Dashboard

SRINAGAR, INDIA Wildlife officials seize and destroy rare-animal hides

CHICAGO Organizers cut marathon short because of heat

BEIJING New subway opens as city preps for Olympics

BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN Russians prepare to send first Malaysian into space

GARHI DOPATTA, PAKISTAN Copter escorting Musharraf crashes

HALF MOON BAY, CALIF. Oregonian's pumpkin sets record at 1,524 lbs. (690 kg)

IRAQ

Privatizing the War

Blackwater isn't the only company getting paid to protect American personnel in Iraq. The security guards who shot two women to death in Baghdad on Oct. 9 were working for an Australian-owned firm that was hired by U.S.-based contractor RTI International. Talk about outsourcing: a significant percentage of U.S. security guards in Iraq are neither Americans nor Iraqis. Here's a look at how many of these guns for hire can be labeled as mercenaries for fighting under a foreign flag. [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine.]

LEXICON

virtual colonoscopy

DEFINITION vur-choo-uhl koh-luh-nos-kuh-pee n. A minimally invasive procedure that uses X-rays and computer graphics to make 2-D and 3-D images of the inside of a patient's colon.

CONTEXT Research shows that the new technique is just as effective at spotting cancerous growths as the traditional scope exam. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine tested similar numbers of patients and found that the virtual exam detected 123 advanced polyps compared with 121 located by the conventional method.

USAGE With surveys indicating that only half of Americans 50 and older get colonoscopies as often as they should, doctors hope the less daunting--not to mention lower-priced--test will attract more adherents. But some unpleasantries remain: the exam, which uses a tiny tube to inflate the colon, still entails drinking oodles of laxatives.

FOOD FACT

Sticky Rice Problem

Rice dies after three days of being submerged in water. This could lead to a major crisis as global warming causes more monsoons and typhoons in Asia, where half the world's population relies on the grain as a main food source. The good news is that scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines have discovered a gene that allows the plant to "hold its breath" for nearly two weeks.

UP NEXT Rising sea levels will lead to more salt water seeping into coastal fields, so researchers are working on a salt-resistant strain.

ARTIFACT

Bionic Bugs

Flying insect-like robots could play a big role in the future of military reconnaissance and crop surveillance. The Defense Department has been funding such research for years, and now labs from coast to coast are starting to deliver promising results--like Harvard's microrobotic fly, below, that can beat its wings 110 times per second. The bug has yet to be outfitted with a camera or a self-contained power source.

EYE IN THE SKY? Don't get paranoid just yet. Robert Wood, who is working on the Harvard fly, estimates that these kinds of miniature bug-bots won't be fine-tuned for at least five years.

EXPLAINER

Repairing a Monet

In a particularly egregious act of art criticism (or, more likely, drunken vandalism), someone broke into Paris' Musee d'Orsay Oct. 7 and punched a hole in Claude Monet's Le pont d'Argenteuil. Here's how one expert recommends fixing the 4-in. (10 cm) tear:

FORGET THE SCOTCH TAPE "Reweaving is probably the most current technique," says Teri Hensick of Harvard University's Straus Center for Conservation. "You look through a microscope and reattach each of the canvas threads one by one."

STICK WITH THE BEST Sturgeon's glue, taken from the bladders of the caviar-producing fish, is used to affix the strands on either side of the tear to one another. "It can be a very time-consuming process," admits Hensick. "It could take weeks."

FILL IN THE BLANKS If any pigmentation has been lost in the rip, the gaps are covered with putty or another filler and then coated with non-oil-based paint--such as watercolor--which can be easily removed if it begins to discolor.ET VOILA! Hensick doubts that the finished repairs will be visible to casual observers: "With someone like Monet, there are so many different colors and so much texture that it's easy to camouflage any fixes in the painting itself." ET VIOLA! Hensick doubts that the finished repairs will be visible to casual observers: "With someone like Monet, there are so many different colors and so much texture that it's easy to camouflage any fixes in the painting itself."