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Why is it that we’re perfectly fine reusing some glass and completely refuse to reuse other glass? For $60, you can buy a six pack of tumblers, made from real beer bottles. [Windy City Glass via MAKE via boingboing] More »

by Tom Laskawy

This is Part 1 of 2 posts of in-depth analysis into the breakthrough work on high-fructose corn syrup and weight gain by Princeton researchers.

_______________

I have to admit that I was fascinated to watch the fallout over the Princeton HFCS study. What I thought would generate a “oh, look, another great reason to avoid HFCS!” reaction swiftly turned into “that study doesn’t prove a thing!!”—a sentiment that nutritionists, food business columnists and the Corn Refiners Association all, remarkably, shared.

Still, several questions raised by critics are worth addressing. We contacted the lead author of the Princeton study, Bart HoebelPrinceton researcher Bart Hoebel and crew prepare to feed rats HFCS. Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications, Denise Applewhite, to see if he could shed some light on general questions surrounding the work as well as particular objections raised by physiologist Karen Teff, PhD of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in a blog post by Nicci Micco on Eating Well’s website.

The full email transcript appears below. One clarification in particular that I found interesting has to do with claims that the researchers didn’t directly compare HFCS consumption to table sugar consumption in a key experiment and thus are not able to conclude that HFCS causes more and worse weight gain over table sugar. In the experiment in question, researchers gave rats access to a 10% HFCS “drink” in addition to their normal feed. The rats gained excess weight in their abdomens (which is associated with metabolic disorders) and their triglyceride levels increased (also a symptom of metablolic disorders).

Dr. Hoebel points out that previous research has firmly established that if you give rats access to a 10% table sugar “drink” in addition to their normal feed, they do not gain additional fat. In other words, their bodies are able to metabolize the extra calories without creating more weight. This previous research is referenced in the study—but was apparently overlooked by critics. In other words, while the researchers didn’t compare HFCS to sugar directly in that particular experiment, we already know what happens to rats when you feed them small amounts of additional table sugar.

I understand that his answers to this and other criticisms won’t convince everyone, but I hope people will read the commentary below and think about just what level of “proof” we need before questioning the wisdom of making HFCS ubiquitous in our food system. For more thoughts on why the debate over HFCS has become so contentious, see Part 2 of this analysis, which will appear Monday.

The first two questions we had for Dr. Hoebel came from Grist Food Editor Tom Philpott:

Q: Do you have any particular comments on the issue of “statistical significance”? Is it true that the results in experiments 1 and 3 both lacked statistical significance, as some have claimed?

Hoebel: No, this is not true as a general statement. We reported results that are statistically significant as stated in the article. In Experiment 1, rats with 12-or 24-hour access to HFCS gained significantly more weight than the group with 12-hour access to sucrose.
In Experiment 3, the main finding is that females rats with 24-hour access to HFCS weighed the most after 7 months , and this was overall (Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance) statistically different than the sucrose and chow fed controls.

This is important and meaningful because the 24-hour HFCS females had significantly heavier fat pads in the abdominal and uterine areas. They also had higher blood triglyceride levels than the other groups, which may have contributed to the body weight and body fat.

Q: Why did “Experiment 2” in your study, which compared rats’ access to HFCS over 12 and 24 hour time periods, not include sucrose? What are the clearest conclusions that can be drawn from its results as constructed? [Note to reader: this question is also addressed above—the bit about access to table sugar solution not seeming to show weight gain in rats.]

Hoebel: The goal of this paper was not exclusively to compare HFCS to sucrose. Rather, we were interested in assessing 1) limited vs. continuous access to HFCS, as our previous research has focused on binge eating of sugars, 2) differences in body weight gain as a results of access to HFCS that might result in males vs. females, and 3) the effects of long term access to HFCS on parameters such as triglyceride levels and fat accrual.

The vision of the paper was to study the effects of HFCS on body weight and obesity, not just to pit it against sucrose.
The clearest conclusions that can be drawn from Experiment 2 are that, in male rats, long term consumption of HFCS increases triglyceride levels and fat accrual. To us, this is an important finding. It shows that not only will HFCS increase body fat, but it will also increase these obesogenic parameters

Next, we asked Dr. Hoebel to respond to criticisms of his work leveled by Dr. Karen Teff of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in a blog post by Nicci Micco on Eating Well:

Comment #1: The solutions of HFCS and sucrose used in all the studies—there were a few—in the Princeton report provided different levels of calories. (The HFCS, in fact, was lower in calories.)

Hoebel: It is true that the solutions of HFCS and sucrose were not offered as calorically equivalent. We note this in the Methods section of the paper. However, it is important to note that the HFCS consuming rats in Experiment 1, the short-term (2-month) study, showed greater gains in body weight while taking in fewer calories of sugar compared to the groups consuming sucrose. This led us to hypothesize that there might be something different about the way HFCS affects the body. Thus, we conducted Experiment 2, the long-term (6 month) study, and measurements showed that increased triglyceride levels and increased body fat were seen in the rats will access to HCFS, but not sucrose.

Comment #2: In one of the studies, the authors reported that male rats had a higher body weight after being exposed to 12 hours of access to the HFCS plus their typical rat chow compared to 1) standard chow alone, 2) 12 hours of access to sucrose with chow, and 3) 24 hours of access to sucrose with chow. However, they did not report or do the statistics on the change in weight. Thus, this is meaningless and poorly controlled.

Hoebel: One of the groups listed above is cited incorrectly; group 3 had 24 hours of HFCS and chow access (no sucrose access). As stated in the Methods section, the males in the three groups of Experiment 1 were “weight-matched”. That means the average (mean) weight of the rats in each group started out the same. Therefore the end-point body weights reported are in fact accurate representations of the mean body weight change. Ergo, the statistics were done on the appropriate measure. The result is meaningful and well controlled, given the use of not one but three comparison groups.

Comment #3: In a second experiment, they compared chow to chow-plus-HFCS for 24 hours and chow-plus-HFCS for 12 hours and found that access to the HFCS increased body weight. So what? Again, meaningless. This is like taking two groups of people, giving them the same diet but allowing one group to drink sweetened soda whenever they liked. Of course, they will gain weight because they are ingesting more calories. These findings have nothing to do with the controversy between sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup.

Hoebel: The result is, in fact, meaningful. As cited in the Discussion section, we have previously shown that the rats are able to compensate for the excess calories obtained when drinking 10% sucrose by taking fewer calories of chow and thereby maintaining a normal body weight. Therefore, we thought it was interesting and important to report that long-term access to HFCS causes rats to become overweight, whereas access to 10% sucrose does not. While comparisons were made to sucrose in some of the studies, this was not the sole focus of the paper. Rather, we were interested in seeing the effects of HFCS on body weight and obesogenic characteristics, and there were other variables of interest that were studied (as described in the response to the next comment).

Comment #4: Finally, in a third study, they show body weight as a percent of baseline (this is appropriate) and show that rats who had free access to both chow and HFCS gained a tiny bit more weight than chow alone, 12 hours of HFCS or 12 hours of sucrose. They did not compare it to the control of 24 hours of access to sucrose.

Hoebel: The statistical test (Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance) did show an overall significant difference between female rats with HFCS to drink 24-hr per day and the groups with chow alone or 12-hr access to sucrose, as described in the Results section. We did not compare 24-hr HFCS vs. 24-hr sucrose in this study because 1) in our previous studies (with both male and female rats) we have noted that rats with 24-hr access to 10% sucrose do not gain significantly more weight than chow-fed controls, and 2) in addition to comparing HFCS to sucrose, we were interested in the effects of limited (12-h) access to HFCS to see if it would cause binging that might enhance HFCS intake or body weight. Further, we chose to focus on assessing 12-h access as a variable because we did not know the effect of 12-hr vs. 24-hr HFCS access in female rats. This was of interest to us in light of the findings in Experiment 1 in males where we made that comparison, and because our laboratory has a long-standing interest in the effects of binge eating of palatable food. We explain and give the rationale for the choice of these variables in the Methods section.

So, yes the females drinking 24-hr HFCS showed a statistically significant increase in body weight. It is important and meaningful because these females had significantly heavier fat pads in the abdominal and uterine areas. They also had higher blood triglyceride levels than the other groups, which may have contributed to the body weight and body fat characteristics of obesity.

Our study in laboratory rats complements the growing body of literature suggesting that HFCS affects body weight and some obesogenic parameters. We cite in our paper additional evidence reported by other groups that supports our findings, and also acknowledge studies that suggest that HFCS does not affect body weight in ways different than that of sucrose. We acknowledge in the paper that at higher concentrations (e.g. 32%) sucrose has been shown to increase body weight. We are claiming, however, that at the concentrations we compared in this study, HFCS causes characteristics of obesity. The data show that both male and female rats are (1) overweight, (2) have heavier fat pads, particularly in the abdominal area and (3) have elevated circulating triglyceride levels.

For more information and references on this topic, as studied in both animals and humans, see a review published this year by George Bray, Curr Opin Lipidol. 2010 Feb;21(1):51-7.“Soft drink consumption and obesity: it is all about fructose”.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Performance, BMW, Specialty, Racing

The BMW V10 ripped from an M5 and transplanted into a 3 Series does turn over on the first try – but then it starts to backfire. The GSR Autosport team shuts it down promptly and dials Apex Speed Technology. The engine and its related electronics are the most sophisticated part of the 350R. Its digital ECU is tasked with controlling fuel, spark, four-cam VANOS, dual drive-by-wire, electronic oil pumps and a variable-speed electric cooling fan. Without delay, the experts diagnose the problem (exhaust cams) and download a few fixes to the S85B50’s ECU. Set straight, the BMW Motorsport engine growls without a hiccup.

Once the engine is warmed, Michael Essa does exactly what most of us would do – he takes the brand-new 350R for a celebratory spin around the block at the industrial complex and does screaming donuts in the middle of the empty street.

Continue reading GSR Autosport BMW 350R: Part III – Testing, tuning and qualifying

GSR Autosport BMW 350R: Part III – Testing, tuning and qualifying originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 09 Apr 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Roger Alford

A federal district court in Texas has held that the Alien Tort Statute (”ATS”) requires allegations of intent to violate international law. The mere knowledge that such violation was occurring, or would occur, is insufficient to support a claim under the ATS.

The complaint in Abecassis v. Wyatt alleges that various corporations and individuals purchased oil from Iraq and made payments that violated the United Nations Oil-for-Food (”OFP”) program. The plaintiffs allege that the oil companies were involved in buying Iraqi oil with payments to a secret bank account in Jordan controlled by Hussein. Hussein used these funds from this account to make reward payments to the families of suicide bombers and others who engaged in terrorist attacks in Israel. The also allege violations of the TVPA and the Antiterrorism Act (”ATA”).

With respect to the ATS, the court dismissed the ATS claim, finding that that the requisite allegations of corporate intent to violate international law were not alleged:

It is not sufficient to allege facts showing that the defendants intended to violate the OFP or to assist Hussein in violating the OFP. That, while unlawful, is not a violation of the type of definite, universally accepted norm of international law that Sosa would include among the small set of norms giving rise to ATS jurisdiction. The allegation would have to be that the defendants acted with the purpose of assisting terrorists to murder or maim innocent civilians. No such factual allegations appears in the complaint…. The factual allegations in this case do not support a plausible inference that any defendant acted with the purpose of assisting terrorist attacks. The absence of any such allegations defeats aiding and abetting and conspiracy liability under the ATS. [pp. 51-52].

With respect to the ATA claim, the court applied a different standard, essentially a knowledge standard, but tweaked to require evidence that the defendant must know that money will be used to support terrorism against Americans:

The defendant must collect funds willfully but the only required knowledge is that the funds will be used for terrorism. Knowledge is sufficient. But … it is not enough to know the character of the ultimate organization. The defendant must know (or intend) that its money is going to a group engaged in terrorist acts or is being used to support terrorist acts…. [T]he plaintiffs have not … sufficiently alleged that any defendant had the knowledge necessary for liability. The only relevant allegations are either wholly conclusory or inadequate. The plaintiffs must allege, at a minimum, that each defendant knew that the oil it was buying through the OFP was tied to a kickback to Hussein and that Hussein was using OFP kickback money to fund terrorism that targeted American nationals…. There are no allegations that, if proven, would show that the defendants had information that Hussein was using OFP kickback money to fund terrorism targeting Americans. [pp. 67-68].

I’m not keeping score, but there seems to be a strong movement afoot for the ATS to require purposeful intent on the part of corporate defendants. With the heightened pleading standard of Iqbal, it seems increasingly likely that this standard could shut down most ATS claims. How does a plaintiff properly allege corporate intent in a complaint in order to survive the purpose test?

PreCentral has spotted a promotional advertisement with a Palm Pre Plus standing in front of several important smartphones.  The theory here is since the Pixi never made it across the Atlantic, the poster depicts the European Pixi Plus (and with it, a release of the European Pre Plus as well).  According to Laurent Guyot, who is billed by Engadget as a “French PR” individual, the devices will launch on April 27th on the SFR network.

Here’s my take on the matter – if you’re standing in front of the Motorola Milestone, Sony Ericsson X10, Nokia X6, and other important smartphones, than you’re pretty important and should be taken seriously.  It’s nothing more than a rumor until the devices launch, but given Palm’s determination to bring webOS to the masses, it makes sense to bring the flagship models to Europe.

Via Engadget, PreCentral

Storm runoff can result in a variety of problems, and its causes are just as numerous.

Photo by Nick Perla / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Without first traveling through a natural filtration system, like a wetland, or artificial filtration system, pollutants end up in waterways and damage ecosystems and water quality, according to the EPA. Cars, lawns, pets and other parts of everyday life lead to a major source of pollution for waterways, while impermeable surfaces like streets, buildings and sidewalks lead to increased runoff into storm sewers.

When it rains, or as snow melts the resulting water, known as storm runoff, carries excess litter, soil, fertilizer and other particulates to the nearest storm sewer, which then runs into nearby waterways.

“How would you feel if you knew that you and your neighbors are the biggest source of water pollution in the U.S.?” Seattle Times columnist Terri Bennett writes in her article “You and storm water: A major source of pollution.”

Inspired by Bennett’s article, here’s a look at how you may cause water pollution and how you can fix it:

Volkswagen acaba de publicar la información principal del nuevo Volkswagen Touran que recordemos será presentado de forma oficial en el próximo Salón de Leipzig. Los principales cambios estan situados en un mayor equipamiento y unas motorizaciones mucho más eficientes.

En el exterior, la parrilla ha sido renovada con un tono negro brillante. Además, contará con un asistente de activación automática de las luces largas llamado “Light Assist” para faros convencionales y el sistema de control dinámico de las luces largas permanentes denominado “Dynamic Light Assist” para faros Bi-Xenón.

En el interior tendremos más espacio gracias a la configuración de sus cinco plazas. Su maletero tiene una capacidad de 695 litros, 1.989 litros si se pliega los asientos de la segunda fila.

Por último, en lo referente a la motorización, tendremos disponibles ocho motores, cuatro diésel y cuatro de gasolina. Por el momento se desconoce el precio.

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I don’t know about you, but I never miss an opportunity to catch The Situation shirtless! New York Mets third baseman David Wright recently filmed a commercial for Vitamin Water with Jersey Shore stud Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino.

The hilarious ad features Wright and “The Sitch” working out during a montage to the theme from Rocky!

NICK ROWE hasn’t seen “Avatar”. I’m assuming that’s why he’s making this argument:

The policy problem in Avatar is that some blue people own all of some valuable natural resource, and won’t let anybody else have any.

Lloyd George, as UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, addressed the same policy problem in his 1909 “People’s Budget”. The British aristocracy owned the land, just as the blue people owned the valuable natural resource in Avatar. I don’t know if the blue people in Avatar used it for hunting foxes; probably they had peculiar customs of their own.

Inheritance taxes, and taxes on undeveloped natural resources, could have solved the problem in Avatar just as well as in the UK. Wealth taxes could have worked also. The blue people would have needed to sell off some of the valuable stuff, just to pay the taxes on it.

Progressives generally support such taxes. I don’t know why Hollywood made such a reactionary movie. Maybe the blue people are just cuter than the British aristocracy, so we ought to be on their side, against progressives like Lloyd George.

Why are our ethical views so ethereal? Why are we all such suckers for framing?

The “blue people” are residents of a planet not earth. Humans show up to this planet, want the valuable substance, and begin taking it. Mr Rowe is indicating here that the humans should have just taxed the blue people, but that seems like a pretty problematic suggestion. They would first need to obtain the right to levy a tax on people who are occupying what we might infer is a sovereign planet.

The situation is not like a Britain, in other words, in which there are lots of Britons but only some of them have land. Instead it’s like a world in which Americans would like Saudi Arabia’s petroleum and therefore decide to levy a tax on Saudi Arabia. Or, it’s kind of like sailing over to America when the occupants were all Native Americans and demanding that they pay a tax and oh, by the way, if you want to sell us your land so that you can afford to pay the tax that’s fine by us. Taxation, set up this way, is basically the same thing as just taking the land or resources you want. So, you know, progressives aren’t being suckers, at least in this case.

Meanwhile, can I say that it’s somewhat annoying when economists (and other pundits) draw conclusions about the things people believe based on the movies they enjoy, and specifically based on the heroes they adopt? Many, many people rally behind film heroes who do terrible, terrible things. That doesn’t make them suckers with ethereal ethical views. It makes them folks trying to enjoy a movie.

The Army National Guard kicked off this year’s new Decade of Health campaign, “Ready and Resilient II – Strength from Within” here at the Army National Guard Readiness Center April 8…

The commander of the New York National Guard is in Iraq and Kuwait this week to visit New York Army National Guard Soldiers from the Capital Region who are deployed there…

More than 100 North Carolina National Guardsmen were activated by Gov. Beverly Perdue on April 6 to help the Edgecomb County Sherriff’s Department search for the remains of two women…

Between the active duty Air Force and Air National Guard personnel, there are almost 500 pilots who have flown the B-2 Spirit, but only 30 have reached 1,000 flying hours…

Aloqa is an app that makes you an everywhere citizen. It uses GPS to find your location and provide you details on anything you may need to feel comfortable in your locale. It claims with the app you can always feel like a local, and in my experience, doesn’t fail. With a steady stream of help from popular websites including Last.fm, Yelp, Match.com and more, Aloqa brings you information fast. I saw no lag at all moving from pet info, to movies, to singles and ATM listings.

Simply put, this app is well made. You can update the home page to show as many or few channels you want with a wide range of different categories from arts and culture to weather. Anything not provided can be found with a local search, which is available. In addition, the app does allow you to set how often the GPS is used. You can actually turn the GPS off, or throw your battery to the wolves and set GPS updates to once every five seconds (I can’t fathom why that many updates are necessary but it’s cool it can be done). Lastly, it should be addressed that with Aloqa you are able to set alert levels for each individual channel as deactivated, mute, buzz (vibrate), or ring.

The Good

• Customization – allows you to show and hear what you want
• Fast program overall
• No overlay ads!
• Up to date – Had the newest restaurants in my area and none of the closed restaurants or clubs

Needs improvement

• Fast food listings should include more options (although you can use Yelp rest. To see all restaurants).
• A forum or chat would be nice.
• The ability to purchase directly from app.

Final Verdict: Aloqa is a fantastic app that I can’t believe is free. Whatever you may need to find in the city can be attained with phone numbers, websites, maps, and often reviews. Aloqa claims you’ll always be a local with the app, and after using it, I don’t see why anyone would want to be a stranger.

Note: This review was submitted by Darius Bazemore as part of our app review contest.

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Five months away from professional competition, and away from the public eye (despite unwillingly being in it,) Tiger Woods returned Thursday with not a splash, but an enormous, cannonball-sized KERPLUNK.   “For him to be this sharp, is truly remarkable,” says Scott Maurer.  He follows “everything Tiger” because it’s in his business interest.  He owns Millionaire Gallery, and for the 15th Masters in a row, he, his tent and hundreds of pieces of autographed golf memorabilia sit on the busy corner of Washington Road and Berkmans, where the throngs of people lucky enough, or rich enough, to have passes into the Augusta National Golf Club walk by each morning and afternoon.  His top three sellers are Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods, the only three men to wear the green jacket 4 times.  Maurer is in the daily vortex of Masters evesdropping.  And today, with Tiger having birdied hole 2 this morning, but following a bogie, back to 4 under par, Maurer says the Tiger buzz is definitely in the air, for his golf game.  “He’s the #1 player in the world.”    Woods returned to the golf spotlight Thursday at 1:42, hitting his first drive down the fairway.  For the first time in his career, he made 2 eagles in one round.  For the first time in his career, he shot under 70 on opening day at The Masters.  And for the only time in his life, he returned from perhaps the most spectacular fall from public grace for any sports figure in history with a spectacular record day personally, sitting 2 strokes behind the leader and very much in contention to pull off what almost every other golf champion said would be impossible after that long of a break from competition:  win The Masters.  And what astounded Guy Carteng, who drove in from Charleston, South Carolina to walk alongside Woods for a few holes, is how the fans overwhelmingly embraced the new, and declaredly remorseful, Woods.   Big applause.  Repeated shouts of “go Tiger!”  And an electricity of widespread disbelief of how amazingly well Woods was actually playing.  “I was shocked,” said Carteng.  “I turned to the guy next to me and asked him if he was also surprised, and he said, ‘you know,  America’s all about second chances.”   And Maurer knows that a historic weekend here in Augusta will likely mean more sales of any Woods merchandise.  “If Tiger wins this year and wins his 5th green jacket, no one will remember what he did.”  Its’ the classic American storyline:  meteoric rise to the top, incredible fall from grace and then the return to dominance, success and return to idol status.  So far, Woods has parts 1 and 2 fulfilled.

The short answer is yes — the Mining Health and Safety Administration (a branch of the Labor Department) has the power to close mines and hike penalties if officials can identify a “pattern of violations.” Yet, as new MSHA data show (reported here and here), the agency never went that route with the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. — where an explosion Monday killed at least 25 miners — despite the thousands of safety violations cited there in recent years.

Why not? Well, it’s tough to say. MSHA officials insist that they did everything they could to ensure the Upper Big Branch was safe. Aside from the thousands of hours they spent inspecting the mine (2,999 hours in 2009 and 803 hours in 2010, according to The Washington Post), they also closed down parts of the operation more than 60 times since the start of 2009, according to the Labor Department. And they’re pushing back hard against claims that those efforts weren’t enough.

“We issued citations for every hazard we identified,” Greg Wagner, a top MSHA deputy, told The Charleston Gazette yesterday. “We held the operator accountable for correcting the problems that were cited. … We can’t be in the mine all the time in every place.”

Yet those 60+ closings came in the form of so-called withdrawal orders, which are temporary actions to pull miners from unsafe sections of the project until the danger is eliminated. That strategy is different from shuttering the operation for longer stretches in response to “a continuing hazard.” That move would require a judge’s approval and proof of a “pattern of violations.”

And here’s where the mining companies have discovered a loophole. Knowing that MSHA can’t establish a “pattern of violations” on citations that haven’t been finalized, the companies are protesting more and more of the violations. (After all, how can you determine a pattern if hundreds of citations remain in dispute?) In 2005, mine operators protested just 6 percent of violations, a MSHA official told House lawmakers in February. In 2009, they protested 27 percent. The trend has led to an enormous backlog for the few judges examining the appeals. Indeed, as of February, the backlog consisted of 16,000 cases involving 82,000 separate violations.

There are currently 10 judges wading through the appeals, with funding already allocated for four more, who are somewhere in the nomination process. Additionally, President Obama’s 2011 budget calls for another four, bringing the total to 18 (assuming Congress provides the funding). But Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, says there need to be at least 22 such judges to eliminate the backlog of appeals.

A 2008 bill, passed by the House, would have altered the “pattern of violation” language in order to make it easier for MSHA officials to close mines known to be habitual offenders. Republicans at the time said it would “saddle employers with burdensome new costs that could put critical American jobs in jeopardy,” in the words of Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio).

In the wake of Monday’s blast, however, lawmakers have the appeals loophole back on their radars. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told MSNBC yesterday that it’s up to Congress to step in and close the loophole. “It’s simply playing with the lives of coal miners in a very cynical way,” he said. “And yet, it’s our fault in Congress that we have not foreseen that loophole.”

For the better part of a decade, the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has coasted through the stratosphere, surveilling vast panoramas of land below for the U.S. Air Force and Navy. Now the plane’s broad reach will serve science. NASA announced this week that it had completed the first test flight of a Global Hawk retrofitted with monitoring equipment to help scientists study the the oceans, the atmosphere, and more.

“We can go to regions we couldn’t reach or go to previously explored regions and study them for extended periods that are impossible with conventional planes,” said David Fahey, co-mission scientist and research physicist [CNN]. From the comfort of their offices in Dryden Flight Research Center in the Mojave Desert, pilots flew the plane 14 hours up to the Arctic Ocean on this test run. Though this flight lasted about 14 hours, the Global Hawk can stay aloft for 30, and reach altitudes of 60,000, or twice as high as your last commercial airline flight attained.

Instead of the high-resolution cameras and heat-seeking sensors the plane … typically carries when used in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Global Hawk was outfitted with a series of instruments capable of measuring and sampling greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting substances, and aerosols [Los Angeles Times]. However, the UAVs can be employed in a pinch for other services, too. The Air Force used the cameras on theirs, for instance, to study the impacts of the Haitian earthquake from above. For more on future applications of the military’s unmanned vehicles, check out the May issue of DISCOVER hitting newsstands now.

Another Earth observer launched this week will go even higher than NASA’s Global Hawk. The European Space Agency’s Cryosat-2, strapped to the top of a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Kazakhstan, reached orbit yesterday. Success tasted especially sweet for the Cryosat team, who lost the first satellite during a botched launch five years ago: The Russian rocket failed to separate from its third stage, and the whole assembly, including its satellite, plunged into the Arctic Ocean – the very waters whose icy secrets CryoSat had been designed to uncover [The Independent].

Cryosat-2 is so named because its decade-long mission is to study the cryosphere, the scientific name for the parts of the world covered in ice. In a polar orbit—which passes over both poles—the satellite will continually document both ice thickness and extent. CryoSat-2 has incredibly high-resolution altimeters (able to measure ice thickness to an accuracy of 1 centimeter), so we can finally gain an accurate measure of how much water is locked as ice in the poles [Discovery News].

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Image: NASA/Dryden/Carla Thomas

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Despite all the buzz this week that the upcoming major update to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad operating system was all about multitasking and APIs, the real story was iAd. Although multitasking-deprived Apple fans haven’t been holding their breath for almost three years waiting for an advertising framework, the new mobile ad network is infinitely more significant to the future of the platform than the ability to run more than one app at a time.

In many respects, iAd is nothing short of a full frontal assault on Google. While Google’s model for generating ad revenue from activity-linked behaviors has rewritten the rules of advertising over much of the past decade, the path for the mobile market has not been as linear. Desktops and laptops have more than enough bandwidth and screen real estate to easily accommodate subtle text-based ads (or not-so-subtle dancing-cow banners) without significantly disrupting the end user experience. Indeed, many users can become so engaged in a given service — search, mail, productivity, mapping, whatever — that they virtually ignore the presence of ad-containing boxes toward the edge of the screen. Even if they’re aware of them, the delivery paradigm on a traditional desktop, evolved in recent years to a ruthless level of efficiency, is largely responsible for Google’s meteoric corporate rise.

The desktop ad paradigm isn’t portable

What works on a large screen that we often stare at for hours during the course of a typical workday doesn’t necessarily work on a much smaller screen that we glance at quickly as we rush from one meeting to the next. On smartphones, there isn’t enough room or time for end users to consume ads the Google way. So the industry’s inability to date to concoct a formula that works now gives Apple just enough of a window of opportunity for its own formula — namely, in-app ads.

Like everything in the Apple universe, however, this new capability comes with a cost.

But because I’m an optimist, I’ll focus first on the good stuff. Developers will love iAd because it addresses a few of the key issues that have made coding for the iPhone something of a thankless process for many. Coders must first navigate an approval process that is still less transparent than it needs to be, and that consequently results in some submissions spending weeks or months in approval limbo. Once approved, their titles must fight for attention amid a vast, fast-growing sea of competing apps. The pricing model doesn’t do them any favors, either, as average selling prices have dropped significantly since the days of packaged software.

Giving developers the newfound ability to continue to make money via their apps, while also moving beyond the sell-once revenue model that’s so long defined the industry, is a sea change that could give developers additional reasons to stick with Apple, while resisting the lure of up-and-coming competitors like Google’s Android.

There’s a downside, too

Not everything is perfect in iAd-land, however. If developers are happy that they’ve got new opportunities to make money, then end users must certainly be dreading yet another incursion of advertising into yet another aspect of their lives.

Although advertisers in recent years have found ever more creative places to plaster their messages in the real world — on police cruisers, on the back of subway tickets and even atop urinals in public washrooms — nothing approaches the aggressiveness with which they’ve invaded the online world. Ordinary Web pages become riots of Whack-a-Mole, as end users try to squash unwanted and unwelcome pop-ups. Advertisers use non-standard interfaces to keep the ads displayed for a precious extra few seconds before the elusive close box can be found and clicked on. Workflow grounds to a halt as ever more intrusive ad delivery mechanisms take over what used to be pristine online ground.

What’s annoying to the average end user on a 23-inch screen is infinitely worse on a smartphone. Not everyone has an unlimited data plan. For those who do not, the prospect of multitasking applications seamlessly sucking up bandwidth to fill the in-app advertising pipeline is frightening. For mobile users who’ve become accustomed to lightening their data load while on the go, they now face the prospect of data overages to support ads they never asked for and never wanted.

Even if they are on an unlimited plan, the annoyance factor is potentially much higher because all that background ad-related data transfer takes bandwidth away from the stuff folks are trying to get done, like messaging, mapping, and searching. Thanks to the newly-multitasking-capable iPhone OS v4.0, it’s entirely conceivable that a few apps pulling down ad content could easily saturate one’s wireless connection. Think about everyone complaining about 3G coverage in urban areas today. Now multiply the problem by 4.

Who owns your data now?

In-app advertising also opens up a veritable Pandora’s Box of privacy issues, specifically around how developers will use location- and user-based knowledge to tailor what’s delivered. Since the process, delivered within the context of a given application, is one level removed from the operating system, who’s accountable for the inevitable privacy concerns that will erupt when a misbehaving developer configures a misbehaving app to cross a privacy/confidentiality line or two? I see a lot of finger-pointing between Apple and developers when the first headlines begin to filter out, as well as a lot of nervous iPhone owners wondering, just who has access now to the trove of supposedly private data in their pockets, and what do they intend to do with it?

I don’t begrudge Apple’s desire to level the mobile advertising playing field and use its iPhone-related successes to date to give it a leg up in its quest to join Google as a Web services powerhouse. Advertising pays the freight for a growing range of online services, and it would be naïve to assume smartphones won’t eventually become advertising platforms in their own right.

But in rushing toward a monetized mobile future and going for Google’s jugular, Apple needs to ensure it doesn’t damage the cherished end user experiences that got it to its current market position in the first place. The iAd platform will succeed or fail depending on how finely Apple can balance the competing needs of its often divergent stakeholders.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010