Google says the US government is ignoring a precious natural resource. And no, the search giant obviously isn't talking about oil. Google, along with other big companies, wants the US government to open up unused air waves. The company says this could lead to people across the country surfing the Web on handheld devices at gigabits-per-second speeds.

Google, Microsoft and others have been petitioning the FCC to free up the unsed portion of the spectrum—known as white space—for some time now, but the company filed a six page letter late last week that makes its intentions, and the potential effects of its plan, much clearer. Now Google says this freeing of the airwaves would enable people all over the U.S. to cheaply and easily access the Internet through small handheld devices by the end of next year. Here's an excerpt from the company's letter to the government:

"As Google has pointed out previously, the vast majority of viable spectrum in this country simply goes unused, or else is grossly under-utilized. Unlike other natural resources, there is no benefit to allowing this spectrum to lie fallow."




The Cassini probe has found evidence that there may be an underground ocean on Saturn's moon Titan. The moon is already an area of tremendous interest to planetary scientists, given its dunes, lakes and mountains. It also has one of the most Earth-like surfaces in the solar system. Now, by using radar measurements to detect changes in the moon's rotation, scientists have gotten more insight into what's below the surface.

At this point, scientists think that there may be an ocean of liquid water and ammonia sitting some 60 miles down beneath the surface.

A paper describing the work appears in the current issue of the journal Science. The Cassini group is planning to take another close look at Titan today, when the craft will study the moon's upper atmosphere.







Satellite images released today by the British Antarctic Survey and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reveal a massive collapse over the past month—disintegration resulting in, most recently, a breakaway iceberg seven times the size of Manhattan.

Now, the entire shelf is attached by a single strip of ice less than 4 miles wide. "The ice shelf is hanging by a thread," said Professor David Vaughan of the BAS. "We'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be." Over the last few decades the western Antarctic Peninsula has seen the biggest temperature change on Earth. It has also experienced an increasing number of major collapses as warmer temperatures and previously unexposed ocean waves erode its shelves. Wilkins, which scientists believe is at least a few hundred years old, is the largest yet to succumb, and likely a harbinger of more to come.



One of the dire consequences of factory farming is that it encourages the spread of disease due to the close quarters in which the animals live. That’s why they’re fed antibiotics and other medicines when they aren’t sick. This overuse of antibiotics, while beneficial to the flocks and herds in the short term, leads to stronger and more drug-resistant bacteria in the long term. The effect has been widely reported by popular authors like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. What we haven’t heard much about are how viruses can thrive in this environment.

Ian York, an immunologist at Michigan State University, has this week written a story about chicken infected with Marek’s Disease Virus (MDV). The virus was a relatively minor nuisance before industrial scale farming operations brought large flocks of chickens together. Once the disease took hold, a vaccine was developed, but the virus managed to evolve and become more virulent until the vaccine was ineffective. This cycle has happened repeatedly over the past fifty years.

What is most interesting about MDV is the vaccines to combat it have likely contributed to the virus’s strengthening because none of them rendered the virus sterile. While the vaccines were effective at preventing the disease MDV causes, they were not effective at preventing transmission from bird to bird. The larger point York makes is that this may be just what the virus wants—he theorizes that viruses aren’t interested in evolving toward greater virulence but rather toward improved transmission.

That’s especially bad news in the face of the industry’s current eye toward cloning and genetic homogeny in the name of building a more uniform steak or fillet. Improved transmission among a diverse population is one thing, but among a homogeneous population is certain to lead to ruin.




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