than plastic. burning and energy but less metal, this requires the toget paper the toburn have You still mining. tometals alternative inexpensive an for ing and other carbon noxious less emits gases gold the from at acid. recapturing effective = — GRAEME STEMP-MORLOCK GRAEME GOLD MINE 5 IF"MM/FX ;JOH-BTFS HEADLINES

SUNNY SIDE UP A new type of asphalt converts the sun’s rays into electricity. ELECTRIC ASPHALT You know that saying about frying an egg on a hot sidewalk? It works, says Rajib Mallick, an 3 BODACIOUS GREEN INNOVATIONS engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who studies the effect of solar radiation on cities. Now Mallick has devised a way to harness heat from baking blacktop and turn it into electricity. His system pumps water—an excellent heat conductor—through a network of copper pipes embedded in asphalt. As the water circulates, it pulls heat from the scorching surface and produces steam to drive a turbine that cranks out electricity. Mallick is partnering with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and the optics fi rm Novotech to install a full-scale system beneath a 10,000- square-foot parking lot near Worcester, Massachusetts, next summer. By GREEN RACER The i MiEV supplying electricity to the adjacent buildings, Sport will do 122 mph and get he expects the $200,000 system to pay for itself 124 miles on a single charge. in energy savings in a decade. PLUG-N-PLAY CARS Zero to 60 mph in about nine seconds may sound sluggish, but it’s a breakthrough for a zero-emissions, all-electric car that can travel up to 100 miles on a single SMART WATER charge and hit speeds of 85 mph. That’s the claim of the i MiEV (for “Mitsubishi Making seawater drinkable for the millions Innovative motor Electric Vehicle”), a new plug-in four-door coupe. The i MiEV runs without access to freshwater is a noble idea, on a pack of 22 lithium-ion batteries, but unlike other electric cars, including the but a standalone Chevy Volt and Tesla Roadster, the i MiEV doesn’t require a liquid cooling system desalinator needs to avoid overheating. “Proprietary metals in the battery design let us do away with 17 gallons of it,” says Moe Durand, the communications manager for Mitsubishi Motors North diesel fuel and America. This makes the i MiEV lighter and more effi cient, which—combined with 66.5 kilowatts a small, rear-mounted electric motor—gives it plenty of zip and extended range. of electricity to The company is also developing a two-door i MiEV Sport [above] with a planned top make 1,000 gallons speed of 122 mph and a 124-mile range. Still a concept, the sportier version will of freshwater. SOLAR SOLUTION The Solar have a rootop photovoltaic The Solar Cube, Cube is the first desalinator panel for extra power, heat- made by Spectra to run on renewable energy. defl ecting windows to save Watermakers in AC, and an interior made California, churns out 1,500 gallons of drinking

from polymer-producing water on just 22 kilowatts of its own solar and SPECTRA; COURTESY OCK; ST plants. Mitsubishi is now wind power. The innovation is a pump that triples I fl eet-testing the four-door effi ciency by recapturing hydraulic pressure in the U.S. and will sell a during the fi ltering process. Solar Cubes are now $28,000 model in Japan this DRIVER’S SEAT Look for Mitsubishi’s bringing freshwater to remote regions of South lineup to start incorporating the i MiEV’s summer.—Michael Behar Africa, Pakistan, Venezuela, Chile and other energy-saving windows and interior. LOCKWISE FROM TOP: C places short on infrastructure and electricity. (2) AMERICA NORTH MOTORS MITSUBISHI COURTESY

40 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® BOMB SQUAD A Boeing–Lockheed Mar- tin coalition is competing with Northrop Grumman to build the Next Generation Bomber, a mid-range stealth aircraft set to arrive in 2018. Northrop’s concept, seen here, has a kite-like shape similar to the company’s X-47B Navy attack drone.

The B-2 stealth bomber, assisted by midair refuelings, can ﬂ y a 44-hour mission to the THE AIR FORCE WANTS other side of the world, take out targets using laser-guided smart munitions, then A NEW BOMBER EQUIPPED sneak out of enemy territory undetected. WITH 21ST-CENTURY TECHNOLOGY. Yet it runs on Intel 286 processors—state of THAT COULD MEAN STEALTHIER the art in 1982, but these days, not so much. SURFACE MATERIALS AND Yes, the Air Force’s stealth-bomber LASER WEAPONS—AND ﬂ eet is aging. By 2037, the Air Force plans to build a large, supersonic stealth bomber IT MIGHT EVEN that can relieve the B-2 of duty. In the mean- SKIP THE PILOT time, though, the military needs a stopgap, BY DAWN STOVER ILLUSTRATIONS BY NICK KALOTERAKIS which is why it wants to build about 100 aircraft like the one you see here: the Next Generation Bomber, set to arrive in 2018. u

POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 43

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® PILOT LIGHT? Boeing has said that it is LOW PROFILE The Next “agnostic” about whether the bomber Generation Bomber will be manned or unmanned. Doing away could have a radar sig- with a pilot would extend the potential nature one tenth that length of missions—but a robot plane ﬁ lled of a mosquito thanks with nuclear warheads is sure to raise to sleek lines that don’t eyebrows among lawmakers. reﬂ ect radar signals.

OFFENSE AND DEFENSE Heavy munitions can take out buried or hardened targets such as bunkers and weapons caches. The bomber will carry 14,000 to 28,000 pounds of payload. And unlike today’s stealth bombers, the new craft could carry air-to-air missiles for self-defense. If necessary, it could even ﬂ y at the center of a “wolf pack” that includes ﬁ ghter planes and guided missiles.

Boeing and Lockheed are currently (Today’s stealth bombers are believed to defensive advantage over today’s bombers— working together on a design for the bomber, appear on radar screens as being about fi ghter-jet capabilities drawn from the F-22 in competition with Northrop Grumman. the size of a small bird.) Advanced com- Raptor. Air-to-air missiles would defend The Air Force won’t announce the full list of puter modeling will make it possible to the bomber from attacking aircraft. Pos- fi nal specifi cations for the new plane until design shapes (sure to be kept classifi ed) sible onboard microwaves or laser weapons later this year, but the basics are clear. This that can disappear even more effectively could destroy incoming missiles or radar should be a subsonic craft capable of fl ying from radar screens. Then there’s the stations on the ground. For particularly up to 2,000 miles before refueling from an plane’s surface. The B-2 uses a rubbery dangerous missions in which stealth is less airborne tanker, while carrying between skin that contains tiny beads coated with of a concern, the bomber could fl y at the 14,000 and 28,000 pounds of ordnance, pos- ferrite; radar waves induce a magnetic center of a protective “wolf pack”; this group sibly including nuclear weapons. fi eld in the coating that converts the radio of fi ghter jets, drones and guided missiles The bomber will use the same bat-wing energy to heat. The problem is, this coat- will travel in formation around the bomber, shape of a B-2, which means no tail to refl ect ing is fragile and easily damaged by bad organizing automatically by sending signals radar signals, and improvements in two key weather. The Next Generation Bomber to one another using radar and satellites. areas—surface design and surface coating— will have a radar-absorbent coating that The most intriguing possibility of all, could give the new bomber a radar signature can withstand rough fl ight conditions. though, is the persistent rumor that the as small as one tenth that of a mosquito. The new craft could also have a major Next Generation Bomber is actually cover

44 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

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BOEING’S BOMBER Preliminary designs for the Boeing-Lockheed bomber show a large center section, long, slen- today’s bomber fleet der wings, and slit-like air inlets for the engines. The plane’s belly is deep The Air Force’s current bomber ﬂ eet consists of the three planes shown here— enough for a large weapons bay. the B-52, B-1B and B-2. More than half are aging B-52s, some as old as 50. All three have a greater range and payload than is planned for the 2018 bomber, but the new bomber is expected to be stealthier and more combat-capable.

The B-52 is the old workhorse of the U.S. bomber ﬂ eet, with an average age of more than 45 years. It can carry a wider range of weapons, and loiter longer without refueling, than any other bomber. The B-52 has more than four times the range of the 2018 bomber.

The supersonic B-1B was designed as a low-altitude, high- speed bomber. Its speed makes it less vulnerable to attack than the comparatively clunky B-52, but it’s not as stealthy as the B-2. The B-1B ﬂ ies faster than the 2018 bomber and carries only non-nuclear weapons.

The B-2, which can carry nuclear or conventional weapons, is today’s only stealth bomber. The 2018 bomber will be akin to a mini B-2: smaller, stealthier, and equipped with newer computers and communications systems that make it easier to change missions on the ﬂ y.

for a secret “black” program to develop B-2—like, say, an unmanned variation unmanned planes in Iraq, where more an unmanned nuclear-capable bomber. on the Next Generation Bomber. For than 1,000 smaller drones have been suc- Last spring, Aviation Week laid out the case: Boeing’s part, its president of advanced cessfully used for reconnaissance and air Funding for the Next Generation Bomber is systems, Darryl Davis, told the Seattle strikes. This year marks the fi rst time in nowhere to be found in the most recent Air Times last January that his company history that the Air Force will buy more Force budget, yet fi nancial results released was “agnostic” about whether the plane unmanned planes than manned ones. by Northrop last April show $2 billion in would be manned or unmanned. That said, it’s one thing to have a new “classifi ed programs” at the company’s Why would the Air Force prefer to small unmanned plane carry conventional aircraft division. Northrop, which built the skip the pilot? Simple: An unmanned bombs and missiles but quite another to B-2, more recently won the contract to build craft would be smaller, cheaper, and load up a robot plane with 28,000 pounds the X-47B, a Navy demonstrator drone that have almost unlimited endurance. of nuclear weapons. As a recent congres- will fl y later this year. Because the company “Without a pilot, you can remain over sional report put it, a nuclear-equipped had previously proposed building a bigger the target area for days at a time,” says robot bomber is likely to be controversial version of the X-47, many experts believe John Pike, director of the Virginia-based at best. If this is what the Air Force has in that the black bomber rumored to be under think tank GlobalSecurity.org. “You’ve mind, no wonder it’s keeping it a secret. development at Northrop is an unmanned always got air power on call.” Pike ROM TOP: AP PHOTO/U.S. AIR FORCE; GETTY IMAGES (2)

F aircraft derived from both the X-47 and the says the Air Force “got religion” about Dawn Stover is POPULAR SCIENCE’s editor-at-large.

POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 45

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® SCIENCE OF ’09 PopSci PREDICTS AIRBORNE LASERS. THE CELLPHONE-CANCER LINK. BIG BUCKS FOR X PRIZE WINNERS? HERE, WE GIVE YOU A PEEK AT WHAT PROMISES TO BE A REVELATORY YEAR OF SCIENCE

HEAD-SICK Cancer- related brain tumors (yellow-ringed areas) LAST CALL? can take up to a decade to develop. THE MOST DEFINITIVE STUDY YET COULD FINALLY DETERMINE WHETHER CELLPHONE USE CAUSES CANCER Nearly fi ve decades ago, Americans discernable risk for people who have used one thing, they surveyed too few people. learned that one of their most treasured cellphones for fewer than 10 years. Additionally, the majority of studies habits—smoking—was lethal. This year, we No one yet knows specifi cally how focused on the effects of cellphone use could get more scary news, when scientists cellphones could cause cancer. The after several years, but in most cases announce the results from Interphone, the radiation they emit has too little energy to brain cancer takes a decade to develop. largest-ever study to investigate whether cause genetic damage, but some scientists Interphone looks at the infl uence of both cellphones cause cancer. believe that it may have indirect effects that short- and long-term use. That’s not to Interphone researchers are pooling cause cells to proliferate uncontrollably. But say that the study is perfect. Interphone and analyzing the results gathered from there’s no consensus on these theories. defi nes “regular” use as one call, once studies on 6,400 tumors sampled from Scientists like David Carpenter, the a week. It’s possible that this defi nition patients in 13 countries. If the fi nal results director of the Institute for Health and the underestimates the risk to people who mirror the preliminary ones, the world’s Environment at the University of Albany, use cellphones more frequently. three billion cellphone users might who spoke about cellphone risks at a And what happens if Interphone want to dial back their talk time. Israeli Congressional subcommittee hearing in reveals a defi nite link between researchers participating in Interphone September, are looking to Interphone for cellphones and cancer? Will we fi nd found that people who use cellphones a defi nitive ruling on cellphone safety but ourselves dependent on land lines regularly are 50 percent more likely than have expressed frustration over the two- again? Unlikely. The technology is non-users to develop brain tumors. And years-delayed results. probably here to stay, says Siegal a joint Interphone analysis from the U.K., An answer from Interphone is crucial Sadetzki, who ran the Israeli Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland for public health, Carpenter says. Although Interphone study: “We know that there reported a 40 percent increase in tumor a handful of studies have been published are car accidents, and we still use risk in people who use cellphones for on cellphones over the past few years, vehicles, right? We’ve just learned how more than a decade; the study found no most have been statistically useless. For to do it wisely.”—Melinda Wenner SCIENTISTS FOUND THAT REGULAR USERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP BRAIN TUMORS.

January FEBRUARY 12 FEBRUARY 17 A Year of Stars Darwin’s Birthday Bash TV Goes to All-Digital Unesco has designated 2009 as the Charles Darwin, the man who brought you the Television stations switch to International Year of Astronomy to highlight theory of evolution by natural selection, was born digital signals to broadcast the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s ﬁ rst 200 years ago. His hometown of Shrewsbury, their current channels, use of the telescope to make astronomical England, and keeping the spectrum open observations. the Natural for other telecommunication PIXELGARDEN.COM History Museum uses, such as emergency in London will broadcasts and wireless offer the grandest broadband. USTRATION: USTRATION:

ILL celebrations.

POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 47

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® PopSci PREDICTS SCIENCE IN ’09 COSMIC HOUSE-HUNTING NEW ORBITING OBSERVATORY WILL SEARCH FOR EARTH-LIKE PLANETS OCK ST Earth’s twin could be waiting for us hundreds of light-years away. In I I SPY The Kepler telescope has fact, thousands of Earth doppelgängers may be lurking in the cosmic a 4.5-foot-wide mirror. It will distance, orbiting stars just like our sun and maybe, just maybe, look for small, rocky planets harboring life of their own. Although telescopes have identiﬁ ed more orbiting distant stars.

than 300 planets outside our solar system, most of them are too LITZ/GETTY IMAGES; harsh to host life. One notable exception to the typical “hot Jupiter” model is a rocky Earth-like planet discovered in 2007, dubbed Gliese 581 c. This April, NASA’s orbiting Kepler telescope will begin a three- year effort to scour distant space for more planets like Gliese 581 c. Kepler won’t look for them directly—Earth-like planets are too small to see even with the best telescopes. Instead it will hunt for them based on how they affect the stars they orbit. The Kepler telescope will focus on one small slice of our galaxy, the wing of the swan-shaped constellation Cygnus, observing how the region’s 170,000-odd stars change over time. If a star dims once, it could be because a planet is crossing in front of it, or it could just be a sunspot. But if a star dims several times, and the same amount of time passes between each dimming event, a planet must be orbiting it. Disappointingly, the mission won’t tell us whether any planets are teeming with little green men. Kepler is a stepping-stone, “a foundation upon which mankind will fi nd its place in the universe,” says principal investigator William Borucki. But, he adds,“if we fi nd, as we expect to, lots and lots of ‘Earths’ in habitable zones, then there is probably lots and lots of life in space.” With evidence in hand, NASA will no doubt set out to fi nd it.—M.w.

MEANWHILE, CLOSER TO HOME LOOK FOR THESE NOTABLE LAUNCHES TO EARTH-ORBIT THIS YEAR SpaceShipTwo Glory Wide-fi eld Infrared Cryosat-2 The fi rst fl ight of Virgin Galactic’s In June, NASA’s Glory satellite will Survey Explorer Starting in November, the European SpaceShipTwo could take six launch to help predict future climate The infrared telescope of the WISE Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 customers to 360,000 feet and offer change by gauging the magnitude satellite, launching in November, interferometric-radar satellite will them weightlessness and 1,000- of the sun’s energy and studying will scan space for brown dwarfs circle the planet, measuring the mile views in all directions. atmospheric aerosols. and super-luminous galaxies. thickness of polar ice caps.—M.W. LOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY KEPLER MISSION/NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER; CERN; C EVERETT COLLECTION; PRECEDING PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: LIVING ART ENTERPRISES/PHOTO RESEARCHERS; COURTESY HITACHI ; TOM SCHIER

February Spring Spring Hubble Repair Sci-Fi Sequels LHC Restart Astronauts will install two new instruments Techies will fl ock Having recovered from an and repair two inactive ones in fi ve six-and-a- to theaters with the electrical mishap that led to half-hour spacewalks during the Hubble Space release of Watchmen helium leaks and mechanical Telescope’s fi nal servicing mission. Afterward, (March 6), X-Men Origins: damage last September, the it should be able to study galaxies even farther Wolverine (May 1), Star Trek Large Hadron Collider at the CERN lab near away and in three different spectra: near- (May 8), Terminator Salvation Geneva, Switzerland, will start operations again. ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared. NASA (May 22) and Transformers 2: expects at least another fi ve years of stunning Revenge of the Fallen (June 26). images from the Hubble.

48 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® BEYOND EARTH THIS YEAR’S MOST POPULAR DESTINATIONS FOR UNMANNED LANDERS AIRBORNE LASER Mars Science BLASTS OFF Laboratory Launching in the fall, this research ANTI-BALLISTIC-MISSILE rover will collect and examine PLANE GETS FIRST TEST Martian soil and rock samples Should they cast their eyes skyward for traces of carbon, life’s most at just the right moment, a few lucky common building block. To fi nd that observers could see something carbon, ChemCam will fi re lasers spectacular this summer: a Boeing 747 at the ground and analyze the vapor splitting open a ballistic missile with a produced by the impact. laser in mid-fl ight. After 12 years and $5 billion in R&D, the Missile Defense Lunar Reconnaissance Agency’s Airborne Laser (ABL) will Orbiter make its fi rst real-world attempt to NASA is going back to the moon— shoot down a missile in midair. after the LRO fi nds astronauts a The ABL uses a chemical reaction good place to land. Launching on to generate a megawatt of infrared laser April 24, the LRO will map out the light. When a missile’s smoke trail from HEAVY LIFTER moon’s surface and home in on burning propellant sets off the 747’s NASA TEST-DRIVES the poles, where scientists believe sensors, a tracking laser locks onto the A NEW ROCKET there could be water.—M.w. target’s most vulnerable spot, usually its NASA will fi re up its latest rocket this April for fuel tank. Then the main laser fi res away. its fi rst test fl ight. Ares 1 is designed to haul a It’s no simple feat: Robert McMurry, 25-ton payload, making it capable of ferrying Jr., the ABL program director for the either six astronauts to the International Space Missile Defense Agency, compares the Station or four astronauts to low-Earth orbit, challenge to “fl ying over the Washington where they can transfer to another vehicle and Monument while shooting through a head to the moon. The rocket contains two basketball hoop in Central Park.” If this stages: a reusable solid rocket booster and summer’s demonstration is successful, an engine powered by liquid oxygen and liquid further fl ight tests will help refi ne hydrogen. If all goes well with Orion, NASA’s the technology for use in a second, planned crew vehicle, Ares 1 will be whisking more powerful and smaller prototype,

LOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY MSFC/NASA; COURTESY BOB FERGUSON/USAF/BOEING; NASA; COURTESY HYUNDAI MOTOR CO.; —M.w. —Melinda Dodd C SOLAR IMPULSE/EPFL/CLAUDIO LEONARDI IMPULSE/EPFL/CLAUDIO SOLAR the ﬁ rst crews into space by 2015. expected in 2013.

Spring Summer July Solar Airplane Test Flights South Korea’s First Space Launch Lithium-Polymer Batteries Now in Cars Solar Impulse, the fi rst plane to be powered South Korea’s Korea Launch Vehicle System Hyundai will release the fi rst car in the world by solar energy and to take off under its own (KLVS-1) will end that country’s dependence on to use lithium-polymer rechargeable batteries. power, will undergo test fl ights. It can travel up other nations to power its ventures into space. The Elantra LPI (Liquefi ed Petroleum to 28 mph and cruise at an elevation of 27,900 Injected) HEV emits 90 feet because its cabin is not pressurized. percent fewer emissions than an equivalent standard gasoline- powered Elantra.

POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 49

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® PopSci PREDICTS SCIENCE IN ’09

PREDICTING THE POLITICAL HEADLINES SCIENCE dinosaurs’ true colors revealed Last year, researchers at Yale University discovered THE HOT-BUTTON RESEARCH ISSUES organelles called melanosomes on a 100-million- FACING THE NEW ADMINISTRATION year-old dino feather. This year they will examine the shape and concentration of the melanosomes to Over the past eight years, the rift between the scientifi c determine the original colors of winged dinosaurs. community and the federal agencies that govern it has deepened. What opportunities will President Barack Obama’s feds aim to save ecosystems administration have to bridge the divide?—Corey Binns A new approach used by conservation biologists at the Endangered species U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service highlights environmental THE ISSUE: 281 threatened species have not been given protection. trends to direct rescue funds toward bigger-picture WHAT NEXT? Let science, not politics, dictate policy. The new adminis- causes, such as agricultural runoff, that affect not just tration faces lawsuits asking it to review cases in which political interfer- single species but entire ecosystems. ence may have played a role in withholding protection and critical habitat. Space exploration stem-cell science gets rebooted THE ISSUE: A grandiose 2015 moon mission has been given no money. WHAT NEXT? Fund the moon initiative or kill it outright. The Orion Several groups have reprogrammed adult skin cells crew vehicle is behind schedule and over budget, which will probably push to behave like embryonic stem cells using genes the space shuttle to continue fl ying even further past its retirement age. ferried by viruses, a method that can cause the cells Climate change to become cancerous. This year’s goal: Replace viruses with chemicals that can do the job safely. THE ISSUE: Carbon-dioxide levels are at 385 ppm, up from 360 in 2000. WHAT NEXT? Look for American participation in international negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol’s successor, and for automobile Mission: Invisible fuel-economy standards to be raised. Last year, scientists demonstrated the fi rst visible- light metamaterial, a metal-semiconductor hybrid, paving the way to an “invisibility cloak.” Meanwhile, metamaterials that work with radio frequencies could improve cellphone reception. LIGHTS OUT elusive black hole captured ENERGY-EFFICIENT TECH Next year, astronomers will look into the heavens On March 1, the Republic of Ireland becomes the fi rst for evidence of the rare medium-size black hole. democratic country in the world to ban the traditional Studies will try to establish why they’re so scarce incandescent lightbulb. Stores there will no longer carry and will combine traditional visible-light astronomy the century-old technology, which converts only between with x-ray emissions from star clusters.—a.s. 5 and 10 percent of electricity into light, losing the rest as radiant heat. (Compare this with the 40 percent

Summer Fall Fall Nanny State Arrives in Vehicles Near-Endless Power Electric Cars Ford’s MyKey technology, which will debut in Fuel-cell manufacturer MTI Micro will release to Market the 2010 Focus compact car, allows parents to a methanol fuel cell offering 2,700 hours of Subaru, Mitsubishi restrict their teenager’s top speed to 80 mph, continuous run time. Whereas lithium-ion and Mini [right] plan limit stereo volume, laptop batteries lose about half their charging to introduce their own and sound a chime capacity after two years, methanol cells lose plug-in hybrid electric-car when the driver is not only some 15 percent. models this year. wearing a seatbelt or the car exceeds 45, 55 or 65 mph.

50 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® RIDING THE WAVES The Wave Dragon will be moored off Wales. POWERED BY SUN, WIND AND SEA THE BIGGEST RENEWABLE-ENERGY TREE HUGGER The PROJECTS OF wolverine is slated for 2009 protected status. Offshore Wind water inside the boiler’s Stem cells Hull, Massachusetts pipes to temperatures above This resort town, 1,000°F, creating steam that THE ISSUE: Stem-cell research is hampered by a federal funding ban. population 11,000, plans generates electricity in a WHAT NEXT? The new administration could end federal restrictions, open- to moor four 260-foot-tall nearby turbine. By 2011, the ing up the coffers. Additionally, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures turbines a mile and a half plant will produce its fi rst ; PHANIE/PHOTO RESEARCHERS; BMW NORTH AMERICA Initiative will continue to generate $300 million annually for 10 years. offshore, at a total cost of 100 megawatts. research Funding $40 million. Along with THE ISSUE: National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Hull’s two existing onshore Wave Power Health budgets are in decline, stifl ing key research. turbines, wind power could Pembrokeshire, Wales WHAT NEXT? Anyone’s guess. In the interim, private foundations could generate 14 megawatts, As part of the U.K.’s goal fund medical, energy and agricultural innovation. enough to supply energy to of running on 10 percent the entire community. renewable energy by 2010, this summer Wales will Solar Farms install a Wave Dragon Mojave Desert, California converter, the world’s This fall, construction largest wave-energy begins on a fi ve-square- generator. The 980-foot- DIMS EDISON’S BRIGHT IDEA mile stretch of heliostats, long device captures waves effi ciency of compact fl uorescent bulbs.) In its place, hardware stores will small moveable mirrors in basins. When the water stock shelves with compact fl uorescents, halogens and LEDs. that follow the sun’s rays rushes back into the sea, it The U.S. is making the switch too, albeit more slowly. By 2014, most light- and refl ect them onto a spins turbines, producing bulbs will be 30 percent more effi cient than those currently available. “Incandes- boiler on top of a central seven megawatts of cents aren’t going away,” says Peter Banwell of the Environmental Protection tower. The sunlight heats electricity.—C.B. Agency, “but they will have a minimum effi ciency level they’ll need to meet.”—C.B. LOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JAMES WARWICK/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY EARTH-VISION.BIZ C

Late Year Late Year 1,000 Human Genomes Dreamliner to First Customers After sequencing its ﬁ rst human Boeing plans to ﬁ nally start supplying more than genome last July, California- 60 airlines with the Dreamliners they’ve ordered. based Complete Genomics The Dreamliner has been Boeing’s most popular plans to map 1,000 human program because the craft, which uses composite genomes this year and an materials for most of the plane’s body, requires additional 20,000 in 2010. 20 percent less fuel than other planes its size.

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MONEY ECO-SPEEDSTER The three-wheeled Fuel GET PAID FOR YOUR Vapor is an Automotive BRILLIANT, WORLD- X Prize contender. SAVING INVENTIONS Nothing inspires innovation like a Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize seven-fi gure check, which is why more and more private and government PURSE: $10 million GOAL: $7.5 million for a commercially sources are offering big money for viable vehicle that gets the equivalent of 100 mpg over 200 miles creative technologies—and plenty of STATUS: The fi rst stage of a cross-country race takes place Americans are rising to the challenge. in New York City in September. The fastest, most effi cient The California company Scaled cars move on to the next leg of the race. Composites won the $10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for its trips to Archon X Prize for Genomics suborbital space on SpaceShipOne, a PURSE: $10 million GOAL: Sequence 100 human genomes in feat that all but launched the private 10 days for $10,000 per genome or less space industry. And in 2007, Carnegie STATUS: ZS Genetics, which is developing an approach Mellon University won the $2-million that replaces fl uorescent tagging with decodable electron- Darpa Urban Challenge, bringing us microscope images of DNA, is a favorite to win.

one step closer to a world in which NASA OCK; ST I cars drive themselves. Spaceward Space Elevator Games This year we could see big PURSE: $4 million GOAL: $2 million for a laser-powered payouts for innovations in genomics climber; $2 million for the strongest two-meter tether and technology to be used to build COMPETITION: Three teams have a shot at winning the $2- the space elevator. And expect more million purse this year for powering climbers one kilometer challenges to be announced. Dozens into the air using an eight-kilowatt laser on the ground. of smaller competitions are promising impressive bundles in exchange for google lunar x prize breakthroughs in alternative aviation PURSE: $30 million GOAL: Land an unmanned spacecraft on fuels, cancer research and affordable the moon, rove 500 meters, and send images back to Earth health care. Pick a ﬁ eld and prepare STATUS: Teams hope to sign launch contracts this year to quit your day job. Here, a tinkering with either a foreign space agency or a private company like man’s guide to getting rich this year SpaceX, securing a rocket ride for their moon rovers. and beyond.—Amanda Schupak

December End of Year Copenhagen Climate Conference Rwanda and Computing The Framework Convention on Climate By the end of the year, Rwanda will have laid Change that the United Nations will host in more than 1,400 miles of ﬁ ber-optic cable. Copenhagen, Denmark, is the ﬁ nal government- It will be the second country in sub-Saharan level meeting for developing a new international Africa to have a strong Internet infrastructure, climate policy—a Copenhagen Protocol— after South Africa. The Rwandan government before its predecessor, the 15-year-old Kyoto will also buy 50,000 XO laptops, created for Protocol, expires in 2012. children in developing countries, by early this year and intends to have all Rwandan schools

—Greg Soltis RECEDING PAGES LEFT, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY JAKOB VINTHER/YALE UNIVERSITY; MCVAY/GETTY RYAN IMAGES; HUBBLE TELESCOPE SPACE COLLECTION; SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI; DAVID M. PHILLIPS/PHOTO RESEARCHERS; DARRYL LENIUK/GETTY IMAGES networked by 2013. P

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® WET WORK Farmers plant rice seedlings in Thailand. RAINY- MEDICAL KILLERS DAY RICE ASIAN FARMERS WILL GET A DISASTER- PROOF VERSION OF AN ESSENTIAL CROP

After years of testing in muddy fi elds, genetically enhanced fl ood-resistant rice is about to hit agricultural markets in tropical Asia, following Indonesia, with wiped out rice paddies in Vietnam. rice with a gene that resists fl ooding India and Bangladesh up for approval To fi nd a suitable template for the during the sensitive germination stage later this year. Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, fl ood-resistant rice, Mackill turned (something the Sub1 genes can’t do). Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam to India’s water-tolerant FR13A rice. Also on the agenda: drought- and salt- are expected to follow suit. Farmers stopped using the strain resistant rice, now testing in nearly It’s a major step forward for because of its poor yield, but its every Southeast Asian tropical country weatherproof crops, increasingly touted resilience intrigued him. To pinpoint the and China. Asia’s inland and coastal

ILL; ILL; as essential to the long-term future of part of the rice genome carrying the areas often have salt-ﬁ lled soil, which NE

AC the world’s food supply. Advances in trait, Mackill crossbred a hardy derivative stunts rice growth. biotechnology have improved this ancient of FR13A with another rice strain and The IRRI has already made its grain, which accounts for up to 70 percent derived 4,000 other rice plants from that rice seed available to other research of daily calories for people living in Asian cross. Geneticist Pamela Ronald of the institutions and has been distributing it countries. Imperiled by constant fl oods, University of California at Davis then to Asian farmers for free. When sold by rising sea levels and natural disasters, searched the plants’ DNA and unearthed other seed growers on the commercial submerged rice survives just four days Sub1A, a gene that triggers the grain to markets, the price should rival that when deprived of light and oxygen. These conserve energy when it is underwater. of common varieties. “We anticipate new varieties last eight to 18 days. To create the fi nal rice strain, Mackill adoption wherever submergence is The advance is urgently needed. “At cross-pollinated a Sub1A-containing a regular problem,” Mackill says. least [58,000 square miles] of land in plant with a high-yielding, better-tasting If the rice is a success, climate- South and Southeast Asia are vulnerable Indian rice variety. resistant crops may spread across to fl ooding, and fl oods will only increase,” In the coming years, IRRI re- the developing world, as well as the says Dave Mackill, a senior scientist with searchers will supplement Sub1-class developed.—M.d. Manila’s International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). In 2007, Cyclone Sidr NORMAL RICE SURVIVES JUST destroyed 1.25 million tons of rice in Bangladesh; last year, multiple typhoons FOUR DAYS UNDERWATER.

In the fi rst and most controversial stage of setting up a cap-and-trade system, the PUT A LID ON IT government selects the organizations to monitor emissions and sets a maximum CURBING CARBON FOR PROFIT amount of heat-trapping gases that any company can produce during a given time. This year, in conjunction with talk about climate change, you’ll probably Companies then receive, or buy in auctions, tradable permits to emit a specifi c hear the words “cap and trade” being tossed around, and President Obama is amount of these gases. The setup fi nancially rewards businesses that bring their expected to sign climate-change legislation that includes a cap-and-trade bill. emissions below the cap: They profi t from selling their allowances to other companies. But what does the term mean? Heavy emitters buy these unused credits and avoid even pricier overage fi nes. A cap-and-trade system will institute a nationwide limit on greenhouse- Could it work? Quite possibly. This system has already limited sulfur dioxide gas emissions and fi ne those companies that produce more than their share. from electric power plants at half the cost of traditional regulation.—C.b. HILIP BLENKINSOP/GETTY IMAGES; PRECEDING PAGE, FROM TOP: COURTESY X PRIZE FOUNDATION (2); VOISIN/PHOTO RESEARCHERS; JOHN M COURTESY X PRIZE FOUNDATION; COURTESY ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD P

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America is haunted by 100,000 missing persons and 40,000 unidentiﬁ ed sets of remains. Only one lab can truly connect the lost and the dead— and it’s revealing the secrets of serial killers in the process

By Jessica Snyder Sachs IKE A COWBOY loosely holding the PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW GEIGER reins, Larry Weatherman steers up Deer Creek Road with his left hand on the wheel, his right arm ready at his side. His upper body rocks with the motion of the pickup as he navigates the dirt road’s gauntlet of potholes and rocks. Since his retirement from the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department in 2000, Weatherman has adopted the bushy white mustache and Stetson of a gentleman rancher. But on a snowy Saturday in March, he has driven his two passengers the 50 miles down from his 20 acres above Montana’s Seeley Lake to revisit the forlorn woods that served, three decades ago, as the dumping grounds for Montana’s most notorious serial killer. A gust of snow hits the windshield. Through the swirl, Weatherman spots a narrow break in the pine and fi r trees lining the road. He pulls into a shallow ditch and opens his door. “He liked to take his girlfriends up here to party,” he says. Weatherman was a young offi cer in 1974 when he investigated the fi rst in a series of gruesome murders that ended a way of life in Missoula, a place where people had left their Marci Bachmann at age two. Facing doors unlocked and women felt page: the skull of “Debbie Deer comfortable walking home alone Creek,” unidentifi ed for decades.

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® from the local bar. The fi rst victim was a preacher’s wife found gagged, bound, and shot in the basement of her home, her husband’s handgun jammed between her legs. In addition to questioning the husband, Weatherman briefl y suspected a high-school boy who neighbors had spotted in the victim’s backyard that day. A grand jury found insuffi cient evidence to charge either suspect. Over the next 12 years, the seemingly random murders continued. Three teenage girls and a married couple were killed, and the town suffered a spate of home intrusions thought to have been thwarted rapes. Then the improbable happened. In 1986 the husband of a would-be victim, already trussed and stabbed, managed to break free and kill 30-year-old Wayne Nance in a bloody struggle. Nance, THREE KEY FACTS The number of missing-person investigations and un- 1 identifi ed remains means murders often go unreported. U.S. criminologists now suspect there could be 1,800 2 serial killings a year—far more than prior estimates. A lab at the University of North Texas analyzes DNA to 3 identify victims, and closes cases in the process.

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a baby-faced furniture deliveryman and part-time bouncer, was the high-schooler Weatherman had suspected in 1974. Postmortem searches of Nance’s bedroom and his father’s house uncovered evidence of at least three additional murders and of other break-ins. But hope for further information about the murders died with Nance. Weatherman was left with the unidentiﬁ ed remains of two young victims. One of them was “Debbie Deer Creek,” a teenager whose skeleton he had chiseled out of a frozen grave alongside Deer Creek Road some 21 months before Nance’s death. Several strands of dyed hair enabled Weatherman to connect her to a photo of a dark-haired drifter that bar patrons knew as “Robin” before she HAUNTED Retired Missoula sheriff disappeared a few weeks after moving Larry Weatherman [above], who in- in with Nance. Weatherman sent out vestigated Nance’s murders. Below: a topographical map of the scene. scores of bulletins to the FBI and regional law-enforcement agencies. But the girl’s picture and street name failed to locate family. It would take more than hair strands and a faded picture to identify Debbie Deer Creek. It would take technology—still two decades away— that could extract minute amounts of fractured DNA to reveal an indelible link to a victim’s family. It would take one brother’s unceasing search to ﬁ nd out what happened to his runaway sister. And perhaps most of all, it would take the U.S. Department of Justice’s slow but horrifying realization that there may be far more serial killers on the loose in America than anyone had ever expected. For two decades, a facial reconstruction made from Debbie Deer Creek’s skull sat on top of Weatherman’s bookcase facing that of another girl, “Christy Crystal Creek,” discovered by a hunter two miles RECEDING PAGES (LEFT): COURTESY DEREK M. BACHMANN

farther up the same mountain road P

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® above Nance’s home. Weatherman is committing serial murder”—more MEDICAL MURDERS still troubled when he thinks of the than 100 serial killers on the loose. nameless girls. “I know somebody Washington State is currently tracking Killers in once cared for them,” he says. at least four: the so-called 22-Caliber Killer, the Index Killer, the Lewiston the ICU THE SILENT MISSING Valley Killer and the Snohomish Debbie and Christy are far from alone, County Dismemberment Killer. High on the back wall of the New and the same may be said for the likes Meanwhile, other serial killers Jersey Poison Center in Newark, of Wayne Nance. In a recent issue of are operating too randomly or beyond a display case fi lled with the scientifi c journal Homicide Studies, infrequently to generate a pattern bottles of ant killer, antifreeze criminologist Kenna Quinet wrote that or are cunning enough to prey on and other ingredients of note- conventional calculations seriously those unlikely to be missed. Quinet worthy cases, hangs an elec- underestimate the number of serial calls these possible victims America’s tronic map of the state. It displays murder victims. “The problem may be “missing missing,” the tens of dozens of glowing red dots. Each 10 times worse than we imagined,” she thousands whose disappearance is not marks the origin of a call received says. Instead of 180 victims a year in taken seriously by law-enforcement over the previous 24 hours. Up- the U.S., there may be as many as 1,800. agencies. They include those that law dates sweep down the map every Quinet, a nationally renowned enforcement assumes to be “missing” 10 minutes, and the staff knows homicide expert at Indiana-Purdue by choice: runaways, transients, where to expect clusters based on University Indianapolis, bases her prostitutes, and anyone who has an population. “This is one way that conclusions on simple arithmetic. outstanding bench warrant (the irony, computerization can help us pick According to the Department Quinet notes, is that the warrant can up unexpected hotspots,” says of Justice, up to 40,000 sets of be for the missing person’s failure to medical director Steven Marcus. unidentifi ed human remains sit in appear in court). “But it’s no substitute for the way police-evidence lockers and medical John Morgan, deputy director a person can recognize suspicious examiners’ offi ces across the nation. for science and technology at the patterns.” If resolved cases are any guide, National Institute of Justice, the Marcus is referring to how the majority are murder victims. research arm of the Department toxicologists got wind of New Against this, Quinet factors the of Justice, believes that part of the Jersey’s most infamous serial homicides suspected in a signifi cant problem is the increasingly transient killer. In June 2003, a pharma- proportion—as much as 20 percent— nature of American life. “We live in cist at Somerset Medical Center of missing-person cases, more than a more fragmented society,” he says. in Somerville called the poison 100,000 of which remain open at any “A lot of homicides that occur involve center after a patient nearly time in this country. strangers.” And for a greater number died of digoxin overdose. The Quinet bolsters her new estimates of the victims, living far from their woman wasn’t supposed to be on with evidence of the lengthy careers hometowns and disconnected from a the heart medication at all, and of the serial killers who are eventually social network, their absence won’t be the pharmacist wanted to know caught and convicted. “Typically, noticed, or they will be dismissed as whether a Korean mushroom tea these killers operate under the radar having simply moved on. As a result, she had drunk might contain a for years, even decades,” she explains. Morgan says, it’s now less likely “that botanical version of the drug. The Studies show that male serial killers a particular homicide will be resolved poison-center staff ruled out that average six to 11 victims over a nine- and the killer brought to justice.” possibility. But they remembered year period. Female serial killers The fi rst step in solving these that case when, a short time later, (primarily health-care workers) crimes—even before a detective they got another call from Som- average seven to nine victims over the can start to connect the clues—is erset, this time involving another same window. And that’s just those connecting the bodies to the missing. life-threatening overdose. who get caught. “I would guess that at “After all,” Quinet says, “it’s hard to “That’s when we asked, ‘What any given moment,” she says, “there conduct a murder investigation when the hell is going on over there? are at least two people in each state you don’t know who the victim is.” Have you had any other unex- plained overdoses?’ ” Marcus recalls. The hospital pharmacist admitted that there had been two insulin overdoses in the same intensive-care unit. “We told them they needed to call the

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ONE IN A MILLION he recalls. “They said, ‘No way. Marci Derek Bachmann was 14 in 1984 when never wore glasses.’ ” Besides, the hair he helped his 15-year-old sister, Marci, color was wrong. Still, a few months pack her bags and run away from their later, he dialed the number provided Vancouver, Washington, home. “She for the Missoula County Sheriff’s told me my stepfather was touching Department and left a message for her, making her touch him,” he recalls. Captain Greg Hintz. No return call. “I told her, ‘You’re right, you need to When Marci left home in 1984, get the hell out of here.’ ” That was the Seattle’s Green River Killer was at the last time he saw her. “The fact that I height of a spree that would eventually helped her pack has always haunted claim the lives of as many as 49 me,” says Bachmann, now a Web women, mainly prostitutes and teenage marketer living outside St. Louis. “I runaways. Bachmann wrote to King mean, there were fi ve different serial County detective Tom Jensen, head killers in the Northwest at the time.” of the Green River Task Force, who (In fact, there were at least eight.) promised to compare Marci’s dental In 1991 Bachmann began to search records with the impressions taken for his sister, if only to confi rm his from the four unidentifi ed victims in fears. “I think I knew that if Marci his custody. But no dental records were was alive,” he says, “she would have available, and Jensen added Marci’s fi le contacted me.” He called and wrote to those jamming his fi ling cabinets. to scores of homicide task forces and In 2001, King County sheriff’s vice squads across the country, the deputies arrested 53-year-old truck latter in case Marci had fallen into painter Gary Ridgway for the Green streetwalking. “I tried everything,” River killings; two years later, he was he says. “I tried psychics. I hired a sentenced to 48 consecutive life terms. private investigator, spent $10,000 The work of the Green River Task on him. Got nothing.” DARK HISTORY Top: Derek and Marci Force was fi nished. But Jensen still had By 2000, Web sites such as the Bachmann in 1971. Above: the photo more than 100 missing persons and Doe Network offered Bachmann a in which Derek identifi ed his lost suspected homicides in his fi les. new resource. Maintained by amateur sister. Below: Dixie Hybki and Dr. Jensen’s captain assigned three Rhonda Roby at the University of detectives and families of the missing, North Texas Health Science Center. detectives from the disbanded task these cyber-bulletin boards feature force to review the cases and make a case histories and, when possible, fi nal effort to close them. And so, in photos or artist re-creations of the the summer of 2005, detective Raphael unnamed dead, typically gleaned Crenshaw called Derek Bachmann in from news and police reports. Bach- Missouri: Was Marci still missing? mann began spending all-nighters Crenshaw told him about a new at his computer. His obsession program that attempted to match put a strain on a short-lived family DNA against unidentifi ed marriage, he admits with a slow remains. Bachmann was eager to shake of his head. “The atrocities supply his, but Crenshaw also needed I’ve seen looking for my sister.” samples from his parents. Among them was a fl ower-adorned “I knew my dad would take a lot memorial page dedicated to a girl of convincing,” Bachmann says. But named Robin, with a photo of a he did convince his mother, who still dark-haired girl in glasses under the lived in Washington. The next week, banner “Do you recognize this face?” she rubbed a cotton swab against Bachmann looked again. There was the inside of her cheek, sealed it in something familiar about the mouth a plastic baggie, and sent it to the ROM TOP: COURTESY DEREK M. BACHMANN; COURTESY MISSOULA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE; COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER and nose. “I showed it to my relatives,” sheriff, who shipped it on to Texas. F

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® CONNECTING DNA’s DOTS methods for extracting DNA from MEDICAL MURDERS (CONT’D) When Nance and Ridgway were going severely degraded remains. In 1991 about their grisly business, no method Roby began working in the Offi ce of police. They likely had an Angel was available to connect the missing, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, of Death on their hands,” Marcus like Marci Bachmann, to the dead. But where she helped develop methods says. Hospital administrators there’s now a lab, in Fort Worth, Texas, for identifying the skeletal remains waited another four months— that can close the gap. of American soldiers from Vietnam, and fi ve more suspicious deaths— It’s another March morning, and Korea and World War II. In 2001 she before they reported their fears a steady rain has Fort Worth’s Trinity fl ew to New York City to help set up about Charles Cullen, the nurse River running high through the city’s protocols for the unimaginable task of who later pled guilty to killing 29 cultural district. On the other side of identifying more than 20,000 pieces of patients at medical centers across Camp Bowie Boulevard, employees human tissue retrieved from the ruins New Jersey and Pennsylvania. and students are leaping over the of the World Trade Center. She has “Unfortunately, Charles Cul- ponds growing in the driveway of also helped identify victims of Chile’s len was far from unique,” says the University of North Texas Health Pinochet regime and, in a curious forensic nurse Beatrice Yorker of Science Center. The third fl oor of aside, the remains of Nicholas II and California State University–Los this beige stucco high-rise is home the Romanov family of tsarist Russia. Angeles. In the fi rst tally of its to the university’s Center for Human In 2004, shortly before Roby’s kind, Yorker and her colleagues Identifi cation, the only academic arrival, the center achieved its fi rst have documented 90 criminal DNA lab in the country dedicated to successful DNA extraction in an prosecutions of health-care work- identifying human remains. extremely cold case. The remains—a ers charged with serial killings of In 1989, molecular biologist Arthur slender, yellowing femur—had patients between 1970 and 2006 Eisenberg began using DNA to settle arrived by FedEx. Forensic analyst worldwide, 36 of them in the questions of identity in cases ranging Lisa Sansom cataloged the bone in U.S. To date, 54 of the cases have from paternity to homicide. For the the center’s database as F2775.1EC resulted in convictions associated next decade, Eisenberg developed and carried it into the lab’s bone with more than 2,000 deaths. many of the procedures and standards room, behind a door fl agged “Forensic At Indiana-Purdue University used in DNA testing today. Around Low-Copy Area. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL Indianapolis, criminologist Kenna 2000, he began to focus on missing ONLY.” The amount of genetic material Quinet estimates that America’s persons, and in 2001, he and his staff retrieved from old bone tends to be serial medical killers murder built a state DNA database. Since then, so small as to be easily overwhelmed between 500 and 1,000 patients the center’s capacity has grown to by the ambient DNA of a fl oating skin a year. Next to Cullen’s 16-year handle cases from across the country. fl ake or a saliva droplet. Inside the killing spree, Quinet cites the The victim specimens that arrive at Low-Copy Room, analysts don full long run of Michael Swango, an the center range from well-preserved gowns, face masks and surgical gloves. American physician suspected in femurs (thigh bones) to broken slivers A positive-pressure system keeps as many as 60 murders and con- of bone that have been sitting inside “dirty” outside air from fl owing in, victed in 2000 of three. police warehouses for decades. It’s and analysts have their genetic profi le These dark angels aren’t prac- far easier to extract DNA from recent entered into the center’s DNA database ticing euthanasia, adds Katherine samples, and the center prioritizes so that those will be excluded from Ramsland, a forensic psycholo- easy identifi cations. Well-preserved or target sequences. gist at DeSales University and relatively fresh remains for which a The work differs from the kind of the author of Inside the Minds of family connection is already suspected DNA fi ngerprinting used to identify Healthcare Serial Killers. They kill take precedence over colder cases with biological evidence left at a crime. to ease only their own pain. “Cul- no leads. The center has been able It is extremely diffi cult—sometimes len’s murders clearly increased to solve one in every four of its cases. impossible—to extract conventional whenever he was going through Still, it’s the diffi cult cases—the nuclear DNA markers from an old a diffi cult situation in his personal shots in the dark—that tantalize, says bone. The center has become skilled in life,” she says. “As with so many the center’s project manager, Rhonda extracting and analyzing a hardier but serial killers, he seemed to em- Roby. She speaks from experience, less-known source of DNA: that of the power himself with his murders.” having spent her career developing mitochondria that reside in our cells. Cullen had been fi red multiple times from other hospitals; each time, he simply moved on to a nearby facility. Once he was caught, his case sparked a fl urry

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Except for identical twins, each on the fi rst try. She uploaded it to the person’s nuclear DNA is unique. But center’s DNA database. No hits. Then each of us has another set of DNA she uploaded the data to the FBI’s located outside the cell’s nucleus and national missing-persons database. inside the mitochondria, the tiny Again, no hits. Not yet. organs that supply a cell with energy. We inherit mitochondrial DNA, known SCALING THE BACKLOG as mtDNA, directly from our mothers, In 2004 the center received a major and we share it with our siblings. It’s investment to help realize Arthur not unique, but mtDNA is enough to Eisenberg’s goal of establishing a narrow the search for a victim’s family. National Center for the Identifi cation Sansom spent almost an hour of Human Remains. It was the fi rst scrubbing and sanding the femur’s of several National Institute of Justice surface before attempting extraction. grants given over a fi ve-year period Few of the bones here contain marrow, totaling more than $7 million. The which dissolves in the fi rst two or center’s mission was to perform three years after death. F2775.1EC had DNA testing on unidentifi ed skeletal spent some 20 years in a box inside remains and “family reference” a police warehouse, so DNA would samples free of charge for any local have to come from the scant cellular or state law-enforcement agency that material inside the bone’s white requested it. It’s now a clearinghouse

scaffolding. She used a woodworker’s at the heart of an effort to address the MISSING, NOT LOST Marci at age 13 dremel to cut a rectangular window in thousands of missing persons and [top]. To analyze a femur [above], the thickened area of bone just below unidentifi ed remains discovered each scientists cut into the bone’s interior. the femur’s rounded head, where the year—what the justice department Derek Bachmann [below], who once thigh muscles once attached. Next she calls “America’s silent mass disaster.” helped his sister run away from home, chilled, pulverized, and blended the “The World Trade Center attack later helped identify her remains. sample inside a freezer mill loaded devastated this country with its with sterilized ball bearings. Using massive loss of life,” Eisenberg an automated chemical process, she says. “But if people only knew how broke open the bone cells, released many more unidentifi ed murder their genetic contents, and washed, victims there are . . . If you go back concentrated, and purifi ed the extract. even 20 years, there are literally For genetic analysis, Sansom fi rst hundreds of thousands of families had to increase the DNA to detectable who have missing loved ones.” Even amounts using a process called DNA with generous funding, progress amplifi cation. Forensic software will ultimately hinge on making translated the results into a four-color identifi cations cheaper, faster and graph of peaks and troughs. Drawing more defi nitive, he adds. Laboratories on her training and experience, she such as the Center for Human translated each graphic peak into one Identifi cation will be swamped of the four nucleotide letters in the now that more states mandate the DNA alphabet. It took her about a collection of family-reference samples week to process sample F2775.1EC. with missing-person reports. The When the amplifi cation signals center, Eisenberg says, must advance aren’t clear, the chances for a reliable the technology used to identify human match plummet. In the worst case, the remains as it goes. By way of example, sequence data prove ambiguous, and he cites a new program that can use workers must repeat the extraction broken bits of traditional nuclear DNA ROM TOP: COURTESY DEREK M. BACHMANN; UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER; ANDREW GEIGER and analysis. Sansom got her sequence to identify weathered bones. F

60 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® The tests scan some 40 lengths of and unidentifi ed victims. Make that MEDICAL MURDERS (CONT’D) highly fragmented DNA for single- database searchable, and it becomes a nucleotide polymorphisms (or SNPs, profi table tool for homicide detectives. of attention and calls for reform. pronounced “snips”), one-letter Open it to the public, and it becomes New Jersey passed laws mandat- variations in the genetic code. The a merciful resource for the thousands ing that hospitals report disci- SNPs are then combined to create who currently spend their nights plinary actions to state medical unique DNA fi ngerprints. If the center’s combing disturbing Web sites. boards, and New Jersey senators tests are successful—and Eisenberg In 2005 the U.S. Attorney General’s Jon Corzine (now the state’s says they’re making rapid progress— offi ce formed a Missing Persons governor) and Frank Lautenberg SNPs will allow forensic analysts to Task Force to develop the National sent a letter to the U.S. Health identify old bones more reliably than Missing and Unidentifi ed Persons Resources and Services Adminis- they can using mtDNA. “If SNPs pans System, or NamUs (identifyus.org). In tration demanding that it begin out, it will be another revolution in how 2007 the fi rst part of the system—a to register such disciplinary we deal with homicide,” the National searchable database of unidentifi ed information in a National Practi- Institute of Justice’s Morgan says. human remains—went live. Last year, tioner Data Bank. The American “There will no longer be a reason to the program opened up a national Hospital Association convened a have unidentifi ed remains.” database of missing-person reports. task force to produce guidelines In addition to testing such systems, And later this year, NamUs plans to assure greater patient safety. the Center for Human Identifi cation to connect the two, with a cross- Yet four years later, the task is collaborating with other institutions searchable database that automatically force hasn’t produced the prom- in the effort to improve identifi cation. matches the missing and the dead. ised guidelines, AHA spokesman David Allen says. And the Health Resources and Services Adminis- tration has drawn up plans but hasn’t implemented them. So what’s a hospital—or patient—to do? Various propos- It is working with the University THE MATCH als have been fl oated, such as of Tennessee, for example, to Before the NamUs database is “death radar” software that automate DNA analysis and speed up complete, though, researchers at would fl ag high death rates as- identifi cations for all the investigators Fort Worth’s Center for Human sociated with a given employee, and families tortured by a cold case. Identifi cation have to rely on or restrict access to potentially Right now, the center’s tests produce meticulous information-gathering lethal medications. But Yorker a chart of several hundred peaks and and luck. The center has put together argues that the best tool is a valleys that a trained forensic analyst a DNA-collection kit for family well-trained staff. “What I teach must read one nucleotide “letter” at a members of the missing, which it nurses is how hospitals can be time. A second analyst then reads it sends out free of charge to the nation’s crime scenes,” she says of her again to verify its accuracy. Although police and sheriff’s departments. forensic-nursing courses. Adds complete automation of the process Law-enforcement offi cers mail cheek Quinet, “It’s quite common for remains a distant dream, Tennessee swabs collected from the family back colleagues to have long-standing scientists have designed a software to the center, where workers analyze nicknames like ‘Dr. Death’ for program that can read “perfect” them in batches of up to 80 to yield some of these killers. But still sequences, or unambiguous graphics. both nuclear- and mitochondrial-DNA they refuse to believe that the Soon it may be able to replace the profi les of parents and siblings. person is actually capable of second read and thus slash personnel As each family member’s DNA murder.” One even jokingly re- costs and turnaround time. fi ngerprint comes off the line, it ferred to himself as an “Angel of But extracting and reading DNA too goes through the databases to Death” when others noticed that from unidentifi ed remains is only search for approximate matches his shifts appeared jinxed. half the challenge. That DNA must among the dead. The process is As for protecting yourself the get linked to the right missing person. spellbinding, claims forensic analyst next time you’re in the hospital? What the country has sorely lacked, Melody Josserand. Any of thousands “Call me paranoid,” says Marcus, Morgan says, is a central repository of mysteries could be solved at that “but when I’m in that hospital for information such as photos, moment. “Even though I do searches bed and someone comes in with fi ngerprints, dental records, DNA 30 or 40 times a week, I’ve never a drug, I want to know what it is sequences and other identifying walked away,” she says. “I sit here with and what it’s for.” information on both missing persons bated breath.” [continued on page 84]

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® your peek inside the mysteries of everyday life

BY DOUG CANTOR PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN B. CARNETT

1. Shooting The Netherlands-based Tele Atlas is one of two companies that build and update street maps to feed to GPS-device makers and Web sites such as Google Maps. Its raw data: photographs captured by more than 300 drivers, who collectively covered 350,000 miles last year. They use a fl eet of about 50 minivans, equipped with six to ten 1.3-megapixel still cameras mounted on the roof and facing in all directions to provide a 360-degree view. (Recently the company added stereo cameras, paired to shoot the same area at different angles, so it can create 3-D images of terrain and buildings.) As the vans drive (as fast as 55 mph), the cameras automatically capture an image about every 10 feet. An onboard computer makes sure the image has enough detail, including a clear shot of street and road signs. If not, the driver repeats the route. With a highly accurate type of GPS, a gyroscope and other equipment continuously calculating the van’s image. The program also picks out every 3. Updating Tele Atlas estimates position, the location of every object in the pattern that resembles a road sign, that 10 to 15 percent of the areas it maps photo can be placed to within a foot. traffi c light or other object. An editor cat- differ from year to year because of egorizes the object and records its exact construction and other changes. Since 2. Processing Inside each van, dupli- location in the database; that’s how, for the company delivers new maps to its cate hard drives record thousands of instance, your GPS knows the speed limit clients every 90 days, it must constantly photos. Every day, drivers send one hard and how Google can show one-ways. update its database. That means not only drive to Tele Atlas’s offi ce in New Hampshire Finally, the data goes to offi ces in New re-driving roads but also culling map to evaluate image quality and the other to Hampshire and India to be converted into data from thousands of other resources, a facility in Poland. There, employees use standard formats for customers such as including aerial imagery, engineering software to stitch a day’s photos into a high- Google, Pioneer and BMW, which then surveys, and even UPS branches, pizza- LLUSTRATION: PAUL WOOTTON resolution mosaic that looks like an aerial reformat it for their Web site or device. delivery joints and regular GPS users. I

62 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® how a MAPPING VAN works Laser scanners Two stereo cam- Six to 10 1.3- A GPS anantennatenna A PC in tthehhe van ThThehe ddrivdriverer ((or,or measure the dis- eras at the front megapixel and ﬁ ber-optic controls the cam- in high-trafﬁ c tance between of the van take cameras each gyroscope calcu- eras and alerts areas, a partner) the van and pictures that can shoot a frame late the cameras’ the driver when monitors the nearby objects to be combined to automatically exact coordinates there’s a problem equipment and detect and locate make 3-D images every 10 feet to triangulate the with the qual- imagery on a road signs and of buildings and to capture a location of objects ity of the images dash-mounted exterior walls. landmarks. 360-degree view. in the photos. being captured. laptop.

See how Tele Atlas turns photos into digital maps, at popsci.com/mapping.

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THIS MACHINE M IGHT* SAVE THE WORLD *THAT’S A BIG, FAT “MIGHT”

TWO DESKTOP-PRINTER ENGINEERS QUIT THEIR JOBS TO SEARCH FOR THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF ENDLESS ENERGY: NUCLEAR FUSION. COULD THIS HIGHLY IMPROBABLE ENTERPRISE ACTUALLY SUCCEED? BY JOSH DEAN PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN B. CARNETT

THE SOURCE OF endless energy for bisected by two long cylinders. It’s big but not all humankind resides just off Government immense—maybe 10 times as tall as the little Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the robot man in the lower right corner of the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place page who’s there to indicate scale. and across the parking lot from Shade-O- What Laberge has set out to build in Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. this offi ce park, using $2 million in private The future is there, in that mostly empty funding and a skeletal workforce, is a offi ce with the vomit-green walls—and nuclear-fusion power plant. The idea seems inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, nuts but is actually, he says, not at all far- bearded and French-Canadian. fetched. Yes, he’ll admit, fusion is generally According to a diagram, printed a considered the kind of nearly impossible single sheet of white paper and affi xed with challenge undertaken only by huge tape to a dusty slab of offi ce drywall, his vision universities or governments. Yes, fusion has looks like a medieval torture device: a metal a stigma to overcome; the image that it is ball surrounded on all sides by metal rods and fundamentally bogus, always and forever

64 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® HOME-BREWED FUSION General Fusion’s proof-of-concept device in the company’s austere headquarters, in Burnaby, British Columbia

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20 years away, certainly doesn’t help. Laberge would probably some soul-searching, Laberge quit Creo, retired to an island off even admit that the idea of some Canadians working in a the coast of British Columbia, and set out to master nuclear glorifi ed garage conquering one of the most ambitious problems fusion. Four years, several failures and $800,000 later (half in physics sounds absurd. from friends and family and half from matching government But he will also tell you that his twist on a method known research grants), Laberge surfaced with a contraption that as magnetized target fusion, or MTF—to wildly oversimplify, a provided a proof-of-concept for his idea. It’s a shiny steel orb process in which plasma (ionized gas) trapped by a magnetic fi eld the size of a basketball from which dozens of cords protrude. is rapidly compressed to create fusion—will, in fact, work because Imagine those cranial caps from old science-fi ction movies, it is relatively cheap and scalable. Give his team six to 10 years and and you’ll get the idea. The cords extend out to two dozen a few hundred million dollars, he says, and his company, General capacitors, and the whole thing is wired up to a tower of Fusion, will give you a nuclear-fusion power plant. controls that could have been pulled from a 1950s battleship. If (and this is a truly serious if) Laberge and his team It is the defi nition of low-tech, and that’s precisely the idea. succeed, the rewards could be astounding: nearly limitless, The metal sphere is now mostly a showpiece. Laberge inexpensive energy, with no chemical combustion by- will occasionally fi re it up for potential investors, but by and products, a minimal amount of extremely short-lived large, it’s done its job. In 2006 it proved that a shock wave— radioactive waste, and no risk of a catastrophic, Chernobyl- created by a massive pulse of electricity, for experimental level meltdown. “It’s an astonishing story,” says Mike purposes—can compress a little bit of plasma quickly and Brown, the founder of Chrysalix Energy, the venture-capital violently enough to generate a fusion reaction, however tiny. fi rm that provided the angel funding for General Fusion, In place of the hugely expensive high-power electrical systems and who now leads the company’s search for backing. used to collapse the plasma in more typical MTF experiments, “If Michel makes it work, he’s a Nobel Prize winner.” Laberge imagines a set of pneumatic rams colliding with the plasma container’s outer shell to form a shock wave. This is ON THE MAD-SCIENTIST appearance scale, where his idea is truly different. Laberge is maybe a 4 out of 10; he’s a little rumpled and But there is much distance to cover before Laberge’s wears out-of-style wire-rimmed eyeglasses. But get him a little idea leads to a device that generates electricity. “This is not agitated, and he starts to tug at his hair and slips to maybe making energy,” he says of his machine. “I’m dumping 100 a 5 or 6. Discussion of spending money on something other kilojoules of energy, and I’m making about one nanojoule. than research will do it. Offi ce supplies! Hotel rooms! Human But it shows that the technique of crushing the plasma to Resources! These are necessary costs for operating a company high density has some merit to it, and getting a few fusion but irritating distractions for a physicist with big dreams and neutrons out”—neutrons are a telltale sign of a fusion limited capital. reaction—“well, I call them my marketing neutrons.” Laberge and his business partner, Doug Richardson, an Laberge has the same ultimate goal of every fusion engineer who also studied physics, met at Creo Products, a researcher—to achieve “net gain,” which means to put out Vancouver-based developer of prepress-imaging technology now more energy than is put in, and not just, say, 1.5:1. To make owned by Kodak. They worked together for 11 years on thermal a viable power source, you need far more than you put in, printer heads and other highly precise mechanical devices, anywhere from 10 to 25 times as much. “We must simulate making a very comfortable living, until Laberge found himself star-like conditions for the fuel” in order to make fusion staring at 40 and had a midlife crisis. happen, says Richard Siemon, a professor of physics at “I said, ‘What am I producing here?’ ” he recalls, leading the University of Nevada and a former director of fusion the way to the warehouse area of General Fusion’s small and research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The hydrogen decidedly unfuturistic headquarters. “I am producing a machine isotopes used as fuel have to be held at about 270 million that makes printing so cheap that it can fi ll your mailbox with degrees F. The plasma must then be compressed. As you lots and lots of junk mail. The main use of my productivity is to might imagine, this requires an enormous amount of cut down the forests. And I look at the energy situation, and it’s electricity (and an equally enormous infrastructure) or an going down the drain at pretty high speed. So I knew I had to do alternative method of compressing the plasma. something. Now, I know about fusion because I did my Ph.D. in Laberge believes he has a better shot than the competition fusion physics. So I said, ‘OK, we’re gonna do fusion here.’ ” at creating viable fusion power because his approach is It was, to say the least, a questionable career swerve. But after smaller, cheaper and uses so much less electricity. And once LABERGE’S IDEA IS A “THERMONUCLEAR DIESEL ENGINE.” COMPRESS FUEL, AND IT BURNS.

66 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® THE IMPROBABLES Michel Laberge, left, and his partner, Doug Richard- son, with their miniature, proof-of-concept fusion reactor. The device looks unreﬁ ned, but it contains servo-controls accurate to a millionth of a second.

his reactor is operating at net gain, it will power itself. Fuel test at anything close to full power. “This is one third the travel for fusion—deuterium and tritium—is plentiful and cheap. and one one-hundredth the pressure,” Laberge says as he fl icks a Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen found in seawater; in switch. Nothing happens. theory, one gallon of seawater has the potential energy of 30 “Hmm. Why is there no power here?” He tugs at two gallons of gasoline. Tritium is mildly radioactive and has a 12- extension cords, one of them an orange indoor-outdoor year half-life, so it’s a little harder to fi nd, but it can be derived job like the kind you use to plug in a weed whacker. As the from lithium. Conveniently for General Fusion, Canada has cylinder pressurizes, it sounds like a burbling fi sh-tank fi lter. the world’s largest stockpile of tritium. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1—0!” Laberge says, and fl icks a switch. The piston Laberge’s own energy has now turned toward a long fi res. It’s no louder than a kid hitting a tom-tom drum and metal tube lying on the fl oor nearby, a piece about the size is . . . underwhelming, not even remotely the kind of far-out and shape of a ship’s cannon. That’s the fi rst piston housing experiment you’d expect to see when dropping by a nuclear- for the theoretical reactor—step 1 of many in the quest fusion start-up. To Laberge, that’s exactly the point. for a commercial fusion power plant. General Fusion’s “It’s pretty basic, boring stuff,” he says. “Look in your car. reactor will one day rely on 200 of these housings, each There’s no superconducting magnet in there. There’s pipes and weighing some 2,200 pounds and holding a steam-powered pistons and tubes. That’s what I want. I want to make a fusion piston that weighs 220 pounds. Operated by servo-controls machine at a sort of car level. And that’s why we can make it for accurate to a millionth of a second, the pistons will fi re $50 million and they”—government and university coalitions— simultaneously every second, creating the shock wave that “make it for $20 billion. That’s the difference.” will trigger the fusion reaction. “Somebody described it as a thermonuclear diesel engine,” Laberge says, perhaps NUCLEAR FUSION: It sounds futuristic, and yet it’s not. undervaluing a potentially awesome marketing phrase. “We It’s a story as old as the sun, literally; fusion is how it fuels itself. compress the fuel. It burns.” Two ions collide at such velocity that the electrostatic repulsion He walks around the housing and points out the between them is broken. They fuse into a heavier atom and give actual piston, which is about a foot thick and roughly the off energy as heat. In terrestrial practice, the idea is that a man- circumference of an LP. When I ask how loud this would made reaction would produce heat that would then be captured be—200 pieces of ultra-hardened steel impacting 200 plates by a heat exchanger to create steam. The steam would power a of equally hard steel at extreme velocity—he says we can fi re turbine as in any coal plant and—voilà!—energy. this one up and get a sampling, although admittedly it’s not a The earliest fusion experiments date back to the University of

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® THE FUTURE OF ENERGY WITHOUT FUSION, MICHEL LABERGE BELIEVES, OUR ENERGY SITUATION IS DIRE. “IT’S GOING TO BE UGLY.”

Cambridge in the 1930s, but the research gained momentum in from a Russian acronym meaning “toroidal chamber with the 1950s during the Cold War, when both sides were primarily magnetic coils.” It looks like a gigantic doughnut. Huge interested in weaponizing fusion. The 1952 American nuclear superconducting magnets hold the plasma away from the test Operation Ivy proved that fusion could work as the core chamber walls. Then they blast the plasma with radio waves of a devastating weapon, when the fi rst hydrogen-bomb test and beams of neutrons to trigger a fusion reaction. obliterated an entire island in the Pacifi c. Yet aside from reactor design (and obvious contrasts Two things have conspired to hamper evolutionary leaps in in size and funding), the biggest difference between ITER peacetime fusion research. The fi rst is bad press. To the great and General Fusion is a sense of urgency. Conventional frustration of people like Laberge and Richardson, fusion’s good wisdom among most in the plasma-physics community— name has been besmirched by a handful of highly publicized “the tokamak mafi a,” as Laberge jokingly calls them—is failures, most prominently the cold-fusion experiments of that commercially viable fusion is at least 30 to 40 years Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann and the “bubble fusion” away. Richardson and Laberge belong to a splinter cell experiments Rusi Taleyarkhan conducted at Purdue University. of the industry that points out that fusion has been 30 Pons and Fleischmann announced in 1986 that they had to 40 years away for 50 years now and that, frankly, the achieved fusion at room temperature, but later review showed world can’t wait that long. “The s- - - will hit the fan in that faulty equipment had failed to accurately measure the 10 years,” Laberge predicts. “It’s going to be ugly. As the results. The U.S. Department of Energy all but called them gap between fossil-fuel supply and energy demand builds frauds. In 2002, Taleyarkhan published a paper stating that up, we will need to put new energy sources in the gap. he had used ultrasonic vibrations to make bubbles in a liquid We may avoid a disaster if we can do that fast enough, solvent and that, when the bubbles collapsed, they had created but I don’t think so without some serious breakthrough fusion. His results, too, would later be discredited, and last year in energy production.” They’re convinced that this he was stripped of his university chair. breakthrough has to come from private industry. The failures were bad for fusion’s public image, but the It’s certainly not going to come from ITER anytime soon. larger problem, researchers say, is money. Governments just The experiment has been delayed innumerable times and is have not seen a need to pour resources into an idea that they now not expected to go online until 2018. If projections are perceive as being decades from reality. In 1982, for example, correct, sometime after that, it will produce 500 million watts Congress passed a plan calling for fusion energy in 20 years. of fusion power for a period of 300 to 500 seconds, a gain of “What happened?” says Glen Wurden, who heads up the 10 times the energy put in to create the reaction. Yet ITER is Magnetized Target Fusion program at Los Alamos. “The U.S. only a demonstration. A workable power plant is yet another didn’t fund it. In the 1980s the U.S. was the world leader in monumental project that will take at least 20 more years. fusion research. [Our funding is] a factor of three behind That’s plenty of motivation to pursue other approaches, Europe right now and a factor of two behind Japan.” and General Fusion isn’t alone. Wurden, for example, is These days, there are several large fusion experiments working on a model akin to General Fusion’s: He fi lls a happening around the globe; the differences among them container about the size of a large beer can with plasma and have to do with how the plasma is contained. General Fusion uses electrodes to “crush” the can and condense the plasma. uses what’s considered an “alternative” method, one of a Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are at handful of ideas that lie outside the prevailing model, known work on a project known as NIF (National Ignition Facility), as steady-state fusion. Steady-state is the form practiced at in which the world’s biggest laser blasts tiny balls of plasma nearly all the world’s biggest test facilities. It’s also the model on encapsulated in glass. which the mother of all fusion experiments, the International In fact, General Fusion isn’t even the only private-sector Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, will be based. start-up. For a few days in May 2007, the fusion world ITER is funded by a consortium of seven governments: the was abuzz over a rumor that a company called Tri Alpha, U.S., Russia, Japan, China, India, South Korea and the European associated with a noted physicist from the University of Union. Construction is set to begin this year in the south of California at Irvine named Norman Rostoker and reportedly France. Like most high-level fusion experiments, ITER uses a backed in part by Paul Allen, had received $40 million in plasma-chamber design called a “tokamak,” a word transliterated venture-capital money to pursue a method called “proton-

68 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® HOW GENERAL FUSION’S PLAN COULD WORK General Fusion uses a variation on an approach called mag- plasma—ionized gas—into the void at the center of the swirling netized target fusion. Inside a metallic sphere measuring liquid metal. Two hundred pneumatic pistons, accelerated to approximately 10 feet in diameter, a liquid lead-lithium mixture approximately 100 meters per second by pressurized steam, spins around the tank fast enough that a cylindrical-shaped slam the outside of the sphere simultaneously. Then, if all goes empty spot opens in the middle of the tank. Two injectors send as planned, the magic happens (see below).

Pneumatic piston

Plasma

Liquid lead-lithium

1 2 3 4

The impact of the pistons The compression wave picks The shock wave hits the The fusion reaction hurls sends a compression wave up speed as it hurtles toward plasma, a highly energetic neutrons and alpha particles reverberating through the the center, quickly becoming a stew of the hydrogen isotopes out through the liquid lead- liquid metal and toward the shock wave powerful enough tritium and deuterium. The lithium, creating heat that the plasma suspended by a to compress the plasma force is so great that the ions generates steam to power an magnetic ﬁ eld in the center. quickly and violently. merge to form helium. electricity-producing turbine. S HOLLANDS KRI

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® THE FUTURE OF ENERGY

SPARE PARTS From left: The interior of the proof-of-concept fusion reactor; the reactor’s low-tech-looking control tower; General Fusion plasma specialist Stephen Howard works on one of the 200 pistons that will power the scaled-up reactor.

boron fusion.” Then the company went into stealth mode. someone who has spent much of his career contributing to Laberge thinks that proton-boron fusion, if that is in fact the American fusion program with a particular emphasis what Tri Alpha is up to, is a valid idea, but that it requires in MTF, was one of the handful of independent scientists much higher temperatures—generated, most likely, with the who vetted General Fusion’s plan. And although he’s not same extremely expensive superconductive magnets used in ready to say it will work, he certainly thinks it could. “I see tokamak reactors—and has other theoretic fl aws he feels are far no problems in principle, but I do see a lot of technical more challenging than the ones in front of him. “I used to say, challenges ahead,” he says. Among them: the potential [proton-boron fusion] is like learning to run before you walk. for instability between the plasma and the lead-lithium And I was talking to physicists at some conference, and they say, liner, which could cool the plasma and prevent it from ‘No, no, it’s like learning to fl y before you walk.’ You think we’re reaching fusion temperatures. “It’s worth pursuing, ambitious? I think they’re ambitious.” but investors have to know it’s a high-risk affair.” Richard Siemon hasn’t studied General Fusion’s plan but “BASICALLY, THEY QUIT their jobs to answer one of the knows enough about MTF to say that he’s more optimistic most complicated problems in physics,” says Mike Brown, whose about it than any of the tokamak projects. “MTF in particular venture-capital fund, Chrysalix, allowed General Fusion to get has the potential to be an approach that could be done on a to its so-far very callow state. Brown’s fund has concentrated on small scale by a small group,” he says. “I think it’s an exciting alternative energy for years. He was the fi rst investor in Ballard, a thing. And there’s an effi ciency to the private sector that just Canadian company that helped perfect the fuel cell. And even now, isn’t comparable to government-funded approaches.” at age 69, he cares not so much because of the money, though the Given another round of fi nancing—roughly $10 million, potential there is obviously signifi cant, but because of what fusion $7 million or so of which has been procured—Laberge says would mean for a planet in rapid decline. he will build two dozen of those unassuming pistons and use At an age when most successful businessmen would be them to impact a cylinder full of liquid lead-lithium. This will retired, Brown is more enthusiastic than ever. “I think it took allow him and his team to study the shock waves as well as someone with exceptional talent to do this combination of the synchronization of the pistons. That’s two years. A third, mechanics and physics, which is really unusual,” he says $50-million infl ux of capital, Brown says, gets them a test of Laberge (whom he tells me was also once a high-speed reactor. “By the end of 2012, we’ll have done net gain.” ITER downhill skateboarder and a member of Canada’s national will still be six years away. “Nobody will have done net gain hang-gliding team). “Europe is particularly ITER-focused. It’s at that point. If we do that, we’ll attract a signifi cant amount as if [MTF] never existed. But when you bring in experts—not of attention.” After that comes the fi rst power plant. That will a single expert hasn’t said, you know, you guys have a cost another $200 million to $500 million, but after net gain, real shot of doing this.” the money should be easy to raise. Ronald Kirkpatrick, a guest scientist at Los Alamos and “If the world is waiting for energy from ITER, it’s a lost

70 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® cause,” Brown says. “I think sooner or later it could work. “Imagine it’s 1910 and you want to fl y a 747, and someone But it’s going to be later, and it’s going to take a lot of money. gave you the plans. You’re screwed. You don’t have the If we could do for $500 million what they’ll do for $50 materials. You don’t even know what a jet engine is. You’re billion—in six years versus by 2035. For electricity!” There’s stuck. Having ITER work is like the Wright brothers. Having a no need, really, to complete the thought. fusion power plant—it’s like having a 747.” Richardson, not knowing what Wurden had told me, spun ON THE AFTERNOON of my visit, Doug Richardson the 747 example a very different way. Flight went from paper leads us out the back of General Fusion’s offi ces and through and wood to the 747 in 65 or so years. Laberge adds that nuclear some trash-strewn woods to a Subway sandwich shop. While fi ssion went from proof-of-concept to power plant in a decade. we’re there, he points to a newspaper headline about fuel And that was the 1940s. The difference, of course, was money. prices. “Every day it’s the same thing: cost of fuel and climate “If we were proposing some funky new microbe or algae to change,” he says. “I think a revolution is coming. I believe it’ll go down and eat oil in tar sands or something and then burp be for conservation of resources.” it up later?” Richardson scoffs, “I’m sure we would have been Back at the offi ce, Richardson shows me a climate-change fi nanced by now. Even though it’s probably a more diffi cult task mug someone gave him. When you add hot water, the places than what we’re proposing.” that will someday be submerged by ocean water if Greenland’s Sitting around twiddling your thumbs when you could be ice cap melts turn blue. Farewell New York, London, Paris, building your experimental fusion reactor can make you bitter. Vancouver and the entire Amazon basin. Outside the door, And to step into that room and talk to slightly bitter—or rather, Laberge is updating the company’s Web site, and the team’s frustrated—scientists, it’s easy to read them as crackpots. Guys in plasma specialist, a young postgrad named Stephen Howard, rumpled khakis sitting in an offi ce-park warehouse monkeying is tinkering with the design of the plasma injector that they around with a piston hooked up to extension cords can easily look are right now trying to decide if they can afford. Richardson like crackpots. But as Kirkpatrick points out, compared with ITER shows me chart after chart on energy demand, as well as or any other current fusion experiment, “the closest to a potential existing technology that backs up almost everything they’re reactor scheme is what General Fusion is proposing.” building or plan to build. The global demand for power, “People”—in particular, politicians and moneymen—“have he points out, is nearly 4,000 gigawatts today. According to to get used to the idea that maybe this is possible,” Laberge says. projections, it will be 7,000 by 2030. The world can’t possibly How could they fail? Well, they could run out of money. Or “the meet that number using existing sources. laws of physics might fi ght back in ways we don’t know about Does General Fusion really have a chance of fi lling that yet,” Brown says, smiling. “We have to fi nd that out.” gap? There is the way Glen Wurden sees things—that the idea is plausible but that the implementation will require Josh Dean is an editor at Play magazine and writes for Outside, Inc., far more work, not because of technology but money: Fast Company and Best Life. This is his fi rst story for POPULAR SCIENCE.

POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 71

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® tips, tricks, hacks and do-it-yourself projECTS 76 77 79 The DIY way Get an XBox online wire- Send yourself reminders to make titanium lessly, without an adapter by e-mail and text

KNOW WHEN TO HOLD ’EM The table Andrew Milner [front left] built generates a display that shows players’ bets and chances of winning each hand.

YOU BUILT what ?! STRAIGHT TO VIDEO A CARD TABLE THAT TURNS ANY GAME INTO THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER

Every Friday night, about 10 regulars chances of winning the hand. It makes chips. I also hooked up four video cameras gather at my place in Perth, Australia, our humble games look just like the and capture devices to record the action, to play Texas Hold ’Em. I’m the tournaments you see on TV. and connected it all to my PC. Then I wrote co-founder of a technology-services Of course, some of my mates were software to generate graphics from the company, L7 Solutions. I’m also a skeptical that it wouldn’t come out looking game data and lay it on top of a live video chronic tinkerer and a poker lover. cool, so I resolved to build something feed. It’s streamed to a high-def big screen, Last fall I decided to up the ante, so that would really wow them. I spent three so the defeated players can watch the to speak, and started planning a table months on the project, integrating radio- rest of the game in my viewing room—or, that could generate a video display frequency-ID antennas and a central as I call it, the Losers’ Lounge.—andrew showing what cards each player reader unit into a custom-built table to milner (as told to Amanda Schupak)

OURTESY JASON KIELY [continued on next page] C has, how much they bet, and their track the movement of tagged cards and

POPSCI.COM JANUARY 2009 POPULAR SCIENCE 73

YOU BUILT WHA T ?! CONT’D Rail camera ON THE SPOT Circles on the table surface indicate where to place cards so that the Dome camera antennas can read them. RFID antennas Video-capture devices RFID-reader unit HOW THE VIDEO POKER TABLE WORKS 3 months $8,500 for more details, go to popsci.com/pokertable capturing the action hand and to generate graphics to lay over Four cameras (two dome, two rail) record the video. When a player dumps his cards the game, and capture devices convert the over the antenna into the “muck” pile, the video to MPEG4 format and load it onto the application notes that the player has folded. PC. A custom software application combines the video files with RFID data from the putting it onscreen tagged chips and cards to create a simul- A commercial library of code called cast. (Televised tournaments instead use TVideoGrabber contains instructions for concealed cams to peek at players’ hands.) getting the video from the capture devices to stream onscreen. The video-processing FOLLOWINg the money engine uses information from the Game The RFID reader tracks what cards are Engine—such as who’s in, who’s out, who’s played and what chips have been bet. Mil- up and who’s down—to determine which ner’s Game Engine program reads that data camera feed to show during a hand. When and applies the rules of poker to come up only two players are left, the cameras zoom with each player’s chance of winning the in on those players.

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME Losing players watch the rest of the game in another room.

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!'-%&,!$%-+,/+.,)+*%/"!#( LLUSTRATION: PAUL WOOTTON; PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY JASON KIELY I 3330!21.2+, 0#+) 74 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 POPSCI.COM

An iron crowbar costs iron thermite reaction, iron about $8; one made of tita- oxide reacts with aluminum nium, $80. Solid-titanium and comes out as liquid scissors start at $700, and iron. I just swapped in tita- don’t even ask about the nium dioxide instead. But titanium socket wrench. that reaction, in which tita- Titanium must be a rare and nium dioxide transfers its precious substance, right? oxygen atoms to aluminum, Actually, as raw ore, doesn’t release enough titanium is 100 times as heat to melt the materials. abundant as copper. Nearly So I mixed in drywall all white paint is white plaster (calcium sulfate) because of the titanium and more aluminum pow- dioxide found in the ore. der. They react to create Something like four million huge amounts of extra tons a year go into paint, heat, enough to melt the sunscreen, toothpaste, titanium and allow it to even paper. pool at the bottom of the The high price of tita- container. Adding ground nium comes not from the fl uorite powder makes the raw material but from the molten metals more fl uid diffi culty of turning that and protects the titanium ore into wrenches and bike from air as it cools. frames. At temperatures I used clay fl owerpots, high enough to melt it, as suggested by Gert GROWING METAL Intense heat cracks a fl owerpot, revealing liquid titanium exposed to air Meyer, who developed this titanium inside. Normally the pot would be nested with sand inside catches fi re. So it has to be procedure. When nested a second one to trap the molten metal. refi ned, forged, welded, with sand between them, and cast in a vacuum or they last just long enough TITANIUM IN A POT under inert gas, an expen- to let the titanium cool into sive process. beads of solid metal. Yet I was able to make Sadly, this is not really titanium using equipment a practical way to make I had lying around. I did it a lot of titanium, so don’t with thermite reduction, get your hopes up about a process commonly used starting that $700 scissors to weld train tracks. In an business.—Theodore Gray LIGHT IT UP A fi re- HOT STUFF The reac- THE RESULT ACHTUNG! works sparkler is the tion reaches about Lumps of solid fuse for a mixture of 4,200°F, so the metal titanium extracted Do not try this at home. This reaction is extremely energetic. Flaming titanium dioxide and remains red-hot for from the pool of molten metal can be thrown some distance from the pot and will ignite aluminum powder. several minutes. slag in the pot WALKER

anything within reach. MIKE

76 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® FROM TOP: LUIS BRUNO; COURTESY APPLE; SCREEN IMAGES, FROM TOP: COURTESY MICROSOFT; COURTESY DD-WRT.COM teenagers in Denmark in in teenagers Denmark annoying blasting of pleasure the for it worth $15 less—well for or eBay on one aused get can you but Amazon, on model older an Ibought work. will router of brand any almost version, right the ware called DD-WRT. long as As you download ﬁ its replacing by adapter Xbox an as function router cheap asecond, make can you home, your in up set network wireless a have already you If bucks. 40 only me cost that asolution with wire giant the toditch away found I though, Finally, pricey. still are but less abit cost wireless adapter. Third-party wireless bridges Microsoft’s itself—for console the of price the third $100—a extra the out toshell want I didn’t and in, built capability wireless with come doesn’t Xbox The online. videogames toplay Iused how That’s room? living the in 360 Xbox my to bedroom the from router in the through my apartment Th TOT I your network to use your laptop as an adapter. You’ll still You’ll still adapter. an as laptop your use to network your conﬁ instead can you wirelessly, online Xbox your is 50-foot f a $15 router is still more than you want to invest to get get to invest to want you than more still is a$15f router UN XBOX YOUR AND FREE SOFTWARE WITH AN OLD ROUTER ONLINE WIRELESSLY GE ALLY FREEWIRELESS CH have to connect the computer to the console console the to computer the connect have to with an Ethernet cable, but you won’t have to haveto won’t you but cable, Ethernet an with T YOUR XBOX 360 360 XBOX YOUR T buy any additional equipment. For instructions instructions For equipment. additional any buy on setting it up, search for user “walamoon- user for search up, it setting on

EAP TR Ethernet cable snaking all the way way the all snaking cable Ethernet ICKS beam” on on beam” . WIRE

rmware with free soft- free with rmware Halo 3 inst ructables.com . — Doug Cantor www.freedowns.net &www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® gure gure DIY WIRELESSFORYOURXBOX the DD-WRTsoftware. Update therouter’s firmware with computer withEthernetcables. the router toyour modemandyour puter’s network settings.Connect require you tochangeyour com- specific router model.Thismay your computer. right version ofthesoftware to supported. Ifso,download the make sure thespecificmodelis 2 1 Bef project, check time tions on F ollow theinstallation instruc- ore buyingarouter for this : 30minutes dd-wrt.com for your dd-wrt.com to

cost: $15–$ 4 3 sole, andconnect toXbox Live. Ethernet cable. Turn onthecon- sole, andconnect itwithashort the router neartheXbox settings onyour computer. Place your originalrouter. receive anInternetsignalfrom “client mode.”Thisenables itto Change therouter's settingsto up theDD-WRTinterface [below]. browser, which shouldnow bring PO 50 restore theoriginalnetwork Disc Enter ther in your computer PSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE onnect thecables, and easy hard outer’s IPaddress ’s Web 360 con-

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WEB SITE OF THE MONTH IKEA HACKER Who says you have to put together your IKEA furniture exactly the way the Swedish instructions tell you to? IKEA Hacker ( lik eahacker.blogspot.com ) is a showcase of ingenious ways people have assembled things from the store to change their look and function—from installing a Linux computer clus- ter into a Helmer cabinet, to making a terrarium out of a Benno TV unit, to adding a comic-book top to an Alleby stool [pictured].

BUILD OF THE MONTH

#!!!" $! ""& " $!!%" " "% %"! $"#!"&##!! !""! " !!!! #" ! " &# ! THE CASSETTE #""! " "( # CLOSET PATRICK ; SCHUUR $&# #!!!"& Needing a space divider in his office, Dutch product designer Patrick Schuur built a giant cabinet intended to “remind people of how good-looking technology ""' ! used to be.” Schuur and his co-workers began by making a large wooden frame and then created the retro exterior by screwing on, one by one, 918 old cassette tapes. The painstaking build, which also included the addition of a mosaic tile & top and metal legs, took more than 500 ROMTOP: LUIS BRUNO (3); IKEAHACKER.BLOGSPOT.COM

hours to complete. F

78 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009

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% " ! '! SEND IT GO e-mail reminders 15minutes before theappointment. 8 a.m.).Once your reminder isset,you’ll receive text and the subsequentprompts (Whatday?Tomorrow. Whattime? service Jott.Call866-JOTT-123, say“reminder,” andanswer and itwillpingyou every timetheevent comes up. ADAM P ,'(! %(0 T A QUESTIONFOROURGEEKCHORUS? Or skipthetypingaltogether withthevoice-to-text ). ASH isaneditoratLifehacker). ( TO US AT [email protected]. & & " # " ! !$$ lifehack $ ! "" ,* "+/".+" er.com $'*#-.,+& !$$ TASTE TECHNI- 82 CIAN Chemists Jobs on Mars: control every Choose the most step of ﬂ avor FYI proﬁ table career path creation. sometimes you just need to know

in the airless vacuum of space, it can reach a speed higher than its terminal velocity. But as soon as it starts passing through the atmosphere, friction will slow it down. This friction generates heat—about 3,000° for the space shuttle. Just how much heat depends on how fast the object is going, as well as its size, shape and mass. If an astronaut were to throw a watertight kernel out of that space shuttle moving at 17,000 mph, would the kernel reach hot enough temperatures to pop as it ﬂ ew through the atmosphere? It’s possible, says Kenneth Libbrecht, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, but he can’t run the numbers to say for sure, because no one has measured how much friction a kernel generates when it moves through the air. “Of course, the other possibility is that it will heat too quickly and the outer husk will burn off before the kernel has a chance to pop,” Lib- brecht says. And so, for now at least, there’s no way to know. Note to the guys on the ISS: Let loose a pan of Jiffy Pop.—STUART FOX

What’s the difference between artiﬁ cial and natural ﬂ avors? Bill Wehe, via e-mail

Picking barbecue-fl avor potato chips over salt-and-vinegar can be tough enough without having to choose between brands made Q with “natural fl avors” and ones that are “arti- IF YOU DROPPED A CORN fi cially fl avored.” Natural fl avors, you might think, are derived from the pure essence of a KERNEL FROM SPACE, WOULD food’s fl avor, and as such are more authentic. But the term “natural” is misleading. IT POP DURING REENTRY? The Food and Drug Administration Bosco Daude, via e-mail requires that natural fl avors come from a natural material, but that’s a broad category. It usually means developing fl avors There’s a little bit of water say we fi gured out a way to keep the kernel from plant or bacteria by-products, or chemi- inside each kernel of popcorn, watertight. In that case, it all depends. cally treating naturally occurring molecules. A and if you can heat the kernel Anything falling through the atmo- Chemists then tinker with these to enhance above 212°F, that water should sphere has what’s called a terminal their taste. The sweet strawberry taste of boil, turn into high-pressure steam, and velocity. This is the speed at which the your naturally fl avored ice cream? That pop the kernel. But in orbit, things aren’t so upward force, or drag, from air resistance probably started out as a bacterial protein. simple. First off, the cold vacuum of space equals the downward force of gravity. Typi- Artifi cial fl avors, on the other hand, are would suck all the water out of the kernel cally, a falling object, like a skydiver, speeds just what you’d expect: taste-bud-stimulating

before it could pop the corn. So any ordi- up until it reaches terminal velocity. If chemicals concocted from scratch in labs. PHOTO KNAPP/AP C. Y

nary kernels would drop, not pop. But let’s something like the space shuttle starts out Although natural ﬂ avors have the poten- GAR

80 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 Got questions? Send them to fyi @ popsci.c om .

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www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® DO I HAVE A DEAL FYI FOR YOU Strike it rich selling yet-to-be terra- Ask a Mars formed land. tial to be more accurate and have layers of Career fl avor, mucking with bacteria is expensive Counselor and the results are inconsistent. Control- ling every step of a fl avor’s development, What would be the as chemists do with artifi cial fl avors, costs less and often hits closer to the mark. best job to have in Flavor chemists can further enhance a Mars colony? artifi cial fl avors by stimulating your nose. You’ve just landed on the Red Planet and are looking for a fresh start. Sure, that job “Aroma is often the dominant factor in fl a- selling respirators at the local space-hardware store sounds cozy, but it’s a dead-end vor perception,” says Anuradha Prakash, career. Mars will be ripe with opportunity; you just have to fi gure out how to tap it. So a professor of food science at Chapman here’s the secret: Go into construction. You’ll learn useful skills and be out on the sur- University and a spokesperson for the face, where the real action is. Explore the landscape on coffee breaks. All you need to Institute of Food Technologists. “Fla- do is stumble upon a nice deposit of precious material—like platinum or deuterium, a vorists can mix compounds with similar hydrogen isotope that could fuel fusion reactors—and you’ll have it made. Next, buddy up with the engineers working to terraform the Martian hillsides. It's tastes but different aromas to maximize their job to turn all that red dust into Earth-like soil that can support robust vegetation artifi cial fl avor.” And despite the healthy and seed the atmosphere to rain and form lakes and oceans. Figure out where future sound of the phrase, natural fl avors aren’t beachfront property will be, buy it, and auction off lots to the highest bidder. any better for you than man-made ones. Of course, this prosperous career path has its risks. You’ll be outdoors a lot, and In fact, in most cases your body can’t even Mars’s atmosphere is pretty thin, so cosmic radiation could fry your DNA. Things could differentiate between the two. fall on you on construction sites. And you’d probably go prospecting alone (why split Those barbecue chips? You’ll save a the profi ts?), so no one could help you if you got lost or fell into a crater. You could play few cents with the artifi cially fl avored it safe in the colony, working at the Spacemart. But you’re on Mars—take a chance!

HAEL CARROLL HAEL variety, and they might even taste more Robert Zubrin is president of the Mars Society and author of How to Live on Mars. —AMY GEPPERT MIC like the real thing. p

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[continued from page 61] KILLER CON Josserand remembers the day in March 2006 when Unidentifi ed Person F2775.1EC fl ashed across her screen. She had just uploaded family-reference sample F3352.1US, submitted by the King County Sheriff’s offi ce. Like the reels of a slot machine, twin columns of numbers rolled down her monitor. The rows for six out of six mitochondrial- DNA base pairs fl ashed green. A perfect match. But mtDNA alone, she knew, wasn’t defi nitive. Fortunately, back in 2004, Sansom was able to pull seven markers for nuclear DNA from the victim’s bone sample. Josserand compared the family-reference sample with that. All of them matched. Josserand retrieved the folder for Unidentifi ed Person F2775.1EC and checked it against the fi le for the family- reference sample. “The metadata all matched,” she says of Debbie Deer Creek’s physical descriptors: female; approximate age, 17; weight, 125; height, 5'7". Estimated date and place of death: 8/19/1984, Missoula, Montana. From the missing-person report, Josserand read the name: Marcella (-* ' 2,+/$,#1 *($% Bachmann. Last contact: 5/1984, Q ) /&&# 0'+%!,/03'0&5".,') Vancouver, Washington. “All I could Q 1.+ !#$.##6"1!0$.## think was, ‘I wonder how this poor Q '$#0'*#3 .. +05,/#.2'!#!,+0. !0/ girl got from here to there?’ ” she Q $#!,*-)#0#-# !#,$*'+" Q )# ++,$1*#/#+2'.,+*#+0 ))5/ $# (',,-+ says. Still, certainty depended on Q )'/0#" ,( 1!(* more family samples, ideally from the Q .# //#* )#"7.# "50,1/# $'!(' biological father. So the call went out Q ,.0 )# ,.-#.* +#+0 ,%(" Q &,)#&,1/#&# 0'+%,./'+%)#.,,* to Derek Bachmann through Detective Crenshaw in King County. Crenshaw '$#0'*# .. +05 --.,4 .# '/!,1+0 didn’t say anything about the bone 0,# 0 .'!# 05 from Missoula. “I gave him the spiel I % "! 5 1( 5 1( give everyone, so as not to get hopes % "%! 5 1( up,” he says. “ ‘The lab wants more DNA ! % 5 1( samples to make sure that if there’s & 5 1( ! %! 5 1( a hit, they can narrow it down.’ ” !# " )'0,.12$218$++(.0./2*.-1'6$%2)'$2'0-''&'& “I called up my dad,” Bachmann % % says, “and fl at-out told him, ‘You '/!,1+0 05 &#.*,/0 0'+!)1"#" .'!# have to do this. I have to know.’ ” &# '! 7&0.$6 5 58 *+*%.-' On March 22, 2006, the Center for ! '! !% Human Identifi cation received two %"%! '$47327 4 # $! " .2$+,.3-2 FedEx envelopes, one containing a % % % " cheek swab from Bachmann, the other $,'####################################### from his father. The father’s nuclear Q Q Q " &&0'11##################################### DNA matched all of Debbie Deer Creek’s *27############################# 2######### "*/###########).-'######################## $12'0$0&!*1$.0*1%.4'0%%.3-2-(.0,$2*.- ///#1 *(+$%(& %%2###################################### 84 POPULAR SCIENCE JANUARY 2009 1 *($%(0 (*,$%% 6/*0$2*.-$2'############################### www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® this snowy March day in Missoula, platform directly above a river- Weatherman waits for Derek restoration project. In addition NECTION Bachmann to step out of the county to tearing out the old dam, the nuclear-DNA markers. To underscore truck they have borrowed for their county plans to build a small park. the identifi cation, Derek’s mtDNA, like second visit to the place where Construction is due to begin in the that of his mother, proved identical. Weatherman unearthed Marci’s frozen spring. Bachmann has come back, Following protocol, the Center for remains on Christmas Eve 1984. in part, to ensure that nothing Human Identifi cation relayed the news Bachmann shivers inside his desecrates Marci’s spot. Perhaps he to the National Center for Missing and leather jacket. The snow quickly can even persuade the county to Exploited Children, which in turn called saturates his sneakers as he follows raise a small memorial, he proposes. Missoula and Captain Hintz, who had the retired lawman a quarter of a Weatherman nods in agreement. submitted Debbie Deer Creek’s femur mile through the woods to a bluff “I suppose you’re ready to put after Larry Weatherman’s retirement. above the Clark Fork River. A grove all this behind you,” Bachmann “I’ll never forget his call,” Bachmann of spindly conifers still surrounds offers as the men head back to the says. “I was in a poker tournament and the mossy depression that once held truck. “I don’t suppose it ever will had to step outside.” As Hintz spoke, Marci’s body. “It was a lot harder the be,” Weatherman says, “until we get Bachmann suddenly realized that he fi rst time,” Bachmann says of the visit. Christy identifi ed.” At press time, didn’t want “closure” after all. “I instantly “Yeah,” Weatherman acknowledges. DNA from Christy’s femur had been grasped the idea that he was fi nally “That was a hard one for you.” entered into the Center for Human calling back about the Web-site photo. I From beyond the bluff comes the Identifi cation’s database of cold-case told him I’d been thinking about it, that rumbling sound of construction—or remains, as well as the national DNA the picture couldn’t have been my sister,” rather, deconstruction—echoing up database. She’s ready to be found. he recalls. “Well, he disabused me of that.” from the Milltown Dam below. A strip of orange and yellow surveyor Jessica Snyder Sachs is the author of THE FINAL IDentifi cation fl ags marks a path past Marci’s Good Germs, Bad Germs, now out Almost exactly two years later, on gravesite to what will be a viewing in paperback. gj showcase

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“Light” tap water from our home machine ing home distillers. Also, the FTC Try A Bottle of Water! was sprayed on the surface of a 5-acre “Cease and Desist” order C-3220!! Call 570-296-0214 “untreatable” lagoon with 10 1/2 million Customers call us and ask us gallons of e-coli sewer waste. The smell was how we came up with such a star- gone in 24 hours, saving millions in sewer tling discovery. The inventor with an Engineering Degree that plant costs. Our water works better than made water better than 9 times includes Steam Plant Design, purer than the tap water! In fact, toxic chlorine! No other product can pro- was searching for a way to duce water that can do that! Corning makes the best lab stills lower the steam velocity in in the world with plenty of steam order to produce purer water rise and baffles, in an attempt to In spite of a salad/tomato recall using chlo- because the largest selling eliminate pollutants entrained in rinated water, people consume vegetables home distiller, using “continu- the steam. Corning: “Your lab tests they washed in water from home purifiers. ous” boiling, produced water are better than ours! How do you do This water can’t stop disease any better than only 9 times purer than the tap it?” We told them about our “intermit- chlorinated water which couldn’t stop a water (using their own published lab tent boiling” and they said: “That’s also a mold and rot problem! You don’t know results)! Accordingly, the inventor sent 3 great way to get rid of organics!” Today, plastic where that purified water has been! Would machines to York Labs for testing, so a patent water distillers are being sold that were recalled by you drink water out of your neighbor’s toilet? could be issued on his “intermittent” (start-stop) the FPSC while running hot water into plastic boiling. York Labs produced test results (on our After testing on a mold and rot problem for storage jugs!! They were even advertised the same website johnellis.com) an astounding 827 times month the media warned against plasticizer poi- 9 months, a multibillion dollar international purer, down to “less than” 0.07 ppm. Pure water food company sent us a 7 page contract! sons that get into bottled water and hot water is 0.1 ppm and to this day nobody has come even leaches even faster...with disregard for the con- Also, a pesticide resistant fungus is threaten- close to these readings and that’s why we have sumer! Also, as stated, they are once again using ing wheat crops and food prices worldwide been a leader in our field for many years. The the “100% Pure” and “Scams Revealed” ads while (mix our water with any water and spray)! company said: “We can’t compete with the putting down a whole industry of honest, hard- Our water “cures” because we changed the machines! We are going out of business!” working Dealers selling various purifiers instead of properties of water! doing what we have done...using tests and indus- FTC “Cease and Desist” Order C-3220 try standards to show why their product is better! The Washington Post 1/27/92: “10,000 people/day Can they make purer water than a Corning Ultra- travel to seek miracles in ‘light’ water that is said Inspite of our widely advertised water tests, dis- Pure Lab Still?? They can’t produce water that can to cure anything!” It describes our patents and we stop disease or supply a 0.1 water test! have 1,000’s of letters proving that it does!! To honest competitors continued to use “100% Pure” and “Water Scams Revealed” ads just as they cure (regardless of what the tell you), water has to “Light” Water be 4% lighter, like the biblical water at Lourdes, are doing today! 100’s of people distilled polluted Nordenau and because of our machine, Tlacote. well water because they believed the ads, with dis- astrous results! Accordingly, we sent a complaint After all of the above, we found that instead of It’s always 4% lighter (UCLA MD’s and 100’s of water purity being a major factor, it was the chemists)!! The result? We sold so many machines letter by Certified Mail to the FTC and they sent us a copy of the Order which we have on file. A changing of the water properties that allowed we stopped counting at 100,000 users! Read even our “light” tap water (240 gal/day) to pro- about the disasters caused by “continuous” boil- portion of the order appears on our website, in direct conflict to what shills for the water industry duce these phenominal results! When you heat are saying. For example: “The facts are: simple dis- water on a stove, the hydrogen bond angles grad- Water Hydrogen Will it kill tillation eliminates all microorganisms, dead or ually open up from 104.5˚ to steam at 120˚ but Type Bond Angle Pathogens? alive from the recondensed water.” This is the recondenses down to only 101˚! You wouldn’t Med Water 114˚ Yes opposite of what the FTC order says! Don’t they drink it because distilled/purified water can’t stop Steam 120˚ Yes know that bacteria survive in the boiling water at the spread of disease! We increased the hydrogen Ordinary Water 104˚ No Yellowstone? Also, ordinary “continuous” boiling bond angle as noted by laboratories around the Distilled Water 101˚ No distillers boil over like a pot on a stove!! If they did- world! It’s lighter/unit volume and when you Visit our Website www.JohnEllis.com n’t, the home water distiller (above) would have drink it, you will note that it goes down easier! WRITE FOR FREE INFORMATION

I understand the information you are providing Name ______Call us for information is for educational purposes only. As stated above, this information is not intended to diagnose, Address ______845-754-8696 treat, cure or prevent disease. In all health-relat- or fax your name and ed situations, qualified healthcare professionals should always be consulted. City/State/Zip ______address to 845-754-7866. CRYSTAL CLEAR Dept. PS714, Westbrookville, NY 12785 Visit our website: www.JohnEllis.com

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TISEMENT Combat Conditioning Combat Conditioning cises – not in your belief system cises – not in your belief system on and on. The key is in having The key is on and on. 12 of Wearing Again! Wearing ADVER get started NOW” decision to DO a decision to DO a get started NOW” our eason why is just that. ’s take a look: ’s “The Stor “The ays Combat ew Results from Forgotten Exercises Forgotten from ew Results N e the exercises in e the exercises old Medal Publications, Inc. Inc. Publications, old Medal ollow this program this program ollow uts You into the Old Clothes You Dream of Dream You Clothes into the Old You uts 12 W metabolism so you metabolism so you Cranks up y Change Your Life! Change Your When you do, pretty soon you’ll be the type of soon you’ll When you do, pretty You get functional strength, endurance and flex- get functional strength, You Before I learned these exercises, I read about the I read I learned these exercises, Before The key to your success is in the magical, transforma- The key to your success is in F The main r Ar Conditioning Will Conditioning Will P ombat Conditioning Shape of My Life.” Shape © G 1. flexibility in record time without lifting weights or long- time without lifting weights in record flexibility the excess inches flying inches flying the excess making it off your body, easy for you to fit into the of wear- clothes you dream dreaming. ing again. Stop get DOING. And Start results. back, Hershell Walker, who did bodyweight exercises who did bodyweight exercises Walker, back, Hershell list goes The each day. to mention seeing ibility – all at the same time. Not enough – the exercises work their magic anyway. Your Your work their magic anyway. enough – the exercises YOU intelligence and will work FOR own body has it’s and let it. simply get out of the way if you’ll person who can do 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 repeti- feel you’ll of tiredness tions and feel no fatigue. Instead building strength You’re exhilaration and ENERGY. program and was unbeaten in 5,000 matches. I also program and was unbeaten in 5,000 matches. I also that the legendary read Lee did these exercises, Bruce martial incredible about Lee’s And we all know too. NFL running was the All-Pro Then there arts skills. and the payoff is HUGE. functional exercises about hard work. For many people, just one rep is all one rep many people, just work. For about hard a leaf on shaking like they can do at first, and they’re all that person And so, that’s a windy day in Chicago. not doing think you’re if you should do at first. Even Great Gama of India, a wrestler who followed this who followed a wrestler Gama of India, Great given a little attention, when all those weak links are powerful more faster, body gets stronger, your entire time each day doing a few energetic. Spend and more little something each day. little something each day. of these exer tive power And believe and endurance from the INSIDE-OUT. inches of than a few reps, me, once you can do more flab will fly off your unsightly fat and pounds of excess speed. body at break-neck is because it targets all the weak links in your body Conditioning C body and a tiny “ program. Let and your body is going to fact, change big time. In list of made a I’ve Well, not really. They go back about 5,000 years – but not really. Well, for the most part, when they got lost in the shuffle although weights, gadgets and gyms came around. So YOU!” to “New they’re NEW, they aren’t benefits the most powerful of thou-that hundreds the sands of others all over world have gotten from the a proven program with a track record, and program with a track record, a proven How I simultaneously doubled my strength, How I simultaneously

. Got Me Into the BestInto Me Got www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaza.net©® 76 Year-Old Man WhoMan Year-Old 76 ’t done ’t is totally estling title , is one of the finest ute a day. And no, ute a day. Yes, there’s gold in there’s Yes, ’s required is your own own your is required ’s Combat Conditioning dio an hour of per day and www.mattfurey.com att Furey ombat Conditioning , all that ecutive who sleeps in hotel C and spends much time each year traveling and spends much time each year University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998 of Fame Hall Athletic University Furey was inducted into the Edinboro was inducted Furey transforming him with his powerful programs. transforming him with his powerful taking the average and ordinary person andtaking the average championship in 1997. Furey has a knack for championship in 1997. Furey in 1985 and a world shuai-chiao kung fuin 1985 and a world shuai-chiao won a national collegiate wr M information that changes lives. information tial artists and the military. tial artists and the military. the man or woman who hasn ime is not the issue! T d-working man or woman who often vered shocked me from head to toe! shocked me from vered ’S FOR Who is Combat Conditioning for? those who have trained their whole lives on athletes, mar the har the traveling ex IT do 30 minutes of car ven One Minute a Day Brings Results! Brings a Day Minute One ven E nlike other exercise program where you are told you you are program where nlike other exercise efore I met Karl I THOUGHT I was strong. ITHOUGHT I was strong. I met Karl I efore orget all those workouts that take all day. With With that take all day. all those workouts orget finds it difficult to squeeze in a quick workout. weights. rooms more than at home. rooms more a lick of exercise in decades. a lick of exercise Let me tell you, when I looked at this “76 year-old Most importantly, I didn’t want to hear that the I didn’t importantly, Most So I just didn’t want to believe what Karl, a 76- I just didn’t So The exercises I learned had such a profound and dra- I learned The exercises So I gave up the weights and began a routine of I gave up the So I was the total skeptic. Not only had I lifted weights only I was the total skeptic. Not F U B ombat Conditioning t’s for t’s t’s for t’s t’s for t’s t’s for t’s in the world, giving valuable in the world, giving valuable world-wide audience. His website, world-wide audience. His And .. I I I I throughout the world, searching for the very best information available to his What I disco endurance and flexibility that I’ve always wanted. endurance and flexibility that I’ve exercises, I was seeing a demonstration of the strength, a demonstration of the strength, I was seeing exercises, man’s” physique and watched him demonstrate his man’s” plete weakling when I started doing theses exercises. At plete weakling when I started doing theses exercises. and challenged the same time, I was inspired minutes. Hate to admit it, but I must. I felt like a com-minutes. Hate exercises that left me drenched in a pool of sweat within drenched that left me exercises that this system works, and works FAST. and so-on could be replaced with three body-weight with three and so-on could be replaced And the results are shocking, awe-inspiring and PROOF and PROOF shocking, awe-inspiring are And the results hours I had spent running long distances, lifting weights hundreds of thousands of men and women of all ages of thousands of men and women hundreds and of all backgrounds to this extraordinary program. year old man told me about exercising WITHOUT exercising year old man told me about WITHOUT long-distance running. weights… and matic effect on me, that for nine years I have introduced matic effect on me, that for nine years I have introduced and a national collegiate wrestling title. and a national collegiate wrestling results starting with ONLY one min starting with ONLY results them there hills.” them there bodyweight calisthenics called under my belt, including a world kung fu championship under my belt, including a this is not a joke. core trainee. But for the total beginner, he or she can get for the total beginner, trainee. But core cover, In a matter of minutes, I knew Karl “had me.” In cover, and runfor years, but I had major success long distance old cannot do, that tells you that “ weights, to get results, to get results, weights, different. 15 minutes is all it takes to whoop the hard- different. ed every weakness that weights and running could not Afterall, when a man of 76 can do things that a 36-year Afterall, when a man of 76 can do things that a 36-year C MUST thought I was tough. But the exercises he gave me exploit- the exercises thought I was tough. But gjshowcase ORDER rae rs potion. trust a created NOW! 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POPSCI.COM POPULAR SCIENCE 95 www.freedowns.netwww.freedowns.net & & www.journal-plaza.net©® www.journal-plaza.net©® enter at ppx.popsci.com Place your bets on the market that predicts the future

(TURING) [BPA] By October, will a computer pass an Will the chemical artiﬁ cial-intelligence Turing test? BPA, which is found To pass a Turing in certain plastic test, a computer containers, be must be able to banned from con- communicate with people well enough sumer goods in the that 30 percent of U.S. by August 1? observers can’t tell A new study suggests that the they’re speaking with chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), a computer rather which is present in everything than a human. Last from CD cases to baby bottles, October, a computer can interfere with human hor- called Elbot came mone levels and perhaps even close to succeeding increase the risk of heart in the Loebner Prize disease and competition at the diabetes. Toys University of Reading ‘R’ Us and in England. During other com- instant-message- panies have style conversations, THE already yanked Elbot fooled 25 per- HOTTEST products con- cent of the judges into NEW stocks taining BPA thinking a person was from their on the other end. Will ONN THET shelves. But a computer reach 30 HE will the back- percent this year? lash lead to an official ban? OCK (2) OCK ST [ISPLAW] I WHAT IS THE PPX? By September, will Congress pass a law that protects THE POPSCI PREDICTIONS customers’ online habits from use by advertisers? EXCHANGE (PPX) is where you You know this scenario: E-mail a friend suggesting that can bet on the future of science and technology. Visit ppx you meet up later for a beer, and then your browser .popsci.com to get an account tries to sell you a home-brewing kit. This is the result of with $250,000 in POPSCI dollars. targeted advertising, in which advertisers track people’s Buy propositions you think will happen, and compete against online habits in order to reach potential customers. Not other players for prizes and everyone takes targeted Web advertising lightly, though, bragging rights. The market and the Senate recently began investigating the practice. is set up so that the price of Will the federal government decide to prevent ISPs from each proposition reﬂ ects the probability that the proposi- selling your Web habits to advertisers? tion will come true. LOCKWISE FROM TOP: WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION; C

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