Streamline Workflow with Gmail Canned Responses

Gmail Labs has added a new “canned response” feature that allows you to create and save common e-mail responses for faster replies. Once you enable the new features, all you need to do is compose a message with the boilerplate text and then choose “save new canned response” in the canned responses menu.

Now whenever you want to send a quick response — something like, “thanks for the update” — just choose the saved response.

Perhaps the most useful part of canned responses comes from chaining them to a Gmail filter. Gmail allows you to create filters based on keywords, sender, recipients, and more in your incoming messages. Once you have a canned response saved you can set a filter to grab one, create an automated reply, and hit the Send button for you.

One thing to be aware of — the canned response will delete all the reply text so there’s no quoting from the original message (unless you save your canned response with part of the message response, but that would severely limit the canned aspect).

Google Operating System discovered an interesting bit of trivia about canned responses: they’re actually saved as invisible drafts. If you want to see them search for label:drafts, but by default they won’t show up in your drafts view.

It’s another very minor update — like the recent change in Contact List behavior — but if you find yourself repeated answering e-mails with the same boilerplate response, canned responses should make your life a little bit easier.

To enable the new features head to the Gmail Labs section (click the green beaker icon) and scroll down to the Canned Responses section.

Selectively Deleting Memories

Credit: Technology Review

Amping up a chemical in the mouse brain and then triggering the animal's recall can cause erasure of those, and only those, specific memories, according to research in the most recent issue of the journal Neuron. While the study was done in mice that were genetically modified to react to the chemical, the results suggest that it might one day be possible to develop a drug for eliminating specific, long-term memories, something that could be a boon for those suffering from debilitating phobias or post-traumatic stress disorder.

For more than two decades, researchers have been studying the chemical--a protein called alpha-CaM kinase II--for its role in learning and memory consolidation. To better understand the protein, a few years ago, Joe Tsien, a neurobiologist at the Medical College of Georgia, in Augusta created a mouse in which he could activate or inhibit sensitivity to alpha-CaM kinase II.

In the most recent results, Tsien found that when the mice recalled long-term memories while the protein was overexpressed in their brains, the combination appeared to selectively delete those memories. He and his collaborators first put the mice in a chamber where the animals heard a tone, then followed up the tone with a mild shock. The resulting associations: the chamber is a very bad place, and the tone foretells miserable things.

Then, a month later--enough time to ensure that the mice's long-term memory had been consolidated--the researchers placed the animals in a totally different chamber, overexpressed the protein, and played the tone. The mice showed no fear of the shock-associated sound. But these same mice, when placed in the original shock chamber, showed a classic fear response. Tsien had, in effect, erased one part of the memory (the one associated with the tone recall) while leaving the other intact.

"One thing that we're really intrigued by is that this is a selective erasure," Tsien says. "We know that erasure occurred very quickly, and was initiated by the recall itself."

Tsien notes that while the current methods can't be translated into the clinical setting, the work does identify a potential therapeutic approach. "Our work demonstrates that it's feasible to inducibly, selectively erase a memory," he says.

"The study is quite interesting from a number of points of view," says Mark Mayford, who studies the molecular basis of memory at the Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, CA. He notes that current treatments for memory "extinction" consist of very long-term therapy, in which patients are asked to recall fearful memories in safe situations, with the hope that the connection between the fear and the memory will gradually weaken.

"But people are very interested in devising a way where you could come up with a drug to expedite a way to do that," he says. That kind of treatment could change a memory by scrambling things up just in the neurons that are active during the specific act of the specific recollection. "That would be a very powerful thing," Mayford says.

But the puzzle is an incredibly complex one, and getting to that point will take a vast amount of additional research. "Human memory is so complicated, and we are just barely at the foot of the mountain," Tsien says.

Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

Credit: Raymond Beisinger

Wikipedia's Reference Policy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability Wikipedia's “No Original Research" Policy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View" Policy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: Neutral_point_of_view Wikipedia's Policy on Reliability of Sources en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources Wikipedia's Citation Policy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources

With little notice from the outside world, the community-written encyclopedia Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word "truth."

Why should we care? Because ­Wikipedia's articles are the first- or second-ranked results for most Internet searches. Type "iron" into Google, and Wikipedia's article on the element is the top-ranked result; likewise, its article on the Iron Cross is first when the search words are "iron cross." Google's search algorithms rank a story in part by how many times it has been linked to; people are linking to Wikipedia articles a lot.

This means that the content of these articles really matters. Wikipedia's standards of inclusion--what's in and what's not--affect the work of journalists, who routinely read Wikipedia articles and then repeat the wikiclaims as "background" without bothering to cite them. These standards affect students, whose research on many topics starts (and often ends) with Wikipedia. And since I used Wikipedia to research large parts of this article, these standards are affecting you, dear reader, at this very moment.

Many people, especially academic experts, have argued that Wikipedia's articles can't be trusted, because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted. Nevertheless, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. The reason is that Wikipedia's community of more than seven million registered users has organically evolved a set of policies and procedures for removing untruths. This also explains Wikipedia's explosive growth: if the stuff in Wikipedia didn't seem "true enough" to most readers, they wouldn't keep coming back to the website.

These policies have become the social contract for Wikipedia's army of apparently insomniac volunteers. Thanks to them, incorrect information generally disappears quite quickly.

So how do the Wikipedians decide what's true and what's not? On what is their epistemology based?

Unlike the laws of mathematics or science, wikitruth isn't based on principles such as consistency or observa­bility. It's not even based on common sense or firsthand experience. Wikipedia has evolved a radically different set of epistemological standards--standards that aren't especially surprising given that the site is rooted in a Web-based community, but that should concern those of us who are interested in traditional notions of truth and accuracy. On Wikipedia, objective truth isn't all that important, actually. What makes a fact or statement fit for inclusion is that it appeared in some other publication--ideally, one that is in English and is available free online. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth," states Wikipedia's official policy on the subject.

Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies; it was codified back in August 2003. The two others are "no original research" (December 2003) and "neutral point of view," which the Wikipedia project inherited from Nupedia, an earlier volunteer-written Web-based free encyclopedia that existed from March 2000 to September 2003 (Wikipedia's own NPOV policy was codified in December 2001). These policies have made Wikipedia a kind of academic agora where people on both sides of politically charged subjects can rationally discuss their positions, find common ground, and unemotionally document their differences. Wikipedia is successful because these policies have worked.

Unlike Wikipedia's articles, Nupedia's were written and vetted by experts. But few experts were motivated to contribute. Well, some wanted to write about their own research, but Larry Sanger, Nupedia's editor in chief, immediately put an end to that practice.

"I said, 'If it hasn't been vetted by the rele­vant experts, then basically we are setting ourselves up as a frontline source of new, original information, and we aren't set up to do that,'" Sanger (who is himself, ironically or not, a former philosophy instructor and by training an epistemologist) recalls telling his fellow Nupedians.

With experts barred from writing about their own work and having no incentive to write about anything else, Nupedia struggled. Then Sanger and Jimmy Wales, Nupedia's founder, decided to try a different policy on a new site, which they launched on January 15, 2001. They adopted the newly invented "wiki" technology, allowing anybody to contribute to any article--or create a new one--on any topic, simply by clicking "Edit this page."

Soon the promoters of oddball hypothe­ses and outlandish ideas were all over Wikipedia, causing the new site's volunteers to spend a good deal of time repairing damage--not all of it the innocent work of the misguided or deluded. (A study recently published in Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery found that 11 percent of Wikipedia articles have been vandalized at least once.) But how could Wikipedia's volunteer editors tell if something was true? The solution was to add references and footnotes to the articles, "not in order to help the reader, but in order to establish a point to the satisfaction of the [other] contributors," says Sanger, who left Wikipedia before the verifiability policy was formally adopted. (Sanger and Wales, now the chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, fell out about the scale of Sanger's role in the creation of Wikipedia. Today, Sanger is the creator and editor in chief of Citizendium, an alternative to Wikipedia that is intended to address the inadequacy of its "reliability and quality.")

Verifiability is really an appeal to au­thority--not the authority of truth, but the authority of other publications. Any other publication, really. These days, information that's added to Wikipedia without an appropriate reference is likely to be slapped with a "citation needed" badge by one of Wikipedia's self-appointed editors. Remove the badge and somebody else will put it back. Keep it up and you might find yourself face to face with another kind of authority--one of the English-language Wikipedia's 1,500 administrators, who have the ability to place increasingly restrictive protections on contentious pages when the policies are ignored.

To be fair, Wikipedia's verifiability policy states that "articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources" that themselves adhere to Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Self-published articles should generally be avoided, and non-English sources are discouraged if English articles are available, because many people who read, write, and edit En.Wikipedia (the English-language version) can read only English.

Mob Rules
In a May 2006 essay on the technology and culture website Edge.org, futurist Jaron Lanier called Wikipedia an example of "digital Maoism"--the closest humanity has come to a functioning mob rule.

Lanier was moved to write about Wikipedia because someone kept editing his Wikipedia entry to say that he was a film director. Lanier describes himself as a "computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author." He is good at all those things, but he is no director. According to his essay, he made one short experimental film in the 1990s, and it was "awful."

"I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me," Lanier wrote. "Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again."

Since Lanier's attempted edits to his own Wikipedia entry were based on firsthand knowledge of his own career, he was in direct violation of Wikipedia's three core policies. He has a point of view; he was writing on the basis of his own original research; and what he wrote couldn't be verified by following a link to some kind of legitimate, authoritative, and verifiable publication.

Wikipedia's standard for "truth" makes good technical and legal sense, given that anyone can edit its articles. There was no way for Wikipedia, as a community, to know whether the person revising the article about Jaron Lanier was really Jaron Lanier or a vandal. So it's safer not to take people at their word, and instead to require an appeal to the authority of another publication from everybody who contributes, expert or not.

An interesting thing happens when you try to understand Wikipedia: the deeper you go, the more convoluted it becomes. Consider the verifiability policy. Wikipedia considers the "most reliable sources" to be "peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses," followed by "university-level textbooks," then magazines, journals, "books published by respected publishing houses," and finally "mainstream newspapers" (but not the opinion pages of newspapers).

Once again, this makes sense, given Wikipedia's inability to vet the real-world identities of authors. Lanier's complaints when his Wikipedia page claimed that he was a film director couldn't be taken seriously by Wikipedia's "contributors" until Lanier persuaded the editors at Edge to print his article bemoaning the claim. This Edge article by Lanier was enough to convince the Wikipedians that the Wikipedia article about Lanier was incorrect--after all, there was a clickable link! Presumably the editors at Edge did their fact checking, so the wikiworld could now be corrected.

As fate would have it, Lanier was subsequently criticized for engaging in the wikisin of editing his own wikientry. The same criticism was leveled against me when I corrected a number of obvious errors in my own Wikipedia entry.

"Criticism" is actually a mild word for the kind of wikijustice meted out to ­people who are foolish enough to get caught editing their own Wikipedia entries: the entries get slapped with a banner headline that says "A major contributor to this article, or its creator, may have a conflict of interest regarding its subject matter." The banner is accompanied by a little picture showing the scales of justice tilted to the left. Wikipedia's "Autobiography" policy explains in great detail how drawing on your own knowledge to edit the Wikipedia entry about yourself violates all three of the site's cornerstone policies--and illustrates the point with yet another appeal to authority, a quotation from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

But there is a problem with appealing to the authority of other people's written words: many publications don't do any fact checking at all, and many of those that do simply call up the subject of the article and ask if the writer got the facts wrong or right. For instance, Dun and Bradstreet gets the information for its small-business information reports in part by asking those very same small businesses to fill out questionnaires about themselves.

"No Original Research"
What all this means is hard to say. I am infrequently troubled by Wiki's unreliability. (The quality of the writing is a different subject.) As a computer scientist, I find myself using Wikipedia on a daily basis. Its discussions of algorithms, architectures, microprocessors, and other technical subjects are generally excellent. When they aren't excellent and I know better, I just fix them. And when they're wrong and I don't know better--well, I don't know any better, do I?

I've also spent quite a bit of time reviewing Wikipedia's articles about such things as the "Singularity Scalpel," the "Treaty of Algeron," and "Number Six." Search for these terms and you'll be directed to Wikipedia articles with the titles "List of Torchwood items" and "List of treaties in Star Trek," and to one about a Cylon robot played by Canadian actress Tricia Helfer. These articles all hang their wikiexistence upon scholarly references to original episodes of Dr. Who, Torchwood, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica--popular television shows that the Wikipedia contributors dignify with the word "canon."

I enjoy using these articles as sticks to poke at Wikipedia, but they represent a tiny percentage of Wikipedia's overall content. On the other hand, they've been an important part of Wikipedia culture from the beginning. Sanger says that early on, Wikipedia made a commitment to having a wide variety of articles: "There's plenty of disk space, and as long as there are people out there who are able to write a decent article about a subject, why not let them? ... I thought it was kind of funny and cool that people were writing articles about every character in The Lord of the Rings. I didn't regard it as a problem the way some people do now."

What's wrong with the articles about fantastical worlds is that they are at odds with Wikipedia's "no original research" rule, since almost all of them draw their "references" from the fictions themselves and not from the allegedly more reliable secondary sources. I haven't nominated these ­articles for speedy deletion because Wikipedia makes an exception for fiction--and because, truth be told, I enjoy reading them. And these days, most such entries are labeled as referring to fictional universes.

So what is Truth? According to Wikipedia's entry on the subject, "the term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree." But in practice, Wikipedia's standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.

That standard is simple: something is true if it was published in a newspaper article, a magazine or journal, or a book published by a university press--or if it appeared on Dr. Who.

Simson L. Garfinkel is a contributing editor to Technology Review and a professor of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.

Prostates Grown from Stem Cells

Presto prostate: Three months after a single prostate stem cell was grafted onto this mouse kidney (pink), it has grown into a fully functioning prostate (white). Now researchers know for sure that the prostate contains adult stem cells, each capable of building a prostate from scratch. By characterizing those cells, they hope to shed light on the stem-cell-like beginnings of prostate cancer and to help improve detection and treatment methods. Credit: Kevin G. Leong et al., Nature

A single adult stem cell from the prostate of a mouse can develop into an entire functional organ, scientists reported online yesterday in Nature. The finding proves that a population of stem cells exists in the adult prostate, as many have long suspected, and it could provide insight into how prostate cancer develops.

"It's extremely exciting, the concept that you can reconstitute an entire prostate from a single cell," says Tyler Jacks, director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, at MIT, who was not involved in the work. "That's impressive stuff."

Unlike embryonic stem cells, which can potentially develop into any cell type in the body, adult stem cells are tissue-specific. Many organs are believed to house populations of adult stem cells, but in most cases their existence remains unproven. Known adult stem cells, however, can give rise to all the cell types that characterize the organs in which they're found.

To sift out potential adult prostate stem cells, researchers at Genentech, in San Francisco, zeroed in on a group of cell-surface markers associated with suspected prostate stem cells. Since many of these markers are individually unreliable and poorly understood, the researchers tested a new one as well: a receptor protein called c-kit, which is known to be associated with other types of stem cells.

Using c-kit and three other markers, the researchers, led by senior scientist Wei-Qiang Gao, isolated a small population of likely stem cells from the prostates of mice. But while markers can point to candidates, they can't unequivocally prove the identity of a stem cell. The cell still needs to demonstrate the capacity to develop into an entire organ.

To test for that capacity, Gao and his colleagues grafted individual stem-cell candidates onto the kidneys of living mice. In order to provide necessary developmental cues, they transferred, along with each cell, some connective cells from the urogenital cavities of rats. Three months later, the researchers removed the kidneys and analyzed the fate of the grafted cells. Of the 97 single-cell transplants, 14 had grown into fully functioning prostates--complete with multiple cell types, characteristic branching structures, and prostate-specific proteins.

Other groups have grown prostates in living mice from clumps of cells, but never before from a single cell. "That's really the gold standard--that there's an adult, tissue-specific stem cell," says Scott Cramer, an associate professor of cancer biology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. The only other solid tissue for which this feat has been accomplished is the breast: a single breast stem cell can develop into an entire mammary gland.

Adult stem cells have been touted for their promise in regenerative medicine. But there is no clinical reason to regrow a prostate, says Leisa Johnson, a senior scientist at Genentech and coauthor of the Nature paper. The vast majority of prostate-cancer patients are beyond their child-bearing years, and the main side effects of prostate removal--urinary incontinence and impotence--are caused by nerve disruption during surgery, so they wouldn't be remedied by a new prostate.

Even so, says Jacks, the newly isolated prostate stem cells may provide insight into adult stem cells in general. "Our understanding of stem cells--and adult stem cells in particular--might allow us to re-create damaged tissues that are lost during debilitating diseases," he says.

More important, however, the stem cells may have much to reveal about prostate cancer. Only a small number of cells in a tumor actually have the capacity to spawn an entire tumor, with all its various cell types. Many researchers speculate that these cells, dubbed cancer stem cells or cancer-initiating cells, have much in common with normal adult stem cells. Some even suspect that cancer stem cells and normal stem cells are one and the same.

"We now believe that for many types of cancer, the cell that gives rise to the cancer in the normal tissue is itself a stem cell," says Jacks. "If that is true for prostate cancer, then having the ability to purify and therefore study the normal stem cell would be an important tool in understanding how prostate cancer originates."

Johnson agrees. "By gaining insights into the normal stem cell of the prostate, our hope is to gain better understanding of the cancer-initiating cell," she says.

If it does turn out that stem cells, or stemlike cells, are responsible for triggering prostate cancer, markers like c-kit may also point the way to potential treatments. Now that the Genentech researchers have a pool of definitive prostate stem cells on hand, they can revise the catalogue of known prostate stem-cell markers and even begin to define their function. If any markers turn out to be essential for stem-cell proliferation, they would be ideal drug targets.

Characterizing the newly discovered prostate stem cells may also produce better ways to detect prostate cancer. "These cells could easily turn out to be the cells of origin for prostate cancer," says Jacks, "and if you're interested in early detection, it is important to understand where these cancers come from."

The Hands Free Future

Look Ma, No Hands!: Eye movement, Wii remotes, vocal cords and mere thought may one day soon control everything from computers to cameras to wheelchairs. Image by pixelgarden.com

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Using motion sensors, brain signals and a heap of creativity, several new technologies promise to do away with cramped typing fingers, videogame-fried eyes and hoarse phone voices. This past summer in Tokyo, for instance, a paralyzed man with electrodes attached to his head took his Second Life avatar on a virtual walk just by envisioning his character strolling. Engineers at a biotech start-up in Illinois are now testing a neck device that allows mute people to speak by intercepting nerve signals en route to the vocal cords, and a team of grad students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has devised a Wii-mote-controlled PC game for the blind.

Scientists already have the know-how to make mind control a reality. The rest is engineering, says Rodney Brooks, a roboticist at MIT. “It’s only a matter of time before it will be normal for people to interface with the virtual world using direct connections to their brain,” he predicts. “We’ll be able to activate any of our machines just by thinking about it.” It’s a nifty idea for all of mankind, but even more so for those who struggle to talk, walk, and see. Click here to see the top notable mind-control devices making headlines.

Hi Def Compact Cameras- rated

High Definition Compact Cameras: Greg Neumaier (Blow it up!)

New point-and-shoot cameras capture video in the 720p high-def format you’ve seen on TV networks such as ESPN. But all HD is not equal. The algorithm, or codec, that compresses the video onto a memory card affects the quality of the footage and your ability to edit it. We tried out three cameras, each sporting a different codec, to find the best mobile movie rig.

Kodak Easyshare Z1012
Codec: MPEG-4; 8 min. per gigabyte
Video was soft and full of artifacts -- errors created during compression -- such as jagged lines in place of straight edges. That's a shame, since the color was generally good, and the 12x zoom lens is handy. The Z1012 can shoot up to 29 minutes of continuous video (versus 10 for the Sony and 15 for the Panasonic), and most software can play or edit the footage.
$280; kodak.com
Editors' Rating: 5 out of 10

Sony Cybershot T500
Codec: AVC/HD; 12.5 min. per gigabyte
The T500's sharp video had only minor artifacts, such as fuzziness along the edges in a cobblestone path. And it packs the most footage per gigabyte. High-noon sunlight didn't wash out colors, but low-light footage was grainy -- most likely a product of the sensor or processor, not the codec. One caveat: Only the latest editing software supports AVC/HD.
$400; sonystyle.com
Editors' Pick
Editors' Rating: 8 out of 10

Panasonic Lumix LX3
Codec: M-JPEG; 4 min. per gigabyte
The LX3 had the clearest low-light video, but it faltered in midday sunlight, with overexposed highlights and faded colors. (They looked better under soft lighting.) And objects weren't quite as sharp as on the Sony. The M-JPEG video hogs memory cards, but viewing or editing it on a computer is easy; nearly all programs read the codec.
$500; panasonic.com
Editors' Rating: 6 out of 10

The Materialist

Francesco Stellacci, 35, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Arum Amy Yu; digital imaging by Neil Duerden

Earlier this year, Francesco Stellacci announced that his group had developed a material that can suck 20 times its weight in oil out of a sample of water. The material could be used to clean up massive crude spills, and chemist Joerg Lahann of the University of Michigan called the work a blueprint for scientists who hope to design nanomaterials that protect the environment. Yet Stellacci doesn’t consider this his best work. He’s excited about tricking cells.

Stellacci’s first major step came in 2003, when he created a peculiar coating for metallic nanoparticles. He had been wondering what would happen if hydrophilic, or water-loving, molecules, and their opposites, hydrophobes, were stuck together on the surface of a nanosize sphere. So he ran an experiment and found that the molecules self-organized into alternating stripes, like lines of latitude on a globe. A belt of tiny, spherical hydrophilic molecules sat atop a band of hydrophobes, and so on from top to bottom.

These stripes are not only aesthetically attractive, they gave his particles new properties. Typically, when materials try to enter a cell, they either get swallowed up and spat out, or they damage it by poking a hole in its membrane. But Stellacci’s striped nanoparticles slipped right in. “The cell has a security system,” he says, “and somehow my particles trick it.”

He hasn’t figured out how this works, but he has shown that the particles could improve drug delivery by giving molecules safe passage into cells. This finding, along with the oil-absorbing material and a new genetic testing technique he developed, has his contemporaries buzzing. “From time to time you see those big leaps in science,” Lahann says. “Francesco is one of those people who has taken several big leaps.”

Legal Weed Lawyer: LA's Dopest Attorney

Allison Margolin is a young criminal attorney in Los Angeles, specializing in cases having to do with medicinal marijuana use. In this pod, VC2 producer Cullen Hoback examines Alison's unique practice, discusses her background as an activist and illustrates how she has built her brand.

The Bond Breaker

Melanie Sanford, 33, University of Michigan: Magen Davis

Why are there so many diseases and so few cures? It’s not just that medicine moves slowly; chemistry holds us back, too. To build drugs, chemists start with a base molecule, then add and subtract atoms from it one by one in a sequence of reactions. The process is tedious and wasteful—a 10-step reaction might convert only 8 percent of the starting material into the right end product. And that’s if chemists can make the drug at all.

In her small lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Melanie Sanford has engineered a new solution. She’s learned how to transform one of the most basic chemical connections—the carbon-hydrogen (CH) bond, a link so common and stable that chemists shorthand it with a single squiggly line—into “anything that you could imagine,” she says. The discovery has opened up entirely new approaches to molecule-building.

Her main trick is to build puzzle pieces out of catalysts, compounds that drive reactions forward. Throw a catalyst in with your starter molecule willy-nilly, and it will attack the most reactive chemical groups it can find. Intractable CH bonds are usually the catalyst’s last option, but Sanford builds a nanosize structure onto the catalyst that makes it react with only the desired CH bond. The catalyst also contains the chemical group she wants to stick onto the starter molecule, so that when the catalyst strips the CH group away, the new atoms swoop in to replace it.

Her method could make new drugs possible. Fluorine is an attractive drug component because it has unique biological effects and breaks down slowly, but it is extremely difficult to add to or remove from starting materials. Companies typically purchase starting compounds that already contain the element and build off them, but if the fluorine isn’t in the correct spot for a particular drug, chemists can’t move it. Sanford’s chemistry gets around that—she can replace specific CH bonds with fluorine, no problem—and drug companies know it: They’ve invited her to give dozens of talks over the past few years.

Energy companies may soon feel the same way. By changing one CH bond to an oxygen-hydrogen (OH) bond, methane—the primary component of natural gas—becomes liquid methanol, which has roughly the same amount of energy but is far easier to transport. One of Sanford’s next goals is to find ways to make this reaction happen on a million-ton scale. “If we could develop catalysts that would do that,” she says, “it would have an impact on the world right away.”

Incredible World Record Skydive from 102,800 Feet

On August 16, 1960, Joseph Kittinger jumped his last ... all » Excelsior jump, doing so from an air-thin height of 102,800 feet (31,334 meters). From that nearly 20 miles altitude, his tumble toward terra firma took some 4 minutes and 36 seconds. Exceeding the speed of sound during the fall, Kittinger used a small stabilizing chute before a larger, main parachute opened in the denser atmosphere. He safely touched down in barren New Mexico desert, 13 minutes 45 seconds after he vaulted into the void.

The jump set records that still stand today, among them, the highest parachute jump, the longest freefall, and the fastest speed ever attained by a human through the atmosphere. Somewhat in contention is Kittinger's use of the small parachute for stabilization during his record-setting fall. Roger Eugene Andreyev, a Russian, is touted as holding the world's free fall record of 80,325 feet (24,483 meters), made on November 1, 1962.

2008 E-Ruf Concept Model A

Pfaffenhausen, Germany — Just as we are wrapping up the details with Alois Ruf regarding our long-awaited drive of his 700-bhp CTR3 supercar, he drops a bombshell before he hangs up the phone, "How would you like to drive a top-secret Ruf that has been under development?" Slideshow >> Huh? Could this be a Ruf even more powerful than the already frighteningly potent CTR3? Without hesitation, I said an emphatic "Yes!" — not waiting to even begin guessing what the secret Ruf project could be. Several follow-up phone calls and a couple of weeks later, I arrived at Pfaffenhausen to sample Ruf's latest creation: the E-Ruf, an all-electric concept car based on the Porsche 997. After an early morning appointment with Ruf at his headquarters, we take a short drive to his skunk works, a nearby location he calls Gmünd — the city in Austria where Ferry Porsche first set up shop and built the famed 356. It's a foggy morning, and Ruf's secret R&D location emerges among a nondescript cluster of other buildings. As the garage door rolls up, a standard black 997 appears, wearing four large orange stickers with the word "Erprobungsfahrt," that is, "Test Drive," on the front and rear bumpers. Look closely and you'll notice that all the air scoops in the front, sides and back of the 997 are now filled in and smoothed over. Peering into the cockpit, you'll see a dash filled with test gauges and a center stack equipped with several switches and connectors. Gone are the rear seats, replaced with a big hump just touching the back of the front seats. Slideshow >> It was about two years ago that Ruf decided to partner with Calmotors of Camarillo, California, to develop an all-electric powertrain package for the Porsche 997. At the heart of the E-Ruf is a 200-lb. electric motor built by UQM Technologies in the U.S. The drum-shaped, brushless a.c. motor — 15.9 in. in diameter and 9.5 in. in length — resides right where the internal-combustion flat-6 normally would. Its system voltage is between 300 to 420 volts at 550 amperes; the motor peaks at 5000 rpm. It generates 150 kW (200 horsepower) and 479 lb.-ft. of torque. Energy storage onboard comes in the form of 96 lithium-ion batteries manufactured by Axeon of Great Britain. Each of these 3.3-volt cells has a life cycle of 3000 charges. In total, the battery pack takes 10 hours to fully charge at 16 amps. Like many concept cars, the E-Ruf is an early prototype, by no means a production-ready car. Subsequent models will follow as the development progresses. In fact, this E-Ruf still retains the 997 clutch and the 6-speed manual transmission. In its final iteration, only one gear is necessary because an electric motor's torque output is instant and the speed is easily reached without multiple gears. And further, there is no need for a reverse gear because you can simply reverse the current and spin the electric motor backward. But unlike many concept cars, the E-Ruf is driveable. With 479 lb.-ft. of torque available the instant you tip in on the accelerator, the E-Ruf moves off quickly with minimal fuss. As the mechanical sound you hear is the whine from the electric motor, wind and tire noise suddenly become more noticeable. In fact, you feel like you're in a spaceship blasting through the galaxy (especially in the thick fog). To slow down, regenerative braking is currently set at about 25 percent, pending final evaluations to achieve optimal brake feel. Slideshow >> On winding roads, the E-Ruf's 4200-lb. weight is apparent as soon as you make a quick steering input. The batteries alone weigh some 1200 lb., and occupy all of the trunk space up front and all of the room inside the big hump where the back seat used to be. Naturally, the balance of the car is not nearly (nor is expected to be) the same as the standard 997's. Ruf would like the E-Ruf to hit 60 mph in under 7 seconds, reach a top speed of 160 mph and have a maximum range of between 155 to 200 miles depending on driving conditions. We can also expect improved handling worthy of the Ruf name. Alternative power must be on all car enthusiasts' minds. Will electric, or other sources of energy, take away the excitement, speed and handling we've long associated with internal-combustion gasoline-burning sports cars? Nobody knows for sure, but it's reassuring to know that Alois Ruf doesn't think car enthusiasm and environmental friendliness are on divergent paths. And people like Ruf keep large manufacturers on their toes by accomplishing something without a huge budget. We can't wait to drive the E-Ruf in its final form.

Chicago's Greenest Home

This is what green living looks like. To showcase the future of eco-friendly architecture, Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry has built a three-story "green" home in its backyard. On display from May 8, 2008 to Jan. 4, 2009, the Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit not only features sustainable design and recycled materials, it also includes cutting-edge "smart" technology. With help from Wired magazine, the exhibit incorporates automation systems that save homeowners time, reduce energy consumption and enhance entertainment. For more information, visit msismarthome.org.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The landscaping and surrounding gardens demonstrate a commitment to conserving and protecting natural resources. Green roofs reduce energy costs, cool the air temperatures and slow stormwater run-off. Permeable pavements, rain gardens and bioswales (shallow depressions in the ground) ease water run-off into surrounding streams and lakes. They also enable slow, healthy seepage into the soil. Rain barrels harvest rainwater to irrigate plants so that less drinking water is used. Fresh, home-grown vegetables are available three seasons a year. Yard and garden waste is composted and added to the garden to enrich the soil.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The flat-panel LCD screen compares the current use of electricity, gas and water in the home with totals from the previous day and month. This allows users to discover ways to curb consumption. The in-wall iPort lets homeowners pipe audio from their music player throughout the house.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The coffee table is made of locally-sourced reclaimed walnut with a non-toxic, clear finish. The fireplace burns ethanol -- a renewable resource -- not fossil fuel. Not only does the artwork reflect green living themes, the artist also used non-off-gassing paints.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The wall coverings in this child's room contain no heavy metals, PVC or harmful solvents and the cabinets are made from sustainably sourced walnut. The tri-chair is also environmentally responsbile -- the ultralight wooden chair is completely biodegradable. The laptop is durable, recyclable and works with renewable energy. Even the dinosaur is the "pet of the future" -- "Pleo" emulates the appearance and behavior of a one-week-old infant and adapts from experience through artificial intelligence.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The ash table was made from a fallen tree and the finish is low-VOC (volatile organic compund). Recycled lightbulbs feature in the chandelier and sustainably sourced walnut and cork were used for the tea trolley.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

These cabinets were made from wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as responsibly sourced and the countertops were made from recycled wood fiber. The under-cabinet lights are energy-efficient LEDs that can last 30,000 to 50,000 hours. Their incandescant equivalents last 800 to 1,000 hours. The dishwasher is an Energy Star-qualified General Electric appliance. (If all Americans used Energy-Star qualified dishwashers, more than 20 billion gallons of water would be saved per year -- enough to fill 25,000 Olympic Swimming Pools.)
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The desk in this home office is made from a fallen walnut tree in the Chicago Park District. The green object on the far left is a Hymini -- a hand-held, hybrid wind and sun-fed "green platform" universal charging device that is suitable for most digital gadgets.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The bed in this master bedroom has a natural rubber latex mattress with an organic cover. The throw is 100 percent "bamboo cashmere." The side table is made from repurposed wood scraps.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The floor tile in this master bath was made with 55 percent recycled glass content. The sinks and countertops were made from fly ash concrete. The shower tiles were made of 100 percent recycled post-consumer glass. The showerhead reduces water consumption by 30 percent without sacrificing performance.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

Special windows help optimize energy efficiency, natural lighting and ventilation for the home. Dual-panel low-E (low-emissivity) glass can save 10 percent to 25 percent of heating and air conditioning from leaking.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

The roofdeck maximizes outdoor space and is made of reclaimed plastic and scrap wood that would otherwise be in a landfill.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

Because the Honda Civic Hybrid (featured here) deserves equally green accomodations, this garage was also designed to be eco-friendly. Glass doors on two sides maximize natural light and the carpeting was made from recycled and low-VOC materials.
(JB Spector/Museum of Science and Industry)

Product Placement

RUF CTR3= Fantasy Brought to Life

Slideshow: 2008 Ruf CTR3 >> Nürburg, Germany — We all know what Batman drives by night when he rockets around Gotham City saving people from villains such as the Joker and the Riddler. But by day, when he's back being Bruce Wayne the millionaire, what's his ride? Is he chauffeured around? Or is he a car enthusiast who climbs aboard a superhero-worthy sports car just for fun? Slideshow >> Sure, Bruce Wayne could probably afford the usual exotics like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, or even an Aston Martin like the one driven by a certain spy. But Bruce deserves to drive something more exclusive: the new Ruf CTR3. Alois Ruf, a well-known small sports-car maker who made his name pumping Porsche 911s up to even higher performance levels, has entered the big leagues with his own car, the CTR3. Introduced last summer in Bahrain ("Pumped-Up Porsches," R&T, July 2007), the Ruf supercar is finally ready and we are fortunate enough to drive the first production version in the world. The CTR3 is without doubt the perfect garage-mate to all the Batmobiles. And unlike the Batmobiles that exist only in the fantasy world, the CTR3 is real. In profile, the CTR3 looks like a squashed 911 with all four corners pushed out as far as possible. The front and rear fenders bulge out to hold in the massive front 19-in. and rear 20-in. Michelin Pilot Sport tires. Ruf says the CTR3 styling was inspired by the 1953 Porsche 550 Le Mans Coupe driven by Paul Frère and Richard von Frankenberg. With the central air scoop on the roof, the CTR3 is also reminiscent of the Porsche 911 GT1 from the late 1990s. Overall, the Ruf is wider, taller and not as long as the Carrera GT. Slideshow >> The front's overall styling is similar to a 911's, with its exposed headlights flanking the sloping hoodline capped by a couple of blacked-out air vents. The bumper with the built-in foglamps and indicator lights, plus the low and wide air scoops, are Ruf originals, and match well with the large and bold air vents at the rear. From the back, the low-slung tail and the wing coupled to the paired slits on the roof speak loudly of the car's intense power and mystique. Even though the CTR3 does not come equipped with a jet engine and afterburners, its 3.7-liter twin-turbo flat-6 comes pretty close. The engine delivers 700 bhp (DIN) at 7000 rpm and provides 657 lb.-ft. of thrust at 4000 rpm — enough to catapult the sub-3100-lb. mostly carbon-fiber-bodied machine up to 100 km/h (62 mph) in less than 3.2 seconds (according to Ruf). With a transverse 6-speed sequential racing gearbox, the CTR3 can reach a top speed of 233 mph. If there is any concern that this Ruf is simply a heavily modified version of the Porsche 911, Boxster or Cayman, raise the rear deck and you'll be treated to a beautifully — and uniquely — designed, race-inspired, tube-frame chassis complete with multilink suspension and horizontal coil-over shocks co-developed with Multimatic of Canada. Climb aboard the CTR3 and cinch yourself tightly into the supportive carbon-fiber/leather-trimmed racing seat. Twist the ignition key and the Ruf comes to life without much drama. The sequential shifter takes a little bit of time to get used to, especially since its straight-cut racing gears rattle when you're in neutral. Pull back to shift into 1st. And you'd better be forceful with it or the gearbox will howl back for lack of engagement. Clutch out as you feed in the gas. The startup is quite dramatic as the tires dig into the asphalt and you feel the acceleration come on strongly. Just when you think you are going at a pretty good clip, the engine revs hit 4000 rpm where the twin turbos become significant. The turbos blow at a gale-force 17.4 psi to further catapult you forward. It's warp speed ahead! Slideshow >> On any straight road without traffic, the CTR3's acceleration rate is mind-boggling. With the corner ahead fast approaching, the Batmobile's grappling hook seems like a good idea. Fortunately, standing on the brakes lets the 6-piston calipers clamp down on 15.0-in. ceramic composite discs at each wheel. The car scrubs off speed immediately, aided by ABS and traction control. The CTR3 turns in quickly and sharply toward the apex with minimal fuss, thanks to its nicely weighted steering and taut front MacPherson and rear multilink suspension. Built into the chassis tuning is slight understeer, good for road use. But it is apparent that at the track and fully unleashed, the CTR3 can be easily balanced with steering and throttle inputs. Off the corner, the CTR3 picks up speed quickly as you ease in the throttle. Too heavy on the gas and the rear wiggles just a touch to remind you of the 700 bhp on tap. The Ruf likes and needs to be run at speed. That's when you'll appreciate the power and the engine at full song with its aggressive growl. Around town at low speeds, heavier-than-usual upshifting effort on the sequential gearbox becomes more noticeable. Surprisingly, there is enough compliance in the suspension's damping so that you don't feel like you're getting beat up every time you crest a bump on the road. Inside the CTR3, sitting low and tucked toward the center makes you feel like you're part of the car. The vision forward and to the sides is excellent. However, don't look for anything through the back because you can't see a thing. A backup camera helps. Parking in tight quarters is a challenge, but what the heck, have Alfred do it. Slideshow >> Priced at the present currency exchange rate of around $613,000, the Ruf CTR3 is definitely a supercar for the select few. Its exotic looks and awesome performance easily qualify it to live in both the fantasy world of Gotham and in real life in the hands of any performance-crazed car enthusiast. Alois Ruf has proven he can take on the big manufacturers and construct a supercar that is just as good, if not even better and more exclusive. 2008 Ruf CTR3 Specifications Price 420,000 Euros (est $613,000) Curb weight est 3085 lb Wheelbase 103.3 in. Track, f/r 59.3 in./62.4 in. Length 175.0 in. Width 76.5 in. Height 47.2 in. Fuel capacity 23.5 gal. ENGINE & DRIVETRAIN Engine twin-turbo dohc 24V flat-6 Bore x stroke 102.0 mm x 76.4 mm Displacement 3746 cc Compression ratio 9.4:1 Horsepower (DIN) 700 bhp @ 7000 rpm Torque 657 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm Fuel delivery elect. sequential port Transmission 6-speed sequential manual CHASSIS & BODY Layout mid-engine/rear drive Brakes, f/r 15.0-in. drilled & vented discs, ABS Wheels 19 x 8½ f, 20 x 12½ r Tires Michelin Pilot Sport; 265/35ZR-19 f, 335/30ZR-20 r Steering type rack & pinion Suspension, f/r MacPherson struts, tube shocks & coil springs, anti-roll bar/multilink, tube shocks & coil springs, anti-roll bar

GM Unable to secure financing for a merger deal

Think it's hard securing a line of credit for a new home? Try purchasing an entire automaker. Though GM seems plenty interested in scooping up Chrysler for some extra cash, it may have trouble financing the deal. Though GM's finance teams believe they can strike a deal with Chrysler's parent firm, Cerberus Capital Management, Automotive News reports the automaker was repeatedly declined financing for such a takeover. While GM had approximately $21 billion on hand at the end of the second quarter of 2008, its operating costs have averaged approximately $1 billion each month. That might make things difficult when trying to purchase Chrysler. Sources suggest GM wants access to the $11.7 billion Chrysler has at hand, but there's a matter of debt. Chrysler's reportedly $9 billion in the hole, and if those debts can't be refinanced, they may have to be paid outright. In addition, GM would possibly be $4-5 billion poorer following a proposed merger. Eliminating approximately 40,000 jobs may help streamline operations, but it would force a combined GM-Chrysler to fork over quite a few payouts as a result. So what's next? Both parties have allegedly approached other firms to finance a deal (a move met with "a great deal of apprehension"), but may have to rely upon government aid. Whether the Federal Reserve - which has already bankrolled Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie May, and Freddie Mac - would have the funds or interest to save such a merger remains to be seen. Source: Automotive News

Ferrari California- First Drive

REVIEWS:

Ferrari has recently shown environment-friendly concepts such as the Millechili (the 1000 kilo Ferrari) and the F430 E85 (with flexfuel capability), but the new Ferrari California is about as the green as the summit of Montblanc in winter. And that's fine by us. The California is a pleasantly and reassuringly old-school sports car, although there is plenty of sophisticated engineering hiding beneath the flashy, crowd-pulling skin. Says Amedeo Felisa, Ferrari CEO: "Less extreme than F430 and F599, the California still incorporates all the essential genes of the brand. It has style and presence, and it is fast and fun to drive. Unlike any other of our products, it is two cars in one, and it works equally well in coupe and spider mode."

True or false? Let's check out the light metallic blue test car, which is equipped with such extras as magnetic dampers, adaptive headlights, and the trick seven-speed F1 dual-clutch gearbox. Inside the wide, long and beautifully appointed cabin, there is plenty of legroom, shoulder room, and headroom. Thanks to the thin pillars, the visibility is good except for some distortions in the rear window. The steering wheel is a step down from other Ferraris. There are only three manettino positions instead of four (ASR off and CST on is missing), there is no integrated LED rev counter (as on the Scuderia), and the bottom is squared off, which can be nuisance when you're winding in more than three turns lock-to-lock.

Starting the engine is a two-handed job. Turn the igniton key, then push the red button on the steering-wheel hub. Now relish the noise, a high-pitch idle accompanied by various intake and exhaust tones which are busy sorting themselves out during warm-up. The digital display in the rev counter reads N auto. No, we don't want that. We much prefer to click in gears with our index fingers, wham-wham-wham. Pressing the auto button once makes the auto symbol go away. Good. What about the position of the manettino though? Comfort is for wimps, CST OFF is for heroes, Sport is for us. It strikes a decent balance between cotton-soft and razorblade-sharp, and it relays its mission to the engine, the transmission, the dampers, and the stability control system

We click into first and take off. There is no need for a light right foot. The rear-transaxle layout puts 53 percent of 3593-pound curb weight of on the back wheels, which are shod with 285/40ZR19 Bridgestone Potenzas. When warm, these tires stick to the ground like Velcro straps soaked in superglue. Further traction assistance is provided by the F1-TRAC differential, originally developed for the F599 and the F430 Scuderia. Together with CST, it distributes the torque between the rear wheels in a way that allows the car to accelerate out of bends some 20 percent faster than a model fitted with a conventional limited-slip diff. Attached to the all-aluminum spaceframe body are the familar quadralink front suspension and a brand-new multilink rear suspension. Its key innovation is a blend of more generous longitudinal compliance for improved ride comfort and even less lateral play for enhanced handling precision. The optional magnetic dampers are not individually adjustable. Instead, their calibration changes with the manettino position.

Conceptually and visually, the 2009 California leaps back in time to the year 1957. Today just as way back then, Pininfarina was in charge of the design - even though the latest creation looks overstyled from certain angles and uses rather too many lines, curves, and controversial details such as the low-mounted rear brake light and indicator assembly. Traditionally, Ferrari customers could choose between hardtops and softtops, but the California is two cars in one, the fusion of coupe and spider, a so-called 2+-seater with rear buckets big enough for small children or mid-size dogs. Adds the senior project engineer Roberto Corradi: "Even within the Ferrari range, the California is a quite unique proposition. It's a sports car, but broader in character and appeal than F430 or F599. That's why there won't be a Scuderia or a Challenge version, and there won't be a second bodystyle like a fixed-head coupe or a speedster either. At 2500 units a year, the new model is going to be our most popular offering. We expect a high percentage of conquest sales, and we expect quite a few customers to subject this model to high miles and regular, year-round use."

The driver environment here is actually nicer than in other Ferraris. There is wall-to-wall leather with elaborate stitching, a decent navigation system with a large touch screen, 30Gb of MP3 memory, and Bluetooth. Lowering and raising the roof is a quick, almost noiseless affair with no creaks or grunts suggesting that the highly complicated mechanism might slip a disc. With the top up, the trunk holds 12 cubic feet. With the roof down, you may still carry 8.5 cubic feet of luggage plus what you can fit behind the front seats. In coupe guise, wind noise is not really an issue up to 125 mph when engine and tires play first and second fiddle anyway. With the roof stowed away, you will need one tub of hair goo every 100 miles to maintain your coif. Alternately, you can roll up the windows and install the collapsible wind deflector, but that looks a bit girlish in a serious car like this

Riding al fresco provides unfettered access to the engine's idle-speed rumble, its mighty part-throttle roar, and its flat-out thunder all the way to the 8000-rpm redline. When you give this thing stick, paint chips fall from the tunnel ceilings and the roadside Roman temples tremble at their foundations. Fact is, the California has enough grunt to chase a F430 out of the fast lane. Its 4.3-liter V-8 develops 460 hp at 7750 rpm and 358 pound-feet at 5000 rpm. Even with the transmission in auto mode, the California needs only 3.9 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 62 mph. Launch-control mode reportedly shaves another tenth off that already-impressive number. The top speed is 193 mph. The Italians claim an average fuel consumption of 18 mpg.

Although Ferrari does offer optional twenty-inch wheels, the nineteen-inchers strike a compelling balance between traction, grip, and directional stability. We would also give the Magnaride option a pass. The standard, steel suspension is compliant, well balanced, and totally predictable in its responses. The only drawback concerns the disagreement between the somewhat harsh high-speed compression and the lazier rebound. No big deal, but an irritation nonetheless.

The dual-clutch transmission is the best gearbox of its kind we have tried so far. This has almost nothing to do with the shift times, which subjectively don't even feel as fast as in the Scuderia. Instead, it's the all-around performance. Take-off is spontaneous and totally devoid of hiccups or delays. Stop and go is commendably seamless. Upshifts are totally nod-free whether you drop the hammer or feather the throttle. Even in auto mode, the transmission comes very close to a conventional automatic in the way it reads the driver's right foot. Since the transmission always pre-selects the next gear, a split-second change of plan very rarely might find you in the wrong ratio, but the subsequent quick fix never entails undue harshness. Revs permitting, the gearbox will drop up to three ratios under kickdown. The only drawback we found is a short sixth gear, which runs out of steam at 181mph. You lose 2200 rpm on the upshift to seventh, and from that point it takes almost forever to reach the claimed top speed

The steering is not Scuderia-fast, but its pace is spot-on for this kind of car. Better still, it is also weighted properly for optimum feel irrespective of lock and turn-in speed. On the very uneven Sicilian autostrade, where one would expect plenty of tugging at the helm when tackling the omni-present corrugated viaducts, the steering wheel of the California remained totally unperturbed. Other welcome touches include just enough self-centering and exactly the right dose of counterbalance when you hold the car on opposite lock. We're also inclined to heap praise on the standard carbon-ceramic brakes, but we have not yet really had the opportunity yet to test their stamina and high-speed deceleration. For sure, the pedal feel is communicative and correct in relation to the riveting stopping power it triggers. The footwell architecture is neatly arranged for heel-and-toeing.

As a nicely matched threesome, the steering, brakes, and throttle make it a delight to push this Ferrari to its dynamic limits, which I had the opportunity to do through the twisties from Trapani to Erice. Close to the sea, where the road was still wet with spray and fog, the Sport setting permitted enough fishtailing to warm up man and machine. Higher up, where the tarmac was dry, I disabled CST and quickly found a rhythm that was close enough to the Ferrari's limit and far enough away from the steep rock face. Unlike the F599 which needs a lot of road and momentum to waltz, the California is a more eager and in some ways even sportier machine. As long as you are prepared to boot the throttle, you can flick this car towards the apex amazingly early. But beware, because the arc it makes invariably uses part of the opposite lane, and any excessive throttle modulation will push you wide, big time. When exiting the bend, the F1-TRAC differential invites you to feed loads of torque to the sticky-soft Potenzas, which subsequently take a little longer than usual to get back in line behind the front wheels. Ferrari believes that only very few Californias will ever make it to a race track, but if this is the case the owners will probably never unearth its true talents.