Welcome to the first monthly recap of Science and Technology news, which we’ve imaginatively called Science Digest 1.0.

With Arthur C. Clarke's quote in mind, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," PhysOrg.com reports that a team led by Berkeley University's Chancellor's Professor, Xiang Zhang, has come up with a Harry Potter-style cloak of invisibility. Though the nanostructured silicon cloak itself can still be seen, when it's place over an object the reflective patterns rendered by the cloak make the bulge it conceals invisible. Zhang's team ultimately hope to develop a truly invisible cloak worthy of the magicians at Hogwarts. "We have come up with a new solution to the problem of invisibility based on the use of dielectric (nonconducting) materials," says Xiang Zhang. "Our optical cloak not only suggests that true invisibility materials are within reach, it also represents a major step towards transformation optics, opening the door to manipulating light at will for the creation of powerful new microscopes and faster computers." Sweet. It'll be really useful for shoplifters too!

Talking of other-worldly technology, SuicideGirls attended the NASA / Jet Propulsion Labs Open House the other weekend at their California Institue of Technology site in Pasadena. Members of the public were able to roam around the space flight operations and assembly facilities, and watch JPL's boffins play with very expensive remote control toys like their Mars and lunar rovers. While the Deep Space Network control room was suitably ground control to Major Tom, it was amazing how much of the research and gadgets on show relied on duct tape and tin foil.



Encouraged by the "Ask A Scientist A Question" badges on offer, SuicideGirls also ascertained that the prototype Mars rover JPL had built at great expense currently relied on wheels bought from the local bike store to get around. (Their giant spider-like ATHLETE rover, intended for use on NASA's 2020 moon mission, was far more impressive however.) When a fellow bystander asked about Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson's plans for space tourism, a JPL boffin was rather dismissive of the endeavor, saying he couldn't understand why folks would want to pay a small fortune for the flights which will only allow time for 15 minutes of weightlessness, during which time approximately 50% of the tourists would get space sick (apparently the resulting vomit would then float in globules around the fellow passengers in the craft). We helpfully explained that it was all about shags in space (Branson's always marketed his ventures using sex) -- and that some people will be willing to pay almost anything to join the 60-Mile High Club. We feel that all parties came away enlightened from this scientific encounter.



We also learned that NASA uses Twitter to update the planet on news of several of their missions. It was @MarsPhoenix that made the first public announcement of water on Mars. If you want to follow an astronaut we suggest @Astro Mike.

Meanwhile, instead of heading out into space, scientists at Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility (NIF) near San Francisco are working on bringing the stars a little closer to home. Using 192 lasers, and some amplifiers and filters a little larger than the ones you might find in your car dashboard, they hope to create tiny stars right here on earth in the hopes that the energy created could put Sarah Palin and the Middle East out of the oil businees for good. Our buddy Dave Bullock took some rather cool photographs (for Wired.com) of the star making machine (here's hoping it doesn't explode like American Idol).

A little further south on the West Coast, researchers at the University of California in Riverside are having fun with what they call "undertaker ants." Seems these six-legged morticians can sniff out dead ants with the help of a few chemical markers. Intriguingly, there's also a "not dead yet" marker for undead ants. Furthermore, researchers from the University of Texas and Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service have found that the parasitic maggots of the phorid fly eat the brains of pesky fire ants turning their hosts into zombies that wander around aimlessly "for about two weeks." Turns out that Night of The Living Dead is for real down in the ant hill.

Finally, not everyone can be a Nobel Prize winner (or a zombie ant specialist or rocket scientist for that matter). Most of us won't be invited to the Nobel Prize Award Banquet either -- nor would we necessarily want to sit through the lengthy, speech laden affair. Here's the next best thing: a high speed video of the set-up and party. Experience the whole thing in under 3 minutes!



Heathervescent is a writer, technology consultant and agent of
cacophony. She's more worried about the attack squirrels that apparently plague JPL than zombie ants, which she just thinks are plain cool. You can read more of her adventures at www.heathervescent.com and follow her @heathervescent.

Ever since the Viking 1 probe sent back blurry photos of the Cydonia region of Mars in 1976, a bunch of , uh, Martian mystery enthusiasts have maintained that the image is of a giant humanoid face, and proof of an ancient civilization on the red planet. Many of these same people have numerous books, films, and wall hangings supporting their theories in their Y2K bunkers, and if you ask nicely, they may even let you take a look -- provided no black helicopters fly over when you drop in for a visit.

But make sure you drop in soon, because a series of images have come back from the planet recently, and they appear to conclusively support the longstanding theory that the "face on Mars" image was just an optical illusion.

Sometimes, an unusual formation of mountains, valleys and landslides is just an unusual formation of mountains, valleys and landslides, but the True Believers will read this story, look at the pictures, and immediately discard them as further evidence of the conspiracy to suppress the truth about Cydonia. I attempted to contact the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and a Moderate Republican for comment about the face on Mars, but calls were not returned at press time.

Luckily for us, however, today's Astronomy Picture of the Day features the image in question, sent from the Mars Express, which you can look at and judge for yourself.

There's something magical about Mars. It has inspired countless science fiction stores, from The War of the Worlds to Total Recall, and draws the attention of geeks of all levels. Not too long ago, a functionally retarded Vice President, stated "Mars is essentially in the same orbit . . . Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." He then suggested we offer a Potatoe to the Martians, and introduce them to trickle down economics when we finally land on their planet in the mysterious future.

As one of our closest planetary neighbors, and with significantly less poisonous gas in its atmosphere than Venus, it's also been a subject of scientific research for decades. When the Martians shot down[1] the Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2, NASA and JPL continued to send probes to the red planet, including the hugely successful Mars Global Surveyor, and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

On Monday, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched just one year ago, completed its final breaking maneuvers, and entered orbit above the planet.

There are still plenty of opportunities for the spacecraft to fail, though, so don't go changing your holdings in the Spacecraft Dead Pool anytime soon.

According to NASA, the MRO will search for water, and provide the highest resolution photographs of the planet to date, and I can't wait to see what the face on Mars whackos have to say about that.

[1] No evidence actually exists that there are Martians, or that they have a death ray and are in cahoots with the Illuminati and the Free Masons.