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In the Gulf War 2 online game, players assume the role of President Bush. About 20,000 people play the game every day. It starts with Baghdad’s quick fall, but that doesn?t mean the war is over. There’s an Iraqi anthrax attack on Israel, a retaliatory nuclear strike, revolt in Saudi Arabia, and a Kurdish coup in northern Iraq. There are also anti-American uprisings in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan, which lead to nuclear warheads being smuggled to militant groups. Once Saddam Hussein’s body is found, players select one of three look-alike successors, who soon needs military backing to fight off an attack by Iran. “This is a projection of the most likely outcome of a new war in the Gulf,” says game creator Dermot O’Connor.
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The space shuttle Columbia broke up in a mysterious area of the upper atmosphere called the ionosphere, which is filled with free electrons?or ions?that can reflect electromagnetic energy, producing strange electrical effects like “elves,” “sprites” and “blue jets.” Until recently, these were dismissed as illusions seen by tired airline pilots. An amateur astronomer took a photo showing purple light near the shuttle’s trail as it passed through this area. This middle atmosphere is too high for balloons and airplanes, but too low for satellites, so it’s been little studied. “We’re discovering the middle atmosphere has got a lot of electrical phenomena,” says Walt Lyons, of FMA Research.read more

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A Tokyo professor may have been inspired by rumored U.S. invisibility camouflage for fighter jets, which makes the lower surfaces of an airplane project an image of the sky above it, rendering the plane invisible. He’s applied this technique to a coat which, when worn, makes your body seem to disappear. However, the parts not covered by the coat remain visible, so you look like a floating head.

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Global warming is making the hay fever season last longer, because trees and grasses are sprouting earlier than normal. “Higher temperatures and climate change is adding to people’s woes still further. This really is the first time there has been a medical, or consumer angle, to the climate change story,” says a spokesman for the Woodland Trust. “We’ve all heard about its impact on species but this is the first time that we will actually see an impact on people as well.”
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