Space bigwigs offer billion-dollar private moon trips

Robots aren't the only ones heading to the moon. The first private company offering regular trips to the lunar surface plans to start flights in 2020, shuttling people two at a time on exploratory missions. However, with an expected price tag of $1.4 billion per flight, or around $750 million per person, the trek would likely be out of reach for all but the wealthiest moonwalkers.

Today's announcement, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC backs up recent rumours that Alan Stern, a former administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, had founded a company called Golden Spike in Colorado to run commercial moon trips.

Named for the final spike driven into the first US transcontinental railroad line, Golden Spike plans to market to governments, corporations and individuals to routinely send people to the moon for scientific purposes, to mine for resources or simply for prestige.

"Why the moon? Because it's close, because it's enormous, and because we think that there's going to be a strong market for it," says Stern. No tickets have yet been sold. But preliminary talks with space agencies in Asia and Europe are underway, he adds. "We see our main market as selling expeditions to foreign space agencies."

In 2010 President Barack Obama scrapped NASA's Constellation program for sending astronauts to the moon. Shortly afterwards, Stern convened a secret meeting of heavy-hitters in the space industry in Telluride, Colorado, to discuss the possibility of a private lunar mission. A four-month feasibility study led to the company's quiet founding later that year.

Beyond robots

Golden Spike now has several experienced directors and advisors, including Gerry Griffin, former director of NASA's Johnson Spaceflight Center, and Wayne Hale, former chief of NASA's space shuttle programme. It also boasts some colourful characters: Newt Gingrich, a former US presidential candidate who previously championed a lunar colony, and Mike Okuda, a set designer for the Star Trek franchise, are also on the advisory panel.

"One thing you can say about Stern is that he knows the game," says William Whittaker, CEO of Astrobotic Technology, one of many teams competing to put a robot on the moon and win the $20-million Google Lunar X Prize. "As NASA's former science director, he had a favoured insider's perspective. He knows people."

Although several of the firm's directors have NASA experience, Golden Spike will be a purely private enterprise that will not seek government funding, Stern says. The plan is to purchase a rocket and a crew capsule from one or more of the other private space enterprises that have sprung up in recent years, such as SpaceX or Blue Origin.

Golden Spike has signed contracts to begin development of a lunar lander and space suits. Its first lunar mission is expected to cost the company between $7 and $8 billion. To help cover expenses, the company plans to merchandise each mission, for instance, by selling the naming rights for their spacecraft.

Meanwhile, Space Adventures of Arlington, Virginia says it is on track to send people on flights that would circle the moon starting in 2016 or 2017. The price for each flight is $300 million, or $150 million per seat. There are two seats available for the maiden voyage, and one has already been sold, spokesperson Stacey Tearne told New Scientist.

Fred Bourgeois, head of FREDNET, another Lunar X Prize team, worries that the idea of sending people to the moon on private ships is premature. "We need to prove some things with robotic systems first, so we don't put lives at risk," he says. "I would not get on a private mission to the moon today, even though I would love to go."

But Stern says he's confident that robots will get to the moon's surface long before the first Golden Spike flights at the end of the decade. Human beings, he says, will then be needed for activities beyond the capabilities of a robot – from doing field geology to maintaining mining equipment. Says Stern: "We need to start now in order to be ready for the next phase."

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ECB forecast, rate hints send euro lower

NEW YORK: The euro only barely rebounded against the dollar in late trade Thursday, after plunging on the European Central Bank's sharp cut in its eurozone growth forecast for next year.

The euro lost more than one cent after the ECB forecast that the euro area economy will shrink by 0.3 percent in 2013, instead of growing by 0.5 percent as previously estimated.

Also pressing it lower were hints from the ECB that it might be moving toward cutting its benchmark rate, even as it held firm on Thursday.

"The ECB appears to have the door open for an interest rate cut, and we expect it to step through early in 2013," said Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight.

At 2200 GMT, the euro was at $1.2969, compared to $1.3064 late Wednesday. It hit a low of $1.2951 during the day.

There was nothing otherwise to budge the dollar, with trade mostly on hold for Friday's US jobs data for November, expected to be down due to Hurricane Sandy's impact on the economy of the northeast corridor.

If anything, the data will support expectations that the Federal Reserve will further extend its bond purchase stimulus program when it meets next week.

The yen picked up slightly, 10 days before national elections in Japan. It gained to 106.85 yen to the euro from 107.71, and 82.37 yen to the dollar from 82.42.

The dollar rose to 0.9325 Swiss francs, and the British pound slipped to $1.6050.

-AFP/ac

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SEC mulls hitting Netflix with suit over news shared on Facebook

Sharing news on Facebook may have landed Netflix in hot water with U.S. regulators.

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday gave Netflix and its chief executive, Reed Hastings, a "Wells Notice" regarding how Reed disclosed some information about the company. What that essentially means is that the SEC may take some sort of civil legal action against Netflix because of something Hastings posted on his Facebook wall about a new video-streaming milestone.

The SEC believes Netflix should have made a more formal announcement instead of simply notifying visitors to Hastings' Facebook profile. A Regulation Fair Disclosure, which the SEC cites in its notice to Netflix, is meant to ensure that individual investors have the same access to information as large institutional investors by banning selective disclosure of material information.

Here's the full regulatory filing today:

On December 5, 2012, Netflix, Inc. ("the Company") and its Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings each received a "Wells Notice" from the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") indicating its intent to recommend to the SEC that it institute a cease and desist proceeding and/or bring a civil injunctive action against Netflix and Mr. Hastings for violations of Regulation Fair Disclosure, Section 13(a) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rules 13a-11 and 13a-15 thereunder. A copy of a statement that will be made by Mr. Hastings to subscribers on his publicly available Facebook page is attached as Exhibit 99.1.

The issue stems back to a disclosure Hastings made on his Facebook page in early July. In his post, Hastings announced that for the first time, more than 1 billion hours of video were streamed on Netflix in a single month.

Here's the original post that now has him in trouble:

Congrats to Ted Sarandos, and his amazing content licensing team. Netflix monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June. When House of Cards and Arrested Development debut, we'll blow these records away. Keep going, Ted, we need even more!

The action by the SEC this week raises interesting questions about how companies should disclose information in an increasingly digital-focused world. Already, many companies have stopped issuing press releases over wire services, preferring instead to publish the information on their own sites or company blogs. While they often still file regulatory forms with the SEC, they're largely cutting out one traditional mode of notification.

Meanwhile, as social media plays a bigger role in organizations, the medium is likely to become a more common way for companies to provide information to stakeholders. But at least according to the SEC in this Netflix situation, that's not good enough.

Along with questions about what this means for disclosures in the social-media age, the issue also raises some debate about what's material for a company to disclose. Netflix believes the tidbit it shared in July shouldn't matter to investors, but one could argue that's not the case. For Netflix, the reception to its streaming service is an important issue, and one that could greatly affect the company's future.

Hastings, in a new Facebook post today, rebutted the complaints of the SEC, saying that Netflix considers his post to be public because he has so many subscribers (now "followers." Thanks, Facebook).

Hastings also argued that the information shared wasn't material to the company, and Netflix doesn't rely on social media to communicate material information to investors. In addition, he said, the stock bounce Netflix saw that day already had started before his Facebook post.

Hastings noted that Netflix often discloses information in blog posts without issuing a press release or regulatory filing. For example, it notified members in June that its members were watching nearly a billion hours per month of Netflix.

"We remain optimistic this can be cleared up quickly through the SEC's review process," Hastings said.

We've contacted Netflix and will update this post if the company has any additional information or comment.

Here's the full text of Hastings' reaction on Facebook today following the SEC notice:

SEC staff questions a Facebook post. Fascinating social media story.

We use blogging and social media, including Facebook, to communicate effectively with the public and our members.

In June we posted on our blog that our members were enjoying "nearly a billion hours per month" of Netflix, and people wrote about this. We did not also issue a press release or 8-K filing about this.

In early July, I publicly posted on Facebook to the over 200,000 of you who subscribe to me that our members had enjoyed over 1 billion hours in June, highlighting how strong our content was. There was press coverage as there are many reporters and bloggers among you, my public followers. Some of you re-posted my post. Again, we did not also issue a press release or file an 8-K about this.

SEC staff informed us yesterday that they are recommending that the SEC bring a civil action against us for my July 1 billion hour public post, asserting we violated "Reg FD." This rule is designed to ensure that individual investors have equal access to information as large institutional investors, by prohibiting selective disclosure of material information. The SEC staff believes that I gave you all "material" investor information in my post and that we needed to instead release the June viewing fact "publicly" with an 8-K filing or press release.

I want to note a few things.

First, we think posting to over 200,000 people is very public, especially because many of my subscribers are reporters and bloggers.

Second, while we think my public Facebook post is public, we don't currently use Facebook and other social media to get material information to investors; we usually get that information out in our extensive investor letters, press releases, and SEC filings. We think the fact of 1 billion hours of viewing in June was not "material" to investors, and we had blogged a few weeks before that we were serving nearly 1 billion hours per month.

Finally, while our stock rose the day of my public post, the increase started well before my mid-morning post was out, likely driven by the positive Citigroup research report the evening before.

We remain optimistic this can be cleared up quickly through the SEC's review process.

--Reed

Update, 3:35 p.m. ET:
Adds analysis, along with a mention of our attempt to contact Netflix for more information.

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High-Voltage DC Breakthrough Could Boost Renewable Energy

Patrick J. Kiger

Thomas Edison championed direct current, or DC, as a better mode for delivering electricity than alternating current, or AC. But the inventor of the light bulb lost the War of the Currents. Despite Edison's sometimes flamboyant efforts—at one point he electrocuted a Coney Island zoo elephant in an attempt to show the technology's hazards—AC is the primary way that electricity flows from power plants to homes and businesses everywhere. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Electricity")

But now, more than a century after Edison's misguided stunt, DC may be getting a measure of vindication.

An updated, high-voltage version of DC, called HVDC, is being touted as the transmission method of the future because of its ability to transmit current over very long distances with fewer losses than AC. And that trend may be accelerated by a new device called a hybrid HVDC breaker, which may make it possible to use DC on large power grids without the fear of catastrophic breakdown that stymied the technology in the past.  (See related photos: "World's Worst Power Outages.")

Swiss-based power technology and automation giant ABB, which developed the breaker, says it may also prove critical to the 21st century's transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, by tapping the full potential of massive wind farms and solar generating stations to provide electricity to distant cities.

So far, the device has been tested only in laboratories, but ABB's chief executive, Joe Hogan, touts the hybrid HVDC breaker as "a new chapter in the history of electrical engineering," and predicts that it will make possible the development of "the grid of the future"—that is, a massive, super-efficient network for distributing electricity that would interconnect not just nations but multiple continents. Outside experts aren't quite as grandiose, but they still see the breaker as an important breakthrough.

"I'm quite struck by the potential of this invention," says John Kassakian, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If it works on a large scale and is economical to use, it could be a substantial asset."

Going the Distance

The hybrid HVDC breaker may herald a new day for Edison's favored mode of electricity, in which current is transmitted in a constant flow in one direction, rather than in the back-and-forth bursts of AC. In the early 1890s, DC lost the so-called War of the Currents mostly because of the issue of long-distance transmission.

In Edison's time, because of losses due to electrical resistance, there wasn't an economical technology that would enable DC systems to transmit power over long distances. Edison did not see this as a drawback because he envisioned electric power plants in every neighborhood.

But his rivals in the pioneering era of electricity, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, instead touted AC, which could be sent long distances with fewer losses. AC's voltage, the amount of potential energy in the current (think of it as analogous to the pressure in a water line), could be stepped up and down easily through the use of transformers. That meant high-voltage AC could be transmitted long distances until it entered neighborhoods, where it would be transformed to safer low-voltage electricity.

Thanks to AC, smoke-belching, coal-burning generating plants could be built miles away from the homes and office buildings they powered. It was the idea that won the day, and became the basis for the proliferation of electric power systems across the United States and around the world.

But advances in transformer technology ultimately made it possible to transmit DC at higher voltages. The advantages of HVDC then became readily apparent. Compared to AC, HVDC is more efficient—a thousand-mile HVDC line carrying thousands of megawatts might lose 6 to 8 percent of its power, compared to 12 to 25 percent for a similar AC line. And HVDC would require fewer lines along a route. That made it better suited to places where electricity must be transmitted extraordinarily long distances from power plants to urban areas. It also is more efficient for underwater electricity transmission.

In recent years, companies such as ABB and Germany's Siemens have built a number of big HVDC transmission projects, like ABB's 940-kilometer (584-mile) line that went into service in 2004 to deliver power from China's massive Three Gorges hydroelectric plant to Guangdong province in the South. In the United States, Siemens for the first time ever installed a 500-kilovolt submarine cable, a 65-mile HVDC line, to take additional power from the Pennsylvania/New Jersey grid to power-hungry Long Island. (Related: "Can Hurricane Sandy Shed Light on Curbing Power Outages?") And the longest electric transmission line in the world, some 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles), is under construction by ABB now in Brazil: The Rio-Madeira HVDC project will link two new hydropower plants in the Amazon with São Paulo, the nation's main economic hub. (Related Pictures: "A River People Await an Amazon Dam")

But these projects all involved point-to-point electricity delivery. Some engineers began to envision the potential of branching out HVDC into "supergrids." Far-flung arrays of wind farms and solar installations could be tied together in giant networks. Because of its stability and low losses, HVDC could balance out the natural fluctuations in renewable energy in a way that AC never could. That could dramatically reduce the need for the constant base-load power of large coal or nuclear power plants.

The Need for a Breaker

Until now, however, such renewable energy solutions have faced at least one daunting obstacle. It's much trickier to regulate a DC grid, where current flows continuously, than it is with AC. "When you have a large grid and you have a lightning strike at one location, you need to be able to disconnect that section quickly and isolate the problem, or else bad things can happen to the rest of the grid," such as a catastrophic blackout, explains ABB chief technology officer Prith Banerjee. "But if you can disconnect quickly, the rest of the grid can go on working while you fix the problem." That's where HVDC hybrid breakers—basically, nondescript racks of circuitry inside a power station—could come in. The breaker combines a series of mechanical and electronic circuit-breaking devices, which redirect a surge in current and then shut it off.  ABB says the unit is capable of stopping a surge equivalent to the output of a one-gigawatt power plant, the sort that might provide power to 1 million U.S. homes or 2 million European homes, in significantly less time than the blink of an eye.

While ABB's new breaker still must be tested in actual power plants before it is deemed dependable enough for wide use, independent experts say it seems to represent an advance over previous efforts. (Siemens, an ABB competitor, reportedly also has been working to develop an advanced HVDC breaker.)

"I think this hybrid approach is a very good approach," says Narain Hingorani, a power-transmission researcher and consultant who is a fellow with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. "There are other ways of doing the same thing, but they don't exist right now, and they may be more expensive."

Hingorani thinks the hybrid HVDC breakers could play an important role in building sprawling HVDC grids that could realize the potential of renewable energy sources. HVDC cables could be laid along the ocean floor to transmit electricity from floating wind farms that are dozens of mile offshore, far out of sight of coastal residents. HVDC lines equipped with hybrid breakers also would be much cheaper to bury than AC, because they require less insulation, Hingorani says.

For wind farms and solar installations in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions, HVDC cables could be run underground in environmentally sensitive areas, to avoid cluttering the landscape with transmission towers and overhead lines. "So far, we've been going after the low-hanging fruit, building them in places where it's easy to connect to the grid," he explains. "There are other places where you can get a lot of wind, but where it's going to take years to get permits for overhead lines—if you can get them at all—because the public is against it."

In other words, whether due to public preference to keep coal plants out of sight, or a desire to harness the force of remote offshore or mountain wind power, society is still seeking the least obtrusive way to deliver electricity long distances. That means that for the same reason Edison lost the War of the Currents at the end of the 19th century, his DC current may gain its opportunity (thanks to technological advances) to serve as the backbone of a cleaner 21st-century grid. (See related story: "The 21st Century Grid: Can we fix the infrastructure that powers our lives?")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Bodies Believed to Be Missing Iowa Cousins

Authorities believe two bodies found by hunters in Iowa this week are Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins, two young cousins who vanished in July.

"At this time, law enforcement is confident, based upon evidence at the scene and preliminary investigation, that the bodies are those of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins," Capt. Rick Abben, chief deputy of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, said at a news conference in Evansdale, Iowa.

Asked why authorities were so confident that the bodies were those of the two girls, Abben replied, "We have no one else that's missing in this area. We have two bodies that were found. They were smaller in stature so we have nothing else to think, at this time."

Abben noted that the state's medical examiner's office in Ankeny, Iowa, had yet to complete the positive identification of the girls.

Bodies Found in Hunt for Missing Iowa Cousins Watch Video

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Missing Iowa Girls: One Mother Takes 2nd Polygraph Watch Video

Asked if the kidnapping investigation was now turning into a homicide investigation, Abben replied, "We are looking that way at this time."

Lyric, 11, and Elizabeth, 9, went missing on July 13 on a bike ride in the small town of Evansdale, Iowa, near Waterloo, Iowa. After hunters found two bodies in a wooded area in Seven Bridges Conservation Area on Wednesday afternoon, the families of Lyric and Elizabeth were notified and the bodies were sent to Ankeny for positive identification.

The families expressed "their gratitude to the community for their ongoing support," according to a statement released by authorities. Elizabeth's mother, Heather Collins, later posted a message on her Facebook page.

"We knew when our girls went missing that [there] would be two outcomes," she wrote. "Unfortunately this is not the one that we wanted but we know our girls [are] dancing with our savior. We know that he will continue to be with us giving us strength and comfort always."

On Wednesday night, residents of Evansdale, Iowa, gathered at Meyers Lake -- where the girls' bicycles and a purse were found -- for a candlelight vigil.

"It's hard to believe," said Lorissa Wilson, who attended the vigil. "I didn't want it to happen to the girls. They're too young to pass away, I believe."

Mary Carroll, who knew Elizabeth, said, "You don't expect it for somebody so sweet and innocent."

Another participant at the vigil, Holly Timmerman, noted that this was "not the outcome anybody wanted at all."

The Seven Bridges Conservation Area will remain closed until Monday, Abben said.

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Chemical key to cell division revealed

In each of our cells, most of the genetic material is packaged safely within the nucleus, which is protected by a double membrane. The biochemistry behind how this membrane transforms when cells divide has finally been unravelled, offering insights that could provide new ways of fighting cancer and some rare genetic disorders.

During cell division, the membrane that surrounds the nucleus breaks down and reforms in the two daughter cells. Researchers have been split on the precise mechanisms that govern membrane reformation. One view is that proteins alone control the membrane's transformations. Another possibility is that changes in lipids – a vast group of fat-related compounds – are responsible.

Experiments had failed to show which of these two ideas was right, because it was difficult to alter lipid levels in specific compartments of cells without affecting other cellular processes.

Banafshe Larijani at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute and her colleagues have now overcome that hurdle. They came up with a technique that transforms a type of lipid called a diacylglycerol (DAG) into another lipid, within the nuclear membrane.

Chemical cascade

The technique involves inserting two fragments of DNA into the nucleus of a cell. This causes the cell to make two proteins: the first attaches itself to the nuclear membrane, the second floats around the cell. Adding a drug – rapalogue – to the mix causes the second protein to stick to the first, which in turn causes a chemical cascade that transforms the DAG into a different kind of lipid.

Crucially, they targeted a form of DAG that does not bind to proteins, so converting it into a different lipid does not affect any processes involving proteins in the cell.

The team tested the effect of this lipid manipulation on cell division in monkey and human cancer cells. The lower the level of DAG present in the nuclear membrane, the greater the membrane malformation and chance of cell death.

This demonstrates that lipids play a role in nuclear membrane reformation that does not depend on proteins.

Larijani says it "opens the door to finding ways to kill cancerous cells" by focusing on lipids that are important to the nuclear membrane's development.

Sausage pieces

As the nucleus divides, sausage-shaped fragments of its membrane float around the cell. The fragments have curved ends, and Larijani says that changes in lipid composition generate these curves, without which the fragments cannot reassemble correctly into new membranes.

More than a dozen rare genetic conditions such as Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, which is characterised by premature ageing in children, have been linked to irregularities in cell division. A better understanding of the way the nuclear membrane forms when cells divide could be key to treating these disorders.

The research also offers a new focus for preventing the irregular cell division that underlies many cancers.

"As a result of this work we now know with confidence that DAG plays a structural role in membrane dynamics," says Vytas Bankaitis, at the Texas A&M Health Science Center in College Station, who was not involved in the study. "If we could find a molecule with suitable characteristics, this manipulation could be done [in humans], which is something that has not really been considered before."

Journal reference: PLoS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051150

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Three dead, 8 missing in North Sea cargo ship collision

THE HAGUE: Rescuers pulled at least three bodies from the icy waters of the North Sea on Wednesday and were frantically searching for eight missing crew from a cargo ship that sank following a collision in a busy shipping lane off the Dutch coast.

The Dutch coastguard and navy plucked 13 survivors from the water after the Baltic Ace, a 23,000 tonne car carrier, collided with container ship the Corvus J at around 7:15 pm (1815 GMT) about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Rotterdam.

The Baltic Ace sank shortly afterwards, the coastguard said.

"I can confirm we have found three victims. Eight others are still missing," Marcel Oldenburger told AFP.

He said that 13 crew members who were on board the Bahamas-registered Baltic Ace had been rescued.

Four survivors were flown to a hospital in Rotterdam, seven taken by rescue helicopter to a hospital in Belgium and two were being treated on board a ship that found them, Oldenburger said.

"They are all in shock" and are believed to suffer from hypothermia, he said.

Oldenburger said the search for survivors was frantic: "We don't know where they are at the moment, whether they are in life boats, or in the sea."

At least three helicopters -- one of which was fitted out with infrared imaging equipment to search in the darkness -- and a plane have joined the search, Oldenburger said.

The Baltic Ace was under way from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Kotka in Finland and the Corvus J from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp in Belgium, according to shipping tracker website MarineTraffic.com.

"At this stage we don't know what caused the accident," said another coastguard spokesman, Peter Verburg: "Our first priority right now is the safety of the crew."

The shipping lane where the accident happened is one of the busiest in the North Sea and an important passing point for ships sailing into Rotterdam port, Europe's largest and the fifth-largest in the world.

Rotterdam port spokesman Sjaak Poppe told AFP the collision would not affect shipping in and out of the port.

In one of the most serious collisions in Dutch waters in recent years, the Greek crude oil tanker Mindoro in October 2010 collided with the container ship Jork Ranger off the coast of Scheveningen near The Hague, spilling thousands of litres of kerosene (jet fuel) into the sea, the European Maritime Safety Agency said on its website.

-AFP/ac

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AT&T says true 4G is coming in 2013, but will it beat Verizon?

Soon to up the ante?

(Credit:
AT&T)

If the rumors are true, real, honest-to-god 4G in the United States could be on the way sometime in the next 7 to 12 months. FierceWireless reports on word from AT&T's annual meeting with analysts that it will be "firing up" new "LTE Advanced" service across its network in the second half of 2013.

What is LTE Advanced? Well, it's a lot like 4G LTE, only more, um, advanced.

See, in the old days of mobile broadband -- like, all the way back in 2011 -- carriers started marketing services they called 4G, but in the real world, they really only offered speeds one-tenth or one-twentieth those of the actual 4G standard, which is meant to deliver download speeds in the range of 100Mbps. That means we were suddenly able to download full songs out of the air in mere seconds on these new 4G services.

That's right, I said seconds instead of the single second it should be taking us over true 4G. And thus we were robbed in the name of marketing. After all, who wants to wait five full seconds to download "Party Rock Anthem?"

But now it looks like next year will produce a savior in the form of a carrier to deliver us to a land of true 4G LTE Advanced with extra cheese... or whatever.

Sprint has LTE Advanced on their roadmaps as well, but was only talking speeds of 15Mbps at last check.

So if AT&T winds up as the first company that can actually deliver triple-digit Mbps speeds, we may finally stop poking fun at the company's one-time inability to deliver consistent service without dropped calls and dead zones in the biggest of American cities.

That's right my fellow soldiers of snark, it may finally be time to make nice with the big blue deathstar, for this may be the year we all fall to our knees and beg AT&T to bring its new network to our towns.

Then again, by that time it could all be a moot point, as Verizon's CEO claimed this week that by the time the other guys are making their next big 4G moves, Big Red will already be looking at 5G and 6G networks.

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Large, Peanut-Shaped Asteroid Headed Toward Earth

A giant asteroid is set to buzz Earth next week, and astronomers are already keeping their eyes on the skies—but not because 4179 Toutatis poses any danger.

Toutatis, at 2.7 miles (4.46 kilometers) long and 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) wide, is one of the largest asteroids that comes anywhere near Earth. But only an astronomer would consider its closest approach to be "near." When the peanut-shaped rock is at its closest to the Earth on December 12, it'll be more than 4.3 million miles (6.9 million kilometers) away, or more than 18 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

(See pictures of asteroids.)

So why are astronomers eagerly awaiting Toutatis? By figuring out what the asteroid is made of, they'll have a better picture of the early days of the solar system. And by refining a model of the asteroid's rotation, they'll get a better idea of its composition.

Topsy-Turvy

Michael Busch, a fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, studied radar images of Toutatis' previous passes—the asteroid approaches Earth every four years—to try to figure out how it was moving through space. "It's tumbling," Busch said. "It's spinning around its long axis, while that in turn is precessing around in a circle, like a gyroscope." Busch and his colleagues were hoping to use radar images taken in 2000, 2004, and 2008 to update a 1996 model of Toutatis' spin state. "[But] this became more complicated when we understood that [gravitational] tides were changing the spin," he said.

Every time Toutatis came close to the sun or the Earth, gravity would tug slightly on the asteroid, changing its spin by a tiny fraction. But over the years, those tugs added up. Once Busch and his collaborators were able to account for these changes, they had a much better model of its spin. And that told them how the asteroid's mass was distributed.

Toutatis is shaped sort of like a lumpy peanut, or from some angles, like a poorly built snowman. It's long and narrow, with two distinct lobes, one smaller than the other. Busch's analysis found that the asteroid's shape isn't the only thing that's lumpy; its mass is also distributed in a lumpy fashion rather than evenly spread throughout the asteroid. "It may have a quite complicated internal structure," he said.

Inner Workings

It's possible the asteroid got its internal structure when a smaller body smashed into it, throwing material off. "That can fracture it, just like hitting a surface with a hammer," Busch said.

Toutatis could also have been created when two objects collided and stuck.

Or, it could have been created through the YORP effect, which explains how nothing but sunlight can cause an asteroid to start spinning. "Wind blowing on a propeller makes the propeller spin," said Dan Scheeres, an astrodynamics professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who's been studying Toutatis for almost two decades. And that's similar to what happens when photons hit an uneven body, making that body spin faster, he added. Scheeres thinks that a faster-spinning Toutatis could have eventually spun so fast that it began throwing off material into space, becoming two separate bodies. These bodies would have eventually slowed down and recombined, starting the process over again.

It's still just a theory, Scheeres said, but the model explains how Toutatis and other so-called contact binaries could exist.

Scheeres and Busch will be analyzing their new observations of Toutatis as it gets closer to Earth over the next week; Busch plans to refine his model of the asteroid's spin after seeing the new radar images.

But astronomers aren't the only ones who will be able to see Toutatis on its flyby. Backyard hobbyists can get in on the fun too. At its closest approach, Toutatis will be "too faint to see with the naked eye, but well within the range of a small backyard telescope," Busch said.

(Learn about telescopes.)

And no, it's not going to hit Earth, so doomsday theorists, relax.

(Learn about potentially hazardous asteroids.)

"There may be more nonsense circulating about Toutatis than many other objects, but that's because it's a large object that makes repeated close flybys of Earth and has an interesting shape," he said.

The new Toutatis data on density and spin state was presented at the 45th annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

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WH 'Absolutely' Willing to Go Off Fiscal Cliff

President Obama's lead negotiator in the "fiscal cliff" talks said the administration is "absolutely" willing to allow the package of deep automatic spending cuts and across-the-board tax hikes to take effect Jan. 1, unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher income tax rates on the wealthy.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview with CNBC that both sides are "making a little bit of progress" toward a deal to avert the "cliff" but remain stuck on Obama's desired rate increase for the top U.S. income-earners.

"There's no prospect for an agreement that doesn't involve those rates going up on the top two percent of the wealthiest," Geithner said.

Most House Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, remain opposed to any increase in tax rates.

Obama and Boehner spoke by phone this afternoon, their first conversation in exactly one week, an administration official said. Their relations have grown frosty in recent days as both sides have dug in on the issue of higher rates.

In separate appearances earlier today, Obama and Boehner publicly sparred over who's to blame for the standoff and what to do if lawmakers can't reach a broad deficit-reduction agreement in 27 days.

Saul Loeb/AFP/GettyImages

Fiscal Cliff: What Republicans, Democrats Agree on So Far Watch Video

'Fiscal Cliff': John Boehner Makes Counteroffer Watch Video

Washington, D.C., Gridlocked as Fiscal Cliff Approaches Watch Video

Obama, speaking at a meeting of 100 CEOs, warned Republicans that he would not accept a so-called "doomsday" deal that extends tax cuts for middle-income earners before the end of the year but nothing more.

Such an approach, which has been under consideration by top Republicans as a likely scenario, would set the stage for a big battle over spending cuts and top tax rates in early 2013 – all tied to the nation's debt ceiling, which will need to be raised, which only Congress can do.

"That is a bad strategy for America, it's bad strategy for businesses," Obama said. "It's not a game I will play."

Brinksmanship over the a 2011 debt ceiling increase to avoid a U.S. default cost the country its AAA credit rating and rattled markets around the world.

While both sides say publicly that the U.S. will not default on its debt obligations, Republicans believe the issue could give them increased leverage for extracting cuts to entitlement programs and other spending.

Boehner said at a morning news conference that Obama has stifled the "fiscal cliff" negotiations by imposing the precondition that Republicans accept income tax hikes on the top 2 percent of U.S. earners.

"We're ready and eager to talk to the president and to work with him to make sure that the American people aren't disadvantaged by what's happening here in Washington," Boehner said at a morning news conference.

"We need a response from the White House," he said. "We can't sit here and negotiate with ourselves."

Earlier this week, House Republicans presented a $2.2 trillion deficit reduction package, including $800 billion in higher taxes through elimination of loopholes and deductions, slower annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security benefits and a higher eligibility age for Medicare.

The plan contrasts sharply with the White House proposal, which calls for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue -- largely from higher rates on upper-income earners -- modest unspecified savings from Medicare and a new burst of economic stimulus spending.

Both sides rejected the opposing plan as "unserious."

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