NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told a House Appropriations subcommittee March 5 that the U.S. inventory of plutonium-238 - the radioactive material essential for building long-lasting batteries known to the experts as radioisotope power systems - is running out quickly.

"Looking ahead, plutonium is in short supply," Griffin told lawmakers during the first of two days of hearings on the U.S. space agency's 2009 budget request.

It's really unfortunate they way manned exploration is sucking up all of the money at NASA. Project Prometheus which was to develop fission reactors for space probes got killed which would have completely obviated this problem.

SPACE.com -- Plutonium Shortage May Thwart Future NASA Missions to Outer Planets

Decius wrote:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has just approved the relaxation of the rules for the introduction of new Top-Level Domains—a move that could drastically change the Internet. The new decision—some calling it of historic importance and others predictable—will allow companies to register their brands as generic top-level domain names (TLDs). For instance, Microsoft could apply to have a TLD such as '.msn' and Apple apply for '.mac'.

"We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated," said Roberto Gaetano, ICANN board member. The new rules will allow any public or private organization from anywhere in the world to register any string of letters as a gTLD, which could result in hundreds of new gTLDs registered this year. The decision was taken unanimously on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at the 32nd ICANN Meeting in Paris.

HUGE!

The question is how much they're going to cost. If they cost $10k, I'm a lot less opposed than if they cost $100.

RE: ICANN Board Approves Sweeping Overhaul of Top-level Domains

Air travel is a total hassle, man, and marijuana advocates in Denver say everyone would find the normally excruciating process a lot more pleasant if they could enjoy a few bong hits before boarding. It might even help solve a few of the problems that airlines have been experiencing lately. The way they see it, if people can knock a few back before a flight, they should be able to spark one up. They're calling on airports nationwide to install marijuana lounges.

Stoners, Like, Totally Solve Nation's Air Travel Problems | Autopia from Wired.com

Charter Communications, the fourth largest cable operator in the United States, announced today that it has backed off a plan to monitor customers' Internet transmissions.

Cable Operator Backs Off Plan to Monitor Internet Use - washingtonpost.com

Microsoft, Google and PayPal, a unit of eBay, are among the founders of an industry organization that hopes to solve the problem of password overload among computer users.

The Information Card Foundation is an effort to create a single industrywide approach to managing identity online that promises to reduce drastically the use of passwords and create a system that is less vulnerable to fraud.

Technology Leaders Favor Online ID Card Over Passwords - NYTimes.com

Judges and jurors who must decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene are asked to use a local yardstick: does the material violate community standards?

That is often a tricky question because there is no simple, concrete way to gauge a community’s tastes and values.

The Internet may be changing that. In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought.

What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer - NYTimes.com

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

U.S. Says Exercise by Israel Seemed Directed at Iran - NYTimes.com

After a decade of shouting, “Follow the water!” in its exploration of Mars, NASA can finally say that one of its spacecraft has reached out, touched water ice and scooped it up.

White Patches Found in Mars Trench Are Ice, Scientists Say - NYTimes.com

Bear Stearns Cos. former hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were arrested at their homes this morning over their roles in the collapse of hedge funds that ignited the subprime mortgage crisis last year.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide