The car — the actual car — that unseated the Bugatti Veyron to become the fastest production car on the planet is for sale on eBay, and the winning bidder not only gets an insanely powerful sports car but a nifty commemorative watch and key fob.
Shelby SuperCars is making room in the garage and selling Ultimate Aero chassis No TT-02, the car Chuck Bigelow drove through the traps at an average of 256.18 mph on Sept. 13, 2007. That eclipsed the Veyron by 3.63 mph to become just the 26th car in history to hold the Guinness world production speed record.
Shelby calls TT-02 "a piece of automotive history" and says "it is sure to remain valuable and sought-after by future generations." Bidding stood at $155,000 when this was posted, but the reserve hadn't been met.
Given that the Ultimate Aero costs something north of $600,000, the reserve on this record-setting ride is probably in the seven-figure ballpark. That kind of money gets you more than a 1,183-horsepower car, though. Place the winning bid and you also get a framed Guinness World Records certificate for your wall, a commemorative watch and key fob and the wheels and tires used during the record run for your ... whatever. We'd probably make them into a coffee table.
TT-02 has 1,345 miles on the odometer. Power comes from a 387-cubic-inch V-8 with twin turbochargers putting out 14 PSI of boost. Interior appointments include a 10-speaker stereo system, a DVD player and, of course, a navi system to help you find a few places to open 'er up.
Before making its record-setting run, Shelby SuperCars tested the car in the wind tunnel at the NASA Langley Research Center — that's where the photo above was snapped — and determined the car would be aerodynamically stable up to 273 mph. That's purely academic though, as it seems highly unlikely anyone would actually hit that speed.
Twenty-six cars have held the record. Ferrari leads the way with six titles, followed by Mercedes-Benz with five.
In the latest excuse to trawl through the internet looking for pictures of hot women, Hecklerspray has come up with a list of the hottest women during the 90's. Believe us, it was not easy to keep the list down to just 26, but we somehow managed it through a potent mix of horse-trading, vote-rigging and coin-tossing.
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Now, President Obama and leaders in more than 30 states say it's time to embrace trains again — but newer, faster ones that can transport passengers past gridlocked airports and highways on electrified railroads at up to 200 mph.
They're betting billions of federal and state dollars that high-speed railroads can someday move travelers between major U.S. cities within two or three hours just as they do in Western Europe and Japan. And along the way, they argue, such systems can ease travel congestion, reduce the nation's dependence on oil, cut pollution and create jobs.
"For so long, Americans have viewed the automobile and the airplane as our transportation vehicles," says Anne Canby, a former transportation secretary for Delaware and train advocate. "Until now, rail hasn't been a major player in the discussion."
Driving the new-found interest in trains is $8 billion that was tucked into the president's economic stimulus legislation signed last month.
The Department of Transportation is to distribute the money to embryonic high-speed rail projects around the country and to Amtrak, the national passenger rail service, to develop high-speed technology.
The government isn't wasting time. By next month, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is required to issue a strategic plan detailing how DOT will use the $8 billion. By June, his department is required to tell states how to apply for grants.
Eleven proposed high-speed rail corridors on the West Coast, Texas, the Great Lakes states, the Southeast, Florida and the Northeast will be vying for a piece of the stimulus money.
Competition "is going to be pretty severe," Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle says.
Doyle just returned from Spain, where he rode that country's high-speed Talgo system linking its capital, Madrid, to other major Spanish cities.
Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio are pitching a high-speed rail network linking Chicago to big cities in those states, including Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Detroit — trips that could be made within a couple of hours.
"People in this country don't appreciate what modern rail travel is," says Doyle, referring to the 180 mph Talgo system. "It is as smooth as riding in an airplane without any turbulence."
He says the Midwestern states don't envision a true high-speed system immediately. The first priority is making upgrades that would allow trains between Chicago and Milwaukee, for example, to travel at least 80 mph.
Designing, engineering, construction, operation and maintenance of new rail systems could create many U.S. jobs, rail advocates say.
"This would create a completely new industry here," says Rod Diridon, a member of California's High-Speed Rail Authority.
Diridon says his system is a leading candidate for funding because it would be a true high-speed train, and the state already has won environmental approvals. California voters approved issuing $10 billion in bonds to help pay for the system.
California's proposed express from San Francisco to Los Angeles would take about 2½ hours at 220 mph. "It would be faster downtown to downtown than flying," Diridon says.
As large as it sounds, $8 billion wouldn't begin to design and construct a true high-speed system in which rails are dedicated to high-speed trains. The California system alone would cost about $50 billion to complete.
"I see this as us making a down payment," says Mark Yachmetz, a top official at the Federal Railroad Administration. "It's the beginning of the renaissance of rail in this country."
Ultimately, so-called trip time — the travel time door-to-door vs. an auto or plane — will be the standard by which rail proposals will be judged.
Amtrak's recent track record gives hope to high-speed rail enthusiasts. The railroad carried a record 10.9 million passengers along the densely populated Northeast corridor last year. It has become a serious competitor of airlines there because the major cities — including Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington — are relatively close together.
Last year, Amtrak data show it accounted for 63% of the combined air and rail passenger traffic between Washington, D.C., and New York City compared with 50% four years earlier. Between New York and Boston, Amtrak's share of the traffic was 49% last year vs. 39% in 2004.
Many riders in the Northeast chose Amtrak's electrified Acela — the closest thing to a high-speed train in the USA. It makes few stops and runs at speeds up to about 135 mph.
Acela has shown, "We can do high-speed rail and reduce the trip time enough to make rail competitive with air," Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman says.
rossching.com — This entire thing was shot using a still camera. I took about 15,000 still photos and strung them together to give the illusion of motion. When you watch it, some shots might look a little odd. The reason is because I used a tilt-shift lens to rotate the depth of field to make it look as if these huge expansive vistas were tiny models...
YAOUNDE, Cameroon – Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.
Benedict's first statement on an issue that has divided even Catholic clergy working with AIDS patients came hours before he arrived in Cameroon's capital — greeted by thousands of flag-waving faithful who stood shoulder-to-shoulder in red dirt fields and jammed downtown streets for a glimpse of the pontiff's motorcade.
In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence — not condoms — was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.
Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of the battle against AIDS.
"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."
The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease, as he answered questions submitted in advance by reporters traveling on the plane. His response was presumably also prepared in advance.
The Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.
AP – Pope Benedict XVI waves to a cheering crowd as he leaves the airport in Yaounde, Cameroon Tuesday, March …
The late Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo made headlines in 2003 for saying that condoms may help spread AIDS through a false sense of security, claiming they weren't effective in blocking transmission of the virus. The cardinal, who died last year, headed the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family.
Three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 22 million people are infected with HIV — accounting for two-thirds of the world's infections, according to UNAIDS.
Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope is serious about preventing HIV infections, he should focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how to use them.
"Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," said Hodes, head of policy, communication and research for the group.
Hodes said the pope was right that condoms are not the sole solution to Africa's AIDS epidemic, but added they are one of the very few proven measures to prevent HIV infections.
Even some priests and nuns working with those infected with the AIDS virus question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa. Ordinary Africans do as well.
"Talking about the nonuse of condoms is out of place. We need condoms to protect ourselves against diseases and AIDS," teacher Narcisse Takou said in Yaounde.
Stanley Obale Okpu, a civil servant working in the ministry of urban development in Cameroon, said: "What the pope says is an ideal for the Catholic church. But he needs to look at the realities on the ground. One should be aware of these realities. In the case of Cameroon — and Africa as a whole — condoms are very necessary ... You need condoms to prevent AIDS and birth control."
A crowd of photographers and cameras flashed as the 81-year-old pontiff stepped off the plane into the steaming 88-degree heat, with humidity levels measuring a wilting 90 percent.
It was the first stop on a weeklong pilgrimage that will also take Benedict to Angola as he seeks to draw international attention to Africa's problems of famine, poverty and armed conflict.
The pope was greeted by Cameroon's President Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982 and whose government has been accused by Amnesty International of abuses in crushing political opponents.
The pope made no specific reference to the situation in Cameroon, but he did say in general remarks on Africa that "a Christian can never remain silent" in the face of violence, poverty, hunger, corruption or abuse of power.
"The saving message of the Gospel needs to be proclaimed loud and clear so that the light of Christ can shine into the darkness of people's lives," Benedict said as the president and other political leaders looked on.
Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Catholic church, though it competes with Islam and evangelical churches.
The pope said Tuesday he intends to make an appeal for "international solidarity" for Africa in the face of the global economic downturn. He said while the church does not propose specific economic solutions, it can give "spiritual and moral" suggestions.
He described the current crisis as the result of "a deficit of ethics in economic structures."
"It is here that the church can make a contribution," he said.
On the plane, Benedict also dismissed the notion that he was facing increasing opposition and isolation within the church, particularly after an outreach to ultraconservatives that led to his lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop.
"The myth of my solitude makes me laugh," the pope said, adding that he has a network of friends and aides whom he sees every day.
___
Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Johannesburg and Emmanuel Tumanjong in Yaounde contributed to this report.
But now modern technology has revealed this ancient fish trap, used at the time of the Norman Conquest.
The giant fish trap, built during the Norman Conquest and designed to trap fish behind rock walls, was spotted on Google Earth
Stretching more than 280 yards along the sea bed, the V-shaped structure was used to catch fish without the need for a boat or rod. Scientists believe it is one of the biggest of its kind.
The trap close to Poppit Sands on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed was discovered by archaeologists studying aerial photographs of the West Wales coast.
This image shows the coastline curving round with the trap visible out at sea. It is in water just 12ft deep, and the wall is around three feet wide
'The fish trap is a fascinating find,' says project leader Dr Ziggy Otto
It was designed to act like a rock pool, trapping fish behind its stone walls as the tide flowed out.
At its point is a gap where fisherman would have placed nets to catch fish. They could also have blocked up the gap, and then scooped up fish trapped in the shallows.
Now, however, it is submerged even at low tide and fish are no longer trapped as the water recedes. Researchers believe it has sunk into the sand over the centuries.
Dr Ziggy Otto, a diver and lecturer in the coastal environment at Pembrokeshire College, believes the trap is around 1,000 years old.
'It is an amazing structure,' he said. 'It looks well defined on the photographs, but when you are in the water it looks just like a natural reef.'
The trap, made of stones, is located on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed, Wales
Although it was only recently spotted on aerial photographs, an armchair archaeologist could have discovered the trap on Google Earth.
Google said the V-shaped structure has been visible on its collection of satellite and aerial photos since at least December 2006.
Fish traps, or fish weirs, were common and controversial in Britain 1,000 years ago.
They were so effective at removing fish from rivers that they were banned in the Magna Carta, and were allowed only on the coast.
Huge news for real-life ray guns: Electric lasers have hit battlefield strength for the first time -- paving the way for energy weapons to go to war.
In recent test-blasts, Pentagon-researchers at Northrop Grumman managed to get its 105 kilowatts of power out of their laser -- past the "100kW threshold [that] has been viewed traditionally as a proof of principle for 'weapons grade' power levels for high-energy lasers," Northrop's vice president of directed energy systems, Dan Wildt, said in a statement.
That much power won't get you a Star Wars-style blaster. But it should be more than enough to zap the mortars and rockets that insurgents have used to pound American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The battlefield-strength breakthrough is just one part in a larger military push to finally make laser weapons a reality, after decades of unfulfilled promises. The Army recently gave Boeing a $36 million contract to build a laser-equipped truck. Raytheon is set to start test-firing a mortar-zapper of its own. Darpa is funding a 150 kilowatt laser project that is meant to be fitted onto "tactical aircraft."
Does that mean energy weapons are a done deal? Hardly. There are still all sorts of technical issues -- thermal management and miniaturization, to name two -- that have to be handled first. Then, the ray gunners have to find the money. The National Academies figure it'll take another $100 million to get battlefield lasers right.
Still, clearing the 100 kilowatt hurdle is a big deal. For the longest time, the military research community concentrated on developing chemical-powered lasers. The ray guns produced massively powerful laser blasts. But the noxious stuff needed to produce all that power makes the weapons all-but-impractical in a war zone. (One ray gun took as many as eight shipping containers' worth of chemicals and electronics to power a single blaster.) So the Defense Department shifted gears, and poured money into electric lasers. They're much less hassle to operate. And, given a steady supply of power, they should be able to fire away, almost indefinitely.
At first, these electric lasers were weak. When the military started its Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program in 2003, these easy-to-maintain lasters could barely produce more than 10 kilowatts of coherent light. Now, Northrop believes, going way past 100 kilowatts should be pretty simple.
In its lab, south of Los Angeles, Northrop combines 32 garnet crystal "modules" into a "laser amplifier chains." Shine light-emitting diodes into 'em, and they start the laser chain-reaction, shooting out as much as 15 kilowatts of focused light. Combine all those beams into one, and you've got yourself a battlefield-strength ray. Northrop's JHPSSL lasers used seven chains to get to 105 kilowatts. But there's room, at least, for an eighth. Which means an even stronger blaster.
The next step is to start trying out the ray gun, outside of the lab. The Army is planning to move the device to its High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range. Testing is supposed to begin by this time, next year.
[Photo: Northrop Grumman]
(CNN) -- Move over Wonder Woman and Lois Lane - Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are breaking into the world of comic books.
No capes, no tights: Female Force stars Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Caroline Kennedy.
Washington-based publisher Bluewater Productions released a series of comic books featuring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on March 11. The company says it has already sold 7,500 copies of each to distributors.
"We really want to show strong, independent, female role models in comics," said Darren Davis, president of Bluewater Productions.
Another company released comics about President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain during the presidential election.
Then they decided that Hillary Clinton's story needed to be told.
"She was the first [major] female presidential candidate, so we just started with [her], and there was so much interest in it," said Jason Schultz, executive vice president of Bluewater Productions.
The first two issues in Female Force, already released, feature Clinton and Palin. The next two will feature Caroline Kennedy and First Lady Michelle Obama.
The Michelle Obama comic is expected to be released in April, and has pre-sold 28,000 copies.
The next set will feature other "strong, independent women" such as Princess Diana, Schultz said.
Comic fans approve of the idea.
"I think it just says, like, that women are important," one comic book fan told CNN.
Another added, "It shows that comics aren't just about guys in tights beating each other up -- it's about information, it's about understanding people a little better," said another reader.
Richard Laermer, CEO of a public relations firm and author of several books on marketing, said he's not surprised.
"We're in a very politically minded time right now," he said.
The creators expect to expand the comic book world to a larger demographic with the books.
"It's bringing a whole new demographic to comic books," Schultz said. "It just shows little girls, young women, that they can be anything they want," he added.
Mary Ellen Balchunis, an assistant professor of political science at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania said "getting girls [interested in politics] at a younger age is brilliant."
"I think it's great that they're doing these comic books," Balchunis said. "In the past, women have shown a low level of political efficacy."
She said the choices are "fabulous," because "these are the women who are at the top of the totem pole right now."
Each comic will be biographical, Schultz said. "With Hillary, it starts with her life and ends up with her as Secretary of State."
"It would be fun to see how the superhero Hillary sort of pushes her way forth and shows people what she did in her life. To me that's just awesome," said Laermer.
Another professor of political science said the way the women are portrayed will be important.
"Comic books, by definition, are caricatures, but there are different ways of doing those caricatures," said Landon Storrs, an associate professor of history at the University of Houston.
"So it's a question of what the artists go for. If they just tap into familiar stereotypes, then they could reinforce negative ideas about powerful women, even as they are trying to do the opposite," she added.
The fact that real, living women are now in comic books is another barrier that Davis and Schultz have broken through, historian and author Trina Robbins said.
"It's about time. They've never done a major living woman," she said. "I think what's good is they're doing women in politics and not Paris Hilton."
LaNeice Collins reported from New York. Robyn Sidersky reported from Atlanta, Georgia.
Coming up with a serviceable excuse to drink on St. Patrick's Day is one of modern man's eternal struggles, particularly those modern men who are stuck at work. Some guys, shockingly enough, don't need a clever scheme or vaguely plausible reason to leave work to get drunk, because they have drinking jobs.
Not all of the drinking jobs we’re going to discuss require getting loaded, but even just the smallest inclination of being able to be in the same room as alcohol while at work is far more than most guys bother to hope for.
With the proper motivation, here are five drinking jobs you can aspire to attain.
If you’re reading this and are a man, you probably have a penis. Since you have a penis, you primarily drink beer and whiskey. Good man. Manly man. When you go to a bar, however, beer all the time can get a bit boring, and you may be looking for something like a strong mixed drink. However, being the manly man you are, you’ve never ordered a mixed drink before, and don’t actually know what drinks are safe to order without risking penile deflation. Worry not, my friend. Read on, follow our guidelines, and we’ll show you what you can order to drink, and still be a manly man.
Irish Car Bomb
Hell even the name sounds manly. This drink is a shot glass filled with Irish Whiskey (preferably Jameson) with Baileys Irish Cream floated on top. The shot is then dropped into a glass of Guinness and downed. All Irish, contains both whiskey and stout beer. Definitely a man’s drink.
Jägerbomb
Another bomb? Could be a trend… A Jägerbomb is a drink in which the only liquor is Jägermeister. Basically you fill a glass with Red Bull energy drink, a very masculine bull-like energy drink, then drop in a shot full of Jägermeister and chug it. On a side note, Jägermeister is in my copy-paste clipboard because you can’t fucking type ä on a normal keyboard. Damn Germans.
Martini
Ok, so no trend. The primary reason a martini is on this list is because James Bond drinks them. Shaken, not stirred. Otherwise, this would be a pretty hoity-toity drink. But, because James Bond is so manly and cool, what with all the explosions and all (ok, maybe a trend), anything he drinks voluntarily has a degree of awesome to it. A martini is gin and vermouth, garnished with an olive. Though on occasion, its masculinity is insulted with a sliver of lemon peel.
Cosmopolitan
… Just kidding.
Hurricane
In the words of Alan Jackson, “Pour me something tall and strong, make it a Hurricane, before I go insane.” The man needs a damn stiff one. A Hurricane is a great answer. Jack Sparrow would appreciate this one, as it’s made with light rum, dark rum, passionfruit syrup, and lime juice. Since rum is the primary ingredient, and the drink was originally given away in New Orleans to sailors, this one has earned a spot on the list. Plus, it’s the manliest tropical drink you can get in Margaritaville.
Lynchburg Lemonade
Look at it, doesn’t it look refreshing? This tastey alternative to a boring old lemonade is made with Jack Daniels, Triple Sec, lime soda, and sour mix. It looks like lemonade, tastes like lemonade, contains whiskey, was (and is) sold as a cocktail by Jack Daniels, and is sold at Texas Roadhouse cowboy restaurants around the U.S. A cowboy’s lemonade, this is safe to drink anywhere, anytime. Even at 9:00am on a Sunday.
The above drinks are hereby ordained and established as fit for manly-man consumption by Regretful Morning. Well gentlemen, that’s it so far. Stay tuned, though. I’m going to be doing more “research” soon enough. I’ll add to the list, and perhaps even a story or two will come of this research.
The BMW Art Car Collection, which has been displayed at museums including the Louvre and the Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao and New York, began in 1975.
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Andy is young and healthy – yet he’s never experienced physical desire. And there are thousands more like him. Olly Bootle meets the asexuals.
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It will be the first time in the show's 20-year history that an episode has been broadcast in a country outside of the US before being shown there Photo: PA
In The Name Of The Grandfather, which sees the dysfunctional cartoon family swap Springfield for the fictional village of Dunkilderry, will have its world network premiere on Sky1 in the UK and Ireland, a week ahead of the US transmission.
It will be the first time in the show's 20-year history that an episode has been broadcast in a country outside of the US before being shown there.
In the episode, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie take in sights such as the Giant's Causeway and the Blarney Castle while Grampa shows Homer a pub he remembers from his youth. In a "flashback" scene, a younger Grampa gets drunk with jolly Irish men, does Irish dancing and watches as two men have a fight then beat up a Scottish man.
But on his return to the watering hole he finds it has no customers, as the Irish are too busy working, and after a night drinking he and Homer agree to buy the pub.
They enlist Springfield's bar owner, Moe, to help them boost trade.
"Moe, something terrible has happened! The Irish have become hardworking and sober!" Homer tells him.
The show's executive producer, James L Brooks, said the tale was inspired by a newspaper article.
"I read this article in the New York Times about the smoking ban and the fact that the pubs were closing. People were also working so hard and crunching hours to the point that the pubs were really suffering. It was based on these facts," he said after the premiere at Dublin's Light House cinema yesterday.
Executive producer Al Jean said he was not worried about the reception of the episode, which also features yuppie Leprechauns and claims Guinness is made from chocolate syrup and bog water.
He said: "I'm Irish American and I know Irish people have an excellent sense of humour so we weren't very worried. We wanted to do something very affectionate that was about us hearing about Ireland for years and we come over here and it isn't quite the way we imagined but it's still really nice.
"I first visited in 2001 and what I couldn't believe was how technologically forward Ireland was, it was so amazing to me. It was beautiful but also advanced past America."
Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart, also attended the premiere and greeted the audience saying "Ith mo bhristi" which is Bart's catchphrase "Eat my shorts" in Irish.
This episode is not the first in which the Simpsons have ventured abroad. They have also visited countries such as Brazil, France and Australia.
Jean said an episode in which the family travels to the Middle East was in the pipeline.
"I think we're going to do one next year where they go to the Holy Land as we haven't been there yet. The premise will be that the Christians, the Jews and Muslims are united in that they all get mad at Homer. It's the only thing they can agree on," he said.
In The Name Of The Grandfather will be shown on Sky1 and Sky1 HD at 7.30pm.
Defense attorneys are for the first time submitting a controversial neurological lie-detection test as evidence in U.S. court.
In an upcoming juvenile-sex-abuse case in San Diego, the defense is hoping to get an fMRI scan, which shows brain activity based on oxygen levels, admitted to prove the abuse didn't happen.
The technology is used widely in brain research, but hasn't been fully tested as a lie-detection method. To be admitted into California court, any technique has to be generally accepted within the scientific community.
The company that did the brain scan, No Lie MRI, claims their test is over 90 percent accurate, but some scientists and lawyers are skeptical.
"The studies so far have been very interesting. I think they deserve further research. But the technology is very new, with very little research support, and no studies done in realistic situations," Hank Greely, the head of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford, wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com.
Lie detection has tantalized lawyers since before the polygraph was invented in 1921, but the accuracy of the tests has always been in question. Greely noted that American courts and scientists have "85 years of experience with the polygraph" and a wealth of papers that have tried to describe its accuracy. Yet they aren't generally admissible in court, except in New Mexico.
Other attempts to spot deception using different brain signals continue, such as the EEG-based technique developed in India, where it has been used as evidence in court. And last year, attorneys tried to use fMRI evidence for chronic pain in a worker's compensation claim, but the case was settled out of court. The San Diego case will be the first time fMRI lie-detection evidence, if admitted, is used in a U.S. court.
According to Emily Murphy, a behavioral neuroscientist at the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences who first reported on the fMRI evidence, the case is a child protection hearing to determine if the minor should stay in the home of the custodial parent accused of sexual abuse.
Apparently, the accused parent hired No Lie MRI, headquartered in San Diego with a testing facility in Tarzana, California, to do a brain scan. The company's report says fMRI tests show the defendant's claim of innocence is not a lie.
The company declined to be interviewed for this story, but its founder and CEO, Joel Huizenga, spoke to Wired.com in September about the technology.
"This is the first time in human history that anybody has been able to tell if someone else is lying," he said.
Though the company's scientific board includes fMRI experts such as Christos Davatzikos, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, some outside scientists and bioethicists question the reliability of the tests.
"Having studied all the published papers on fMRI-based lie detection, I personally wouldn't put any weight on it in any individual case. We just don't know enough about its accuracy in realistic situations," Greely said.
Laboratory studies using fMRI, which measures blood-oxygen levels in the brain, have suggested that when someone lies, the brain sends more blood to the ventrolateral area of the prefrontal cortex. In a very small number of studies, researchers have identified lying in study subjects with accuracy ranging from 76 percent to over 90 percent (pdf). But some scientists and lawyers like Greely doubt that those results will prove replicable outside the lab setting, and others say it just isn't ready yet.
"It's certainly something that is going to evolve and continue to get better and at some point, it will be ready for prime time. I'm just not sure it's really there right now," said John Vanmeter, a neurologist at Georgetown's Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging. "On the other hand, maybe it's good that it's going to start getting tested in the court system. It's really been just a theoretical thing until now."
No Lie MRI licensed its technology from psychiatrist Daniel Langleben of the University of Pennsylvania. Langleben, like the company, declined to be interviewed for this article, but offered a recent editorial he co-authored in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law on the "future of forensic functional brain imaging."
From the editorial, it's clear that Langleben is a bit uneasy that his work has been commercially applied. He draws a clear distinction between "deception researchers" like himself and "the merchants of fMRI-based lie detection" and describes the "uneasy alliances between this industry and academia, brokered by university technology-commercialization departments."
Langleben has pushed for large-scale trials to determine the efficacy of fMRI-based deception-spotting. But in an interview conducted in late 2007, he doubted whether No Lie MRI and its competitor, Cephalos, had the resources to conduct the type of trials he wants.
"We need to run clinical trials with 200 to 300 people, so we can say, 'This is the accuracy of this test,'" Langleben told Wired.com. "But only two or three companies are trying to develop the technology. Do those companies have deep pockets? No. Do clinical trials cost a lot? Yes."
In September, Huizenga said the company was trying to get a grant for a study on a large group of people. "To date there really has been no study that has tried to optimize fMRI for lie detection," he said.
But even if the science behind a technology isn't fully established, Brooklyn Law School's Edward Cheng, who studies scientific evidence in legal proceedings, said it might still be appropriate to use it in the courtroom.
"Technology doesn't necessarily have to be bulletproof before it can come in, in court," Cheng.
He questioned whether society's traditional methods of lie detection, that is to say, inspection by human beings, is any more reliable than the new technology.
"It's not clear whether or not a somewhat reliable but foolproof fMRI machine is any worse than having a jury look at a witness," Cheng said. "It's always important to think about what the baseline is. If you want the status quo, fine, but in this case, the status quo might not be all that good."
But the question of whether Cheng's fMRI can be "somewhat reliable but foolproof" remains open.
Ed Vul, an fMRI researcher at the Kanwisher Lab at MIT, said that it was simply too easy for a suspect to make fMRI data of any type unusable.
"I don't think it can be either reliable or practical. It is very easy to corrupt fMRI data," Vul said. "The biggest difficulty is that it's very easy to make fMRI data unusable by moving a little, holding your breath, or even thinking about a bunch of random stuff."
A trained defendant might even be able to introduce bias into the fMRI data. In comparison with traditional lie-detection methods, fMRI appears more susceptible to gaming.
"So far as I can tell, there are many more reliable ways to corrupt data from an MRI machine than a classic polygraph machine," Vul said.
Elizabeth Phelps, a neuroscientist at New York University, agreed there is little evidence that fMRI is more reliable than previous lie-detection methods.
"When you build a model based on people in the laboratory, it may or may not be that applicable to someone who has practiced their lie over and over, or someone who has been accused of something," Phelps said. "I don't think that we have any standard of evidence that this data is going to be reliable in the way that the courts should be admitting."
All these theoretical considerations will be put to the test for the first time in a San Diego courtroom soon. Stanford's Murphy reported that the admissibility of the evidence in this particular case could rest on which scientific experts are allowed to comment on the evidence.
"The defense plans to claim fMRI-based lie detection (or “truth verification”) is accurate and generally accepted within the relevant scientific community in part by narrowly defining the relevant community as only those who research and develop fMRI-based lie detection," she wrote.
Murphy says that the relevant scientific community should be much larger, including a broader swath of neuroscientists, statisticians, and memory experts.
If the broader scientific community is included in the fact-finding, Greely doesn't expect the evidence to be admitted.
"In a case where the issues were fully explored with good expert witnesses on both sides, it is very hard for me to believe that a judge would admit the results of fMRI-based lie detection today," Greely said.
But that's not to say that lie-detection won't eventually find a place in the courts, as the science and ethics of brain scanning solidify.
Wired.com editor Betsy Mason contributed to this report.
click to enlarge
upload.wikimedia.org — 10-story high sculpture given to the US by the Russian government. Located at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor as a memorial to those that died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The large polished titanium teardrop to represent the tears in Moscow shed for the 9/11 victims. A constant flowing of water which causes the sculpture to appear to weep.
 17-Mar-2009: A new Hubble image shows four of Saturn's moons circling the ringed planet On 24 February 2009, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. The moons, from far left to right, are the white icy moons Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Due to the angle of the Sun, they are each preceded by their own shadow. These rare moon transits only happen when the tilt of Saturn's ring plane is nearly "edge on" as seen from the Earth. Saturn's rings will be perfectly edge on to our line of sight on 10 August and 4 September 2009. Unfortunately, Saturn will be too close to the Sun to be seen by viewers on Earth at that time. This "ring plane crossing" occurs every 14-15 years. In 1995-96 Hubble witnessed the previous ring plane crossing, as well as many moon transits, and helped to discover several new moons of Saturn. Early 2009 was a favourable time for viewers with small telescopes to watch moon and shadow transits crossing the face of Saturn. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, crossed Saturn on four separate occasions: 24 January, 9 February, 24 February and 12 March, although not all events were visible from all locations on Earth. Italian Galileo Galilei — often referred to as the father of astronomy — was the first to observe Saturn through a telescope in 1610. Dutch mathematician and astronomer Christian Huygens discovered Titan in 1655 and, 350 years later, the ESA probe named for him touched down on Titan (on 14 January 2005), giving the world its first views of the surface of the mysterious, icy world. Giovanni Domenico Cassini, a French/Italian astronomer, discovered Dione (in addition to others) and the German-born Englishman, William Herschel, discovered Mimas and Enceladus. These pictures were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on 24 February 2009, when Saturn was at a distance of roughly 1.25 billion kilometres from Earth. Hubble can see details as small as 300 kilometres across on Saturn. The dark band running across the face of the planet slightly above the rings is the shadow of the rings cast on the planet. Notes for editors: The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Links: Contacts: Colleen Sharkey Ray Villard Keith Noll | Images Image 1  Image 2  Image 3  Image 4  Image 5  Image 6  Image 7  Image 8  Image 9  Image 10 Videos Video 1 Text Text file 3 KB  PDF file 120 KB  Word file |
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