Speed of Light
Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, say they have slowed down the
speed light to a virtual crawl -- less than 40 miles per hour. Light normally travels
twenty million times faster than that. Researchers at the Rowland Institute for Science
say they took advantage of the properties of the Bose-Einstein condensate to interfere
with the normal rapid movement of light waves. For the moment, this is essentially a
scientific and technical feat. But the researchers say it could prove useful for
exotic technologies, ranging from optical computers to super-sensitive night vision
equipment. For the details, listen as NPR's Ivan Amato reports for All Things Considered. 
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Genetic
engineering talks hit snag
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - U.N.-sponsored talks on regulating trade in
genetically modified organisms - from pest-resistant food crops to pharmaceuticals - were
in knots Tuesday over developing countries' insistence they be allowed to restrict imports
and be compensated for any environmental damage. It was unclear whether an international
treaty, an outgrowth of the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil, could be achieved in this weeks'
negotiations attended by more than 130 nations in the Caribbean city of Cartagena.
Developing nations fear genetically engineered crops could have devastating effects on
their rich biological diversity, cultural traditions and more rudimentary agriculture.
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Faxless Society
If you still don't have a fax machine, you might never need one.
Register your e-mail address with eFax (www.efax.com),
a free fax-to-e-mail service, and get a traditional 10-digit fax number. Then, when
someone sends a document to the number, eFax will convert it to an image file and send it
to you as an attachment in an e-mail message. Handwritten text or drawings are OK; you can
download the fax and read it easily with a simple viewer that eFax provides you. Faxes
appear exactly as they would from a standard machine, right down to the time and date
stamp on the top. eFax is great if you're on the road. In the office, use it to bypass the
company fax when you're expecting a confidential memo—or just to avoid a trip to the
machine.
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HAPPY99.EXE
WORM SPREADING QUICKLY
A worm released last month on Usenet has spread quickly in Silicon
Valley. Happy99.exe arrives as an email or newsgroup attachment, and affects only users
who run the attachment. It doesn't destroy files, but sends emails and newsgroup postings
without a user's knowledge -- potentially causing network slowdowns or crashing corporate
email servers. Click
for more. A step-by-step guide for removing the worm has been posted on the Web.
Click for more.
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PENTIUM
III GETS LUKEWARM RESPONSE
Intel is calling Pentium III its most important product launch of the
year. But a PC Week survey of IT managers reveals little interest in the new 450 and 500 MHz chips Intel will unveil
at a Preview Day later this week. As one network administrator put it: "The only nice
thing I see about Pentium III is that the price of Pentium IIs may drop more
quickly." (And that should happen soon; Intel expects to ship its new chip next
week.) Click for
more. Our take: As the cheap PC revolution and success
of AMD have shown, most of us really don't need our processors to run faster and faster.
The real speed bottleneck continues to be bandwidth, and Intel hasn't got a chip to solve
that one yet. When voice recognition and natural language processing hit their stride in a
couple years, a speed upgrade may make more sense.
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Stardust Mission
An unmanned Delta Two rocket blasted off yesterday from a NASA launch
pad in Florida. The spacecraft is designed to snatch a bit of material from a comet and
bring it back to earth. If the mission works as planned, it will be the first time since
the Apollo flights to the moon that scientists have collected material from another body
in space and brought it back to earth. While the Stardust spacecraft is scheduled to
collect some samples next year, it isn't due back to earth until 2006. Listen NPR's
Richard Harris explains for All Things Considered how the mission will consist of a few
thrilling moments punctuating years of waiting around.
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NASA
planning plane bound for Mars
WASHINGTON (AP) - To mark the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers
first airplane flight NASA wants to duplicate the event - sort of - on Mars. The NASA
budget for 2000 contains $50 million to begin development of a Mars airplane. An animated
video played at the budget briefing showed a small, pilotless plane parachuting toward the
sandy surface, unfolding its wings and propeller, and puttering off. In actuality, a lot
about the plane remains to be determined, including actual design and means of propulsion
and delivery to Mars, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said. Flying in Mars' atmosphere
is like flying at 100,000 to 130,000 feet altitude above Earth, he said, so much research
needs to be done. A long-range jetliner flies at about 30,000 feet altitude. There is also
an eight-minute time lag for radio messages between Earth and Mars, complicating the
control of the plane, which would be unmanned. The goal, is all goes well, is to make the
flight in 2003, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight, though NASA's
briefing papers admitted it could slip to 2005.
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