What if some machine never stops running to produce an unlimited clean power everlastingly! I think it will be amazing. Now, to accomplish the same task to produce clean eco-friendly power continuously an outsized Irish company, Steorn has developed an avant-garde perpetual motion machine-Orbo that produces free energy or energy from nothing.

Perpetual motion machine:

However, we have many other machines that produce energy via water, sun and air but this free energy producing device is so unique that it can also help to solve the world’s energy predicament one day.

How Orbo functions:

Firstly, to generate free energy it utilizes power of magnetism and functions completely on the theory of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. Secondly, the mechanical energy produced can also be converted into electrical energy by exploiting standard generator technology and by amalgamating this technology directly with Orbo or by linking the mechanical output from Orbo to the generation technology.
But it is noteworthy that the effectiveness of such mechanical/electrical conversions methods are based on the components used and is also a function of size.

Cost to develop this ultramodern machine:

To develop this machine Steorn spent more than $5.7 million in Orbo and $160,000 to place its ad on The Economist. Now, after 10 months to check Steron claims, an unnamed panel of 22 scientists is testing this technology but we will get the results sometimes at the end of this year whereas to make this machine known publicly this energy producing magical device was demonstrated at East London’s Kinetica Museum on Wednesday and on Internet too.

And as according to Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy statement that he said in a promotional video on his company’s website that ‘I have no doubts about the results’, it seems that Steorn is so confident in its innovation that it will definitely put the name of this perpetual motion machine in golden words to produce clean and unlimited power from nothing, thanks Steorn.

UK goes ’smoke free’ from today with the ban that restricts smokers to fag in workspace and any other enclosed public place.The ban has been basically forwarded to protect passive smokers. Also, the ban can make people lessen up or give up smoking. Moreover, if the ban succeeds in its noble cause, it is good news for everyone and also for their sex life. Yes, if you remember smoking can give way to many sexual problems.

Smoking is bad for health and we all know that, but most of us don’t seem to care. Smoking has many bad effects on our physical health. It harms the lungs and also constricts blood flow. It is also a cause for late reactions and loss of patience. Apart from these physical and mental problems, fagging is particularly dangerous for men as it causes them difficulty in getting and maintaining an erection. If smoked for a long time it can also give rise to impotence or erectile dysfunction in men. For women who are pregnant smoking can lead to many dysfunctions in the baby and also cause a ‘dead birth.’ It also weakens our senses, especially taste and smell, which are an indispensable part of a good sex life.

These are enough reasons for you to quit smoking and if you still need more, keep on reading. No one likes yellow teeth, bad breath and smoke smell coming from the fingers and this is what smoking basically leaves you with. These things can as well put off your partner in the bed. Overall, smokers lead an unhealthy lifestyle which also makes them socially less acceptable. They also ignore food and have a bad, irregular diet system that results in poor health. Those who don’t fag lead better lifestyles, eat healthy diets and in turn also have better and enjoyable sex. You can always ask a friend or a family member to help you quit smoking and if you have a good will power, you alone are enough. You can also contact counselors or log on to the various websites, whose alone aim is to help people quit smoking. Gosmokefree and Quit are two of such websites.

As the French philosopher, Albert Schweitzer said, “Every patient carries her or his own doctor inside”, I hope you do too. Best of luck for your efforts to quit this deadly sin!

According to a top prosecutor from Panama, since July 2006 about 94 people in the region have died due to consumption of medicines tainted with diethylene glycol and some 293 more deaths are still under investigation. The prosecutor, Dimas Guevara has claimed that in spite of the fact that the tainted medicine has been cleared off the market in October, deaths continue.

The officials have confirmed 51 deaths due to the tainted medicine and it is quite clear that the number has been increasing. The chemical, diethylene glycol, commonly used in antifreeze was found to be present in medicines like antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion, cough syrup and rash ointment. These medicines were manufactured in a government laboratory in Panama itself.

However, the investigations revealed that the chemical came from a Chinese company, which sold it to a Spanish company labeled as a 99.5% pure glycerin. The company in turn sold it to Panama’s Medicom SA that sold it to the laboratory. For conducting the investigation, officials also had to dig up the corpses of victims who had died last year. Later, the tests confirmed that they were killed by the contaminated medicines.

In connection with the deaths, three Medicom executives are facing charges for crimes against public health. Well, China badly needs to improve its image.

MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory hope that their work could lead to the first drug to treat the millions of adults who suffer each year from persistent, debilitating fears - including hundreds of soldiers returning from conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5 facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context, Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and colleagues showed.

Conversely, the learned fear persisted when the kinase's activity was increased in the hippocampus, the brain's center for storing memories, the scientists found.

Cdk5, paired with the protein p35, helps new brain cells, or neurons, form and migrate to their correct positions during early brain development, and the MIT researchers looked at how Cdk5 affects the ability to form and eliminate fear-related memories.

"Remarkably, inhibiting Cdk5 facilitated extinction of learned fear in mice," Tsai said. "This data points to a promising therapeutic avenue to treat emotional disorders and raises hope for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or phobia."

Emotional disorders such as post-traumatic stress and panic attacks stem from the inability of the brain to stop experiencing the fear associated with a specific incident or series of incidents.

For some people, upsetting memories of traumatic events do not go away on their own, or may even get worse over time, severely affecting their lives.

A study conducted by the Army in 2004 found that one in eight soldiers returning from Iraq reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

According to the National Center for PTSD in the United States, around eight percent of the population will have PTSD symptoms at some point in their lives. Some 5.2 million adults have PTSD during a given year, the center reports.

In the current research, genetically engineered mice received mild foot shocks in a certain environment and were re-exposed to the same environment without the foot shock.

The team found that mice with increased levels of Cdk5 activity had more trouble letting go of the memory of the foot shock and continued to freeze in fear.

The reverse was also true: in mice whose Cdk5 activity was inhibited, the bad memory of the shocks disappeared when the mice learned that they no longer needed to fear the environment where the foot shocks had once occurred.

"In our study, we employ mice to show that extinction of learned fear depends on counteracting components of a molecular pathway involving the protein kinase Cdk5," Tsai concluded. "We found that Cdk5 activity prevents extinction, at least in part by negatively affecting the activity of another key kinase."

Child Bride (credit: VIjay Pandey)

Seetha, a 25 year old, was married to Ram and lived with his parents in a rural village in India. She was not from a wealthy family and her parents promised her in laws to give her dowry later. Days became months and months became years. Her in laws were restless about the fact that dowry was late and they ill-treated her. Even her husband did not have a say. One day, she was murdered. She had paid the dowry with her life.

This is not a rare incident in India, but they are not publicised. Dowry is a payment made to a woman’s in-laws upon her engagement or marriage as a gift to her new family. It is a common thing to exceed dowries to the family’s annual income. According to official crime statistics in India, 6,822 women were killed in 2002 because of such violence. Small community studies have also indicated that dowry demands have played an important role in women being burned to death and in deaths of women labelled as suicides.

Dowry murder is just one example where traditions serve badly for women. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) report these violations include female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM), dowry murder, so-called “honour killings,” and early marriage. They lead to death, disabilities, and physical and psychological dysfunction for millions of women annually. These victims are found mainly in the Africa, South Asian and the Middle East.

Film makers like Deepa Mehtha have attempted to break the conspiracy of silence by exposing this social malady in their works. In her Oscar nominate film ‘Water’, one gets a glimpse of the widows who were kept apart for the sake of the traditions. The main character in the film Chuyiya, a seven-year-old widow, tells the whole world about the tragedy of early marriage system in India.

Women in these societies are frustrated by the lack of progress made in tackling these social ills.

"It is a pity that no proper action is taken to stop violations," said Meera from India.

Many people in the West are unaware of the scale of the problem. Those who had heard about these abuses labelled them as the extreme cases, but pointed out that women in US and Europe are not immune to discrimination in the name of tradition.

“These are extreme examples,” Andrea from USA said. “Many people do not realize that even certain Western traditions hurt women. For example, I do not intend on changing my last name when I get married. If you research the origin of this tradition, you will be shocked at the misogyny. I love my last name; it represents my amazing family and all their struggles. Some say, well don't you want your family to be united? Of course, in Italy, women don't change their last name; does that mean their family is not a unit?”

The traditionalists are offering stiff resistance to bringing about social change that would lead to the making the situation better. Women continue to be harassed, exploited, and murdered, all in the name of tradition.

Designer/Company: Sunman Kwon from Hongik University
Embedded Technology: Finger touching wearable mobile device

This new technological advancement would theoretically convert your hand into a cell phone.

Researcher, Sunman Kwon from Hongik University, has been able to manufacture a “finger touching wearable mobile device” that enables you to make calls just as if we do through a cell phone. This idea is not at all bad as you may have a 3.5G and 4G technology readily available.

How cool would it be to snap with your finger to witch on or off your iPod or Computer or many other of the gadgets around you. Or play a cool game on your Wii with this glove! Al least this controller will not smash your TV.

Researchers at Engineered Fibre Structures (EFS), a University of Manchester spin-out, are very close to give us just this, a soft-fabric electronic glove that remotely controls equipment via a Bluetooth connection.

The glove is produced from standard acrylic or stretch-nylon base yarn and it can be made on a conventional industrial knitting machine. The wearable device looks and feels like a normal glove, except it has conductive pathways knitted into the material. The fingers are tipped with contactors, so if you put your thumb together with any other finger, you create a electric circuit and pang, you can activate anything that is designed to receive those signals.

Navigate your way with your fingertips trough documents in a office application or add a new interaction experience to your online world.

The glove was recently patented by EFS, and the company’s engineers believe its current configuration is best designed for gaming. Billy Hunter, the lead commercial director for the product, said this sort of application would be a commercial success judging by current trends. ‘You’ve got all these sort of things out now like Nintendo Wii,’ he said.

The Control Glove can be used in patient rehabilitation in healthcare, as a controller in video games, as a computer interface, and as a communications device, for industrial, security and military applications.

According to the engineers involved in this project, they are content with the current configuration of the glove, but for certain applications they might need to do some redesigning.

‘The textile part of the glove is more or less done,’ said Hunter. ‘If necessary, we can change the configuration fairly easily. What we need to do now is to miniaturise the electronics in the Bluetooth.’

Now let’s hope that we will see very soon the Fingertip control glove inaction with our Wii.

Sony "Glasstron"
PLM-A35 LCD Eyeglasses

Quite possibly the coolest pair of shades that you'll ever wear. And guaranteed to attract a crowd faster than a Coolpix 950 with an EagleEye OpticZoom, unless you're using both of them at the same time!

These are the Sony PLM-A35 "Glasstron" Personal Home Theater System LCD eyeglasses.

We all complain about not being able to see our LCD screens outside in the bright sunlight, right?   Put on a pair of these bad boys, plug your digicam's video cable into the control unit and your monitor is now as visible outdoors as it is indoors.

And get this ... the PLM-A35 glasses simulate a 52" diagonal screen when viewed from a distance of 6.5 feet.

The PLM-A35 system comes complete with a control box, AC power supply, AV cables and 3 RCA-to-RCA adapter plugs. Shown here with the optional NP-F550 InfoLITHIUM battery.

The Glasstron has two 0.55-inch Liquid Crystal Displays, each with a resolution of 180,000 pixels (800 H x 225 V) and a horizontal viewing angle of 30°.  For multimedia use there's a pair of stereo ear bud speakers too, shown here in the stored position.

The control unit has the audio and video input jack, a standard 4-pin mini DIN S-Video connector, the 9vdc input jack, volume control, brightness control, auto volume leveling system and on the bottom is a user lockout switch to prevent its use by children.

This device was designed to be used by adults only, extended use can cause eye fatigue or damage. After three hours of use it displays a warning message to that effect.

You can easily take your Glasstron portable by adding a Sony NP-F550, NP-F750 or NP-F950 InfoLITHIUM rechargeable battery. Sony claims 5 hours use with the NP-F550 battery.

Steve's Conclusion

Cool ... very cool!   And practical too unless you're trying to use them while walking and shooting in a different direction. Used with a digital camera or a camcorder, these are the ultimate color viewfinder. Many videographers are now using devices like these to give them the freedom to shoot low or high angle shots without the need of the usual external monitor.

They're not cheap -- I picked these up from Supreme Video for $449 (MSRP $599) and there's an even more expensive ($1995) and higher resolution model available. The resolution is 800x225 pixels which means the display is not razor sharp when used with 640x480 video but it is more than enough to know that you have your subject properly framed and the focus is close.

I got tired of sticking all kinds of LCD shades on my camera so I could see it when using add-on lenses. Even with the best sunshade on the LCD it was still a problem in extremely high ambient light conditions. Now I have the monitor virtually inches away from my eyes and it is very easy to see what I am aiming at. Plus you can switch off the camera's LCD and greatly increase the battery life. Accessing menus to change advanced features is also a breeze now that I no longer have to squint to see the LCD.

The negative to all of this is that these head-mounted LCDs are not for everyone. Some people will experience side effects such as dizziness, eye fatigue, nausia or worse. The instruction manual is loaded with legal disclaimers, the most noteable is the warning to not use them while driving or to allow their use by those under the age of 15.   I have yet to have used them for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time and even then I noticed that it took a few moments to get back to normal visual reality again. If used with common sense I don't see them as being any more dangerous than a pair of binoculars.

Menorrhagia is a medical term used with excessive bleeding in females during their menstrual periods. But many of us do not understand the term and ignore the condition. You can be experiencing menorrhagia if your periods are longer or equal to one week. Another way to know is to notice if you need to change your tampon or pads at an interval of less then one or two hours. If so, you might be suffering through it. Here is the list of five very common reasons which cause menorrhagia or heavy menstrual bleeding:

• The most common cause of menorrhagia is hormonal imbalance.

• At the onset of menstrual cycle and several years before menopause, the hormonal levels oscillate. This also causes excessive bleeding. However, these imbalances can be treated with pills and medicines.

• Uterine fibroid tumors, which are usually benign (non-cancerous) tumors, occur in the uterus of women during their thirties or forties. They also cause excessive bleeding when present. While the causes of uterine fibroid tumors are unclear, there dependence on estrogen is apparent. These tumors can be treated by surgeries. Also, non-surgical pharmacological treatments like GnRH agonists, oral contraceptives, androgens, RU486 (the abortion pill) are available.

• Occurrence of cervical polyps is another common factor. These are minute, delicate growths that occur in either the mucosal surface of the cervix or the endocervical canal. These are usually caused due to an infection and sometimes also associated to increased estrogen levels or congestion of the blood vessels located in the cervical area. Antibiotics and a treatment can easily cure these.

• Another non-cancerous growth called endometrial polyps that usually occur in and along the lining of the uterus. These are also associated with excess of estrogen. Hysteroscopy and D&C treatments can cure this condition.

There's something special about river journeys. In a round-up of the best, Jane Archer begins at the Yangtze to see the Three Gorges - and that dam.

Rivers that deliver

In pictures: exotic river cruises

If Mark Twain were with me now, he would no doubt have something pithy and memorable to say. Something along the lines of: "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Because here I am, cruising the Yangtze River, five years after British tour operators told us we had to take a cruise immediately, before the main attraction - the Three Gorges - disappeared. The reason: in June 2003 the reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam would begin to fill, flooding the river.

	The majestic views of the Three Gorges.

"It was all such rubbish. You'll see. It's much more beautiful now," whispered a Yangtze insider as we drove from Yichang airport to Maoping to board our cruise boat, Viking Century Sky. Meanwhile Jack, our dam guide, rattled off facts and figures about China's new Great Wall: 1.4 miles long; 606ft high; a billion cubic feet of concrete; and enough steel to build 63 Eiffel Towers.

Of course he was only half right. I would certainly see the river and the Three Gorges, but as I had not seen either before I couldn't really judge if they were better. While Jack and other guides are keen to cite reasons for building the dam that sound compelling enough - to stop the summer floods that have killed thousands of people living along the river over the past century, and to provide hydroelectric power to replace some of the electricity generated by China's environmentally unfriendly coal power stations - it remains one of the most controversial construction projects in the world.

About 1.13 million people have had to leave their homes to escape the rising water level (it has gone up from 91m above sea level in 2003 to 156m, and will rise to 175m when the dam project is completed in 2009). Many of them were farmers, who were forced to give up working the land to live in ugly concrete apartments in new towns, and to be trained for urban jobs.

On the positive side, the new apartments have more living space and mod cons such as flushing toilets, we were told. The delightfully named Summer, my guide on an excursion from Fengdu new town to the Snowy Jade Cave, was so delighted to have hot water in her new apartment that she didn't care she had to walk up seven flights of stairs to get to her front door. Apparently buildings only got a lift if they had 10 or more floors.

Whatever the wrongs and rights of it, the dam has given China a new tourist attraction.

As we drove to the construction site for our first excursion - included in the cruise price, as are all the tours on this cruise - the words of a guide on a recent trip to the Aswan Dam in Egypt were ringing in my ears. "People always ask me, why do we have to look at a damn dam?" I quickly realised I was alone in my scepticism - the place was crawling with sightseers. It apparently attracts up to 15,000 visitors a day, many of them from the 35-plus cruise boats that ply the river.

Actually, although the dam is about as attractive as... well, a lump of concrete, it was exciting to get up close and to see the massive locks that boats and barges have to pass through to get up or down river. There are five locks in each direction, and boats take about three hours to transit, so I imagine that by the time you get through you really have had enough of the damn dam. There will also be a lift to get small boats over the dam - but it won't be ready until at least 2011.

Back on our river boat, we set sail for the first of the three gorges, as cruise manager Max gave a lecture about the Yangtze to a packed audience. Each evening before dinner Max also gave a quick preview of what was coming up the next day, with details on the walking involved, the number of steps to climb and the quality of what our guides liked to call "happy houses" en route. This was important, as the Americans took great exception to the local toilets, which were simply a hole in the ground - usually clean and dry, if paperless.

The lecture over, we all piled up to the top deck for the main event - sailing through the first of the Three Gorges. And almost everyone set their alarms for the following morning, as we had to be up and out early for gorge No 2.

So there we were in Wu Gorge at 7am when about 50 left hands shot into the air, all obeying Owen, the river guide. "Now can you see the goddess, above your thumb?" he asked, clearly seeing nothing peculiar in our stance, which looked more like something from a political rally of the dictatorship variety. Judging by the mumbled responses, we were equally divided between the "no" and the "not sure" camps, with just an occasional whoop of delight as someone finally saw her.

This has not been a good week for Sir Richard Branson, but he is unfazed: 'I have set up 350 companies since I started. Not one of those has ever gone bankrupt'

On the face of it, this has not been a good week for the Virgin king. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Rail lost its Cross Country franchise; his 49pc partner in his Virgin Atlantic airline - Singapore Airlines - wants to bail out, and that on-screen soap opera, Virgin Media, keeps losing customers to arch-rival BSkyB, as the satellite broadcaster's latest figures show.

	Sir Richard defines Virgin as 'a way-of-life' brand

No wonder tongues are wagging - again - that the Virgin brand is losing its sheen. Why, there's even talk that should US private equity house Carlyle prevail in its £11bn tilt at Virgin Media, it would axe the Virgin name, potentially depriving 10.5pc shareholder Sir Richard of a licensing fee worth at least £8.5m a year.

Rita Clifton, chairman of brand consultancy Interbrand, acknowledges that "the Virgin brand has had its ups and downs over the years", citing the relative failures of Virgin Cola, Virgin Brides and, in the early days, Virgin Rail. While it has always bounced back, things may be getting tougher.

For Ms Clifton, the Virgin ethos has been to "identify a market with some distinctive bad guys where you could - in an irreverent, witty way - provide good value and make the big incumbents look slow and a rip-off. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to find markets where you can do that and it's more difficult to carry on being the irreverent, brash competitor when you have been around for a long time."

Virgin's business model is to build brands and license them, taking an annual fee - often a portion of turnover - which Sir Richard says comes to "tens of millions a year. The brand rights alone cover all the central costs, with some left over."

The model has allowed Sir Richard, who defines Virgin as "a way-of-life brand", to expand his empire without tying up lots of capital.

Latest research from YouGov/Brand Index shows that positive perceptions far outweigh negative on most of Virgin's bigger brands.

YouGov polls 700 people daily on different Virgin brands asking them to rate their value, quality, general impressions, corporate reputation, customer satisfaction, buzz and whether they would recommend them to a friend.

Only Virgin Cola underperforms, with a fairly consistent 10pc of pollsters more negative than positive. Contrast that with Virgin Atlantic, where the positives outweigh the negatives by more than 20pc; Virgin Megastores, 10pc-plus; Virgin Mobile, 3pc to 5pc-plus; and Virgin Media, 4pc-plus.

That's not to say Virgin Media's spat with Sky has not taken its toll on the Virgin brand per se. Anthony Wells, consumer analyst at YouGov, says: "The Virgin brands in general got a boost from the launch of Virgin Media." However, recently "Virgin has seen its brand perceptions decline".

Sir Richard remains unfazed: "I have set up 350 companies since I started. Not one of those has ever gone bankrupt.

"If you set up so many, you try a lot of different things. Some will work spectacularly - and we have created six or seven billion-dollar businesses from scratch - with others you don't succeed in the way you hoped."

While he won't comment on his long-term intentions at Virgin Media, given the potential bid, Sir Richard insists: "Virgin Media will deliver. We have only been involved with it for eight or nine months and Sky has made some moves we believe were anti-competitive" - an assertion Sky would deny.

As Sir Richard points out, "the trains took some knocks in the early days" but the core West Coast routes have improved since Virgin Rail (49pc owned by Stagecoach) introduced its Pendolino trains.

"In retrospect, maybe it would have been better not to have put the logo on for the first three years but everyone would have still known we were running them," Sir Richard says.

Not everyone believes he should be so sanguine. Mark Radda, senior strategist at brand consultant Wolff Olins, says: "The problem with Virgin is that it has lost its focus.

"I think people find it difficult to define what Virgin is about. When it was set up, you had a rebel taking on the institutions, but now the rebel is one of the institutions."

Whereas Virgin Atlantic, which took on BA, remains "the most successful example of the brand", he says, Virgin Media is a different story. "It's licensed, so Branson is no longer controlling his brand and also the service wasn't there."

Ms Clifton reckons Sir Richard picked the wrong target with Sky.

"They aren't particularly seen as bad guys," she says. "Maybe among opinion formers, because of Murdoch, but that's not what consumers think. Virgin isn't a better value proposition and there hasn't been any shortage of innovation as far as Sky or the market is concerned."

David Kershaw, the M&C Saatchi chief executive, says: "Maybe Virgin doesn't have as much resonance for today's generation as it did for the baby boomers for whom it was the anti-establishment brand. Young people don't look to Richard Branson and say this man is the consumer champion."

Sir Richard would beg to differ, but acknowledges: "I'm approaching 60 years old and with most major companies there's a big stumble at some point, though we have avoided one so far. As long as we don't shoot ourselves in the foot in a major way, I hope the brand can continue for many years to come."

Technology will soon make a penthouse lifestyle available to everyone, says Camilla Chafer

When Bill Gates spoke about his vision of "wired homes" at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, he conjured an image of smart homes as the homes of the future.

	Fully wired home: could the high-tech home of the future be closer than we think?

Vista, the latest Windows operating system, epitomises Gates's ambitions: it can be used to power a so-called "media centre" PC, usually placed in the living area, on which people can surf the net, create a music jukebox that will play a list of tunes, and digitally edit, organise and share photographs. Apple, too, sees the computer as the central technology underpinning the "home hub": its Apple TV is capable of streaming music and video to high-definition TV sets.

But the idea that all this stuff is "toys for the boys" is increasingly old-fashioned - as is the notion that only the super-rich can afford such high-tech wizardry. In fact, smart homes could be of enormous use to any family, allowing them to control their heating, lighting, security systems and every aspect of their homes from a digital hub, or even remotely via the internet. Soon, such smart technology could become almost as standard in new homes as washing machines are in our current homes.

As Microsoft and Apple have made clear, the PC is in a strong position to be at the centre of such smart homes, with its ability to co-ordinate digital content in the entertainment field. John Turner, head of multimedia networking at internet technology firm Computerlinks, predicts that home PCs will be reinvented as multimedia control systems capable of catering to any of their users' audio-visual requirements. "With its ability to provide living-room access to digital content via a simple remote control, the PC media centre is well positioned to be an affordable hub for the home, using networking skills to deliver what were previously 'millionaire playground' facilities such as multi-room audio, central video libraries, surveillance, intelligent lighting and heating control," he says.

"With a stable home network, it is now possible to offer highly innovative systems that control lighting, heating and even security via internet-based control systems. The results are compelling to home users and, as they become more affordable, are gaining broader market appeal."

The homes of the future could therefore have as standard the kind of technology that still seems somewhat futuristic to us today. HellermannTyton is a company that makes smart products designed specifically for the building trade, meaning that smart technology can be incorporated into new homes as they are being constructed.

"There will of course always be a small number of consumers who believe smart homes are for technically minded people or even gadget-crazy geeks," admits Graeme Wagg, their product manager. "They may also see smart-home technology as a gimmick. But the fact is that the evolution of smart-home technology and the knowledge base of the consumer will unconsciously educate both the house builder and the homebuyer. The development and continued progression of smart-home devices and technology will find their way into more and more properties."

Hugh Whalley, the manager of the smart homes division of Siemens, agrees that the market will dictate the wider spread of smart-home technology. "These types of homes appeal to all customer groups," he says. "We install structured cabling systems - the core of smart homes - throughout the home, with bolt-ons that can be adjusted to the occupants' lifestyles.

"Young professionals might choose to have distributed audio, while a family may want control over their economic output, simulated security and zone temperature controls. We even enable older people or the disabled to stay in their homes by providing broadband services that help cater for their needs, or providing speech-activated controls."

As smart-home technology grows increasingly commonplace, Whalley suggests that consumers will become - and are becoming - less afraid of technological advances. "There's a demand for technology now, along with high expectations, from a generation who don't have an issue with either the type or use of technology.

"We recently did a development of 700 apartments in Gateshead where structured cabling was offered in the sales suite in the same way that the purchaser would be offered kitchen upgrades or new tiles.

"Also, as it becomes more commonplace, we'll see prices fall. As it is, installing structured cabling in a three-bed detached house now costs only £12,000 to £15,000, and once it's in, it can continue to be upgraded."

"In 10 years from now, it is quite conceivable that a huge majority of new-build properties will have aspects of smart-home technology implemented," says Wagg. "The number of systems and the features from one build to another are quite likely to differ. Builders and developers are unlikely to standardise which smart-home systems are installed, as continued advances in smart-home products will bring more features and benefits, and better, competing solutions."

In other words, far from being toys for the boys, smart-home technology could help to make all our lives easier. Lifestyles have become increasingly frenetic as we race between home, work, the kids and - if we're really lucky - the last vestiges of a social life. Smart homes seek to make that life easier, allowing us to control a number of tasks simultaneously.

If you're away on holiday, some systems will let you dial in remotely from anywhere in the world, using a single panel to orchestrate when the curtains open or the lights dim. And wouldn't it be nice if, at the end of a tough day, you could set the bath to fill itself at a precise time and make sure your favourite tune is playing as you walk through the front door?

Yet another busy news week. As I write this, Fox News is breaking (ahead of CNN, ABC and USA Today) the news that Bobby Cutts has been taken into custody for the murder of Jessie Davis. The man who lost his family in a violent Illinois shooting has been charged with their murder. A pair of naked twenty-somethings plummeted to their deaths from a roof top. The US and North Korea are again engaged in talks regarding North Korea's nuclear program. Iran still has a president who fancies himself the Bringer of the Apocalypse and Syria is still his willing puppet. George W. Bush is still the second-worst president in the last 100 years (and the worst Republican president), and Iraq is still a mess.

And, "The Evening Standard" is reporting that a mile-wide, cigar-shaped UFO was spotted over the English Channel. I'll let the other guys write about nukes, terrorists and murderers. I'm not passing up the chance to expound upon one of my favorite subjects.

First, the details:

The object was spotted by Captain Ray Bowyer of Aurigny Airlines while flying over the Channel Islands. Bowyer first thought the object to be about 10 miles distant but then realized it was as much as forty miles away. An experienced pilot, Bowyer judged the object to be at least a mile wide. Bowyer later spotted a second UFO, though it was much farther from his position.

An unnamed pilot with Blue Islands airline also spotted one of the objects, and two passengers aboard Bowyer's flight confirmed seeing the first one.

"The Evening Standard" quotes Captain Bowyer as saying, "I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying."

Okay, so what was it?

The term "Unidentified Flying Object" does not automatically mean it's a visitor from Planet Zebes. The term simply means that it's flying and no one has a clue what it is. It's a safe bet however, that those of you who recognize the name "Zebes" doubtlessly share my view that we don't want any visitors from that particular planet.  Call me a Zebephobe if you wish.

The object could have been a bit of freakish weather, glowing gasses (from where?) in the atmosphere or yet another top-secret government project gone awry. It could, of course, have also been an extraterrestrial visitor.

These incidents are generally swept under the governmental rug or explained away as weather balloons, mass hysteria or failed satellites reentering the atmosphere. And, I'm sure that at least some of those explanations are true. But, neither weather balloons nor satellites are a mile wide. Failed satellites don't maneuver, as some UFO's have been known to do.

So, do I believe we're occasionally visited by people from other worlds? Yes, I do. I find it impossible to believe that in all the vastness of the Creation, we could be the only inhabitants. When I was a kid, my fascination with UFO's (exacerbated by Star Trek reruns) often drew my mother's irritation. Mom would tell me that "It's silly to think there could be life in outer space." And, I would always reply, "But Mom, WE are in outer space."

Stumped her every time with that.

My UFO Sighting...

When I was a small boy, my dad and I would often sit on the front steps at night just before bedtime. He'd let me ramble on about whatever was on my young mind and treat it as if it were the most profound bit of wisdom he'd ever heard. One summer night, we were sitting there on the steps when a huge glowing disk passed low over our home (no, I'm not making this up). It made no sound, but it was clearly visible overhead and I had the impression that it was rotating. It simply flew straight over us and disappeared over the tree tops. The whole thing lasted maybe five seconds. Dad scooped me up and hauled me inside.

Land Network has a 30 year history and is at the leading edge of recycling waste to productive land in farming, horticulture, forestry, amenity use and reclamation. General Secretary Bill Butterworth explains its work

Saudi proverb; "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel."

	Rape seed crops that are used to make biodiesel fuel

Mick and Phil Bates farm around 800 acres near Gainsborough in the northern part of Lincolnshire.

For just over four years they have been taking green garden waste from their local West Kinsey District Council - and industrial waste to balance up the nutrients - to make compost.

Maybe a third of their land has now reached the point where there will be no more mineral fertiliser used on it.

Normally that fertiliser would have been imported into Lincolnshire. Instead, the green waste gives them a fee for taking it and, therefore, there is a "double wammy" for the local rural economy.

The cash the local ratepayers spend on recycling this waste is retained in the local economy and the farm does not spend cash on importing mineral fertiliser. However, there are some compelling and partly hidden real further advantages.

There are a number of problems related to mineral fertilisers. Firstly, nitrogen fertilisers are made by passing air through a two-meter diameter electric arc. That electricity is made by burning fossil fuel and that produces the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Secondly, these fertilisers are usually soluble and, for example, 40 to 45 per cent of the nitrogen in mineral nitrogen fertiliser washes out in rain in the form of nitrate. That pollutes the groundwater and, eventually, our rivers and drinking water.

The Bates are members of Land Network, the farmer-owned consortium with 19 farm sites spread over England and Wales. Land Network has the evidence that these composts completely eliminate nitrate leaching.

The Bates' operation is interesting from another point of view. They use the composts to fertilise their crops. One of those crops in rotation is oil seed rape. They harvest the rape and process it into biodiesel and bioglycerol heating oil.

The diesel can be used at the 100 per cent rate to drive vehicles. Amongst others, it is planned to use it to drive the refuse collection vehicles which deliver the green waste.

It is also planned to use the bioglycerol to heat the local school. (Mick Bates is Chairman of his local primary school governors.) Interestingly, neighbours of the Bates have seen their crops and asked to buy some of the compost.

Another member of the network is the Voase family who farm near Brandesburton in East Yorkshire. Martin and son Nic, with their respective families, farm 800 acres and they have been farming the recycle-to-land fertiliser route for over three years. About a quarter of their land now will not get mineral fertiliser. All the members of the network are moving in that direction.

	It is planned to use the biodiesel to drive the refuse collection vehicles which deliver the green waste

Central support in Land Network says that if the farms can get the wastes, it takes maybe three years for a piece of land to move its biological activity to the point where mineral fertilisers can be dropped.

These farms are moving in the direction of "going organic" with knock-on effects on the environment and human health. There is at least some hard evidence that foods grown on land where composts are used have more trace elements and that this has long term beneficial effects on the health of people who eat these foods.

There is a regulatory problem. There is maybe 100 million tonnes per annum of wastes produced in the UK which could go to land. Defra (The government's Department for Farming and Rural Affairs) makes the regulations and it sees fit to regulate how this recycling is done. Unfortunately, those regulations are often misguided, unscientific and counter-productive.

The Land Network programme was developed in the early 1990's under a DTI (Department of Trade and Industry as was) scheme and the plan was to have over 3,000 farms doing this recycling by now. It is the weight of regulation which has limited growth. Last year, 16 Land Network farms recycled some 100,000 tonnes. It could have been several million.

How does this affect you personally? Well, farmers as a whole still import approaching £1bn worth of mineral fertilisers every year. We could use urban wastes to avoid that import cost as we ought to be paying more attention to the nation's balance of payments.

Secondly, for every hectare of oil seed rape grown this way and turned into biofuels, it saves around 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. (This is a serious contribution to reversing global warming.)

Thirdly, it cuts out nitrate pollution.

The problem with regulation is that it concentrates on controlling the bad guys. That is not a bad thing. However, it does tend to dominate and forget that regulators have a second and more important duty; to enable the good guys.

Bear in mind the Saudi proverb. "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel."

If you, your children and your grandchildren are going to drive a car, then get a diesel car now and insist that the biodiesel fuel you buy is made from local wastes.

Robots can help doctors to improve their bedside manner so their patients recover faster, according to a study published today.

The 6ft-tall robots make "telerounds", providing doctors with more opportunities to talk to their patients. Sitting at a computer, the surgeon can move the robot into the ward, talk to the patients, listen to them, review their charts and consult nursing staff.

To do this, the robot is equipped with a 15-inch flat screen to project the doctor's face, two high-resolution cameras, a microphone and a video conference system.

The research, conducted with a robot developed by a Californian company, was carried out at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and involved 376 patients who underwent radical surgery for obesity.

One group of 284 patients had standard bedside rounds and a second group of 92 was also assessed by "robotic telerounding".

Following robotic rounds, 77 per cent of patients were discharged on the day after the operation, whereas none of the patients assessed exclusively by bedside rounds were discharged on day one.

The average length of stay was reduced from 2.33 days for the group assessed by bedside rounds to 1.26 days for the group also assessed by the robot, according to the study in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

On its first attempt to walk up an incline, the RunBot will topple back on to its metallic backside.

	If at first you don't succeed...

However, the same as a toddler, it can learn from its mistakes until, after a few attempts, it is able to clamber up a hill with ease. RunBot already holds the world record in speed walking, managing three strides per second.

Now its inventors have expanded its repertoire so that it can learn how to tackle inclines of up to 15 degrees.

Once RunBot detects a slope with its infrared eye it adjusts its gait, leaning forward and using shorter steps.

The steps of RunBot are controlled by information received by sensors on the joints and feet, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the robot's lean.

These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of reflexes - that analyse the information to make adjustments to the robot's gait. If the robot encounters a slope then the higher level functions - a "brain" containing learning circuits - are used instead.

The research, published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology yesterday, was conducted by scientists led by Prof Florentin Wörgötter, at the Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience at the University of Göttingen, Germany.

The analysis shows the Greenland ice could last longer than we thought, reports Roger Highfield

Today, Greenland is mostly covered with ice, with rugged mountainous terrain that is barren.

	Artist's impression of southern central Greenland based on findings from the Dye 3 basal ice

But this was not the case millennia ago, when it was a verdant paradise, according to a remarkable study of ancient DNA that also suggests Greenland's ice will tolerate more global warming than thought.

Investigations of an ice core from deep in the ice in southern Greenland has revealed a trove of ancient genetic traces of plants and animals -probably the oldest DNA ever analysed - which provide the first evidence of a surprisingly lush forest that existed in the region within the past million years.

The findings from an international study published in the journal Science also suggest that the southern Greenland ice sheet may be much more stable against rising temperatures caused by climate change than previously believed.

For the study, researchers analysed ice cores from a number of locations in Greenland, including one called Dye 3 in the south. From the base of one 2000 metre deep core, they were able to extract what they believe is the oldest authenticated DNA obtained to date.

By analysing DNA the researchers identified a surprising variety of plant and insect life, including beetles, flies, spiders, butterflies and moths.

The researchers believe that the samples most likely date back to between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, when it was covered in conifer forest and had a relatively mild climate, overturning all previous assumptions about Greenland.

"We have shown for the first time that southern Greenland, which is currently hidden under more than 2000m of ice, was once very different to the Greenland we see today," says Prof Eske Willerslev, from the University of Copenhagen, who led the study and is the world's leading expert in extracting DNA from organisms buried in permafrost.

"Back then, it was inhabited by a diverse array of conifer trees and insects," he says. "We have found grain, pine, yew and alder. These correspond to the landscapes we find in Eastern Canada today.

The trees provide a backdrop from which we can also ascertain the climate since each species has its own temperature requirements. The yew trees reveal that the temperature during the winter could not have been lower than -17°C, and the presence of other trees shows that summer temperatures were at least 10 degrees".

The ancient forests covered southern Greenland during a period of increased global temperatures, known as an interglacial period. When temperatures fell again, the area became covered in ice. This ice persisted during the last interglacial period (116,000-130,000 years ago) when the temperature was 5°C warmer than today, contrary to the view currently held by many scientists.

Prof Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, also at the University of Copenhagen, has data showing that in fact, even during this interglacial period, the ice thickness at Dye 3 would only have been reduced to 1000 metres in the face of temperatures that will not be reached for many decades as a result of today's global warming.

This work suggests that the whole ice sheet will resist melting to cause tremendous sea-level rises which have been the subject of so much discussion. "If our data is correct, then this means that the southern Greenland ice cap is more stable than previously thought," says Prof Willerslev.

"This may have implications for how the Greenland ice sheet respond to global warming."

However, he added that warming would still raise sea levels. During the last interglacial, sea levels rose by 5-6m even though Greenland was still covered in ice, and the water responsible for this rise must have come from others sources other than Greenland, such as Antarctic ice.

"I would anticipate that as the Earth warms from man-made climate change, these sources would still contribute to a rise in sea levels."

Today's study shows conclusively that ancient DNA from the base of ice cores can be used to reconstruct the environments hidden underneath ice-covered areas and can yield insights into the climate and the ecology of ancient environments.

Ten per cent of the Earth's surface has been covered with ice for thousands of years. No one knows what lies beneath. Using the same methods elsewhere "could open up a world of new discoveries," says Dr Enrico Cappellini of the University of York, coauthor.

The strongest evidence to date that the sun is not responsible for recent global warming has been set out by scientists.

The new study by Prof Michael Lockwood of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxfordshire, and Claus Fröhlich of the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland, overturns claims by climate sceptics who say that the planet's climate has long fluctuated and that current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not greenhouse gas emissions. Their study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

	A new study further enforces the view that the sun is not responsible for recent climate change

The study found that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays.

Some researchers had also suggested that the latter might influence global warming because the rays trigger cloud formation.

Prof Lockwood said that the comprehensive study was a response to misleading media reports. He cited 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', a television programme shown in March by Channel 4, as a prime example.

"All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged afterwards. You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said. "The key point of our paper is that since 1985 all the possible solar influences have been in the wrong direction to give warming," said Prof Lockwood.

Although some have tried to counter this by arguing that the response of the Earth's climate system lags behind changes in the sun, Prof Lockwood added that the only way for this to work would be by invoking a very large response lag of the order of 50 years which would overturn previous ideas of how the Sun influences the Earth.

"This paper is the final nail in the coffin for people who would like to make the sun responsible for present global warming," Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told the journal Nature.

The new study compiled solar data for the past 100 years. The two researchers averaged out the 11-year solar cycles and looked for correlation between solar variation and global mean temperatures. Solar activity peaked between 1985 and 1987.

But mainstream scientists agree that the sun does have some influence on fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. As Prof Lockwood said: " I do firmly believe that there is a solar influence on pre-industrial climate and that may well have extended into the last century - up to about 1940 - but our results confirm that recent climate change is not caused by the sun. We do this with a simple and direct analysis of data and not using climate computer models - which are often a cause of scepticism."

A spokesman for the Royal Society said: "This is an important contribution to the scientific debate on climate change. At present there is a small minority which is seeking to deliberately confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day. We have reached a point where a failure to take action to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions would be irresponsible and dangerous."

A campaign to save the meadows that inspired the Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll has heralded a dramatic rise in the fortunes of endangered wading birds.

	In the early 1980's campaigners saved Otmoor from being developed as part of the M40 motorway

Snipe, lapwing and redshank are all suffering long-term decline across Britain but are now thriving at Otmoor nature reserve in Oxfordshire, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

But the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was only able to establish the protected wetland after conservationists fought off plans to build the M40 motorway through the area, which lies between Oxford and Bicester.

The moor, divided by hedges and ditches into a grid of fields following enclosure, caught the eye of Carroll as he looked down from the top of Noke Hill.

The view is widely believed to have inspired the chess-board imagery of Through the Looking-Glass, the 1871 sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

In the early 1980s one local campaigner bought a small field to prevent the M40 being built. Dubbed Alice's Meadow, it was then subdivided into around 3,500 plots, each around 33 sq ft, which were sold to groups and people sympathetic to the conservationists.

This posed an insurmountable hurdle to the compulsory purchase procedure, which required that each piece of land go through the lengthy process of valuation, identification of landowner, service of CPO, notice period and possible appeal.

s a result the Government's preferred route was withdrawn in favour of an amended plan and the battle to save Otmoor was won.

With the land saved from roadbuilders the RSPB and the Environment Agency were able to buy 1,000 acres of farmland near Alice's Meadow and turn it back into wetland with the help of local farmers.

When they began the project in 1997 there were only 80 pairs of breeding waders in the whole of the Upper Thames Tributaries.

Now there are well over 200 pairs, with around 90 breeding in Otmoor. They include five pairs of snipe - more than half the population in central England.

Snipe numbers across England and Wales have fallen by 61 per cent between 1982 and 2002, with lapwings sinking 40 per cent.

Their wetland habitat was largely drained during the 20th Century for agriculture. Between 1940 and 1980 20,000 sq km of wet grassland was drained and today only 30,000 sq km remains.

	'What we need now is more Otmoors'

Had the original M40 route been followed it would have run alongside the Otmoor reserve site and a dual carriageway link road would have been run right across it.

Funding for the reserve came largely from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which provided £2.5m, along with £450,000 from the Landfill Communities Fund.

Graham Wynne, RSPB chief executive, said: "The achievements at Otmoor are truly inspiring. Through this major restoration project, we have saved the wading bird population in this part of England and proved that we can reverse the habitat losses that centuries of wetland drainage have inflicted on our wildlife.

"The development of this fabulous nature reserve has also helped to bring about improvements to the wider countryside.

"What we need now is more Otmoors. We need more wetlands, not only to provide safe havens for birds and other wildlife, but to help reduce flooding and pollution, and to provide wildlife-rich places for people to enjoy."

Dr Rebecca Tibbetts at Natural England, said: "The reserve and RSPB have acted as a superb catalyst to neighbouring farmers to encourage them to restore the area back to wetland habitat.

"The reserve continues to provides a rich nature resource from which to expand, and it acts as a fantastic buffering support to the species and habitat of the adjacent Otmoor Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)."

NASA’s MESSENGER and European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft will observe Venus together on June 6, helping the scientists to view close-up images of the brightest object after the Sun and the Moon in the sky from two vantage points.

Venus Express has been going around Venus since April 11, 2006, whereas Messenger will be flying by Venus while on its way to Mercury. Not only the planet, Venus will be seen through these two spacecraft, but also many Earth-based observatories and telescopes in orbit, around the Earth will witness the planet at the same time.

MESSENGER’s (MErcury Surface Space ENvironment GEochemistry and Ranging mission) closest approach to Venus will be when it passes just 337 kilometres (210 miles) above its surface. At that point of time Venus Express will be behind Venus, but at the same time it will also be able to view many of the same regions imaged by MESSENGER. On the basis of these images scientists will compare the data gathered by the two spacecraft.

Venus Express, ESA’s first mission to Venus, was launched on Nov. 9, 2005 whereas NASA’s Messenger was launched on Aug. 3, 2004. MESSENGER will image Venus for 30 hours and then again it will focus on its final target, Mercury. It will reach Mercury in March, 2011.

According to a team of experts at NASA, Jupiter is changing its stripes, a process which can be due to the change of seasons on this giant planet.

These dramatic changes are being captured by the aging Hubble Space Telescope. The changes are due to the change in the color of the planet’s cloud bands which are turning brown from white. Scientists at the space center have also stated that this is not the first time that the planet is changing its rings.

According to these researchers Jupiter does not stay in the same color all the time and they are lucky to witness the belts and the bands change color at the same time.

Since Jupiter’s year is twelve times that as on Earth the climatic changes are also slow. The difference in the heat of the Sun as received by the planet is the main cause of this change on the surface of Jupiter and along its rings.

Since planets orbit in an elliptical orbit their distance from the sun keeps on changing which further changes the amount of heat and light received by the planets.

NASA is aiming to build an outpost on the moon by the end of 2020. The space research organization’s plan is commendable, but have they thought of all the astronauts who will have to spend months or even years on this sole natural satellite of Earth?

According to a recent study conducted by professor Chester Spell of Rutgers School of Business, the mental health of astronauts is at risk if they have to remain in solitude or a very small company of their fellow astronauts for long durations. The problem is serious since the nearest counseling session will be millions of miles from them. If we talk about the proposed manned mission to the red planet then the things seem to be much worse as there astronauts will not be able to even talk to their family members for years.

Are space agencies really prepared to tackle this problem…? I guess no because they are already busy developing technology that can be used to take humans to moon and Mars. The mental problems with astronauts is something that they should take a bit more seriously since the low gravity, extreme isolation and cramped conditions on moon will definitely show its toll on humans and if any member of the team feels down then the whole team will feel the same.

Managers at NASA and other space agencies who are planning to send humans in space for long durations should put an emphasis on social interaction among the team members and not allow anyone to remain silent or go dark, so that the missions can be cheerfully accomplished without making anyone ‘Space Sick’.

Yesterday I told you that a massive dust storm has hit the red planet and both Opportunity and Spirit are in danger. The conditions are much worse for Opportunity since the storm was approaching it at a fast pace.

To protect the rover NASA will now try and hide it in the giant Victoria crater. Opportunity will begin the descent early next month.

The descent is risky for both NASA and Opportunity and the decision to hide it can lead to disastrous results. Some scientists even fear that the crater can become the rover’s final resting place.

NASA too is aware of this risk. They fear that the rover once in might not be able to come out of the crater or might simply fail once it is inside the crater. Still the main reason for this is that the storm is so fierce that it will not die in days or weeks but can remain there for months.

Currently the rover is at “Duck Bay”, a point on the edge of the crater. According to NASA engineers this is the gentlest approach to the 800-meter-wide crater.

The rover will make descend in the first week of the next month a tentative date for the operation has not yet been decided. The rovers which are on the red planet since January 2004 are already aging. Their expected life span was a mere 90 days. But they have shown their caliber and have been doing all the good work from the last three and a half years.

During their service time they have suffered some damages. Spirit’s right front wheel stopped moving in March 2006, since then the rover just pushes itself across the dusty surface of Mars. This pushing has resulted in some breakthroughs as well as the rover continually digs soil while it moves.