First press one button. Then press another

How Do You Turn Off a Particle Accelerator? - First press one button. Then press another- After 28 years of operation, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s Tevatron—a 4-mile-long ring of superconducting magnets and vacuum tubes buried in the suburban soil just outside Chicago—will be turned off Friday afternoon.

Until the construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2009, the Tevatron was the most powerful particle collider in the world, generating subatomic bits of matter not seen since the Big Bang. How would you turn off such a device—is it as easy as pulling the plug?

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. Photo courtesy Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Sort of. Engineers shut down the Tevatron via a two-step process that involves little more than entering a couple of commands into a computer terminal in the main control room. The first clears the accelerator tunnel of high-energy particles, after new protons and anti-protons have stopped being injected into the machine.

By typing a few instructions (including "KILL_BEAM") into a device called a sequencer, a set of magnets are activated so as to kick the particle beam into an auxiliary tunnel and toward a thick metal target where it will be absorbed. The second command orders the magnets to “ramp down,” dumping their 5,000-amp current into resistors and gradually lowering the energy of the system to nothing. It’s not a particularly unusual or dramatic process—engineers do it on a regular basis for machine maintenance.

The control room of Tevatron Photo courtesy Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

For the purposes of the closing ceremony on Friday, the engineers have created two special buttons to execute the commands, a red one labeled “BEAM” and a blue one labeled “RAMP.” Once the buttons have been pressed, there’s not much left to do but some housekeeping. Over the coming week, engineers will gradually bring the magnets up to room temperature from their operating state a few degrees north of absolute zero, and break the vacuum seal on the tunnel. Finally, the cooling gases and fluids will be drained. ( slate.com )

Fermilab officials expect to open a section of the Tevatron to visitors sometime next year.

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Beware! Your lover may be cyberstalking you

Beware! Your lover may be cyberstalking you - Ever felt that someone was snooping on your email account or watching your movements? You might be right, according to a new study.

Sloane Burke at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and her colleagues surveyed over 800 students and found that a third of female respondents had broken into their partner's emails on more than one occasion.

And although men were less likely to break into their partner's email accounts, they were more likely to use hidden cameras, GPS devices, and spyware to monitor their partner's whereabouts and activities, reports New Scientist .

Thrirty four per cent females said they had broken into their partner's email more than once, whereas only 14 per cent of men admitted doing the same.

The survey also showed that women were more likely than men to check their partner's Facebook activities and cellphone records.

However, 3 per cent of men responding to the survey admitted to hiding a camera in their partner's room, while 5 per cent used online cellphone tracking software to monitor their lover's location.

"Only a small fraction of men used GPS technology in this way, but we were still shocked," said Burke.

Only a small number of men and even fewer women said they had resorted to spyware. ( indiatimes.com )

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Why face recognition isn't scary -- yet

Why face recognition isn't scary -- yet -- Most of the time, Stacey Schlittenhard finds facial recognition technology to be extremely useful. When she uploads her family photos to the website Picasa, for instance, the program automatically tags her friends and family members. This lets her share the photos easily and saves her hours of organization.

As shown in this photo illustration, software that recognizes or detects faces has been added to sites like Facebook and Picasa

But every now and then, the computer gets things flat wrong.

"Babies," she says. "That's the hardest thing. All babies kind of look alike -- they all have little round faces. If I label one baby as my [2-year-old] son, it will label almost every baby as my son."

In another instance, she said, Google's Picasa thought a lollipop was her friend.

As she uses facial recognition programs, Schlittenhard is coming face to face with a fact that has been troubling computer scientists for decades:

It's hard to teach a machine to know a human face -- and it's harder still to teach a computer to identify one face from any other.

That may be comforting news for people worried about governments using facial recognition systems to surveil the public -- in effect, ending anonymity.

Technologists say those ideas exist only in science fiction movies -- at least for now.

"I don't think, currently, any facial recognition system is good enough for security purposes -- not even close, actually," said Yi Ma, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, and a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research in China.

Using face recognition for surveillance or to identify people at borders and in airports has been tried in limited settings, Ma said, but it is at least a decade if not much further away from becoming real and reliable.

Meanwhile, a handful of consumer apps are using available technology to detect faces in family and party photos -- where accuracy is not as important.

On July 1, for example, Facebook announced it would give its users the ability to use facial detection software to select faces from photos on the site.

Facebook's new feature only selects faces. It doesn't identify the people in photos by name. But in a blog post, Facebook product manager Sam Odio said that updates to this system will be coming.

"Stay tuned for future posts about other work on browsing, uploading and tagging," he wrote in the post.

Some photo tools go further than Facebook by identifying people in photos automatically. Face.com, a company that builds the face-recognizing software behind apps like Photo Finder and PhotoTagger, identifies friends in your photos by comparing them with similar shots on Facebook.

The company's CEO, Gil Hirsch, said the goal is to make photo sharing fast.

"Tagging the whole [photo] album -- let's say 200 photos -- takes less than 30 seconds" when using Face.com technology, he said.

Google's Picasa and Apple's iPhoto perform similar functions. A Google test product called Goggles may also identify faces from mobile phones.

Michael Sipe, vice president of product development at Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, a Carnegie Mellon University split-off company that makes face-recognizing software and is funded in part by the U.S. military, said the family photo programs are a response to the hassles of curating digital photo collections.

"In general, there's this tsunami of visual information -- images and video -- and the tools that people have to make sense of all that information haven't kept pace with the growth of the production of that information," he said. "What we have is a tool to help extract meaning from that information by using the most important part of that media, which is people."

Anil Jain, a distinguished professor of computer science at Michigan State University, said it's still not easy, however, for computers to identify faces from photos -- mostly because the photos people post to the internet are so diverse.

Computers get confused when a photo is too dark, if it's taken from a weird angle, if the person is wearing a scarf, beard or glasses or if the person in the photo has aged significantly, he said.

Smiling can even be a problem.

"The face is like a deformable surface," he said. "When you smile, different parts of the face get affected differently. It's not just like moving some object from one position to another," which would be easier for a computer to read.

The easiest faces for computers to identify, tech researchers said, are those that are photographed in bright light, with the person facing the camera and wearing a "neutral expression" on his or her face.

In general, facial recognition software works by comparing a picture or video of a face with a database of information about other faces. The software picks up on major facial features -- like the distance between a person's eyes or the location of his or her nose -- and looks for an adequate match.

The software works more slowly and is thought to be less accurate when a large number of faces are compared, or when the source image is of low quality.

Still, privacy advocates worry about the future of facial recognition technology.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the motives behind the technology are what worry him.

Governments and corporations intend to use facial recognition software to track the public and to eliminate privacy, he said, noting that automatically identifying people in public in the U.S., when they are not suspected of a crime, could be a violation of constitutional rights.

When facial recognition comes to surveillance cameras, which are already in place, "you're no longer racing through iPhoto to figure out how many pictures of Barbara you have," Rotenberg said. "You're walking around in public and facing cameras that know who you are. And I think that's a little creepy."

He said governments should stop investing in facial recognition technology, and the U.S. government should consider regulating how such information is used.

Some security systems that use facial recognition technology in crowds -- a difficult feat, technologically -- have been abandoned because they weren't accurate enough. Tampa, Florida, for example, tried in 2001 to use facial recognition technology in conjunction with security cameras to curb crime in a nightclub district called Ybor City. The program was abandoned in 2003 because it was ineffective, according to news reports.

So, for now, facial recognition is mostly making inroads with shutter-happy consumers.

Schlittenhard, who uses Picasa to track friends and family members in her photos, says that for now, these programs are a big help.

"Nothing's perfect," she said of the fact that people and lollipops are sometimes misidentified by the free face recognition software. "I don't expect it to be a cure-all to all my tagging woes, but it makes processing a lot quicker." ( cnn.com )

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How stress can ruin your skin

How stress can ruin your skin. Is stress ruining your skin?. Most of us suffer from stress at some time in our lives. But while its effect on our health are well known, feeling stressed can also cause problems for our skin.

According to Peter Goodwin, chairman of the Association Of Stress Management, 80 per cent of patients who visit the doctor's surgery are suffering from stress and related illnesses.

Most of us are aware of how stress can affect our health - from an increased risk of heart disease, depression and insomnia to loss of sex drive, phobias and even the possibility of triggering breast cancer - but few of us realise how it can affect our skin.

Dr Nicholas Lowe, consultant dermatologist at the Cranley Clinic in London, explains: 'If you have a genetic tendency to suffer from skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis and eczema, stress will definitely make them worse.

'It's important to recognise the part stress plays, and to be aware of the benefits of relaxation and psychotherapy, especially in problems like adult eczema.'

Dr Lowe often refers patients with skin conditions that are being exacerbated by stress for psychotherapy. This involves a clinical psychologist evaluating what is triggering the stress, and working out how the patient can cope more readily.

'These types of complementary treatments can actually help conventional medicine,' says Dr Lowe. 'In fact, in the United States there is a new sub-speciality division in dermatology called psycho-dermatology, where dermatologists focus on the role that stress, worry and anxiety can have on skin disorders.' ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Nature's Air Conditioner

Nature's Air Conditioner. Does it really save gas to roll down your windows instead of flipping on the AC?

It's summer, which means many drivers will be cranking up the AC or rolling down the windows to keep their cars from turning into mobile toaster ovens. Which method uses more gas? In a column first published last summer and reprinted below, the Green Lantern explained that it depends on how fast you're driving.

Like most people, I crank up my car's air conditioning on hot summer days. But my wife has recently been tsk-tsking me for this practice—she says the AC wastes too much $4-a-gallon gas, and that we should roll down the windows instead. But I've read that rolled-down windows also decrease fuel economy, since they increase drag. What's the most efficient way to cool ourselves while driving?

The rule of thumb is to keep the windows down while on city streets, then resort to air conditioning when you hit the highway. Every car has a speed at which rolled-down windows cause so much drag as to decrease fuel economy more than a switched-on AC. As you might expect, however, that milestone speed varies widely from car to car—and in some cases, it may be well north of posted speed limits.

Your wife is certainly correct that air conditioners sap power from the engine and increase gas consumption. Depending on your vehicle's design, an active AC can cut fuel economy by anywhere from 3 percent to 10 percent in standard summertime temperatures. During a brutal heat wave, though, the power drain can be near 20 percent—the hotter it is outside, the harder the AC needs to work at maintaining your cabin climate. (It's worth noting here that automotive air conditioners no longer use ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons; now they use much safer tetrafluoroethane.)

Does an open window make a car use more energy?At low speeds, at least, the fuel-economy losses associated with rolling down your windows are minuscule. But as your foot gets heavier on the accelerator, the situation rapidly begins to worsen. That's because drag increases with the square of speed. So when you hit the highway, all that wind whipping through your open windows begins to take a major toll. Even with the windows sealed tight, the majority of your car's power goes toward fighting wind resistance when you're cruising at 55 miles per hour. With the windows down, the engine really starts to strain.

But at what exact point do the numbers tilt in favor of air conditioning? The Society of Automotive Engineers studied (PDF) this issue back in 2004, using both a wind tunnel and test track in Mesa, Ariz. The organization's researchers looked at two vehicles, an SUV and a full-size sedan, both of which featured powerful eight-cylinder engines. (The tests were conducted at an average ambient temperature of approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit.)

The engineers found that rolling down the windows on the SUV had only a small negative effect, in part because the vehicle's big, boxy shape was already creating a lot of drag. So, from a fuel-economy standpoint, a driver of an SUV will always do better to shut off the air-conditioner. The sedan, on the other hand, has a sleeker shape and a lower drag coefficient. As a result, its fuel economy was noticeably affected when the windows were rolled down at highway speeds; at around 68 miles per hour (the test's maximum), there was barely any difference between air conditioning and nature's cooling. If you were driving the sedan any faster than that, the increased drag would presumably make AC the more efficient option.

The Lantern would be curious to see this same test run for smaller cars designed with fuel savings in mind, rather than V8 behemoths. Paradoxically, because many fuel-efficient vehicles have low drag coefficients, they may actually experience larger relative increases in drag when the windows are rolled down at high speeds. (As the SAE researchers noted, the sedan's drag increased by 20 percent with the windows rolled down, versus just 8 percent for the SUV.) Some engineers have claimed that 45 miles per hour is the break-even threshold for average-size cars; others put the figure closer to 75 miles per hour. The Lantern can't vouch for the accuracy of either estimate, as there are no scientific data to analyze, but the truth may lie somewhere in the middle. Of course, that "truth" may vary according to such factors as ambient temperature and wind velocity.

Even if rolled-down windows eke out a win at all but the highest speeds, the Lantern realizes that many drivers will balk at the idea of zipping along the highway while exposed to the elements. There are safety issues to consider, as well as noise and general comfort. Having once made a punishing mid-June drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles sans air conditioning, the Lantern knows that natural cooling isn't always as effective as man-made.

So stick with the rule of thumb mentioned in the first paragraph, and you should save a few gallons of gas over the course of the summer—though not nearly as much as if you decided to cut down on your driving a bit. You needn't feel too guilty about bathing in the air-conditioned splendor of a mass-transit vehicle. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - Nature's Air Conditioner

Are blackboards more environmentally friendly than whiteboards?

Are blackboards more environmentally friendly than whiteboards?. Veteran teachers will debate endlessly the merits of chalk vs. dry-erase. Some insist that their preferred system has pedagogical benefits (one science teacher told the Lantern that she wrote more slowly with chalk, giving students more time to absorb difficult concepts), while others appreciate its feel or smell.

With apologies to both camps, let's assume that blackboards and whiteboards are completely interchangeable with respect to teaching, so we can figure out which is better for the planet.

The Lantern was surprised to discover that the boards themselves are going to be more or less the same whether you're writing in chalk or dry-erase ink. Until the 1960s, chalkboards were made from slate, which is extracted from the earth through quarrying. These days, though, a blackboard consists of a steel core with a porcelain overlay—just like most wall-mounted whiteboards. So the primary comparison here comes down to a face-off between chalk sticks and markers.

Chalk is a relatively simple product: Start with either calcium sulfate or calcium carbonate—the main sources of which are gypsum and limestone, respectively—mix with water and pigments, extrude into stick form, and then bake. All these steps require energy, and quarrying gypsum and limestone has the potential to cause air pollution.

Dry-erase pens, on the other hand, have a number of components—plastic barrels, caps, filaments, and ink—so they're going to have a much more complicated life cycle. As with mechanical pencils—the subject of the Lantern's last back-to-school column—the main issue here is the plastic: Plastic manufacturing requires petroleum, a nonrenewable resource. And at the end of their lives, whiteboard markers are virtually guaranteed to end up in the trash bin. Even if you felt motivated to disassemble your pens so you could dispose of them more responsibly, it wouldn't do much good—most markers don't indicate what kind of plastic they're made out of, and those that do are often polypropylene, which generally isn't recyclable.

Chalk, however, can theoretically be a very low-waste product, especially if you use a chalk holder that allows you to keep using the sticks until the bitter end. (And once you're left with nothing but nubs, you can take them home and use them for other purposes—like keeping your silver from tarnishing or removing grease spots from your clothes.) Chalk also tends to be packaged much more simply, which means less trash headed for the landfill. There is the issue of chalk dust, which can trigger allergies and aggravate asthma. Some teachers also report that chalk dust can muck up electronic equipment—that means more cleaning supplies, plus the potential need for more frequent replacements. Dry-erase pens can produce dust, too, though, and the residue left on the board often requires special cleansers.


Many chalk adherents claim that chalk is cheaper than its competitor, which would certainly boost their green cred. Money saved on writing implements, after all, can be put toward other, environmentally friendly classroom upgrades—like swapping out T-12 fluorescent bulbs for the T-8 variety, which the Department of Energy estimates can save up to 30 percent (PDF) of a school's lighting energy. It's not obvious, though, that the math works out in favor of chalk. It's true you can get a box of 12 colored chalk sticks for just 99 cents on OfficeDepot.com, while a four-pack of colored markers costs $5.39. But some veteran teachers say it is possible that a single pen would outlast 16 sticks of chalk, making it a better value overall.

To properly compare a stick of chalk with a disposable dry-erase marker, we'd need to have better data on how the manufacturing impacts stack up, since they're likely to be the biggest factor in the equation. The pen maker BIC, for example, says 90 percent of the environmental impacts of its Cristal-brand plastic ballpoints stem from the production phase. Since your school has already made the wholesale switch to whiteboards, reusable pens—like AusPens and Artline's ECO marker—are probably your best bet, provided that the ink refills and replacement nibs for these products aren't themselves overly packaged.

Of course, as an individual teacher, you might not have much say in your school's procurement policies. And having once been a high-school teacher herself, the Lantern knows how whiteboard pens have a tendency to migrate from classroom to classroom. If you have the time and the resources to buy your own pens—and then ensure that they're used properly and not chucked as soon as they run out of ink—the Lantern heartily applauds your efforts. But if that's unrealistic, there are plenty of free, easy things you can do to reduce your classroom's footprint.

For example, you can shut off all the lights if the room is going to sit empty for more than a few minutes. According to Pacific Gas and Electric, up to between 8 percent and 20 percent of a school's lighting energy can be saved this way. Keep computers, printers, televisions, and other electronics powered down when not in use. Better yet, involve your students in your monitoring efforts. If you can help them understand how small choices made in individual classrooms can add up on an institutional level—a lesson that they'll hopefully take into adulthood—you'll be doing a lot more for the planet than you would by personally choosing one type of writing utensil over another. ( slate.com )

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Is fake-wood furniture bad for the environment?

The Eco-Perils of Cheap Decor. Is fake-wood furniture bad for the environment?. I just moved to a new city so I could go back to school. Now I've got to furnish a new apartment on a graduate student's budget. Tell me, just how bad for the environment is a fake-wood bureau or bookcase?

An Ikea store

One of the cardinal rules of green living is to invest in quality items that don't need to be replaced very often. But it's not always possible to buy that handcrafted, solid-oak bookcase, especially if you're living off a university stipend. So unless you're willing to let all your clothes and books sit in piles on the floor, you may as well educate yourself about the greenest options in your price range.

At the lower end of the furniture market, many pieces are constructed out of particleboard or a somewhat sturdier material called medium-density fiberboard. These do have at least one environmental edge over solid, virgin wood: They're made primarily from leftover sawdust and lumber scraps, so your new dresser won't require cutting down as many trees.

On the other hand, it takes more energy to produce particleboard and MDF than it does to process lumber boards, since the wood scraps must be broken down, dried, mixed with adhesives, and then heated and pressed into panels. Plus, some of those scraps might have otherwise been burned as fuel at the factory. (Figures from New Zealand suggest that, on a pound-for-pound basis, the production of composite-wood products is more energy-efficient [PDF] than making plastics and most metals.)

Plywood is a third kind of composite panel, made of thin sheets of wood that are stacked and glued together. The wood comes from virgin timber, though manufacturers are able to squeeze out more from each log than those making solid wood products. Plywood and MDF are roughly equivalent in terms of the energy used to produce them.

Then there are air-quality issues. Particleboard, MDF, and plywood all have the potential to emit formaldehyde as off-gas because of the adhesives used in manufacturing. Formaldehyde can cause short-term health effects—like watery eyes and respiratory irritation—at levels above 0.1 parts per million. According to the EPA, homes with "significant amounts of new pressed wood" can have formaldehyde levels above 0.3 parts per million.

Formaldehyde is also considered a "known human carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a "probable human carcinogen" by the EPA. Cheap furniture is likely to emit higher levels of the gas, since low-formaldehyde replacement glues tend to be more expensive. (Plus, boards made with these glues need to be cured longer, further increasing the price of the finished product.)

Composite-wood products may soon be a safer option. California recently passed strict new emissions standards for the industry, which should eventually affect the rest of the country, given the size of the California market. In the meantime, if you're concerned, look for furniture made with low- or no-formaldehyde adhesives. (If your new bookcase smells a little off, leave it outside or in a room with an open window for a week—most off-gassing occurs in the early days of a product's life.) The greenest types of particleboard and MDF have high amounts of recycled content or use alternative fibers—like straw or sugarcane residue, known as bagasse—in place of wood.

Some retailers, like IKEA, are experimenting with lightweight panels made of a honeycomblike paper core sandwiched between two thin sheets of particleboard or MDF. These panels use less material than traditional composite panels, not to mention less energy in their manufacture and transport. The Lantern also likes the look of the modular furniture from Way Basics, which is made from post-consumer recycled-paper panels that the company claims are just as strong as particleboard.

Finally, if your new dresser contains any wood at all, you should spare a thought for how that wood was sourced. In an ideal world, you'd always be able to buy furniture that came with certification from a third-party group like the Forest Stewardship Council, but currently there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of FSC-approved stuff available in the budget price range. (There has been a stronger push toward certifying lawn furniture—but that might not be the vibe you're going for in your new place.) Regardless, you should always ask retailers where the wood comes from and what sustainability measures are in place at the point of harvest.

You may not get more than a blank stare in return, but it's important to let companies know that these issues matter to you, especially given the fact that the United States' heavy appetite for wood products—we consume about a fifth of all global exports—has been implicated in widespread illegal logging in places like Indonesia and the Russian Far East.

Of course, the best option—for both the planet and your wallet—would be to buy secondhand pieces. Not only does buying used mean avoiding manufacturing impacts—not to mention lower formaldehyde emissions—you'll probably be able to get higher-quality (i.e., longer-lasting) pieces than you would have otherwise. The Lantern, for example, is inordinately proud of a gorgeous designer couch she bought last year for about a third of the original price. If you don't have a grandmother whose attic you can raid, scour junk shops, Craigslist, and Freecycle. ( slate.com )

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Big explosion reveals most massive star known

Big explosion reveals most massive star known. Supernova still visible 2 years later, and may have had mass 200 times sun’s. All supernova explosions are violent affairs, but this one takes the cake. Astronomers have spotted a new type of extremely bright cosmic explosion they think originates from an exceptionally massive star.

This breed of explosion has been long predicted, but never before seen. Like all supernovas, the blast is thought to have marked the end of a star's life. But in this case, that star may have started out with 200 times the mass of the sun.

The supernova in question, SN2007bi, was observed in 2007 in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Scientists knew at once it was something different because it was about 50 to 100 times brighter than a typical supernova.

"It was much brighter, and it was bright for a very long time," said researcher Paolo Mazzali of the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany. "We could observe this thing almost two years after it was discovered, where you normally don't see anything anymore."

After analyzing its signature, astronomers published a paper in the Dec. 3 issue of the journal Nature confirming that it matches theoretical predictions of a so-called pair-instability supernova.

"There were some doubts that they existed," said astronomer Norbert Langer of the University of Bonn in Germany, who did not work on the project. Langer wrote an opinion essay on the finding in the same issue of Nature. "There were severe doubts that stars that massive could ever form in the universe. Now we seem to be very sure that there was a star with 200 solar masses."

In a pair-instability supernova, the star has neared the end of its life and exhausted its main supplies of hydrogen and helium, leaving it a core of mostly oxygen. In smaller stars, the core continues to burn until eventually it is all iron, then collapses in a Type II supernova, leaving behind a remnant black hole or neutron star.

But in the case of an extremely massive star, while its core is still made of oxygen, it releases photons that are so energetic, they create pairs of electrons and their anti-matter opposites, positrons. When the matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate each other. This reaction reduces the star's pressure, and it collapses, igniting the oxygen core in a runaway nuclear explosion that eats up the whole star, leaving no remnant at all.

The discovery of this rare type of supernova suggests that a few stars actually can grow into such large behemoths — which has long been a topic of debate.

"I was never a believer in very massive stars," Mazzali told SPACE.com. "Seeing something like this explode means these things exist. This is a fairly new development in the formation of stars." ( space.com )

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Movie theatre popcorn salt, fat get thumbs down

Movie theatre popcorn salt, fat get thumbs down. Eating a large bag of popcorn at some Canadian movie theatres is like eating almost of a quarter kilogram of potato chips, a paper suggests.

The non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest commissioned laboratory analyses of movie theatre popcorn from the top three chains in Canada and the U.S. for the December issue of its Nutrition Action Newsletter.

There's a lot of variation in the calorie and saturated fat content of movie theatre popcorn. (Larry Crowe/Associated Press)

"You can get one kind of popcorn with three grams of saturated fat and roughly the same size at another theatre with 38 grams of saturated fat. That's just a phenomenal difference," said Bill Jeffery of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest in Ottawa. "These are things that you can't tell by tasting."

At Cineplex Entertainment — the largest chain in Canada with 1,328 screens — popcorn is now popped in non-hydrogenated canola oil, second best after air popped at home.

But the popcorn purchased by CSPI researchers weighed more than the company claims. After adjusting the serving size, a small popcorn with no topping had 480 calories.

A large untopped popcorn has 1,120 calories — half a day's worth for most people, as well as 530 milligrams of sodium.

Health Canada recommends that adults consume less than 20 grams of saturated fat, and about 1,500 mg of sodium in an entire day based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

Patrons who opt for five pumps of Becel topping on a large, 20 cup portion at Cineplex add 270 calories and four grams of saturated fat. They get 320 calories and 22 grams of saturated fat with five squirts of Lactantia butter topping.

At Empire, Canada's second-largest chain with 377 screens, popcorn is also made in non-hydrogenated canola oil. A small, untopped popcorn contains 360 calories, equivalent to 60 grams of potato chips.

Even a small popcorn at Empire includes 740 milligrams of sodium — half a day's worth, the Centre said. A large carries 1,480 milligrams, without adding a seasoning packet.

Nutrition labels

At AMC Theatres, which has 184 screens in Canada, the corn snack is popped in coconut oil containing 90 per cent saturated fat. The AMC popcorn bought for the article also consistently weighed more than the company said.

A small popcorn, about six cups worth, with no topping, included 13 grams of saturated fat compared with 38 grams in a large portion containing 16 cups.

Movie theatres also offer pop to wash down the snacks. A small ranged from two cups at Cineplex to 2.5 cups at AMC. Assuming a quarter of the cup is filled with ice, the drink includes 150 to 200 calories' worth of sugar, unless the drink is water or diet pop.

The report also looked at the calories, sugar and saturated fat content of candy sold at theatres. The nutrition information printed on the package are typically for a 40- to 50-gram serving, while the theatres tend to sell candy in 100- to 200-gram sizes.

For seven years, theatres and restaurants have been exempt from rules requiring nutrition facts tables on prepackaged foods, Jeffries said.

In April, legislators in Ontario made the first moves toward a bill requiring large-chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus and menu boards, as governments in California and New York City have already mandated.

Applying such labels at restaurants and movie theatres in Canada "would give people pause," Jeffery said, noting there's a public health argument towards putting warnings on foods with really high saturated fat or sodium contents, given the artery-clogging potential.

But it's not clear if consumers would opt for low-calorie popcorn.

After the U.S. Center's first report on popcorn in 1994, many cinema operators responded by offering patrons choices such as air-popped popcorn, the National Association of Theatre Owners, which includes Canadian theatres, said in a statement.

"After very little time, movie patrons in droves made their voices heard," the association, which includes Canadian members, said in a statement in response to the CSPI report.

"They wanted the traditional popcorn back."

The movie theatre industry will continue to respond to customers' preferences, the group said. ( cbc,ca )

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Flaherty seeks voluntary changes to card fees

Flaherty seeks voluntary changes to card fees. Proposed code would level playing field for retailers, finance minister says

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has proposed a voluntary code of conduct for credit and debit card providers that he says will "level the playing field" for consumers and small businesses.

"This proposed code would promote fair business practices and ensure merchants and consumers clearly understand the costs," Flaherty said Thursday at Mrs. Tiggy Winkles, an Ottawa-area toy store. "Today is the start of a conversation to be had in the weeks ahead."

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty outlined proposals for a voluntary code of conduct for credit and debit cards on Thursday. (Canadian Press)

The proposals would govern so-called interchange fees, which merchants are charged by payment processors for making a sale over debit or credit networks. Depending on the transaction, the fees can sometimes be in excess of one per cent.

Among the proposals in a draft document published on the Department of Finance website:

• Interchange rates should be readily and clearly available.
• Merchants should get at least 90 days notice of fee changes.
• Merchants should be allowed to cancel or switch their payment options without penalty following written notice of a fee change.
• Merchants should be free to choose which payment options they will accept, and there should be no penalty for choosing debit systems and credit systems from different operators.

"Over time, [interchange fees] affect prices to consumers of course, because everything has a price," Flaherty said.

"There is a cost to using these cards and that cost is generally borne by merchants."

The Retail Council of Canada estimates credit-card fees cost merchants about $4.5 billion a year. Critics argue that such charges wind up in the cost of goods and services sold to consumers.

Flaherty is putting the proposal out for comment over the next 60 days, and expects the code will be made final early in the new year.

The code of conduct would be voluntary, but "if we are unsuccessful with the voluntary code, we can create an involuntary code," Flaherty said. "We have the power to do that."

"We would like to avoid the heavy hand of regulation [but] we will make sure that there is compliance with the code," Flaherty said.

Any changes would be welcomed by Nick Nicholson, who runs a small taxidermy business called AAA Supply House in Calgary.

He estimated he pays almost three per cent in interchange fees but doesn't find that out until he gets a statement from the credit card company as much as a month after the transaction.

"You feel rather helpless," he said, "and you can't adjust your prices to your consumer simply because they look for a fairly standard price. And so, we're caught in the middle, and the small businessmen are the ones who pay the price and just absorb it."

Nicholson said it's an issue for all Canadians.

'Sooner or later it has to hit the consumer.'—Nick Nicholson, small business owner

"I think we should all care because sooner or later it has to hit the consumer," he said. "The retailer can only absorb so much, and when he can't absorb any more, one of two things happen: the retailer has a going-out-of-business sale, or he has to pass it along to the consumer, so the cost to the consumer goes up."

Voluntary code toothless: critics

Critics have said a voluntary code would be toothless and incapable of having a real impact.

“Without enforcement, a new code of conduct for debit and credit card companies is not a sufficient response,” Liberal consumer affairs critic Dan McTeague said last month. “We need some concrete, enforceable measures that will deal with the issues of double-cycle billing, little transparency and high fees for merchants."

Liberal Finance critic John McCallum was similarly nonplussed with the move on Thursday.

"There is a clear imbalance between the negotiating position of the card networks and merchants," he said.

"I remain very skeptical that two months from now these consultations are going to lead to a levelling of that playing field. Simply asking everyone to play nice where there are billions of dollars at stake is not a solution."

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says a proposed code of conduct for credit card companies would promote fair practices. (Jim Ross/Canadian Press)

Catherine Swift, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, was on hand for Flaherty's announcement and applauded the move.

"It's very similar to a code we proposed a few months ago," she told reporters in French. "There's a lot of complexity [on this issue] but this is a very good first draft."

Diane Brisebois, president of the Retail Council of Canada was also supportive.

"The minister today did a great service to both merchants and consumers in Canada," she said. "We think it's a fabulous idea. The minister showed this morning that he understands how difficult it's been for merchants in this country to deal with ever-increasing costs"

"We all know that at the end of the day, if the costs go up that much, then the consumer has to pay, and we said that's absolutely nonsense."

Early indications are that two of the leading card providers are on board with the process.

MasterCard plans on "actively participating" in the consultation process, company president Kevin Stanton said. "A code issued by the minister of finance must be taken seriously and establishes a de facto standard of conduct."

Visa Canada said it's encouraged that Ottawa supports transparency and choice in payments, "as Visa believes that these are fundamental to a well functioning economy."

The company said it's also encouraged that the code applies to all payment networks equally.

Leaders in the credit card industry, both companies are rumoured to be considering entering the Canadian debit-card market very soon. The market is now dominated by the Interac Association, a network owned by the big banks and other financial companies. ( cbc.ca )

READ MORE - Flaherty seeks voluntary changes to card fees

Crocodile ancestors found in Sahara

Crocodile ancestors found in Sahara. A six-metre croc with three sets of fangs is among the five ancient relatives of modern-day crocodiles found in the Sahara Desert, scientists said Thursday.

Three of the fossils, discovered by researchers led by Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and Hans Larsson of McGill University, represent newly named species.

Paleontologist Paul Sereno poses with models of his Saharan discoveries, clockwise from top right: BoarCroc, PancakeCroc, RatCroc, DogCroc , DuckCroc and, in front of Serono, SuperCroc. (Mike Hettwer/National Geographic)

The fossil remains were found in a series of expeditions beginning in 2000.

All of the prehistoric crocs lived about 100 million years ago in the southern super-continent known as Gondwana, when the region that is now the Sahara featured dinosaurs and grassy plains criss-crossed by rivers.

"These species open a window on a croc world completely foreign to what was living on northern continents," Sereno said in a statement.

The new crocodile fossils are described in the journal ZooKeys and are featured in the November issue of National Geographic magazine and in a TV special to be broadcast Saturday on the National Geographic Channel.

Sereno is an explorer-in-residence with National Geographic. He discovered a nearly complete skeleton of a massive crocodile ancestor, dubbed SuperCroc, during expeditions in 1997 and 2000.

He has also given whimsical names to the fossils. The three new species are nicknamed BoarCroc, RatCroc and PancakeCroc. Sereno also found new fossils of two previously described species, which he's named DuckCroc and DogCroc.

"We were surprised to discover so many species from the same time in the same place," Larsson said at a news conference Thursday.

"Each of the crocs apparently had different diets, different behaviours. It appears they had divided up the ecosystem, each species taking advantage of it in its own way,"

RatCroc, DuckCroc and DogCroc were all about a metre long, while BoarCroc and Pancake Croc were six metres long.

Sereno said four of these crocs stood with their legs under their bodies. They walked like land mammals rather than sprawling with their bellies on the ground as modern crocodiles do.

PancakeCroc, on the other hand, was a squat fish-eater that likely sat motionless in the water waiting for its prey.

"My African crocs appeared to have had both upright, agile legs for bounding overland and a versatile tail for paddling in water," Sereno wrote in a National Geographic article.

"Their amphibious talents in the past may be the key to understanding how they flourished in, and ultimately survived, the dinosaur era," he wrote. ( cbc.ca )

READ MORE - Crocodile ancestors found in Sahara

Mirrors in space?

Mirrors in space?. Mirrors in space? Salty clouds? Scientists weigh drastic cures for climate change - While world leaders gear up to discuss reducing emissions, a growing community of scientists is looking to far more drastic solutions they say could one day save the world from the impact of global warming.

The field of geoengineering has spawned a host of Earth-cooling ideas to deliberately meddle with Mother Nature and stave off the potential effects of melting permafrost and rising sea levels.

One idea being bounced around involves launching mirrors into outer space to reflect sunlight.

Another would block out solar radiation by blanketing blue skies with perpetually overcast conditions.

But tricky questions remain: Will the remedies further endanger the Earth? Will humans be tempted to use geoengineering solutions as a quick fix instead of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions?

As countries prepare for a UN climate conference in Copenhagen next month, these are some of the thorny questions about to be addressed at a much smaller gathering in Montreal.

A panel of climate-change experts will gather at McGill University on Thursday to debate the potential ethical, political, and scientific impacts of geoengineering.

"My first idea (about geoengineering) - like everybody's first idea - was that it was crazy," said David Keith, Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment at the University of Calgary.

"That we should put more pollution in the stratosphere to compensate for the pollution that we've already put in the rest of the atmosphere - it's just insane."

Geoengineering ideas have been around for decades, but they took off in 2006 after Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen wrote about sending sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to block out the sun's rays.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Congress - in conjunction with the British Parliament - held its first-ever hearing on geoengineering.

When Keith, who first heard about geoengineering in 1989, took a closer look at some of the ideas, he realized that humans have the capacity to manage some of the "very real" climate threats.

"The central reason why we need (geoengineering) is the risks of climate change are quite uncertain," said Keith, who has served on advisory panels for the U.K.'s Royal Society geoengineering study and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But Keith has also long feared that geoengineering proposals could entice world leaders to abandon existing efforts against climate change.

"Of course I think it's dangerous - I think that's also a widely shared view," he said.

"But I do think that if we are serious about managing climate risk, we do need to develop - over decades, not years - the capability to do it."

In the last few years, more and more scientists have been running models on possible last-ditch options if current efforts fail.

Some believe they could also come in handy if climate change hits the planet harder than expected.

Alan Robock, a climatologist who testified this month before U.S. Congress, said humans might be able to cool the Earth by mimicking the after-effects of a volcanic eruption - either by firing particles into the stratosphere with artillery or through a 40-kilometre hose strapped to a balloon.

Another prominent proposal to manage solar radiation involves brightening clouds above the oceans by spewing salt particles into the bottom of them from ships.

But models have shown that some ideas pose major risks themselves. One suggested the Amazon forest would die from drought if clouds over the Atlantic Ocean were brighter.

Robock said that although geoengineering creates a "moral hazard," more research is necessary in case humans fail to curb emissions or adapt to rising temperatures.

"Our response should be mitigation - geoengineering will not solve the problem for us," said Robock, a climatology professor at Rutgers University.

"It could perhaps be used in a planetary emergency sometime in the future if we can be sure that the consequences of geoengineering would not be worse than not doing it."

Robock said the term geoengineering could be defined to include the pricey carbon-capture-and-storage technology - when carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere and injected underground.

That technology is the closest Canada has come to investing in geoengineering research.

Last month, the federal and Alberta governments promised $865 million for a carbon capture and storage project near Edmonton.

Environment Canada does not consider carbon capture and storage as geoengineering because it is geared to control emissions at the source, a department spokeswoman said.

She wrote in an email that Environment Canada is not currently researching geoengineering solutions to counter the effects of climate change.

Keith, who plans to speak to Environment Minister Jim Prentice about geoengineering in the spring, said Canada, like more and more governments, should get involved.

He also warns that Canada might get left behind when the international community decides who gets to control the global "thermostat" - if in fact the world builds one in the future.

"Canada is a northern nation with a big chunk of the Arctic, which faces the most rapid climate change, so it's a country that you might expect to be concerned in a serious way about how you manage the problem," Keith said.( cbc.ca )

READ MORE - Mirrors in space?