Though paper-thin, a new nano-material is blacker than black. It is, in fact, 30 times darker than government-issue black, absorbing over 99.9% of all light that comes its way. Apparently the effect can be dizzying to the onlooker; probably because, although the scientists have yet to admit it, it also absorbs neural energy, transferring it to other dimensions where previously unidentified lifeforms eat your positive thoughts.

The new black is darker and more soul-sucking than previously existing shades by several standard deviations. (This image adapted from The Washington Post.)

Images from Google Earth are being used by volunteers in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett. The up-to-date images, released by Google Earth, allow users to identify potential crash sites from personal computers and report their findings to rescue crews in Nevada.

The project is being coordinated by Amazon’s “artificial artificial intelligence” site called the Mechanical Turk, where people are paid to do all kinds of tasks that computers have not yet mastered, such as transcribing text or identifying items in an image.

The search for Fossett is a volunteer effort, but it should be great publicity for Mechanical Turk. I checked out the site and found myself looking for a quick way to make a buck - literally. For $1 I could do some internet research to identify the artist of a few oil paintings (which proved impossible in one minute of googling, the amount of time I decided was my maximum effort for an unearned dollar). I could also visit a stained glass shop and write a 250+ word article about it, which seemed like it might be fun in a geeky scavenger hunt sort of way. The best part is that you can sign in with your Amazon account (something most of us have already been suckered into starting) and earn some pennies anytime you want.

Sometime when I’m bored, perhaps I’ll find an internet deal for a bargain site for 5 cents, or provide a text transcript of a video for 12 cents. For now, it looks like I should be spending my free time blogging.

Or maybe I can pay someone 50 cents per post to write my blog for me…?

Steve Fossett, millionaire aviation golden boy, left, Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Atlantic billionaire bad boy on the right - two of the least likely people to be found earning money on the Mechanical Turk.

Scientists have found that the addition of artificial snot enhances the performance of electronic noses. Although they sound futuristic, electronic noses are used for many purposes, including monitoring for spoiled beverages at bottling plants, and detection of pollutants inside space craft. Nasal mucus (aka snot) enhances the sense of smell in our old-school, natural noses by dissolving and separating scent molecules for delivery to scent receptors. Using artificial polymers that mimic actual snot, the researchers were able to distinguish between scents that were previously difficult using the artificial nose, such as milk and cream. What’s next in the artificial body fluid field? Would artificial earwax enhance hearing with fake ears? Could artificial tears make robots, er, sadder? Maybe we should just stick with the snot for now.

Electronic Nose vs. Real Nose Dr. Julian Gardner sniffs out the competition: An electronic nose with artificial snot. A worthy rival, but nothing a few swift sneezes can’t handle.

After a slight bout of blogger’s block, I present to you the top 5 science stories I should have posted about these past two weeks:

5. Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter. And watch what you do with that jelly, will you?
4. Ocean discovered deep within Earth. Or haven’t you heard? And yet, if the ocean was found on Mars, Bush would have detailed half the State Department there to set up a marina and golf course.
3. MIT student invents wall-crawling device. Next, a Harvard student will invent and put to use a wall lubricant, causing the MIT student to become injured falling from Boston’s highest building. Next, the Harvard student will follow the limping MIT student to his superhero hideout, only to cleverly capture him in an elaborate scheme that will result in his slow, yet imminent demise. Zoinks, audience, will our hero be rescued? The riveting tale will continue after these messages…
2. A new symbol for radiation danger has been developed:
   Or does it mean “get the hell out of the way when a UFO is firing lasers at you, or those soulless aliens will zap the living flesh from your body and you will be reduced to a pile of rubble with only your skull intact”?

1. And, although it’s not really science, I find myself unable to avoid commenting on Astronaut Lisa Nowak’s apparent decline into jealous stalking and lovesick insanity. I attended a panel discussion featuring Lisa Nowak and the rest of the STS-121 crew prior to my September ‘06 post, Astronauts Are Cool, and I stand by that assessment. She was cool. And funny, intelligent and collected. It was these qualities (and a nice supply of diapers) that drove her from Texas to Florida to hunt down the woman who did her wrong. Yes, Lisa Nowak was misguided and led solely by her emotions, but this is a woman who was willing to risk her life by travelling into space in the spirit of exploration. And she was equipped with only nonlethal weapons: a pellet gun, pepper spray, and a really terrible outfit. So really, she meant no harm. She just wanted to kick that love-stealing woman’s butt, astronaut style. And if a male astronaut had acted the same way, it likely wouldn’t have even made the local news.

Nine out of ten emails sent are now spam, according to a report released this week. How does this happen? Apparently, 80 percent of spam comes from around 200 illegal gangs. In this high-tech gang banging, spammers use trojan-horse type programs to hijack thousands of home computers at a time, stealing their computing power and bandwidth to use as makeshift spam supercomputers. Now that’s some spamming talent. You’d think AOL and Microsoft would just put an end to the whole thing by recruiting straight from the spam gangs with the lure of six figures and a dental plan.

More not-so-super spam news: Cell phone spam is on the rise in China, with some cell phone users receiving over 40 spam text messages per week. How do you know it’s spam and not just a text-messaged booty call from one of your many admirers? One big tip-off will be the misspelling of V14GRA…

Are you in need of something fun to do with your spam? Try recycling it at spamrecycling.com, where your spam will be converted into a lovely fractal image. Simply forward your spam to spam@spamrecycling.com and follow the easy instructions they send you. All this is free in exchange for their selling your email address to the spam mafia. (Just kidding about that last part.)

A new study has found that one in eleven internet addicts tries to conceal the habit. The rest are either porn-addicts or bloggers (or porn-bloggers. Urgh). Us bloggers are just so excited about our online exploits that we recycle what we like online by blogging it. And then we blog about blogging. And if we’re really crazy, we start blogs about blogs, blogs that track what other blogs are saying about blogs, and blogs to blog about our other blogs that talk about bloggers blogging. Bloggedy blog blog.

Yahoo is collecting digital media for a laser time capsule which will be beamed into the past and the future - the “past” being an ancient pyramid in Mexico and the “future” being space. What genius dreamed that up? Hmm, what’s more futuristic than outer space? And something ancient… I know, a pyramid! Yahoo is clearly meant to be “the present,” but that one’s not quite so obvious. Google easily overshadowed Yahoo’s ridiculous publicity stunt with a simple takeover of YouTube. But if you’re like me and still want your picture lasered onto the ommotidia of some poor helpless extraterrestrial’s compound eye, you can submit it to the time capsule here.

What’s the difference between nanotechnology and “green” nanotechnology? Bethany Manyard, precocious youth and nanotech advocate, will tell you. It seems the difference is that nanotech can do all kinds of cool things, but it could be harmful to human health and the environment. Green nanotech, however, can do all kinds of cool things for the environment, but it could still be harmful to human health and the, um, environment… Sounds great, huh? Bethany Manyard also tries really hard to stain a nanotech-guarded stain-proof tie, to no avail.

A biodegradable napkin has been developed which can use nanofibers to detect and identify biohazards. Biomarkers which change colors when exposed to specific biohazards can be embedded in the nanofibers in the napkins, which are, as I said, biodegradable. Does this count as green nanotech? So, it could be, well, hazardous to human health and the environment. So, why even bother throwing in the word “biodegradable,” when disposing of these napkins is (hopefully) illegal?

The world’s smallest test tubes, nanotubes, are about three atoms across. Or maybe it would be better to say that they are approximately a billion times smaller than a shot glass. Ordering a nano-round is a good move when going out for drinks on the cheap. So is slipping out the back door of the bar…

While not quite considered “nanotech,” scientists have developed self-healing coatings for surfaces out of nucleotides (the “N” in the world-famous molecule, DNA). This is a wonderful development for the anti-biotech and the anti-nanotech movements, that can now unite to protect us from nanofibers embedded in plastics made from genetically-engineered corn that is coated with self-healing DNA-based polymer.

And a non-nano sized technology, the iPod Nano, is now available in black, silver, green, blue and pink with up to 8GB memory. So if you’re in the market for a new iPod (or feel like buying me one), they’re pretty sweet.

California is now the first state to approve a plan to combat global warming. The plan will cap their greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 to the level of emissions in 1990. In accordance with this, Paris Hilton has announced that she will cap her media exposure to 1990 levels as well. Thank you, music gods.

Soon there will be even more ads in video games. Electronic Arts had teamed up with two online advertising firms to place ads in video games which will be constantly updated from the internet. Soon, when you’re beating someone up in GTA you’ll have your choice of which brand baseball bat to use, Nike or Rawlings, and you can listen to Top 50 hits in you stolen ‘08 Ford Mustang.

The SMART-1 probe, a European Space Agency (ESA) probe which orbited the moon collecting images and data for three years, will crash land there at 7,200 km per hour tonight around 2:00 AM EDT. Amatuer astronomers can watch this from earth - it’s like watching World’s Most Outrageous Car Crashes for geeks.

Here’s some good news for couch potato kids: watching TV has now been shown to act as a painkiller. A new study shows that children who watched cartoons while having blood taken reported less pain than those who were actively distracted by being soothed by their parents. How far do these narcotic effects of TV watching extend? Parents may soon be sitting their kids in front of the tube for every cut and scrape. Couch potato kids will throw themselves to the pavement for the sweet reward of more Sponge Bob.

And if that’s not enough to get you scared for the kiddies, it appears that some video games might actually improve social skills. A study argues that MMOs (massively multilayer online video games) helped to build bridges between players with different world views. The researchers admit that, while the games may not create close emotional bonds between players, the benefits of exposure to different kinds of people enhance their sociability. So, if you have a kid that’s addicted to Second Life, or some other MMO crack, you need not only worry about internet porn, but recruitment to random cults, scientology, and Al Qaeda. So keep this in mind in case DHS is suddenly banging down your door.