On the Record

“The American prawn cocktail is great. I've had worse in a number of restaurants on the ground.”

Gregory Olsen, a New Jersey businessman who paid US$20 million to get aboard the International Space Station, describes the reconstituted seafood he ate while in orbit.

“We are the world's experts on hurricanes, but we're desperate. We need help.”

Mike Black of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration bemoans the lack of investment and out-of-date equipment in the US hurricane forecasting department.

Source: AFP, Miami Herald

Scorecard

Mars

A webcam that beams images “live” from Mars has been activated, allowing armchair enthusiasts to sneak a peek at the red planet.

→ http://themis.asu.edu

Shrubs

Toyota in Japan has come up with an attractive method to clean the air. The car maker has developed a genetically modified version of cherry sage, which absorbs pollutants and sprouts pretty pink blossoms.

Language

Indigenous people in the Arctic have come to terms with climate change, deciding that they need to add a word to the Inuktitut language to describe the phenomenon.

Number Crunch

A significant part of the human genome seems to be patented...

23,688 human genes are in the database of the US National Center for Biotechnology Information.

4,382 of those genes are covered by patents.

63% of those patents are owned by private companies.

Source: K. Jensen and F. Murray Science 310, 239–240 (2005).