2 space crews mark 1 week together in orbit.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The 12 astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle-station complex shared a few more maintenance chores Saturday, taking out the trash and doing their part for clean air as their weeklong visit wound down.

The hatches between Discovery and the International Space Station will close Sunday afternoon, and the shuttle will undock first thing Monday.

Both crews worked to rejuvenate the space station's air system. The oxygen generator as well as the carbon dioxide removal system have been acting up.

They also made sure a Japanese cargo carrier was loaded properly with garbage.

The supply ship will be let loose at the end of this month and plunge through the atmosphere, burning up. The vessel is full of packing foam from all the equipment that was delivered by Discovery. The foam encasing the humanoid robot R2 will be stuffed in as well, once the astronauts unwrap it.

R2 is the first humanoid robot in space. It was part of the new stowage unit delivered last Saturday by shuttle Discovery.

Mission Control gave Discovery's six astronauts two extra days at the 220-mile-high lab — for a total of nine days — to help with all the unloading and repair work.

"Hope you are enjoying your extended stay in your out-of-this-world accommodations. The innkeeper says you can stay a couple more days if you behave," Mission Control joked.

It's the last voyage for Discovery, NASA's oldest and most traveled shuttle. The spaceship will be retired following Wednesday's planned touchdown and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for display.

Only two more shuttle missions remain. Endeavour is set to soar in mid-April, followed by Atlantis at the end of June.

iPad 2 expected to be thinner, faster, supports camera.

SAN FRANCISCO:  More than a year after igniting the tablet computing craze, Apple Inc prepares to unveil the second version of its blockbuster iPad on Wednesday — possibly minus lead showman Steve Jobs.

Plenty has changed over the course of the year. The iPad became a bona fide smash, essentially creating the tablet category and triggering a wave of me-too products that are just starting to hit the market.

Now, as rivals Motorola and Research in Motion race to catch up, Apple itself is going through a transformation.

There is as much speculation about whether iconic Chief Executive Jobs will take the stage at Wednesday’s event in San Francisco as there is about the new device.

Jobs traditionally launches major products with a pizzazz and style that reflect his eye for detail and design. But he took indefinite medical leave last month and Apple has not given details of the cancer survivor’s medical condition.

His absence is bound to spark a fresh round of speculation on his condition. And his presence will be scrutinized equally closely for any signals on his health.

The new model will support the same 10-inch screen but should be lighter, thinner and faster, according to a plethora of analyst and blog reports. Apple is expected to add a camera to enable video chat using the FaceTime application.

Shares of some Taiwanese component makers rose in Asian trade on Wednesday ahead of the launch.

Camera module maker Genius Electronic Optical Co Ltd and lens manufacturer Largan Precision Co Ltd were starting new supply deals with Apple, two sources said in December, but neither could confirm for which product the modules were intended.

Genius jumped as much as 5.1 per cent before ending 2.5 per cent lower, while lens manufacturer Largan edged up 0.2 per cent in a broader market down 1.2 per cent. Hon Hai Precision , whose parent Foxconn manufactures Apple products, eased 1.8 per cent.

“The launch of iPad2 should have been priced in, but another new features released, for example more powerful hardware, could push relevant stocks into another round of growth,” said Mike Fang, a fund manager at Paradigm Asset Management in Taipei.

It sold nearly 15 million iPads in 2010 after an April launch, three or even four times as many as some analysts had predicted. The tablet added more than $9 billion in revenue for the company last year.

NASA research satellite plunges into the sea.

WASHINGTON – For the second time in two years, a rocket glitch sent a NASA global warming satellite to the bottom of the sea Friday, a $424 million debacle that couldn't have come at a worse time for the space agency and its efforts to understand climate change.

Years of belt-tightening have left NASA's Earth-watching system in sorry shape, according to many scientists. And any money for new environmental satellites will have to survive budget-cutting, global warming politics and, now, doubts on Capitol Hill about the space agency's competence.

The Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA's Glory satellite lifted from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and plummeted to the southern Pacific several minutes later. The same thing happened to another climate-monitoring probe in 2009 with the same type of rocket, and engineers thought they had fixed the problem.

"It's more than embarrassing," said Syracuse University public policy professor Henry Lambright. "Something was missed in the first investigation and the work that went on afterward."

Lambright warned that the back-to-back fiascos could have political repercussions, giving Republicans and climate-change skeptics more ammunition to question whether "this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money for rockets to fail and for a purpose they find suspect."

NASA's environmental division is getting used to failure, cuts and criticism. In 2007, a National Academies of Science panel said that research and purchasing for NASA Earth sciences had decreased 30 percent in six years and that the climate-monitoring system was at "risk of collapse." Then, last month, the Obama administration canceled two major satellite proposals to save money.

Also, the Republican-controlled House has sliced $600 million from NASA in its continuing spending bill, and some GOP members do not believe the evidence of manmade global warming.

Thirteen NASA Earth-observing satellites remain up there, and nearly all of them are in their sunset years.

"Many of the key observations for climate studies are simply not being made," Harvard Earth sciences professor James Anderson said. "This is the nadir of climate studies since I've been working in this area for 40 years."

Scientists are trying to move climate change forecasts from ones that are heavily based on computer models to those that rely on more detailed, real-time satellite-based observations like those that Glory was supposed to make. The satellite's failure makes that harder.

Ruth DeFries, the Columbia University professor who co-chaired the 2007 National Academies of Science panel, said in an e-mail that this matters for everyone on Earth.

"The nation's weakening Earth-observing system is dimming the headlights needed to guide society in managing our planet in light of climate change and other myriad ways that humans are affecting the land, atmosphere and oceans," DeFries wrote.

NASA Earth Sciences chief Michael Freilich said it is not that bad.

"We must not lose sight of the fact that we in NASA are flying 13 research missions right now, which are providing the fuel for advancing a lot of our Earth science," Freilich told The Associated Press. He said airplane missions, current satellites and future ones can pick up much of the slack for what Glory was going to do.

However, Freilich, at a budget briefing a year ago, described the Earth-watching satellites as "all old," adding that 12 of the 13 "are well beyond their design lifetimes."

"We're losing the ability to monitor really key aspects of the climate problem from space," said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona. "Just about every climate scientist in the world has got to be sad right now."

Glory failed when the rocket's clamshell-shaped protective covering that was supposed to shield it during launch never opened to let the satellite fire into orbit. A similar fiasco happened in 2009 when the Orbiting Carbon Observatory fell back to Earth after the rocket nose cone also failed to separate.

A NASA investigation board and Taurus' builder, Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., will try to figure out what wrong. It was the third failure out of nine launches for that rocket. NASA paid Orbital $54 million for launching Glory. The last failure was traced to the system that jettisons the covering, and Orbital changed its design.

"To make any connection between our investigation of the 2009 ... mishap and Friday's failure of the Glory launch at this time would be purely speculative and wholly inappropriate," said investigative panel chairman Rick Obenschain, deputy director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Some game developers unhappy with Apple, Nintendo.

San Francisco - Some of the video game industry's most visible veterans took to their pulpits this week at the Game Developers Conference to denounce practices by Apple or Nintendo.

Trip Hawkins took shots at both.

A game industry pioneer, Hawkins founded software giant Electronic Arts, failed console maker the 3DO Company and most recently a mobile-games studio called Digital Chocolate.

Speaking to a roomful of game developers here Thursday, Hawkins said Apple and followers of its mobile-platform mantra are only creating the illusion of a viable business model for third-party developers.

With more than 350,000 apps available on Apple's digital store, game creators are finding it tough to attract attention despite tens of millions of potential customers who own Apple gadgets, he said.

"They have over-encouraged supply," Hawkins said on a panel at the conference. Using statistics that Apple has made public, Hawkins calculated that each app earns, on average, about $4,000.

"Four thousand per application: Do you see a problem with that?" he asked the audience. "That doesn't even pay for a really good foosball table."

Apple said Wednesday it has doled $2 billion out to app developers, which could put the average payout closer to $5,700. Either way, Hawkins said he believes the math makes it difficult for creators of apps to turn a profit.

"If we can't figure out how to make it a healthy ecosystem, it's not going to be a great business for developers to be able to remain employed in," he said.

Gaming giant Nintendo, maker of the popular Wii system, focused much of its message at the conference on condemning the prevailing model for smartphone games.

"The objectives of smartphones and social-network platforms are not at all like ours," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in a GDC keynote. "Their goal is just to gather as much software as possible, because quantity is what makes the money flow. Quantity is how they profit. The value of video-game software does not matter to them."

Two of Nintendo's top executives echoed that sentiment in interviews this week.

Discussing inexpensive mobile games, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said: "The only thing that concerns us is that it becomes a distraction for developers, and it ends up driving development effort down a path that potentially has very little return."

In other words, Nintendo executives said, selling wares cheaply in a crowded online bazaar is a long-term recipe for failure.

"When I look at retailers, and I see the $1 and free software, I have to determine that the owner doesn't care about the high value of software at all," Iwata said in a presentation Wednesday, the same morning as Apple's iPad 2 news conference in the building next door. "I fear our business is dividing in a way that threatens the continued employment of those of us who make games."

But Hawkins, the EA founder, said he believes Nintendo is not blame-free, either. The Japanese gaming behemoth upended the industry decades ago when it instituted fees associated with developing and selling software for Nintendo's systems, he said.

After an approval process, Nintendo makes developers pay a toll for access to certified equipment for testing purposes. The company also takes a royalty fee on each unit sold -- set so high that the costs lock out small development shops, some programmers say.

The practice has thrived and has been emulated by others, including Microsoft and Sony Computer Entertainment.

"We used to have a free and open game business," Hawkins said. "And then Nintendo came along and introduced a thing called a licensing agreement."

Apple charges developers a subscription fee of $99 per year and takes 30% of each transaction. Apple has touted in previous news conferences that it sells more gadgets capable of playing games than any major game company.

In 2009, Hawkins sang Apple's praises after Digital Chocolate developed several hit games for the iPhone. He called it "a spectacularly pleasant surprise" in an interview with VentureBeat.

But Thursday, Hawkins was much more critical. Apple has pitched its App Store to game developers as a place where there's "no tyranny from publishers, no tyranny from Walmart," he said. But the store's overcrowding is another problem, because it makes it hard for most games to get noticed, he added.

"At least Nintendo had the courtesy to tell you upfront that you were going to be screwed."

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nintendo, along with the other big game-console makers, invests in ways to encourage small, independent developers to build games for its systems. Nintendo has digital stores, called Ware, for the Wii and DSi hardware, and they have "minimal barrier to entry," Nintendo's Fils-Aime said.

But so far the company has produced no success stories that rival the likes of "Angry Birds," the blockbuster mobile game.

Fils-Aime acknowledged that there is "lots of room for optimization" with Nintendo's digital-retailing channels. "We've got to do a better job of marketing it.

To bolster those efforts, Nintendo is readying an eShop retail store for its upcoming 3DS hand-held 3-D gaming system, he said. But it won't be ready in time for the March 27 launch.

For budding game developers, there are no easy answers.

Natalia Luckyanova, a former enterprise software developer who now makes a living developing iPhone games with her husband, described Nintendo's stance as arrogant. Her Imangi Studios creates 99-cent and $2 apps. Iwata didn't sufficiently acknowledge the difficulty Nintendo creates for small developers with its licensing model, she said.

PopCap Games CEO Dave Roberts said a "slow" and cautious approach to development has worked for his 10-year-old company. PopCap is responsible for the hit cell-phone games "Bejeweled" and "Plants vs. Zombies."

"We're really excited about mobile and social (network-based) games, but we're not on the bandwagon," Roberts said. "We're not trying to drag people to new platforms."

Hawkins, the seasoned game maker, offered this solution for developers: Focus on Web-based games, where the developer can control every mode of distribution and transaction.

"There is a place that we can all gravitate to over the years," Hawkins said. "Think more about the browser. The browser will set you free."

UK rocket test for 1,000mph car.

The first full test firing of the rocket that will power a British car to over 1,000mph (1,600km/h) will take place in the coming months.

Producing 122kN (27,000lb) of thrust, the hybrid Falcon motor will be the largest rocket to be ignited in the UK for 20 years.

It will not be the only power unit in the Bloodhound vehicle when it tries to break the land speed record next year.

There will also be a jet from a fighter plane and the engine from an F1 car.

The team behind the project believes this trio of power units could secure the absolute land speed record for Britain for many years to come.

"We are creating the ultimate car; we're going where no-one has gone before," said Richard Noble, the Bloodhound project director.

Several locations are being considered for the rocket test.

They include places with historic connections to the land speed record - places such as Pendine in West Wales where several records were set in the 1920s, and at Shoeburyness in eastern England where the engines for the current record holder, the Thrust SSC vehicle, were tested. Both these locations have military evaluation centres.

Continue reading the main story

Bloodhound's 45cm-wide, 3.6m-long (18in by 12ft) rocket will be British designed and built.

It will burn a mixture of solid propellant (HTPB, or hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene) and liquid oxidiser (high-test peroxide, HTP) for 20 seconds.

To put its peak thrust of 122kN in context, it is equivalent to the combined power of about 645 family saloon cars.

Added to the 90kN of thrust coming from the EJ200 Eurofighter-Typhoon jet, Bloodhound should have sufficient energy to put itself 8km away from a standing start in just 100 seconds.

The rocket is being developed by the Falcon Project Ltd, a specialist rocketry company based in Manchester and led by 27-year-old self-trained rocketeer Daniel Jubb.

"We've done 10 firings to date of our six-inch model - that was in the Mojave Desert in California," explained Mr Jubb.

"We've also done one on the 18-inch Bloodhound model, but it was pressure-fed; it wasn't done using our new pump and that's the point about this upcoming test."

The Falcon will need almost a tonne of HTP pushed through it, which is the job of the F1 engine.


The rocket has been fired once already, in the Mojave Desert in California

Cosworth, which manufactures power units for several cars on the F1 grid, are making one of their CA2010 engines available just to drive the Falcon's oxidiser pump.

Engineers at Cosworth will have to meet several new challenges to make the CA2010 work in Bloodhound. For one thing, it is sitting back-to-front compared with its usual mounting in an F1 vehicle, and this means its oil lubricant will move about the engine in a different way.

This will need to be managed carefully if the engine is to run efficiently. The design team also has to figure out how to let the engine "breathe" when it is sitting in a car moving at 1,000mph.

"To the best of my knowledge there isn't a piston engine operating anywhere that's in a vehicle that's running at supersonic speed," said Cosworth chief executive Tim Routsis.

"It means the way you actually connect the engine to the outside world needs an awful lot of thought because if we were to feed it a supersonic airflow we would give it a fairly epic amount of boost and it would be very powerful for an extremely short period of time.


The Cosworth Formula One engine next to the Bloodhound.

The production of the Bloodhound car's body formally began last month. The vehicle should be finished and ready to begin "low speed" trials on a UK runway in the first half of next year before being shipped to Hakskeen Pan in the Northern Cape for high-speed runs in late 2012 or 2013.

The Bloodhound venture was conceived not just as another record bid but as a project that could inspire children to engage in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects.

Some one and a half million children in more than 4,000 British schools are now involved in the Bloodhound Education Programme.

Many more around the globe have access to online teaching resources via IT partner Intel Corporation's "Skoool" initiative.

"When Richard first talked to me about Bloodhound I got very engaged, very quickly, because I saw it as a wonderful platform through which we can introduce the young boys and girls to the sort of world that we work in," said Mr Routsis.

"We can show them that STEM subjects are not just boring things you do in a classroom, but they can actually lead to an extremely interesting set of challenges that you can address in a very fulfilling life."

Britain releases UFO sighting and policy files.

Britain Thursday released 35 previously classified files documenting sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by the military and members of the public dating back to the 1950s.

The files contain around 8,500 pages which mainly cover the period from 1997 to 2005 and include photographs, drawings and descriptions of flying saucer sightings, as well as letters the Ministry of Defense (MoD) sent eyewitnesses in response to their accounts.


Policemen, a soldier, a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer and members of the public report sightings of objects including a "chewy mint shaped solid craft" and aerial objects resembling a "ring," a "jellyfish" and a "silver voile spin top."


In one account a man said he believed he had been "abducted" by aliens in October 1998 after seeing an unidentified craft hover over his London home and finding he had gained an hour of time in the process."It was a large cigar-shaped vehicle with big projectiles on each side like wings," he told the MoD.


The MoD wrote to the man informing him that the object was probably an airship, adding that the time he had gained was probably the result of the clocks being put back one hour on the night of his close encounter.


The MoD said it investigated every UFO sighting report it received to determine "whether there is any evidence that the United Kingdom s airspace might have been compromised by hostile or unauthorized air activity."

Exclusive NASA Scientist Claims Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite.

We are not alone in the universe -- and alien life forms may have a lot more in common with life on Earth than we had previously thought.

That's the stunning conclusion one NASA scientist has come to, releasing his groundbreaking revelations in a new study in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology.

Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, gave FoxNews.com early access to the out-of-this-world research, published late Friday evening in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology. In it, Hoover describes the latest findings in his study of an extremely rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites -- only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth.

Though it may be hard to swallow, Hoover has become convinced that his findings reveal fossil evidence of bacterial life within such meteorites -- and by extension, suggest we are not alone in the universe.

“I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth,” Hoover told FoxNews.com. “This field of study has just barely been touched -- because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.”

In what he calls “a very simple process,” Dr. Hoover fractured the meteorite stones under a sterile environment before examining the freshly broken surface with the standard tools of the scientist: a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to search the stone’s surface for evidence of fossilized remains.

He found the fossilized remains of micro-organisms not so different from ordinary ones found underfoot -- here on earth, that is.

“The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth,” Hoover told FoxNews.com. But not all of them. “There are some that are just very strange and don’t look like anything that I’ve been able to identify, and I’ve shown them to many other experts that have also come up stumped.”

Other scientists tell FoxNews.com the implications of this research are shocking, describing the findings variously as profound, very important and extraordinary. But Dr. David Marais, an astrobiologist with NASA’s AMES Research Center, says he’s very cautious about jumping onto the bandwagon.

These kinds of claims have been made before, he noted -- and found to be false.

“It’s an extraordinary claim, and thus I’ll need extraordinary evidence,” Marais said.

Knowing that the study will be controversial, the journal invited members of the scientific community to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries ahead of time. Though none are online yet, those comments will be posted alongside the article, said Dr. Rudy Schild, a scientist with the Harvard-Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cosmology.

"Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5,000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis," Schild wrote in an editor's note along with the article. "No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough vetting, and never before in the history of science has the scientific community been given the opportunity to critically analyze an important research paper before it is published, he wrote."

Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, said there is a lot of hesitancy to believe such proclamations. If true, the implications would be far-reaching throughout the fields of science and astronomy, the suggestions and possibilities stunning.

“Maybe life was seeded on earth -- it developed on comets for example, and just landed here when these things were hitting the very early Earth,” Shostak speculated. “It would suggest, well, life didn’t really begin on the Earth, it began as the solar system was forming.”

Hesitancy to believe new claims is something common and necessary to the field of science, Hoover said.

“A lot of times it takes a long time before scientists start changing their mind as to what is valid and what is not. I’m sure there will be many many scientists that will be very skeptical and that’s OK.”

Until Hoover’s research can be independently verified, Marais said, the findings should be considered “a potential signature of life.” Scientists, he said, will now take the research to the next level of scrutiny, which includes an independent confirmation of the results by another lab, before the findings can be classified “a confirmed signature of life.”

Hoover says he isn’t worried about the process and is open to any other explanations.

“If someone can explain how it is possible to have a biological remain that has no nitrogen, or nitrogen below the detect ability limits that I have, in a time period as short as 150 years, then I would be very interested in hearing that."

"I’ve talked with many scientists about this and no one has been able to explain,” he said.

The 'killer app' that could help save lives.

"Killer apps," so the technological jargon goes, can transform the fortunes of businesses while improving the lives of the people that use them. But very few can claim to improve the worldwide provision of healthcare.

Aydogan Ozcan is confident his lens-free cell phone microscope can do just that, creating an application that is a "lifesaver" in the truest sense of the word.

"Our main goal is to replace bulky optical microscopes with computer codes and architectures that can make them extremely lightweight, compact and cost effective," Ozcan said.

The associate professor of electrical engineering, who heads his own research group at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), has been working on his microscope since 2007 with the aim of improving the detection of killer diseases like malaria and tuberculosis (TB).

Traditional hi-tech optical microscopes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy.

In contrast, Ozcan's invention, which makes use of the silicon sensor found in cell phone cameras, could cost as little as $5-10, he believes.

LUCAS (Lensless, Ultra-wide-field Cell monitoring Array platform based on Shadow imaging) clips onto to the back of a standard cell phone (minus its lens) and comprises of an LED light, a spatial filter, and a slot for a medical slide.

It works by passing light through a slide sample which creates shadows of individual cells on the phone's digital camera sensor positioned below.

This image is actually a hologram, Ozcan says, and looks "a little weird and blurry," but can be deciphered by specially-programmed computers which translate the interference patterns captured on the sensor into data which can be read by medical staff.

Image quality is improving all the time and progress in recent months has been rapid.

"Currently we are at submicron, which means that our resolution is better than one millionth of a meter," he said -- which is sufficiently powerful to reliably image the malaria parasite.

It's a massive breakthrough and could herald a radically different future in the detection of a treatable disease which killed around one million children in 2008 and is responsible for one fifth of all childhood deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Furthermore, Ozcan says, it will help a disease which suffers from the burden of false positive tests. In some countries this figure is as high as 70%, he says.

"We need to put a technology together that will either train healthcare workers better or bring in a technology that would assist them to make fewer errors," he says.

He's not advocating the replacement of technicians altogether, that would be too dangerous, he argues, but rather provide them with equipment which allows them to make accurate decisions faster, so they can screen more slides per day.

With the aid of funding from the U.S. National Institute of Health Ozcan and his research team are preparing to test the device in the field. The first trials will get underway at malaria clinics in Brazil later this year.

"It will be useful for the students to solve some of the issues which we haven't thought of yet," Ozcan said.

With proper financial backing he believes an initial product could reach the market in as little as 18-24 months.

Improved devices which can match the performance of existing optical microscopes are not far away either, he says.

Pathogens and bacteria are typically very small, Ozcan says, requiring a very high resolution. TB, for example, requires a detection resolution somewhere between 0.2 and 0.4 microns.

"Currently we can see clusters of TB, but individual cells are a little difficult," he says.

By the year's end he's confident that LUCAS and a new florescent microscope in development will have advanced enough to allow for reliable detection of TB bacteria, monitor the white blood cells of HIV positive patients and assist in the prevention of waterborne diseases, which collectively claim the lives of over five million people each year, according to WHO.

Ozcan's research has already earned him a clutch of awards, most recently the 2011SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics) Early Career Achievement Award and the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

But the 32-year-old remains modest about his achievements so far, crediting the advances of the consumer electronics market with allowing him to invent such a device.

Ten to 15 years ago all this would not have been possible, he says.

"We are very grateful to those five billion cell phone subscribers because they are the motivation for cell phone companies to make components extremely inexpensive," he said.

"The same is true for Xbox players and the gaming industry. Thanks to them we can get our hands on phenomenally complex supercomputers, inexpensively.

"In 2007, it was a very interesting problem, scientifically. But I couldn't fully grasp it or get the passion I have today. It's much bigger than we could have guessed four years ago. Today is just the tip of the iceberg."

Federal researchers declare eastern cougar extinct.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The "ghost cat" is just that.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday declared the eastern cougar to be extinct, confirming a widely held belief among wildlife biologists that native populations of the big cat were wiped out by man a century ago.

After a lengthy review, federal officials concluded there are no breeding populations of cougars — also known as pumas, panthers, mountain lions and catamounts — in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the eastern cougar subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.

Wednesday's declaration paves the way for the eastern cougar to be removed from the endangered species list, where it was placed in 1973. The agency's decision to declare the eastern cougar extinct does not affect the status of the Florida panther, another endangered wildcat.

Some hunters and outdoors enthusiasts have long insisted there's a small breeding population of eastern cougars, saying the secretive cats have simply eluded detection — hence the "ghost cat" moniker. The wildlife service said Wednesday it confirmed 108 sightings between 1900 and 2010, but that these animals either escaped or were released from captivity, or migrated from western states to the Midwest.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service fully believes that some people have seen cougars, and that was an important part of the review that we did," said Mark McCollough, an endangered species biologist who led the agency's eastern cougar study. "We went on to evaluate where these animals would be coming from."

A breeding population of eastern cougars would almost certainly have left evidence of its existence, he said. Cats would have been hit by cars or caught in traps, left tracks in the snow or turned up on any of the hundreds of thousands of trail cameras that dot Eastern forests.

But researchers have come up empty.

The private Eastern Cougar Foundation, for example, spent a decade looking for evidence. Finding none, it changed its name to the Cougar Rewilding Foundation last year and shifted its focus from confirming sightings to advocating for the restoration of the big cat to its pre-colonial habitat.

"We would have loved nothing more than for there to be a remnant wild population of cougars on the East Coast," said Christopher Spatz, the foundation's president. "We're not seeing (evidence) because they're not here."

Others maintain that wild cougars still prowl east of the Mississippi.

Ray Sedorchuk, 45, an avid hunter and outdoorsman, said he got an excellent look at a cougar last June in rural Bradford County, in northern Pennsylvania. He was in his truck when a reddish-brown animal with a long tail crossed the road. He said he jammed on the brakes, and the cougar stopped in its tracks.

"I could see the body, the tail and the head, the entire animal, perfectly. It's not a bobcat, it's not a housecat, it's a cougar," he said. "It's a sleek animal. It ran low to the ground and stealth-like. It moved with elegance."

Sedorchuk, a freelance writer who spends copious amounts of time in the woods, said he'd always been skeptical of the eastern cougar's existence, even as two of his friends insisted to him that they had seen them in the wild.

And now?

"I believe that they're here, without even thinking twice about it," he said. "I believe there aren't that many, but there are enough where they can get together and breed."

Once widely dispersed throughout the eastern United States, the mountain lion was all but wiped out by the turn of the last century. Cougars were killed in vast numbers, and states even held bounties. A nearly catastrophic decline in white-tailed deer — the main prey of mountain lions — also contributed to the species' extirpation.

McCollough said the last wild cougar was believed to have been killed in Maine in 1938.

The wildlife service treated the eastern cougar as a distinct subspecies, even though some biologists now believe it is genetically the same as its western brethren, which is increasing in number and extending its range. Some experts believe that mountain lions will eventually make their way back East.

The loss of a top-level predator like the cougar has had ecological consequences, including an explosion in the deer population and a corresponding decline in the health of Eastern forests.

"Our ecosystems are collapsing up and down the East Coast, and they're collapsing because we have too many white-tailed deer," said Spatz. "Our forests are not being permitted to regenerate."

Cougars and wolves, he said, would thin the deer herd through direct predation while also acting as "natural shepherds," forcing deer to become more vigilant and "stop browsing like cattle."

Spatz's group would like the federal government to reintroduce cougars and wolves to the eastern United States, though he acknowledged any such plan would come up against fierce resistance.

The wildlife service said Wednesday it has no authority under the Endangered Species Act to reintroduce the mountain lion to the East.

Astronauts get to relax after 2 spacewalks.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The astronauts in orbit at the International Space Station are will be getting a break.

The two crews of the linked space shuttle and space station will get some precious time off Thursday afternoon. NASA officials say it's well deserved, following Wednesday's successful spacewalk.

Before relaxing, the astronauts will work on an air purifier aboard the space station.

Discovery will remain at the International Space Station until Sunday. That's a day longer than originally planned. Mission managers want the shuttle crew to help unload the newly installed storage unit. There's a possibility the astronauts may get yet another bonus day in orbit, which would stretch their mission to 13 days.

It's the final voyage for NASA's oldest shuttle.

Apple's Jobs unveils the iPad 2.

San Francisco (CNN) -- With a surprise appearance by CEO Steve Jobs, Apple on Wednesday debuted the iPad 2, updating the gadget that's become practically synonymous with tablet computing.

"So what's new?" said Jobs, who appeared at the event to a standing ovation. "It's an all-new design."

He said the new tablet will be "dramatically faster" than its predecessor.

Apple got a huge head start in the touchscreen tablet race with its iPad, but in recent months, rivals have begun catching up.

Now Apple is hoping to widen its lead again.

• The new version of the device which launches on March 11, will be thinner and lighter than its predecessor, down to 1.3 pounds from 1.5.


• It will have front and rear-facing cameras designed for video chatting. Apple is adding its FaceTime chat app -- as well as a Photo Booth program that does exactly what its name implies -- to take advantage of the cameras.

• Unlike Apple's popular iPhone 4, it will be available in white as well as black. Also unlike the new iPhone, the iPad 2 won't have a high-resolution screen, which Apple calls a Retina Display.

• It will have the same battery life as the current iPad, 10 hours.

• With an HDMI accessory, the iPad can be connected to a television and mirror what's on the tablet's screen.

"Teachers want to hook iPads up to their flatscreens in the classrooms," Jobs said. "And you can even charge the iPad while you're using it."

• Like the iPhone, the iPad 2 will include a gyroscope, a feature that will enhance gaming options. Changes to the processor that powers the device could also dramatically propel the iPad as a game-playing device.

• A new operating system, iOS 4.3, will roll out the same day as the iPad 2. Jobs said the system will let iPhone 4 users create Wi-Fi hotspots to share wireless internet with other gadgets.

Jobs, the iconic company leader, had been facing renewed speculation about his health.

"We've been working on this project for a while and I didn't want to miss this," he said. Several CNN staffers at the event described Jobs as looking thin, as usual, but energetic and happy.

The iPad 2 will ship on March 11 in the United States and March 25 in at least 26 other countries.

In an announcement that could rock the "tablet wars," Jobs said the new iPad will have the same price structure as the current one -- ranging from $499 to $829.

Jobs also spent a good deal of time talking about a new cover available for the device.

The Smart Cover is a thin sheet that attaches to the iPad with magnets. When not being used, it can fold back and act as a stand for the tablet.

It's available for $39 in polyurethane -- "which is used to make spacesuits," Jobs said -- and $69 in leather.

The launch of a next-generation iPad comes as a new wave of competing gadgets threatens Apple's dominance in the tablet market. Motorola Mobility's Xoom went on sale last month and was greeted with rave reviews for its fast, feature-rich hardware and attractive Android software from Google.

Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Tab late last year, and BlackBerry is expected to launch a tablet, the Playbook, this spring. One consulting firm counts a whopping 102 tablets that are either on sale or in progress from 64 different manufacturers.

The first iPad was introduced in January 2010 and debuted in April, with Wi-Fi models that cost as little as $499. (The 3G-enabled Xoom costs $600 and requires a two-year contract with Verizon Wireless.)

Apple's tablet surprised some analysts by becoming a runaway hit. The company sold 14.8 million iPads worldwide in the first nine months the device was available. Analysts forecast Apple will sell about 30 million tablets this year.

"People laughed at us for using the word magical," Jobs said Wednesday. "But you know what? It's turned out to be magical."

'Red Dead' dominates Game Developer Choice Awards.

SAN FRANCISCO – "Red Dead Redemption" lassoed the most trophies at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

The open-world Wild West action-adventure game developed by Rockstar Games corralled four awards, including game of the year, at the Game Developers Conference ceremony Wednesday evening. "Red Dead Redemption," which casts players in the role of a former outlaw who is tasked to bring down his former gang, was also honored for best game design, technology and audio.

"This game was a product of a lot of people who worked extremely hard with a lot of passion," said Rockstar San Diego studio manager Steve Martin.

"Minecraft," the blocky sandbox game from Swedish developer Mojang, received three trophies: best debut, downloadable game and the innovation award. "Minecraft" also picked up the fan-favorite audience award and Seumas McNally grand prize earlier in the evening at the 13th annual Independent Games Festival Awards, which exclusively honors indie games.

Selected by a jury of game creators, the Game Developers Choice honor the best games of the past year. Other winners at the Moscone Convention Center ceremony included ZeptoLab's physics puzzler "Cut the Rope" for best handheld game, BioWare's sci-fi saga sequel "Mass Effect 2" for best writing and Playdead's dark side-scroller "Limbo" for best visual design.

"Out Run" and "Virtua Fighter" designer Yu Suzuki won the pioneer award, while conference associate program mangers Tim Brengle and Ian MacKenzie were given with the ambassador award, which recognizes individuals who have helped advanced the gaming industry. Lionhead Studios founder Peter Molyneux was honored with the lifetime achievement award.

"I'm so unbelievably humbled by this award," said Molyneux, the "Fable" series mastermind and creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Europe. "I've been coming here since it was in a really small hall. I can remember the first time I stood in the back of the room and thought, `Jesus, these people are so many more times smarter than I ever will be.'"

Laptop tracks gaze, taking eye-tracking out of lab.

NEW YORK – Ever wish your eyes were lasers? A laptop prototype brings that wish closer to reality.

It tracks your gaze and figures out where you're looking on the screen. That means, among other things, that you can play a game where you burn up incoming asteroids with a laser that hits where you look.

In another demonstration this week, the computer scrolled a text on the screen in response to eye movements, sensing when the reader reached the end of the visible text.

In the future, a laptop like this could make the mouse cursor appear where you're looking, or make a game character maintain eye contact with you, according to Tobii Technology Inc., the Swedish firm that's behind the tracking technology.

The eye tracker works by shining two invisible infrared lights at you. Two hidden cameras then look for the "glints" off your eyeballs and reflections from each retina. It needs to be calibrated for each person. It works for people with or without eyeglasses.

Rather than a replacement for the traditional mouse and keyboard or the newer touch screen, the eye-tracking could be a complement, making a computer faster and more efficient to use, said Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii's Analysis Solutions business.

Tobii has been making eye-tracking devices for researchers and the disabled for nearly a decade. The laptop is its way of showing that eye-tracking could expand beyond those niches, Barclay said, calling it an "idea generator."

The laptop is made by Lenovo Corp., and incorporates Tobii's eye-tracking cameras in a "hump" on the cover, making the entire package about twice as thick as a regular laptop. But future, commercial versions can be slimmer and are perhaps two years away, Barclay said.

Lenovo and Tobii made 20 of the laptops and planned to demonstrate them at the CeBIT technology trade show in Hanover, Germany, on Tuesday.

Tobii's current, standalone eye-trackers cost tens of thousands of dollars, but Barclay said the cost of adding consumer-level eye-tracking to a commercial laptop could be much less.

New ways to use computers have been proliferating in recent years. Touch screens are becoming popular on smart phones and tablet computers such as the iPad. Nintendo Corp.'s Wii game console brought motion-sensing technology to the masses. Microsoft Corp. released an accessory for its Xbox games console last year that uses an infrared camera to sense the movement of bodies in three dimensions.

Toddler rescued from bank vault.

A toddler spent two hours trapped in a bank vault in suburban Atlanta.

Conyers firefighters rescued the 14-month-old from the vault Friday night after the child went missing while visiting a grandparent who worked at the Wells Fargo bank in Conyers. The child was found after being spotted on security cameras inside the vault, which has a timed locked.

Rescue workers arrived and pumped fresh air into the vault while a locksmith worked on prying loose the door. Authorities said the baby could be heard crying during the rescue.

Authorities did not release the child’s name.

FAA approves iPads for pilots' electronic charts.

WIRED - From the earliest days of aviation, pilots have relied upon paper maps to help find their way. Even in an era of GPS and advanced avionics, you still see pilots lugging around 20 pounds or more of charts.

But those days are numbered, because maps are giving way to iPads.

The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing charter company Executive Jet Management to use Apple's tablet as an approved alternative to paper charts. The authorization follows three months of rigorous testing and evaluation of the iPad and Mobile TC, a map app developed by aviation chartmaker Jeppesen.

The latest decision applies only to Executive Jet Management, but it has implications for all of aviation. By allowing the company's pilots to use the Apple iPad as a primary source of information, the FAA is acknowledging the potential for consumer tablets to become avionics instruments.

The iPad has been popular with pilots of all types since its introduction last year. But until now, it could not be used in place of traditional paper charts or FAA-approved devices such as more expensive, purpose-built electronic flight bags. The iPad was OK for reference, but not as a pilot's sole source of information. The new FAA authorization changes all that.

To receive FAA authorization, Jeppesen and Executive Jet Management went through a rigorous approval process. It included rapid-decompression testing from a simulated altitude of 51,000 feet and ensuring the tablet will not interfere with critical navigation or electronic equipment.

Executive Jet tested the iPad and Mobile TC in 10 aircraft flown by 55 pilots during 250 flights.

The first thought many pilots, not to mention passengers, may have is: What happens if the iPad or the app crashes?

Jeff Buhl, Jeppesen's product manager for the Mobile TC app, says the Apple iOS operating system and the app proved "extremely stable" during testing. In the "unlikely" event of a software crash, he says, it takes but a moment to get them running again.

"The recovery time for an application crashing or the OS crashing is extremely rapid," Buhl says.

During the evaluation period with the FAA, the production app did not crash. But even if it did, Buhl says it's ready to go again "in 4-6 seconds from re-launch to previous state."

The FAA says each individual operator -- in this case Executive Jet Management -- must develop specific procedures for dealing with system or software crashes and other issues. Under the authorization, Executive Jet Management will require a second approved electronic device, which most likely will be another iPad, in the cockpit.

Pilots may get magic fingers to keep them alert

Although this authorization applies to just one company, it is a milestone for all operators, including major airlines, because it opens the door for them to embrace the iPad. Though any company wishing to follow Executive Jet's lead will have to endure equally rigorous scrutiny by the FAA.

Agency spokesman Les Dorr says the process is no different from what is required for any other electronic device used to display navigation information.

"As far as the iPad is concerned, we do that on a case-by-case basis when an airline applies to be able to use it," Dorr says.

The FAA is already seeing more requests to use the iPad in the cockpit. Alaska Airlines began testing the iPad back in November and there are about 100 pilots currently evaluating the device according to spokeswoman Marianne Lindsey.

She says in addition to the convenience, there is a practical weight-saving aspect to using the iPad as well, "it's replaced about 25 pounds of manuals and charts."

Jeppesen's director of portfolio management, Tim Huegel, says several carriers are looking into using the iPad and TC Mobile, and with the FAA granting one approval, it should become increasingly easy for others to follow Executive Jet's lead.

"We'll be able to reuse a lot of the documentation and the lessons learned working with Executive Jet Management to help our commercial customers as they now begin to pursue FAA authorization," he says.

The charts available with Mobile TC include charts for visual flight rules and for instrument flight rules, which are more commonly used by commercial operators. The app only shows an electronic version of the paper charts Jeppesen has been producing for years, but Huegel says future versions could incorporate the iPad's GPS capability.

He sees a day when tablets provide "door-to-door management" of a pilot's information, from crew scheduling to weather information to navigation charts.

Space station getting extra storage room.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The International Space Station is getting an extra storage room.

Space shuttle Discovery delivered the new compartment over the weekend.

The orbiting astronauts will install the 21-foot-long chamber Tuesday morning. It's loaded with supplies as well as a humanoid robot that will be tested as a potential astronaut helper.

The Italian-built chamber is named Leonardo, after Leonardo da Vinci. It flew seven times to the space station as a temporary cargo carrier. This time, it's staying.

Discovery's last flight will last an extra day. Mission Control radioed up the news following Monday's spacewalk. The 12-day mission will now end next Tuesday. Once Discovery lands, it will be retired and put in a museum.

Facebook Like button takes over Share button.

Mashable - Say goodbye to the Share button because the Like button is taking over.

After months of updates to its Like button, Facebook has released an update that fundamentally changes the button's functionality to that of a Share button. Now after hitting the Like button, a full story with a headline, blurb and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall. You'll also be given an option to comment on the story link. Previously, only a link to the story would appear in the recent activity, often going unnoticed by users.

Though users may now think twice about hitting the button, given how prominently it will appear on their walls and in their networks' newsfeeds, it should ultimately increase traffic to publishers' websites.

Facebook has slowly been rolling out updates to its Like button and has stopped developing the Share Button. Facebook Spokeswoman Malorie Lucich told us that while the company will continue to support the Share button, Like is the "recommended solution moving forward."

However, Lucich today called it a test, saying "We're always testing new products that incorporate developer feedback as we work to improve the Platform experience, and have no details to share at this time." It's unlikely that the change is just a test, however. Typically such tests from Facebook only affect a small number of users, whereas this change affects all Like buttons.

Perhaps the change was necessary. Because it was never made clear to users that the Like button would function differently than the Share button, many never understood what it meant to click Like on a piece of content. Making the result the same as the Share button could build stronger user expectations, ultimately fashioning a better user experience.

For Astronauts on Discovery, No Time for Oscar Predictions.

It looks like the glitz and glamour of the Academy Awards won't quite make it into space this year.

On Saturday, the six astronauts on NASA's shuttle Discovery joined up with the crew of the International Space Station for a week of work installing spare parts, a storage room and a humanoid robot called Robonaut 2.

Amid all their work to transfer cargo between the two spacecraft, all 12 astronauts aboard both spaceships (there as six on the station) will likely skip tonight's film awards show, NASA officials said.

Brian Lunney, lead flight director for Discovery's STS-133 mission, told SPACE.com that he was unaware if anyone had specifically requested to see the Oscars from onboard the space station, but that it was unlikely given their full schedules.

But, it's not all work and no play up on the International Space Station.

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The space station crew has watched at least one of the films nominated for Best Picture this year – "The Social Network" based on the rise of the Internet social media network Facebook, NASA officials said.

Movies in space

Even though the orbiting laboratory flies 220 miles (354 kilometers) above Earth, NASA has ways of beaming entertainment such as movies or the news, to the astronauts to help them unwind. So the shuttle and space station crews will be able to eventually find out the winners and losers of the 83rd annual Academy Awards after the show, if they desire.

"There is live Internet onboard the space station now, so they can get on the web and that's one way they can get the news," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com. "They also have The Houston Chronicle e-mailed to them every day. But, anytime they want to request specific information, or watch something special, they can send that down as an e-mail request."

And the winners are … wait for it

If any of the astronauts did want to watch the Academy Awards tonight, for instance, they can request to have the program sent to the station, NASA officials said. But, they will have to wait even longer to find out who the lucky winners are this year.

For a program like the Oscars, there would be a delay because NASA is unable to transmit television shows in real-time. So the shows are recorded and then sent electronically instead.

"The stuff we send them generally isn't live, so it's usually sent up after the fact when it would not be a hardship on the station operations," Humphries said.

Most frequently, astronauts on the station ask to see certain football games, he added.

The station residents also have a fairly large collection of CDs so they can listen to music, and movies can be sent for them to watch, although those files tend to be quite large, Humphries said.

And even though they won't be tuning in to see the awards show itself, Humphries did say that the station residents have watched the Oscar-nominated film, The Social Network.

Still, majority of the astronauts' time onboard the station is dedicated to work.

"They're pretty busy, so they don't spend that much time watching movies or the news," Humphries said. "They have some time for that stuff during their post-sleep period, or when they're exercising, sometimes they can put something on the treadmill screens."

Discovery's astronaut crew is in the middle of an 11-day mission to the International Space Station. [Photos: Space Shuttle Discovery Launches on Final Voyage]

The mission is the final flight for shuttle Discovery, which will be sent to a museum for public display after NASA retires its 30-year space shuttle program later this year.

Farrakhan's Nation of Islam to Argue UFOs Are Real.

CHICAGO –  The Nation of Islam, long known for its promotion of black nationalism and self-reliance, now is calling attention to another core belief that perhaps isn't so well-known: the existence of UFOs.

When thousands of followers gather in suburban Chicago this weekend for the group's annual Saviours' Day convention, one of the main events will include a panel of scientists discussing worldwide UFO sightings, which they claim are on the rise.

The idea of seeking the divine in the skies is deeply rooted in the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, whose late leader Elijah Muhammad detailed in speeches and writings a massive hovering object loaded with weapons he called "The Mother Plane" -- although religion experts, Nation of Islam leaders and believers offer very different interpretations of what exactly happens aboard the plane, its role or how it fits into religious teachings.

It's one of the group's more misunderstood -- and ridiculed -- beliefs, something organizers took into account when planning the convention, which starts Friday and ends Sunday with Minister Louis Farrakhan's keynote address.

"There's enough evidence that has been put before the world and public," Ishmael Muhammad, the religion's national assistant minister, told The Associated Press. "There have been enough accounts and sightings and enough movies (documentaries) made, I don't think you would find too many people that would call it crazy."

During last year's Saviours' Day speech, Farrakhan for the first time in years discussed in detail a vision he had in Mexico in 1985 involving an object he calls "the wheel." Using charts, photos and drawings, he spent almost four hours describing how he was invited aboard and heard Elijah Muhammad speak to him. Farrakhan says that experience led him to inklings about future events.

Farrakhan, 77, has said the wheel, with its great capacity for destruction, contains the "wisdom to purify the planet," but has harmed no one so far. He also claimed there have been governmental attempts to cover-up proof of the wheel, which he says many call UFOs.

Nation of Islam leaders often quote Biblical references to the prophet Ezekiel -- along with Elijah Muhammad's teachings -- when it comes to the wheel. In his book of articles on the subject, Muhammad described a planet-sized manmade vessel that orbits earth and is purported to be loaded with 1,500 planes or wheels, words that have since been used interchangeably. Their purpose is unclear.

Some experts have made comparisons to the Biblical concept of Rapture, which teaches believers will be taken up to heaven, while everyone else will remain on earth for a period of torment, concluding with the end of time.

Why the Nation is turning more attention to the wheel now isn't certain. One explanation could be an attempt to keep longtime Nation of Islam followers happy after recent years during which Farrakhan has haltingly tried to move the group toward more mainstream Islam and pushed for the inclusion of other groups like Latinos and immigrants, said Jimmy Jones, a religion professor at Manhattanville College in New York.

The history of the highly-secretive group -- which doesn't release membership or the number of mosques -- has been marked by splinter groups and fracture.

"This is a way that the Nation of Islam defines itself," said Jones about the wheel's significance.

But Ishmael Muhammad, who is widely considered a potential successor to Farrakhan, said reasons for the recent interest is simply that it's a core belief.

He said the theme of the convention, which commemorates the birth of the religion's founder and is expected to draw more than 10,000 people this weekend, is about scientific analysis. Another session is about natural disasters and what those events mean religiously.

"It is written, that these things would happen," he said about Scripture. "We should prepare for such calamities."

Ordinary Compasses Thrown Off by Changes in Earth's Magnetic Field.

The Earth's magnetic field is changing at an increasing rate, throwing off airports and altering the aurora borealis -- and its effect on ordinary compasses could mean the difference between homeward bound and hopelessly lost.

Earth’s northernmost magnetic point -- or magnetic north -- is distinct from its geographic North Pole, and scientists have long known that the magnetic poles are on the move.

But the magnetic poles have been moving faster lately, sliding towards Siberia at 34 miles per year at a speed that's accelerated 36 percent over the last 10 years, according to the United States Geological Survey, or USGS.

Since compasses rely on magnetic north to point you in the right way up the trail, the average $2-dollar model could very well point you in the wrong direction. Depending on location and journey length, unaware hikers or boaters could find themselves hundreds of miles off course if they don’t calibrate for the shift, experts said.

“At Washington D.C., the compass points 10 degrees to the west of true north," Jeffrey Love, USGS advisor for geomagnetic research, told FoxNews.com. "And this is increasing at Washington at a rate of about 1/10 of a degree per year.”

But don't touch that calibration dial just yet: The accuracy of compasses fluctuates with the field, he said, meaning compasses are more or less accurate depending on where you use them.

“It's different at different places on the earth,” Love said.

The magnetic shift is costing the aviation and marine industries millions of dollars to upgrade navigational systems and charts, Florida's Sun Sentinel reported.

"You could end up a few miles off or a couple hundred miles off, depending how far you're going," Matthew Brock, a technician with Lauderdale Speedometer and Compass, a Fort Lauderdale company that repairs compasses, told the paper.

Luckily for the younger generation, modern GPS technology is able to account and adjust for magnetic north’s deviation, also called magnetic declination. And scientists reassure the general public that the average individual will most likely not be affected at all by the shift in the magnetic field.

But hikers should be aware: The shift adds up to a one-degree difference in compass direction every ten years, Love said.

A spokesman for the National Park Service says cartographers aren’t scrambling to update their maps any time soon.

“We haven’t issued any warnings to hikers, and we don’t really plan to do that,” Jeffrey Olson, a representative for the National Park Service, told FoxNews.com. “Many or most trail guides will provide hikers with the location of the pole, and then they can feed those coordinates into any GIS.” A Geographic Information System is anything that works with location data. “That will help them find their way back.”

There are other effects to the roaming pole as well: Americans will be less likely to see the aurora borealis, for example.

“As the pole of the magnetic field migrates towards Siberia, the latitude that we observe the aurora borealis will increase for America,” Love told FoxNews.com. “It’s easier to see at higher latitudes. The optimal spot right now to see it is Fairbanks, Alaska, but it will slowly move north from there.”

And there have been some inconveniences for the Federal Aviation Administration, too. Airports across the country have repainted their runways so as to be more precise in terms of latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and many are planning to adjust in the future.

The polar shift is directly related to the movement of Earth’s magnetic field, which in turn, is related to the movement of Earth’s liquid iron core. The core is in a constant state of convection, or the transfer of heat within fluids. Since the core is convecting, it produces what Love referred to as a “naturally occurring electrical conductor.” And with electric current comes the magnetic field.

Fluctuations in the magnetic field have occurred for hundreds of thousands of years, so the shifting pole doesn’t exactly worry scientists. Sometimes the movement is slow, sometimes fast. The rapidity of the change has to do with the amount of activity going on in the earth’s core. But over time, the axel pole and the magnetic pole eventually equal one another.

“It’s a mathematical construct,” John Tarduno, professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester, told FoxNews.com. “The magnetic field is calculated over the entire planet. So when we think of the pole moving a large amount, we’re really talking about the magnetic field changing on a time scale. It’s true that that pole will wander around the true axis pole. But over thousands of years, the axel pole and magnetic pole will average to be in the same location.”

That's small consolation for someone looking to find their way home with a compass, of course.

Add to the ever evolving nature of Earth’s magnetism the fact that the overall magnetic field has been decreasing as well. Scientists have only been able to measure the intensity of the field since the 1830s, but ever since then, its strength has been on the decline, having decreased by about 10% since it was first measured. But for those concerned with this polar shift -- or even a possible polar reversal -- Love says there is no need to worry in our lifetime.

“Reversals -- which is the changing of the polarity of the magnetic field -- that typically takes about 10,000 years to happen,” Love told FoxNews.com. And “10,000 years ago civilization did not exist. These processes are very slow and therefore, we don’t have anything to worry about.”