Video games take off as a spectator sport

Editorial: "Give video games a sporting chance"

EVERY sport has its idols and superstars. Now video gaming is getting them too. Professional gaming, or e-sports, exploded in popularity in the US and Europe last year.

The scene has been big in Asia - particularly South Korea - for about a decade, with top players such as Lim Yo-Hwan earning six-figure salaries and competing for rock-star glory in Starcraft tournaments that attract audiences in the hundreds of thousands.

The phenomenon is taking off in the West partly because of improved video-streaming technology and large financial rewards. Video games are becoming a spectator sport, with certain players and commentators drawing massive online audiences.

And where people go, money follows. The second world championship of League of Legends - a team-based game in which players defend respective corners of a fantasy-themed battle arena - was held in Los Angeles in October. The tournament had a prize pool of $5 million for the season, with $1 million going to winning team Taipei Assassins, the largest cash prize in the history of e-sports.

League of Legends has also set records for spectator numbers. More than 8 million people watched the championship finals either online or on TV - a figure that dwarfs audience numbers for broadcasts of many traditional sports fixtures.

But gamers don't need to compete at the international level to earn money. Video-streaming software like Twitch makes it easy for players to send live footage to a website, where the more popular ones can attract upwards of 10,000 viewers - enough for some to make a living by having adverts in their video streams. Gamers can go pro without leaving their homes.

Currently, e-sports productions are handled by gaming leagues - but that could soon change. Last November saw two moves that will make it even easier to reach a global online audience. First, Twitch announced it would be integrating with Electronic Arts's Origin service, a widely used gaming platform. This would let gamers stream their play at the click of a button, making it easy for people around the world to watch.

Also in November came the latest release from one of gaming's biggest franchises, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which has the ability to live-stream via YouTube built into the game itself. Another feature allows the broadcast of in-game commentary for multiplayer matches.

"I think we will reach a point, maybe within five years, where spectator features are a necessity for all big game releases," says Corin Cole of e-sports publishing company Heaven Media in Huntingdon, UK.

David Ting founded the California-based IGN Pro League (IPL), which hosts professional tournaments. He puts the popularity of e-sports down to the demand for new forms of online entertainment. "After 18 months, IPL's viewer numbers are already comparable to college sports in the US when there's a live event," he says. "The traffic is doubling every six months."

Ting sees motion detection, virtual reality and mobile gaming coming together to make physical exertion a more common aspect of video games, blurring the line between traditional sport and e-sports. "Angry Birds could be this century's bowling," says Ting.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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China economy to rebound in 2013: survey

BEIJING: China's economy is poised finally to end a long downward trend in 2013, economists polled by AFP say, as the new communist leadership vows to retool the nation's investment-led development model and promote a "happy life" for all.

The world's second-largest economy is not expected to return to double-digit growth, but the economists' predictions are a welcome spot of good news in a financial world assailed by the eurozone debt crisis and lacklustre recovery in the United States.

After seven consecutive quarters of slowing growth, China's gross domestic product (GDP) will rise by 8.0 per cent in 2013, according to the median forecast of 15 economists surveyed by AFP. The poll also projected 7.7 per cent growth for 2012.

The figures would outpace the government's 7.5 per cent growth target for 2012 -- but are well below the 9.3 per cent recorded in 2011 and 10.4 per cent in 2010.

Maintaining growth is all-important for China's communist leaders, who derive much of their claims to legitimacy from the country's reform-led economic rise, which has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the past three decades.

The rebound comes as China formally wraps up a once-in-a-decade leadership change in March when Xi Jinping, who was named Communist Party chief in November, takes over as president and Li Keqiang becomes premier in charge of day-to-day administration.

Xi, in his first public appearance after being chosen to lead the party, said China's citizens "want their children to have sound growth, have good jobs and lead a more enjoyable life. To meet their desire for a happy life is our mission."

China's stunning economic transformation has long been fuelled by heavy state investment in railways, airports, bridges and buildings, as well as an emphasis on manufacturing and exports.

But it is now trying to promote demand from its own increasingly well-off consumers as the economy's main driver. And the Communist Party says it recognises the need to encompass the have-nots who have failed to share in the boom as a rich-poor gap opens up.

The National Bureau of Statistics is due to announce GDP figures for the fourth quarter and the whole of 2012 on Friday.

For the final quarter of last year, the median forecast in the AFP survey was 7.8 per cent, up from official third-quarter growth of 7.4 per cent -- which was the lowest figure since early 2009.

"The new leaders themselves would like economic growth to not be slower than 2012... in their first year," Chen Xingdong, a Beijing-based economist with French bank BNP Paribas who is expecting 2013 growth of 8.3 per cent, told AFP.

Stronger monthly data during the fourth quarter, including industrial output and retail sales, has fanned optimism the worst is over, as did new single-month highs for imports and exports in December.

But the economy still faces challenges such as unresolved structural problems including overcapacity and reliance on investment-driven growth, said Yao Wei, Hong Kong-based economist with Societe Generale.

"We can't get over-optimistic over the current recovery," she said.

China's economy averaged GDP growth of 10 per cent in the decade to 2010. A slower rate of 7.0-8.0 per cent is seen by economists as part of China's natural economic evolution as spending on projects such as transport and utility networks is reined in.

But market optimism over China's prospects risks being disappointed if in 2013 "the recovery remains centred on infrastructure and real-estate investment rather than consumption", wrote Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics.

Some also question how serious the government is about reforming the economy, as well as other challenges it has vowed to pursue, including cracking down on corruption.

"The current difficulty we have with the policymakers is that the focus is on changing the perception and hoping that the people believe," said Andy Xie, a Shanghai-based independent economist.

"It shows that real change is very hard to do. So you shift to the propaganda department to see if they can do the job."

- AFP/ck

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JSTOR says it mourns `tragic loss' of Aaron Swartz

As the Internet exploded with anger over news that online activist Aaron Swartz had committed suicide on Friday, the subscription-only archive he was accused of hacking said late today that it "regretted" having been drawn to "this sad event."

Swartz, a celebrated computer activist and programming prodigy, was fighting two-year-old charges that he stole 4 million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR, or Journal Storage, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. If convicted, Swartz faced a maximum of $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison after the government increased the number of felony counts against Swartz to 13 from 4.

Federal authorities alleged that Swartz broke into computer networks at M.I.T. to illegally gain access to JSTOR's archive. But critics of the government said the Feds were unfairly trying to make an example out of Swartz. In a post today Prosecutor as bully legal scholar Larry Lessig wrote that "the government worked as hard as it could to characterize what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way."

Here is the text of the JSTOR release:

We are deeply saddened to hear the news about Aaron Swartz. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Aaron's family, friends, and everyone who loved, knew, and admired him. He was a truly gifted person who made important contributions to the development of the internet and the web from which we all benefit.

We have had inquiries about JSTOR's view of this sad event given the charges against Aaron and the trial scheduled for April. The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset, since JSTOR's mission is to foster widespread access to the world's body of scholarly knowledge. At the same time, as one of the largest archives of scholarly literature in the world, we must be careful stewards of the information entrusted to use by the owners and creators of that content. To that end.

Aaron returned the data he had in his possession and JSTOR settled any civil claims we might have had against him in June 2011. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service and a member of the internet community.l We will continue to work to distribute the content under our care as widely as possible while balancing the interests of researchers, students, libraries, and publishers as we pursue our commitment to the long-term preservation of this important scholarly literature. We join those who are mourning this tragic loss.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right.

"He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and, the thing is: After he won the lottery and the next day later he passes away -- it's awkward. It raises some eyebrows."

The medical examiner initially ruled Urooj Khan, 46, an immigrant from India who owned dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, died July 20, 2012, of natural causes. But after a family member demanded more tests, authorities in November found a lethal amount of cyanide in his blood, turning the case into a homicide investigation.

"When we found out there was cyanide in his blood after the extensive toxicology reports, we had to believe that ... somebody had to kill him," Minhaj Khan said. "It had to happen, because where can you get cyanide?"

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Authorities could be one step closer to learning what happened to Urooj Khan. A judge Friday approved an order to exhume his body at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago as early as Thursday to perform further tests.

Lottery Winner Murdered: Widow Questioned By Police Watch Video

Moments after the court hearing, Urooj Khan's sister, Meraj Khan, remembered her brother as the kind of person who would've shared his jackpot with anyone. Speaking at the Cook County Courthouse, she hoped the exhumation would help the investigation.

"It's very hard because I wanted my brother to rest in peace, but then we have to have justice served," she said, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago. "So if that's what it takes for him to bring justice and peace, then that's what needs to be done."

Khan reportedly did not have a will. With the investigation moving forward, his family is waging a legal fight against his widow, Shabana Ansari, 32, over more than $1 million, including Urooj Khan's lottery winnings, as well as his business and real estate holdings.

Khan's brother filed a petition Wednesday to a judge asking Citibank to release information about Khan's assets to "ultimately ensure" that [Khan's] minor daughter from a prior marriage "receives her proper share."

Ansari may have tried to cash the jackpot check after Khan's death, according to court documents, which also showed Urooj Khan's family is questioning if the couple was ever even legally married.

Ansari, Urooj Khan's second wife, who still works at the couple's dry cleaning business, has insisted they were married legally.

She has told reporters the night before her husband died, she cooked a traditional Indian meal for him and their family, including Khan's daughter and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the Chicago Sun-Times, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She said she called 911.

"It has been an incredibly hard time," she told ABC News earlier this week. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Ansari has not been named a suspect, but her attorney, Steven Kozicki, said investigators did question her for more than four hours.

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 11 January 2013

Largest structure challenges Einstein's smooth cosmos

One-twentieth the diameter of the observable universe, a group of galaxies dents the cherished idea that the cosmos is uniform at large scales

Straitjacket drug halts herpes virus's escape stunt

Herpes infections recur as the virus is adept at evading our defences, but a new drug that suppresses enzymes exploited by the virus seems effective

Zoologger: Mouse eats scorpions and howls at the moon

Super-aggressive grasshopper mice are not put off by the deadly venom of the scorpions they feast on - in fact, nothing much seems to scare them

Sand tsunami pictured striking Australian coast

The spectacular wall of sand and dust appears to block out the sun like a giant wave

Astrophile: Zombie stars feed on Earth-like exoplanets

We can now learn what planets around other stars are made of - by looking at the atmospheres of white dwarfs that have swallowed up their worlds

Life will find a way, even in the midst of a hurricane

Not for the faint-hearted: to sample the microbiome of a hurricane, fly a jetliner through it

Physics not biology may be key to beating cancer

Billions of dollars spent on cancer research have yielded no great breakthrough yet. There are other ways to attack the problem, says physicist Paul Davies

Feedback: Return of nominative determinism

The last nominative determinism stories, salads of gizzards and his chestnuts, Australian graduates in outer space, and more

A comeback for virtual reality? Inside the Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift promises an immersive gaming experience like no other. Niall Firth gets his head in the game and gives it a try

Is the US facing Flu-maggedon?

The US flu season has come early this winter, leaving many hospitals overwhelmed. But is the situation really any worse than usual?

Your body's insights into life and cosmos

The Universe Within by Neil Shubin tells stories from your body about our species, planet and universe. PLUS: a cautionary tale of inspirational scientists

Hands on with Leap Motion's gestural interface

The makers of the ultra-precise gestural interface talk big about killing off the mouse. But it looks like more than just bluster

Personal assistant for your emails streamlines your life

GmailValet aims to use crowdsourcing to give everyone a personal assistant to help deal with their emails - it could cost as little as $2 a day

DNA 'identichip' gives a detailed picture of a suspect

A new microchip-based DNA tester can identify multiple traits of an individual at a time, even where their DNA is scarce

Most fundamental clock ever could redefine kilogram

Physicists have created the first clock with a tick that depends on the hyper-regular frequency of matter itself

Nanomachine mimics nature's protein factory

An artificial ribosome that assembles proteins and peptides could make it much easier to manufacture antibiotics and exotic new materials

Muscle mimic pulls electricity from wet surface

A plastic film that repeatedly curls up and flips over when wet could power devices in remote areas or sensors embedded in sweaty clothing

Read More..

Basketball: Lakers' Bryant and wife Vanessa reconcile

LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant and his wife, Vanessa, confirmed they have reconciled in posts on social media.

Vanessa Bryant, who had filed for divorce from the NBA star in December of 2011, posted a message on Instagram, and Bryant said on his Facebook page that the couple were back together.

"We are pleased to announce that we have reconciled," Vanessa Bryant wrote. "Our divorce action will be dismissed. We are looking forward to our future together. Kobe & Vanessa."

"I am happy to say that Vanessa and I are moving on with our lives together as a family," Bryant posted on Facebook. "When the show ends and the music stops, the journey is made beautiful by having that someone to share it with.

"Thank you all for your support and prayers!" Bryant added.

The Bryants married in 2000. Vanessa stood by her husband after he was charged with sexually assaulting a Colorado woman in 2003, charges that were eventually dropped.

Vanessa Bryant filed papers in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, California, in December of 2011 citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for seeking a divorce.

However, the two continued to work together for various charitable causes and the celebrity website TMZ reported last June that they were working towards a reconciliation.

They have two daughters, nine-year-old Natalia and six-year-old Gianna.

- AFP/al

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Cameras not entirely out of the picture at CES 2013

The update to the Fujifilm X100, the X100S, was one of the few bright spots in camera announcements.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

LAS VEGAS--It's been an exceptionally busy and newsworthy past 12 months for cameras -- budget full-frame models, 4K action cameras and cinema cameras, full-frame compacts. Unfortunately for CES 2013, most of that happened at Photokina this past Fall. So while this show brought a few nice, potentially ownworthy updates to existing product lines, none of it really stands out as particularly whizzy.

In advanced cameras, the most common update has been to autofocus systems, with combo phase-detection/contrast AF starting to take over in camera lines that have traditionally had rather slow performance -- new models like the Fujifilm X100S and the Samsung NX300. The X100S has the most technologically innovative advancement, debuting a split-screen electronic viewfinder for improved manual focus control. We had a chance to try it and even though we were never fond of that type of viewfinder on film SLRs, it works well in an EVF (because the viewfinder is brighter than on, say, a cheap SLR).

Perhaps the most notable, though notably good or bad we've yet to decide, is Polaroid's entry into the interchangeable-lens camera market with cheap Micro Four Thirds and Nikon CX-size sensors and mounts. The camera's are extremely plasticky and the sensors are built into the lens, but the company will have adapters for other mounts with built-in sensors. We're really curious about the photo quality.

The Olympus Stylus Tough TG-2 iHS, announced at CES 2013, should be a very good camera because it's basically the same as its predecessor.

(Credit:
Joshua Goldman/CNET)

As far as point-and-shoots go,
CES 2013 was a fairly weak show with just one or two interesting cameras launched from each manufacturer. And by interesting we mean that they were mostly refreshes of previously existing cameras with some feature tweaks. Again, that's more an indication of CES' importance as a show for cameras than it is for the state of the category. However, the cameras announced do show where the market is going.

For example, Olympus announced the Stylus Tough TG-2 iHS, an update to itstop-of-the-line rugged compact. It picks up exactly where its predecessor left off, but it can now go 10 feet deeper underwater (up to 50 feet), and it now has aperture priority and enhanced macro modes.

Similarly, Samsung rolled out its second-generation of Smart Cameras loaded with Wi-Fi for fast sharing and backup. But while some of the wireless features are new, such as an option to send every photo directly to a smartphone or
tablet as they're taken, the cameras themselves weren't remarkably different than last year's models. Likewise, Nikon announced the Coolpix S6500, which is basically just a Wi-Fi-enabled version of the Coolpix S6400.

Sony announced nothing but its entry Cyber-shots at CES 2013.

(Credit:
Lori Grunin/CNET)

Sony stuck to entry-level models, though at least it included its entry model with a Sony Exmor R BSI CMOS sensor, the Cyber-shot DSC-WX80, so there's at least some idea of the new features coming to other models this year.

Even Fujifilm backed off on new FinePix models, keeping its typical double-digit list of CES cameras to seven. This included two of the shows point-and-shoot highlights, the hobbyist-targeted HS50EXR and the ultrasupermegazoom SL1000.

Another highlight -- and the only entirely new model announced -- was Canon's PowerShot N. The tiny square camera has a flip-up 2.8-inch touch screen and an 8x wide-angle zoom lens, and does away with a shutter release button and zoom lever, using rings around the lens instead.

The PowerShot N introduces a new Creative Shot mode, too, which will automatically create five different versions of a single shot using different color modes, crops, and styles in addition to saving the original photo. It's an unique option and the camera we tried did the edits fast, so maybe Canon has something here. At least with the mode, I'm not sure about the camera.

So for point-and-shoots this year, it looks like it's just going to be long zooms and rugged cameras from here on out, with a few exceptions like the PowerShot N.

As for camcorders, Sony made the most interesting updates to its lineup, though that's not saying much. And while most manufacturers have cut back on the number of models announced for 2013, Sony still blanketed us with 10 versions.

The POV action camcorder market grew by at least three more as well with two good-looking new models from iON, the Air Pro 2 and Adventure, and the HX-100D from Panasonic, which kind of misses the point of the small action cam market.

Perhaps more interesting was the growing number of accessories for turning an iPhone into more of a point-and-shoot camera, such as the Kickstarter project Snappgrip (available for Galaxy S3, too), Will.i.am's pricey foto.sosho cases, and Olloclip's upcoming case/lens combo.

In the end, CES 2013 wasn't so much a bust for the category, just that it's still not the place camera manufacturers are making huge announcements. But, with CP+ in Japan just weeks away, maybe we'll get some real treats then.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

Read More..

CDC: Flu Outbreak Could Be Waning

The flu season appears to be waning in some parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback in the next few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Five fewer states reported high flu activity levels in the first week of January than the 29 that reported high activity levels in the last week of December, according to the CDC's weekly flu report. This week, 24 states reported high illness levels, 16 reported moderate levels, five reported low levels and one reported minimal levels, suggesting that the flu season peaked in the last week of December.

"It may be decreasing in some areas, but that's hard to predict," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a Friday morning teleconference. "Trends only in the next week or two will show whether we have in fact crossed the peak."

The flu season usually peaks in February or March, not December, said Dr. Jon Abramson, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina. He said the season started early with a dominant H3N2 strain, which was last seen a decade ago, in 2002-03. That year, the flu season also ended early.

Click here to see how this flu season stacks up against other years.

Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic/AP Photo

Increasing Flu Cases: Best Measures to Ensure Your Family's Health Watch Video

Because of the holiday season, Frieden said the data may have been skewed.

For instance, Connecticut appeared to be having a lighter flu season than other northeastern states at the end of December, but the state said it could have been a result of college winter break. College student health centers account for a large percentage of flu reports in Connecticut, but they've been closed since the fall semester ended, said William Gerrish, a spokesman for the state's department of public health.

The flu season arrived about a month early this year in parts of the South and the East, but it may only just be starting to take hold of states in the West, Frieden said. California is still showing "minimal" flu on the CDC's map, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Click here to read about how flu has little to do with cold weather.

"It's not surprising. Influenza ebbs and flows during the flu season," Frieden said. "The only thing predictable about the flu is that it is unpredictable."

Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said he was expecting California's seeming good luck with the flu to be over this week.

"Flu is fickle, we say," Schaffner said. "Influenza can be spotty. It can be more severe in one community than another for reasons incompletely understood."

Early CDC estimates indicate that this year's flu vaccine is 62 percent effective, meaning people who have been vaccinated are 62 percent less likely to need to see a doctor for flu treatment, Frieden said.

Although the shot has been generally believed to be more effective for children than adults, there's not enough data this year to draw conclusions yet.

"The flu vaccine is far from perfect, but it's still by far the best tool we have to prevent flu," Frieden said, adding that most of the 130 million vaccine doses have already been administered. "We're hearing of shortages of the vaccine, so if you haven't been vaccinated and want to be, it's better late than never."

Read More..

Muscle mimic pulls electricity from wet surface

Electricity has been squeezed from a damp surface for the first time, thanks to a polymer film that curls up and moves – a bit like an artificial muscle – when exposed to moisture. The film could be used to run small, wearable devices on nothing but sweat, or in remote locations where conventional electricity sources aren't available.

When a dry polymer absorbs water, its molecular structure changes. This can, in principle, be converted into larger-scale movement, and in turn electricity. But previous attempts at creating a material powered by a moisture gradient – the difference in chemical potential energy between a wet region and a dry region - failed to produce a useful level of force.

These unsuccessful tries used a polymer called polypyrrole. Now Robert Langer and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have turned to the material again, embedding chains of it within another material, polyol-borate. This more complex arrangement mimics structures found in muscles as well as in plant tissues that bend in response to changes in humidity.

Flipping film

The result looks like an ordinary piece of thin black plastic, but when placed on a wet surface, something extraordinary happens. As the material absorbs water, its end curls away from the surface and the film becomes unstable, so it flips over. The ends have now dried out, so they are ready to absorb more water, and the whole process repeats itself. This continuous flipping motion lets the film travel across a suitably moist surface unaided.

Langer found that a 0.03-millimetre-thick strip, weighing roughly 25 milligrams, could curl up and lift a load 380 times its mass to a height of 2 millimetres. It was also able to move sideways when carrying a load about 10 times its mass.

To extract energy from this effect, Langer's team added a layer of piezoelectric material – one which produces electricity when squeezed. When this enhanced film, weighing about 100 milligrams, flipped over, it generated an output of 5.6 nanowatts – enough to power a microchip in sleep mode.

Electricity from sweat

Though the output is small, it is proof that electricity can be extracted from a water gradient. "To the extent of our knowledge, we are the first to utilise a water gradient, without a pressure gradient, to generate electricity," says Langer.

Large-scale energy harvesting is unlikely as the size of the device needed would be impractical, but it could be used to power small devices such as environmental monitoring systems in remote locations. "It will be interesting for applications where the amount of energy needed may be low but where access to energy may be difficult," says Peter Fratzl at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, who was not involved in the work.

Another application, Langer suggests, would be to place the film inside the clothing of joggers or athletes. The evaporation of sweat could generate enough electricity to power sensors monitoring blood pressure and heart rate.

Journal reference: Science, DOI 10.1126/science.1230262

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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At CES, two HP laptops do Windows 8 right

HP Spectre XT TouchSmart ultrabook makes Windows 8 a pleasure to use.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

LAS VEGAS--At CES this week, Hewlett-Packard hardware got my attention.

Though the company has been savaged in the media because of dubious acquisition decisions and a falling stock price, its brief exhibition of new
Windows 8 laptops and hybrids at
CES was impressive.

I'll focus on two, the EliteBook Revolve and Spectre XT TouchSmart ultrabook-- both touch-capable Windows 8 laptops. The systems were fleetingly exhibited at CES by HP during an event at the MGM Grand event on Monday night.

I'll start with the Spectre XT TouchSmart because it was also at Intel's CES booth all week -- and available for any attendee to use. For me, it was my go-to laptop when I needed to escape the 11.6-inch screen constraints of my
MacBook Air.

HP calls it an ultrabook, but by ultrabook standards it's palatial, sporting a large 15.6-inch 1,920x1,080 resolution display. Other salient specs include an Intel Core i7-3517U 1.9GHz processor, 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz memory, and a 500 GB HDD with a 32GB solid-state drive cache.

The display is gorgeous -- and made it really hard for me to go back to the Air's cramped 1,366x768 display. The Spectre XT's 1,920x1080 resolution is perfect for a 15-inch class display running Window 8. Windows 8 fonts look smooth, well-resolved but not so small that you can't see them.

And speaking of Windows 8. I've tried my share of Windows 8 touch-screen laptops and this is hands-down the best experience I've had: fluid, fast, fun. No lag here.

And one final thought: though it weighs just under five pounds, I found the weight distribution excellent. That is, it feels lighter than a traditional, thick 5-pound laptop.

HP's 3-pound, 11.6-inch EliteBook Revolve seemed well-built, well-conceived and comes packed with impressive features, like a touch screen, integrated 4G connectivity, and Intel's Ivy Bridge processors.

I spent considerably less time with the EliteBook Revolve but walked away feeling it had a lot potential (it won't ship until March). In fact, if I was to design a Windows 8 road-warrior laptop, it would be pretty much what HP has delivered.

The Revolve is a convertible. That is, it has a touch display that rotates but doesn't detach from the base. But what I like about it is the practicality: it's only a little heavier than my Air but has a touch display and the option for built-in 4G.

I can't overstate the importance of integrated 4G. With my Air, it's more-often-than-not a hassle to connect to my Verizon Mi-Fi or my iPhone 5's hotspot. I'm not going to go into all of the reasons why it's a hassle here but suffice to say it would be nice to have 4G built into the MBA. If Apple can provide an iPad 4 with 4G, why not an 11.6-inch MacBook Air?

But getting back to the Revolve. The other big draw for me is the option for an HP docking station, allowing you to pop the laptop into a dock and instantly connect to all the ports of a typical desktop PC.

If HP can deliver consistent quality on these two laptops, I would say there's still plenty of hope for the world's largest PC company.

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Google and Twitter Help Track Influenza Outbreaks

This flu season could be the longest and worst in years. So far 18 children have died from flu-related symptoms, and 2,257 people have been hospitalized.

Yesterday Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared a citywide public health emergency, with roughly 700 confirmed flu cases—ten times the number the city saw last year.

"It arrived five weeks early, and it's shaping up to be a pretty bad flu season," said Lyn Finelli, who heads the Influenza Outbreak Response Team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Boston isn't alone. According to the CDC, 41 states have reported widespread influenza activity, and in the last week of 2012, 5.6 percent of doctor's office visits across the country were for influenza-like illnesses. The severity likely stems from this year's predominant virus: H3N2, a strain known to severely affect children and the elderly. Finelli notes that the 2003-2004 flu season, also dominated by H3N2, produced similar numbers. (See "Are You Prepped? The Influenza Roundup.")

In tracking the flu, physicians and public health officials have a host of new surveillance tools at their disposal thanks to crowdsourcing and social media. Such tools let them get a sense of the flu's reach in real time rather than wait weeks for doctor's offices and state health departments to report in.

Pulling data from online sources "is no different than getting information on over-the-counter medication or thermometer purchases [to track against an outbreak]," said Philip Polgreen, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa.

The most successful of these endeavors, Google Flu Trends, analyzes flu-related Internet search terms like "flu symptoms" or "flu medication" to estimate flu activity in different areas. It tracks flu outbreaks globally.

Another tool, HealthMap, which is sponsored by Boston Children's Hospital, mines online news reports to track outbreaks in real time. Sickweather draws from posts on Twitter and Facebook that mention the flu for its data.

People can be flu-hunters themselves with Flu Near You, a project that asks people to report their symptoms once a week. So far more than 38,000 people have signed up for this crowdsourced virus tracker. And of course, there's an app for that.

Both Finelli, a Flu Near You user, and Polgreen find the new tools exciting but agree that they have limits. "It's not as if we can replace traditional surveillance. It's really just a supplement, but it's timely," said Polgreen.

When people have timely warning that there's flu in the community, they can get vaccinated, and hospitals can plan ahead. According to a 2012 study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, Google Flu Trends has shown promise predicting emergency room flu traffic. Some researchers are even using a combination of the web database and weather data to predict when outbreaks will peak.

As for the current flu season, it's still impossible to predict week-to-week peaks and troughs. "We expect that it will last a few more weeks, but we can never tell how bad it's going to get," said Finelli.

Hospitals are already taking precautionary measures. One Pennsylvania hospital erected a separate emergency room tent for additional flu patients. This week, several Illinois hospitals went on "bypass," alerting local first responders that they're at capacity—due to an uptick in both flu and non-flu cases—so that patients will be taken to alternative facilities, if possible.

In the meantime, the CDC advises vaccination, first and foremost. On the bright side, the flu vaccine being used this year is a good match for the H3N2 strain. Though Finelli cautions, "Sometimes drifted strains pop up toward the end of the season."

It looks like there won't be shortages of seasonal flu vaccine like there have been in past years. HealthMap sports a Flu Vaccine Finder to make it a snap to find a dose nearby. And if the flu-shot line at the neighborhood pharmacy seems overwhelming, more health departments and clinics are offering drive-through options.

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Judge: Holmes Can Face Trial for Aurora Shooting

Jan 10, 2013 8:45pm

(Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo)

In a ruling that comes as little surprise, the judge overseeing the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre has ordered that there is enough evidence against James Holmes to proceed to a trial.

In an order posted late Thursday, Judge William Sylvester wrote that “the People have carried their burden of proof and have established that there is probable cause to believe that Defendant committed the crimes charged.”

The ruling came after a three-day preliminary hearing this week that revealed new details about how Holmes allegedly planned for and carried out the movie theater shooting, including how investigators say he amassed an arsenal of guns and ammunition, how he booby-trapped his apartment to explode, and his bizarre behavior after his arrest.

PHOTOS: Colorado ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Theater Shooting

Holmes is charged with 166 counts, including murder, attempted murder and other charges related to the July 20 shooting that left 12 people dead and 58 wounded by gunfire. An additional 12 people suffered non-gunshot injuries.

One of the next legal steps is an arraignment, at which Holmes will enter a plea. The arraignment was originally expected to take place Friday morning.

Judge Sylvester indicated through a court spokesman that he would allow television and still cameras into the courtroom, providing the outside world the first images of Holmes since a July 23 hearing. Plans for cameras in court, however, were put on hold Thursday afternoon.

“The defense has notified the district attorney that it is not prepared to proceed to arraignment in this case by Friday,” wrote public defenders Daniel King, Tamara Brady and Kristen Nelson Thursday afternoon in a document objecting to cameras in court.

A hearing in the case will still take place Friday morning. In his order, Judge Sylvester said it should technically be considered an arraignment, but noted the defense has requested a continuance.  Legal experts expect the judge will grant the continuance, delaying the arraignment and keeping cameras out of court for now.

Sylvester also ordered that Holmes be held without bail.

Holmes’ attorneys have said in court that the former University of Colorado neuroscience student is mentally ill. The district attorney overseeing the case has not yet announced whether Holmes, now 25, can face the death penalty.

SHOWS: World News

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Hints of new dark force seen in galactic smash-ups

Colliding clusters of galaxies may hold clues to a mysterious dark force at work in the universe. This force would act only on invisible dark matter, the enigmatic stuff that makes up 86 per cent of the mass in the universe.

Dark matter famously refuses to interact with ordinary matter except via gravity, so theorists had assumed that its particles would be just as aloof with each other. But new observations suggest that dark matter interacts significantly with itself, while leaving regular matter out of the conversation.

"There could be a whole class of dark particles that don't interact with normal matter but do interact with themselves," says James Bullock of the University of California, Irvine. "Dark matter could be doing all sorts of interesting things, and we'd never know."

Some of the best evidence for dark matter's existence came from the Bullet cluster, a smash-up in which a small galaxy cluster plunged through a larger one about 100 million years ago. Separated by hundreds of light years, the individual galaxies sailed right past each other, and the two clusters parted ways. But intergalactic gas collided and pooled on the trailing ends of each cluster.

Mass maps of the Bullet cluster showed that dark matter stayed in line with the galaxies instead of pooling with the gas, proving that it can separate from ordinary matter. This also hinted that dark matter wasn't interacting with itself, and was affected by gravity alone.

Musket shot

Last year William Dawson of the University of California, Davis and colleagues found an older set of clusters seen about 700 million years after their collision. Nicknamed the Musket Ball cluster, this smash-up told a different tale. When Dawson's team analysed the concentration of matter in the Musket Ball, they found that galaxies are separated from dark matter by about 19,000 light years.

"The galaxies outrun the dark matter. That's what creates the offset," Dawson said. "This is fitting that picture of self-interacting dark matter." If dark matter particles do interact, perhaps via a dark force, they would slow down like the gas.

This new picture could solve some outstanding mysteries in cosmology, Dawson said this week during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California. Non-interacting dark matter should sink to the cores of star clusters and dwarf galaxies, but observations show that it is more evenly distributed. If it interacts with itself, it could puff up and spread outward like a gas.

So why doesn't the Bullet cluster show the same separation between dark matter and galaxies? Dawson thinks it's a question of age – dark matter in the younger Bullet simply hasn't had time to separate.

New window

The idea complements a previous study that saw evidence for dark forces at work in the Bullet cluster. In 2007 Glennys Farrar of New York University and colleagues said that the smaller cluster was moving too fast for gravity alone to be responsible. They suggested that some mysterious force related to dark matter might be hurrying it along.

Still, two clusters is not a lot to go on. Dawson, Bullock and colleagues are following up with about 20 more galactic collisions to see if they show any unusual behaviours. "I really think that we're almost to the point where we have enough observational data in hand," Dawson said. "We could close the book on self-interacting dark matter."

If the new force does exist, we might soon be able to see its effects on things influenced by dark matter, such as the behavior of black holes or the masses of the first stars, says Douglas Finkbeiner of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the new study.

"The simple thing isn't always the right thing, so I really appreciate that Will is trying to look into these other possibilities," he says.

Louis Strigari of Stanford University in California agrees. "Self-interacting dark matter is worth pursuing because we're still very ignorant," he said. "We're desperate to understand what dark matter is, so any new window is welcome."

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Google's Schmidt urges North Korea Internet freedom

BEIJING: Google chairman Eric Schmidt told North Korean officials their country would never develop unless it embraced Internet freedom, he said on Thursday as he returned from a visit to Pyongyang.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, who led the trip, urged North Korea to adopt a moratorium on ballistic missiles and nuclear tests following the communist state's widely criticised rocket launch last month.

Schmidt said he told North Korean officials they should open up the country's Internet "or they will remain behind".

"As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth, and it will make it harder for them to catch up economically," he said.

"Once the Internet starts, citizens in a country can certainly build on top of it. The government has to do something. It has to make it possible for people to use the Internet which the government in North Korea has not yet done."

Richardson, also a former governor of New Mexico, said: "We strongly urged the North Koreans to proceed with a moratorium on ballistic missiles and possible nuclear test."

The pair told reporters at Beijing airport that they did not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on the trip, or US citizen Kenneth Bae.

Bae was arrested in November after entering the country as a tourist, according to the North's official news agency, which said he had admitted committing a crime against the state.

- AFP/al

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Google's Schmidt presses North Korean officials for open Web

Google's Eric Schmidt (right) upon his arrival in North Korea earlier this week with former N.M. Gov. Bill Richardson.

(Credit:
CBS News/Screenshot by CNET)

Eric Schmidt wrapped up a controversial visit to North Korea on Thursday, saying that his private delegation warned officials that global Internet access was key to developing its economy.

"As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their view of the world," he told reporters upon his return to Beijing, according to a Wall Street Journal account. Lack of such access would "make it harder for them to catch up economically. We made that alternative very, very clear," he added.

Despite official U.S. opposition to the visit, Google's executive chairman flew to the reclusive nation on Monday as part of a delegation led by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who described the trip as a "private humanitarian mission."

"We had a good opportunity to talk about expanding the Internet and cell phones in the DPRK," Richardson told the Associated Press before departing for Beijing.

The U.S. State Department had discouraged the visit, saying that the timing was not right for the delegation to visit the country, which is subject to U.S. economic sanctions. A department spokesperson cited recent missile launches by North Korea as a reason for opposing the visit

During the visit, the delegation, which also included Jared Cohen, head of Google Ideas, got a tour of a computer lab at Kim Il Sung University Pyongyang, where a student showed how he goes online to look at reading material from Cornell University.

It's unclear whether the delegation had the opportunity to inquire about Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American whose arrest on unspecified charges was announced by the North Koreans last month.

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Embryonic Sharks Freeze to Avoid Detection

Jane J. Lee

Although shark pups are born with all the equipment they'll ever need to defend themselves and hunt down food, developing embryos still stuck in their egg cases are vulnerable to predators. But a new study finds that even these baby sharks can detect a potential predator, and play possum to avoid being eaten.

Every living thing gives off a weak electrical field. Sharks can sense this with a series of pores—called the ampullae of Lorenzini—on their heads and around their eyes, and some species rely on this electrosensory ability to find food buried in the seafloor. (See pictures of electroreceptive fish.)

Two previous studies on the spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) and the clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria)—a relative of sharks—found similar freezing behavior in their young. But new research by shark biologist and doctoral student Ryan Kempster at the University of Western Australia has given scientists a more thorough understanding of this behavior.

It all started because Kempster wanted to build a better shark repellent. Since he needed to know how sharks respond to electrical fields, Kempster decided to use embryos. "It's very hard to test this in the field because you need to get repeated responses," he said. And you can't always get the same shark to cooperate multiple times. "But we could use embryos because they're contained within an egg case."

Cloaking Themselves

So Kempster got his hands on 11 brownbanded bamboo shark (Chiloscyllium punctatum) embryos and tested their reactions to the simulated weak electrical field of a predator. (Popular pictures: Bamboo shark swallowed whole—by another shark.)

In a study published today in the journal PLoS One, Kempster and his colleagues report that all of the embryonic bamboo sharks, once they reached later stages of development, reacted to the electrical field by ceasing gill movements (essentially, holding their breath), curling their tails around their bodies, and freezing.

A bamboo shark embryo normally beats its tail to move fresh seawater in and out of its egg case. But that generates odor cues and small water currents that can give away its position. The beating of its gills as it breathes also generates an electrical field that predators can use to find it.

"So it cloaks itself," said neuroecologist Joseph Sisneros, at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. "[The embryo] shuts down any odor cues, water movement, and its own electrical signal."

Sisneros, who conducted the previous clearnose skate work, is delighted to see that this shark species also reacts to external electrical fields and said it would be great to see whether this is something all shark, skate, and ray embryos do.

Marine biologist Stephen Kajiura, at Florida Atlantic University, is curious to know how well the simulated electrical fields compare to the bamboo shark's natural predators—the experimental field was on the higher end of the range normally given off.

"[But] they did a good job with [the study]," Kajiura said. "They certainly did a more thorough study than anyone else has done."

Electrifying Protection?

In addition to the freezing behavior he recorded in the bamboo shark embryos, Kempster found that the shark pups remembered the electrical field signal when it was presented again within 40 minutes and that they wouldn't respond as strongly to subsequent exposures as they did initially.

This is important for developing shark repellents, he said, since some of them use electrical fields to ward off the animals. "So if you were using a shark repellent, you would need to change the current over a 20- to 30-minute period so the shark doesn't get used to that field."

Kempster envisions using electrical fields to not only keep humans safe but to protect sharks as well. Shark populations have been on the decline for decades, due partly to ending up as bycatch, or accidental catches, in the nets and on the longlines of fishers targeting other animals.

A 2006 study estimated that as much as 70 percent of landings, by weight, in the Spanish surface longline fleet were sharks, while a 2007 report found that eight million sharks are hooked each year off the coast of southern Africa. (Read about the global fisheries crisis in National Geographic magazine.)

"If we can produce something effective, it could be used in the fishing industry to reduce shark bycatch," Kempster said. "In [America] at the moment, they're doing quite a lot of work trying to produce electromagnetic fish hooks." The eventual hope is that if these hooks repel the sharks, they won't accidentally end up on longlines.

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Holmes 'Delighted' by Creepy Self-Portraits: Victims

After two days of apparent indifference, accused Aurora shooter James Holmessmiled and smirked at disturbing self-portraits and images of weapons shown in court today, according to the families of victims who watched him.

"When he sees himself, he gets very excited and his eyes crinkle," Caren Teves said outside of the courthouse, after the hearing. "Your eyes are the window to the soul and you could see that he was very delighted in seeing himself in that manner."

Teves' son Alex Teves, 24, died in the shooting.

Prosecutors showed photos that Holmes took of himself hours before he allegedly carried out a massacre at a Colorado movie theater. He took a series of menacing self-portraits with his dyed orange hair curling out of from under a black skull cap and his eyes covered with black contacts. In some of the photos, guns were visible.

Those haunting photographs, found on his iPhone, were shown in court today on the last day of a preliminary testimony that will lead to a decision on whether the case will go to trial. The hearing concluded without Holmes' defense calling any witnesses.

The judge's decision on whether the case will proceed to trial is expected on Friday.

James Holmes: Suspect in Aurora Movie Theatre Shootings Back in Court Watch Video

Police Testify at Hearing for Accused Colorado Gunman Watch Video

Couple Surprised by Rebuilt Home After Sandy Watch Video

Holmes, 25, is accused of opening fire on a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012, killing 12 people and wounding dozens others during a showing of "Dark Knight Rises."

The court room's set-up kept members of the media from being able to see Holmes' face as the photos were displayed, but victims and their families could watch him.

Teves said that Holmes was "absolutely smirking" when images of his weapons and the iPhone photos he took of himself were shown in court.

"I watched him intently," Caren Teves' husband Tom Teves said. "I watched him smile every time a weapon was discussed, every time they talked about his apartment and how he had it set up (with booby traps), and he could have gave a darn about the people, to be quite frank. But he's not crazy one bit. He's very, very cold. He's very, very calculated."

Holmes' has exhibited bizarre behavior after the shooting and while in custody. His defense team has said that he is mentally ill, but have not said if he will plead insanity.

"He has a brain set that no one here can understand and we want to call him crazy because we want to make that feel better in our society, but we have to accept the fact that there are evil people in our society that enjoy killing any type of living thing," a frustrated Tom Teves said. "That doesn't make them crazy. And don't pretend he's crazy. He's not crazy."

The photos presented in court showed Holmes mugging for his iPhone camera just hours before the shooting.

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

Half-a-dozen photos showed Holmes with his clownish red-orange hair and black contact lenses giving the photos a particularly disturbing edge.

In one particularly odd image, he was making a scowling face with his tongue out. He was whistling in another photo. Holmes is smiling in his black contacts and flaming hair in yet another with the muzzle of one of his Glock pistols in the forefront.

Yet another photo showed him dressed in black tactical gear, posing with an AR-15 rifle.

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Pruney fingers give us better grip underwater

WHY do our fingers do prune impressions when soaked? It could be an adaptation that gives us better grip underwater.

Fingers and toes wrinkle in water after about 5 minutes due to the constriction of blood vessels. This reduction in volume pulls the skin inward, but as the skin's surface area cannot change, it wrinkles. A study in 2011 showed that wrinkles form a pattern of channels that divert water away from the fingertip – akin to rain treads on tyres. The team thought that this could aid grip.

To find out, Tom Smulders and his team at Newcastle University, UK, timed people as they transferred wet or dry objects from one box to another with and without wrinkled fingers.

With wrinkles, wet objects were transferred about 12 per cent faster than with unwrinkled fingers. The time it took to transfer dry objects was the same regardless of wrinkles.

So why aren't our digits always prune-like? "With wrinkles, less of your skin surface touches the object, so there may be issues of sensitivity," Smulders suggests.

Journal reference: Royal Society Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0999.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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China economy to overtake US by 2019: state research

BEIJING: China will overtake the United States economically within six years, an official research institute predicts, and go on to become the world's most important country in three decades more, state media said Wednesday.

The findings came from the Nation's Health Report issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Global Times said, without giving details of the criteria used for the prediction.

China's economy would be larger than that of the US by 2019, it cited the document as saying, and China's "international status" would exceed that of the US by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.

"National health" was defined as a country's "overall conditions... using resource sufficiency and wealth distribution as the major criteria", the Global Times said, but did not go into specifics.

China ranked as the 11th "healthiest" country out of some 100 nations, it said, just behind Costa Rica, with Sweden in top position.

The official Xinhua news agency said China was given a national health status of "up to standard", though the US, Japan and Britain were deemed "health deficient".

The report could not immediately be independently obtained from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

China's stunning economic growth rates, increases in military spending and overlapping security interests in the Asia-Pacific region with the US have sparked concerns the countries could find themselves increasingly at odds in coming decades as they jockey for global influence.

But the Global Times, which has close ties to China's ruling Communist Party, said the document's findings were seen by some as overly nationalistic.

"The report is indicative of an anti-US sentiment in Chinese society," Fang Zhouzi, described as a prominent whistleblower on academic fraud, told the paper.

"It casts the US as a potential threat and links the goals of China's national revival to surpassing the US," he added.

Decades of economic reform and openness to foreign investment have propelled China from a poor, overwhelmingly agricultural country to become the world's second-largest economy behind the US.

International analysts widely expect China's economy, given its high growth rates, to overtake the US in terms of gross domestic product, or total size, sometime in the first half of this century, though differ on exact timing and criteria.

But they also see the US as likely to remain wealthier on a per capita basis given China's huge population of 1.3 billion, with that of the US currently at about 315 million.

-AFP/fl

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BlackBerrify your iPhone with Spike keyboard case

LAS VEGAS--No one likes typing on a touch screen. So what if your iPhone case had a very mini QWERTY keyboard?

That's just what Spike from SoloMatrix is designed to be. When we heard about it last year, the Spike TypeSmart keyboard was part of a Kickstarter campaign that proved successful.

The tactile keyboard swivels out from its case and its keys make contact with the iPhone's on-screen keyboard.

It doesn't require separate charging, docking, or an app, and it works with capacitive conductivity through the screens on the
iPhone 4 and
iPhone 5.

Whenever a key is pressed and makes contact with the screen, it creates a grounded state.

Spike attaches to the phones in a snap. There's a number key that pushes the number menu on the iPhone's on-screen keyboard. Then you can type using the alternate number designations for the TypeSmart.

But your fingers better be very nimble indeed to get the hang of it. When I tried typing a few sentences, certain keys didn't register and words were missing letters.

I have a BlackBerry Curve, and there's really no comparison between the ease of use of its keyboard and Spike. The former wins hands down.

But if you want something very compact that doesn't require separate power or Bluetooth, Spike may be worth considering.

The iPhone 4/4s version will launch in February for $49.95, with the iPhone 5 edition following.

The price may drop if there's high order volume, according to Cody Solomon, SoloMatrix co-founder.

Since the campaign raised some $81,000, Spike could prove popular indeed.

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Pictures: Wildfires Scorch Australia Amid Record Heat

Photograph by Jo Giuliani, European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke from a wildfire mushrooms over a beach in Forcett, Tasmania, on January 4. (See more wildfire pictures.)

Wildfires have engulfed southeastern Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, in recent days, fueled by dry conditions and temperatures as high as 113ºF (45ºC), the Associated Press reported. (Read "Australia's Dry Run" inNational Geographic magazine.)

No deaths have been reported, though a hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Dunalley, where the blazes destroyed 90 homes.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the AP.

"We are at the catastrophic level, and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Published January 8, 2013

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Dead Lotto Winner's Wife Seeks 'Truth'

The wife of a $1 million Chicago lottery winner who died of cyanide poisoning told ABC News that she was shocked to learn the true cause of his death and is cooperating with an ongoing homicide investigation.

"I want the truth to come out in the investigation, the sooner the better," said Shabana Ansari, 32, the wife of Urooj Khan, 46. "Who could be that person who hurt him?

"It has been incredibly hard time," she added. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone."

Ansari, Khan's second wife, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she prepared what would be her husband's last meal the night before Khan died unexpectedly on July 20. It was a traditional beef-curry dinner attended by the married couple and their family, including Khan's 17-year-old daughter from a prior marriage, Jasmeen, and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the paper, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She called 911.

Khan, an immigrant from India who owned three dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, won $1 million in a scratch-off Illinois Lottery game in June and said he planned to use the money to pay off his bills and mortgage, and make a contribution to St. Jude Children's Research Center.

"Him winning the lottery was just his luck," Ansari told ABC News. "He had already worked hard to be a millionaire before it."

Illinois Lottery/AP Photo

Chicago Lottery Winner Died From Cyanide Poisoning Watch Video

Lottery Murder Suspect Dee Dee Moore Found Guilty Watch Video

Lottery Winner Murder Trial: Opening Statements Begin Watch Video

Jimmy Goreel, who worked at the 7-Eleven store where Khan bought the winning ticket, described him to The Associated Press as a "regular customer ... very friendly, good sense of humor, working type of guy."

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Khan's unexpected death the month after his lottery win raised the suspicions of the Cook County medical examiner. There were no signs of foul play or trauma so the death initially was attributed to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which covers heart attacks, stroke or ruptured aneurysms. The medical examiner based the conclusion on an external exam -- not an autopsy -- and toxicology reports that indicated no presence of drugs or carbon monoxide.

Khan was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.

However, several days after a death certificate was issued, a family member requested that the medical examiner's office look further into Khan's death, Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina said. The office did so by retesting fluid samples that had been taken from Khan's body, including tests for cyanide and strychnine.

When the final toxicology results came back in late November, they showed a lethal level of cyanide, which led to the homicide investigation, Cina said. His office planned to exhume Khan's body within the next two weeks as part of the investigation.

Melissa Stratton, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department, confirmed it has been working closely with the medical examiner's office. The police have not said whether or not they believe Khan's lottery winnings played a part in the homicide.

Khan had elected to receive the lump sum payout of $425,000, but had not yet received it when he died, Ansari told the AP, adding that the winnings now are tied up as a probate matter.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Authorities also have not revealed the identity of the relative who suggested the deeper look into Khan's death. Ansari said it was not her, though she told the AP she has subsequently spoken with investigators.

"This is been a shock for me," she told ABC News. "This has been an utter shock for me, and my husband was such a goodhearted person who would do anything for anyone. Who would do something like this to him?

"We were married 12 years [and] he treated me like a princess," she said. "He showered his love on me and now it's gone."

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World's oldest pills treated sore eyes

In ancient Rome, physicians treated sore eyes with the same active ingredients as today. So suggests an analysis of pills found on the Relitto del Pozzino, a cargo ship wrecked off the Italian coast in around 140 BC.

"To our knowledge, these are the oldest medical tablets ever analysed," says Erika Ribechini of the University of Pisa in Italy, head of a team analysing the relics. She thinks the disc-shaped tablets, 4 centimetres across and a centimetre thick, were likely dipped in water and dabbed directly on the eyes.

The tablets were mainly made of the zinc carbonates hydrozincite and smithsonite, echoing the widespread use of zinc-based minerals in today's eye and skin medications. Ribechini says there is evidence that Pliny the Elder, the Roman physician, prescribed zinc compounds for these uses almost 250 years after the shipwreck in his seminal medical encyclopaedia, Naturalis Historia.

The tablets were also rich in plant and animal oils. Pollen grains from an olive tree suggest that olive oil was a key ingredient, just like it is today in many medical and beauty creams, says Ribechini.

The tablets were discovered in a sealed tin cylinder called a pyxis (see image above). The tin must have been airtight to protect its contents from oxygen corrosion.

"Findings of such ancient medicines are extremely rare, so preservation of the Pozzino tablets is a very lucky case," says Ribechini.

The cargo of the wreck, discovered in 1989, is rich in other medical equipment, including vials and special vessels for bloodletting. This suggests that one of the passengers may have been a physician.

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1216776110

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