Polar Bear Protected, So Why The Outrage?

Was "climate change" even on the minds of the framers of the 1973 Endangered Species Act?  This was for years the parry the Bush administration provided to a series of suits by environmental groups seeking to protect the polar bear, increasingly stressed by Arctic sea ice melt. Today, the polar bear is officially endangered. So why are environmentalists up in arms?

The answer is in part that the polar bear designation comes with "seldom used" stipulations that allow for further oil and gas exploration in bear habitat. At least the designation, environmentalists say, required a reluctant Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, who reportedly had hands-on involvement in the polar bear decision, to accept evidence of Arctic ice melt. If there's a warming threat to bears, then there's a warming threat to us, too, the thinking goes.

For more, the New York Times' Andy Revkin has annotated the official polar bear decision on his excellent Dot Earth blog.

--Matthew Fishbane

Are you fitter than a 5th grader?

The President's Council on Fitness and Sports recently announced an online fitness test similar to the one grade school students take each year, according to the Associated Press. Only rather than getting coveted George W-autographed certificate, grown-ups can see how they shape-up nationally.

The President’s Challenge Program, introduced today, focuses on aerobics, flexibility, and strength and includes a run or walk, sit-ups, push-ups, and the sit-and-reach. Age, gender, height, and weight also play into one’s final score. The program also provides participants with their body mass index intended to be a consistent starting platform for life-long exercise goals.

Where Skin Cancer Starts

Scientists at the University of Minnesota have identified where skin cancer starts, according to a report in the May 15 issue of Cancer Research. Microscopic molecular receptors act as receiving docks, absorbing UV rays from the sun. These "hooks" are the same things that pull cannabinoid compounds from marijuana out of the bloodstream. Weird.

The research could eventually help develop a compound to prevent skin cancer after sun exposure. More than a million Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society, and nearly 11,000 will die. So for now, wear your sunscreen.

Why do the same receptors respond to both UV light and cannabinoids? Researchers haven't the foggiest.

--Emily Matchar

Crazy Bet: Weather Woes and a Century

Temperatures have dropped back into the 30s at Outside's headquarters in Santa Fe, with heavy rain and even snow in the mountains. I have no interest in riding in these conditions in mid May. So, sadly, it looks like I'll be breaking out the indoor trainer for the next couple of days. Luckily, the next movie in my Netflix queue was "Shaun of the Dead." I think I can ride to that.

It looks like we'll be clear and back into the 70s for this weekend's Santa Fe Century. I'm hoping to finish in good enough shape to add a ride up to the base of our local ski resort at the end. So after the 105 miles and 4,000-plus feet of climbing, there will be a 15-mile, 3,000-plus climb to an elevation of 10,000 feet. If any readers are doing the century and are interested in riding along with me (yes, I will draft off of you), I'm planning on rolling out from the start exactly at 7:00 a.m.

—John Bradley

To go to The Crazy Bet homepage and enter to win the contest click here.

Spy on the Stars

Have you already explored every nook and cranny of American with Google Earth, zooming in on your neighbors and trying to find your ex-girlfriend's car in the parking lot at her office? Are you bored with terrestrial spying?

Well now, Google is letting you turn your gazes upward, with the new Google Sky program, described today in the New York Times. Navigate the stars and search space databases for images of distant galaxies, all without having to drag your telescope into the backyard on a cold night. Microsoft has a competitor program called Worldwide Telescope, available for free download next Tuesday. It includes three dimensional images, animated features and guided tours narrated by professional astronomers and amateur enthusiasts, including a 6-year-old from Toronto.

Use the program to zoom out 7,500 light-years to Eta Carinae, a star 100 times bigger than the sun. Sometimes the only thing left to say is 'whoa, cool.'

--Emily Matchar

Attorney, Surfer, Coastal Warrior

Cue images of rolling California surf. Voice-off: "This is Mark Massara, attorney, surfer, coastal warrior." See how Massara, Sierra Club Director of Coastal Programs and landmark attorney to the Surfrider Foundation, has helped protect the Pacific coast, in a New York Times video worth its 6 minutes.  His latest battle?  A Monterey golf-development project, one of several major coastal protection battles on his docket. The report also explores the "rise in surfer activism."  As Masarra asks, when you see a flower popping up in the pavement, which do you root for, the flower or the pavement?

--Matthew Fishbane

Crazy Bet: Training with Lance

A change of scenery for my training rides this weekend. I was in Austin, Texas, for the grand opening of Lance Armstrong’s new bike shop, Mellow Johnny’s. (Watch video of the opening and my interview with Armstrong. Apologies for the sound quality, but we had to do the interview in the echo-y shop basement to get away from the crowds.)

If you’re not up on your Lance lore, “Mellow Johnny” is a nickname that came about when Armstrong’s Texan friends started playing around with maillot jaune (French for “yellow jersey”). There’s also an in-house coffee shop called Juan Pelota—“Juan” as in “one” and "Pelota" as in Spanish for “ball.”

To celebrate opening day on May 10, about 25 of us went for a four-hour spin east of Austin. The terrain wasn’t particularly challenging—and Lance didn’t come along, so neither was the riding—but the 96 degree temps and swampy Texas humidity caught me a bit off guard. Our group included Bart Knaggs, Lance’s business manager and co-owner of the shop; Sam Whittingham, a Canadian bike builder and cyclist who holds the human-powered world records for top speed (81 mph) and distance covered in one hour (52 miles); Michael Ward, the guitarist for new Outside columnist Ben Harper and the man behind the popular children’s cycling project “Mike and the Bike,” and several members of Team Six, a racing squad sponsored in part by Mellow Johnny’s.

The following day, about 20 of us headed out to Lance’s ranch to mountain bike on a new five-mile singletrack loop he’s had built on his property in the hill country just west of Austin. The trails include short technical sections, wide-open speed sections, berms, and jumps that weave through the cedar, scrub, and limestone on Armstrong's 450-ish acres. Lance scorched everyone for two quick laps, then excused himself from the recovery barbecue on his patio so he could meet his mom for a Mother’s Day brunch.

Armstrong and Knaggs describe Mellow Johnny’s as a work in progress. But it’s obvious even at this early stage that the shop is something different for the cycling community. In place of the surly mechanics and staff that can make bike shops so intimidating for even seasoned riders, Mellow Johnny’s has an open, welcoming feel highlighted by a bar and stools that surround the mechanic’s workstation. Customers can grab a cappuccino and pastry at Juan Pelota, then sit at the bar and get maintenance advice or just watch and learn.

The lines the shop carries also point more toward general cycling culture than race culture. To be sure, racers will find more than enough high-end bling to keep them happy. All the brands that Lance was associated with during his race career—Trek, Giro, Nike, and Oakley—are well represented, along with stuff from brands like Seven, Zipp, and De Rosa. But there’s also a huge selection of retro-wool apparel from Rapha, commuter bikes from Swobo, messenger bags from Chrome, cycling books, jeans and t-shirts, custom bike parts, and even showers, lockers, and bike storage for commuters.

Armstrong’s yellow jerseys and many of the bikes he rode to glory during his career hang throughout the 9,000-square-foot shop, museum style. But they share equal space with custom low-rider cruisers, art bikes, and a $15,000 retro Naked bike that Armstrong bought from Whittingham earlier this year (reportedly the first bike Armstrong has actually paid for since he was a kid).

Austin’s never been the most bike-friendly town around. This is Texas, after all—narrow shoulders, heavy traffic, and a lot of trucks. But if anyone’s got the force of personality to change that, it’s Lance Armstrong. And his shop is a huge step in that direction.

—John Bradley

For more on my preparation for the two toughest amateur bike races in France, visit the Crazy Bet home page.

The Other "Deadliest Catch"

As fans of the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch know, commercial fishing is risky business. Now, the New York Times has compiled statistics on just how dangerous it is, and Northwest Dungeness crab fishermen, better take out bigger life insurance policies. The fatality rate for California, Oregon, and Washington crabbers was more than twice the rate among all fishermen, nearly 60 times the rate for all American workers. Most of these deaths result from capsizing in the freezing Pacific waters.  Twenty-three boats went down between 2000 and 2006, resulting in 43 deaths, and only three of those boats had valid Coast Guard safety decals.

The rest of us should thank our stars and kiss our desks - there were only four deaths per 100,000 non-fishermen during the same time period.

--Emily Matchar

Giro Rings In Grand Tours

The 198 riders in the Giro d'Italia, the first of professional cycling's three Grand Tours, headed off last Saturday on their 2,158-mile romp around the boot of the Mediterranean. Stage four concluded earlier today with a win for Mark Cavendish, a 22-year old sprinter from the Isle of Man. Take it as a hopeful sign of renewal.

On the doping front, the Giro is the first significant chance this year for the battered sport to regain some footing, after several years of scandal-laden races.  Missing from this year's tour will be Italian sprinter Alessandro Pettachi, whose one-year ban for a "non-negative" result on excessive asthma medication was upheld just before the start of the race.

Invited, though, with just one week's notice, is the Astana team, led by Lance Armstrong's former director, Johan Bruyneel. Astana was thrown out of the 2007 Tour de France after Kazakh team leader Alexander Vinokourov tested positive for a blood transfusion. The team has since been revamped, bringing former Discovery Channel rider and Tour winner Alberto Contador into the fold, with first-class domestique support from American Levi Leipheimer and German Andreas Kloden.

Follow results at cyclingnews.com or velonews.com, or watch streaming Italian Rai Tre, through the June 1 individual time trial finish in Milan.

--Matthew Fishbane

Everest After The Torch

The Chinese reached the summit and got off. They took the Olympic torch to the top of the world's highest peak on May 8th and proclaimed, "Beijing welcomes you!" Soon after, Nepalese soldiers stationed on the south side left Base Camp. While word is the north side of Everest, like the rest of Tibet, remains closed to foreigners, the south side is open.

The big wait is over. The news can shift from politics and pomp back to climbing, and there will be a lot of climbing to cover. This year, the Nepal Ministry of Tourism issued 32 permits for Everest. In recent years, they issued an average of 25. Witnesses on the mountain claim Base Camp is more packed than it has ever been. Preliminary reports suggest there are 380 to 400 climbers, 250 sherpas, and 60 staffers. All told, roughly a 15 percent increase over last year.

Climbers, now free to use satellite phones and wireless internet, report that sherpas have fixed ropes up to the South Col. "As noted yesterday, the south col Camp 4 is now fixed and our sherpa staff are now ferrying loads of oxygen up for the summit pushes," said a statement on Peak Freaks. In an earlier note, the team said two summit windows appeared promising, around May 17th or from May 21 to 23. International Mountain Guides, Alpine Ascents, Adventure Consultants, and others report their expeditions are in similar territory.

Before the mountain opened up, climbers and guides expressed two main worries. The first was that the shortened season might affect acclimatization. The second was that a packed mountain could lead to bottlenecks and increased fatalities at high altitude. Expedition sites report cooperation and special measures taken on the mountains to deal with the crowds. Sherpas fixed double ropes near Camp 3 (roughly 23,000 feet) on the Lhotse Face to prevent pile-ups.

A lot of what happened at Base Camp during the closure remains unknown. The news of a kicked out climber and reporter made international news. But how much did the torch bid really affect the health and mood of the climbers? How strict were conditions in camp? Were people able to get around the restrictions?

What will happen can not be predicted. Will people ignore careful acclimatization schedules to push for the summit? How will the resulting crowds that flowed over from the north side affect safety on the mountain? Will the overflow to Base Camp, cooperation, and mild conditions lead to a record number of summits from the south side?

Time and the weather will determine a lot. Many people may not talk until the season is finished. In the meantime, we'll track conditions on the mountain to keep you up to date. Because, though restrictions on the south side have been lifted and the troops are gone, Everest still has a history of dealing with trespassers in a harsh and unpredictable manner.

--Joe Spring

Sleep Deprivation Leads to Sleepwalking

Midnight stroll? Maybe if you're not getting enough sleep.

Sleep deprivation increases the likelihood of sleepwalking, according to LiveScience, and especially if you’re prone to zombie-like meandering in the first place. Canadian researchers kept tabs on 40 alleged sleepwalkers while they snoozed. While half of them demonstrated suspect behavior—like trying to break out of bed—during normal sleep, 90 percent displayed such behavior while sleeping after being kept awake for 25 hours.

Sleep disruptions—like sleep apnea—and genetics also have something to do with it. But, the real reasons behind why some are prone to sleep jaunts and others aren’t remains relatively mysterious. To stay in the sack, doctors suggest maintaining a regular bedtime and avoiding alcohol and caffeine at night.

For more advice on how to avoid waking up in your neighbor’s lawn, check out Outside’s guide to sleep in our July issue—on newsstands tomorrow.

-Claire Napier Galofaro

McCain Will Fight Global Warming

Let's hold him to it, folks. John McCain has promised that, if elected, he'll seriously fight climate change. Speaking at a Portland wind technology plant earlier today, the Republican presidential nominee said he'll seek international accords to cut down on greenhouse gases, set specific goals on emissions reduction, and start an incentive system for green businesses.

In a dis on W., McCain said he would not 'shirk' his duties towards the environment. "I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges," he said, according to a story in Reuters. Eight years? I call that counting your chickens before they've hatched.

For Outside's take on the candidate's stances on the environment, see our 2008 election special.

--Emily Matchar

Tortoise Versus The Army

Army undertakes expensive operation and neglects to fully plan for contingencies. Sound familiar? This time it has to do with tortoises.

The L.A. Times reports today on a mess of a relocation operation at the U.S. Army base in Ft. Irwin, California. To make room for "expanded combat exercises," 760 California desert tortoises were captured, fitted with radio transmitters and airlifted by helicopter to unoccupied public lands in the Mojave Desert. The move, costing $8.7 million, was part of an appeasement to environmentalists after Congress approved Ft. Irwin's expansion in 2001.

Just a month into the mission, though, tortoise casualties already run in the scores. Local drought has affected rodent populations, which in turn has led hungry coyotes to eat the tortoises. And the reptiles, described as "extremely sensitive" and with "complex social lives," have also succumbed to disease and a kind of tortoise despondency, as many wander in search of their former home.

Despite a pending lawsuit from at least one environmental group, another 1,200 tortoises are slated for relocation in coming years. The army says it's "to prevent them from being squashed by military equipment."   

--Matthew Fishbane

Murder by Surfer "Gang"

Can a group of surfers be a gang?

California attempts to answer this question as a group of five young men in their 20s are being charged as a gang in the murder of a local La Jolla surfer last May.

Neighbors reported the brutal beating the night of May 24th, which is described in detail in this New York Times story. The young men have pleaded not guilty and claimed the death was an accident. Prosecutors have asked the men not be prosecuted as a gang, which would warrant harsher punishment under a set of strict state rules.

The men called themselves the Bird Rock Bandits and their mark could be seen around town, spray painted as "BRB" on walls. The Times reported that more than a dozen people said they were assaulted by the group in the past.

California penal code defines a gang as a group of three or more people, a symbol, and with the primary activity of committing a crime. The defense and prosecution are battling over what sorts of criminal activity and what level of organization constitutes a gang.   

Territoriality defines certain breaks, and groups can become violent to protect the waves from outsiders. La Jolla is not immune from this, despite the multi-million dollar homes and upscale shops that define it. It's the brutal side of surfing, and it exists in idyllic places.

This crime was committed away from the breaks, and the victim, Emery Kauanui Jr., was a local. So the death may not speak directly to the violence on the breaks, unless there was tension from the waves that spilled over. That will be for the prosecution and defense to argue, in addition to the semantics of how to define a gang.

--Joe Spring

High (Toxic) Tide

Cod populations in the Baltic Sea aren't what they used to be. They're actually only 25 percent of what they used to be—leaving the sea vulnerable to "toxic tides," according to the BBC. These algal blooms, caused by increased levels of nutrients in the water, could be poisonous to humans, fish, and wildlife.

Nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, wash into the seas from farms and factories, and turn into algae that turns into blooms. Tiny creatures eat the algae, little fish eat the tiny creatures, and cod—the top of the Baltic’s food chain—eat the little fish. They did anyway, until ten or so years ago when they were nearly all recruited to the neighborhood fish fry. So cod ate fewer little fish, and the little fish ate more tiny creatures leaving nobody to snack on the algae. Research suggests that such over-fishing could be leading to similar off-kilter, hazardous sea balances worldwide.   

Tri, Tri Again

Triathletes want it all: dolphin-esque swimming, road-churning running and high-wattage biking, all at once. Turns out, though, that concurrent peak performance in all three tasks is elusive at best, reports The New York Times.  "The training necessary to do your best in one sport," the report reads, "is likely to counteract what is needed to be good at another."

This isn't necessarily bad news to the breed apart of multisport athletes, who tend to be hyper-disciplined and fond of a challenge. Though it's nearly impossible to excel at all sports at once, cross-training retains its advantages of avoiding boredom and excess stress on particular bones and muscle groups.  And if triathletic perfection is hard to come by, says one athlete quoted in the story, "that's O.K. by me."

-- Matthew Fishbane

Global Warming Wager

Want to bet that global warming's not such a big deal? I'll raise you five degrees Fahrenheit and one melted icecap.

The climatologists at realclimate.org have challenged a team of German scientists to a gentleman's wager on global warming. The terms go like this: if the German scientists are correct in their prediction that there will be a pause in global warming, the Real Climate guys will pay them € 2500. If Real Climate is right, and the 2000-2010 average temperature turns out to be lower than the 1994-2004 average, the Germans pay them € 2500.

Maybe someone should ask W. if he's willing to bet the (Crawford) ranch on his weak new greenhouse gas policy actually making a difference?

--Emily Matchar
 

Major Land Conservation Deal in Southern California

Superlatives abound in the reports on the historic Tejon Ranch land conservation deal that has set aside an L.A.-sized, ecologically-diverse tract of wilderness for conservation. It's "conservation on a staggering scale," says the San Francisco Chronicle. And according to Joel Reynolds, of the National Resources Defense Council, quoted in The New York Times, nothing short of "the Holy Grail of conservation."

Long negotiations between a coalition of major conservation groups and the publicly traded company that for years sought to develop the ranch has now led to the creation of the 240,000 acre preserve, which will be administered by a new nonprofit. Included is a planned rerouting onto Tejon land of 37 miles the Pacific Coast Trail, and protection of ideal habitat for the California condor.

Though conservationists are hailing the agreement as unprecedented and unrepeatable, the plan still allows for the largest development ever proposed in California, to be built on a little more than 10 percent of the land.

-- Matthew Fishbane

Losing Sleep

Skimping on shut-eye makes you dumb, fat, forgetful, and a lot more likely to hit stuff with your car. And yet, most of us trim at least an hour off the proverbial eight. According to Scientific American, the math is easy. For every minute we jip ourselves, we add a minute to our ever-increasing “sleep debt,” or the accumulating “sleepiness” we carry around with us. And a catnap might not be enough to fix it.

Sleep researchers suggest that it could take considerably more effort for the chronically sleep deprived. The only way to make up for lost time is to go to sleep when you’re tired and wake up when you wake up, perhaps devoting ten hours to sleep for months at a time – a scary concept for those of us penciling sleep in pretty low on the priority list. But, it could be with worth it in the long run: "When you put away sleep debt, you become superhuman," Stanford psychologist William C. Dement to Scientific American.

For a step-by-step guide to reclaiming that elusive eighth hour, don’t miss Outside’s June issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

-Claire Napier Galofaro

Mangrove Destruction Left Myanmar More Vulnerable to Cyclones

The destruction of mangrove forests on Myanmar's coast may have left the country especially open to cyclone damage, reports the BBC. About 5,000 acres of the country's mangroves are cut down each year to make way for coastal development, including shrimp farms and tourist resorts. The trees, which grow where saltwater and freshwater meet, act as a natural defense against storms by dissipating wave energy - mangrove forests may have helped save lives in Sri Lankan coastal villages during the 2004 tsunami that killed 200,000 people. While globally, mangroves forests continue to dwindle, some countries, including Bangladesh, have recognized their life-saving potential and are actively working to protect them.

So far, 22,000 people are reported dead following Saturday's cyclone, which smashed into the Irrawaddy Delta region. International aid organizations are struggling to bring clean food and water to survivors, as the country's military dictatorship continues to block relief efforts.

--Emily Matchar
 

The Crazy Bet: Clinical Bike Fitting

If I hadn't gone to see bike-fit guru Andy Pruitt, PhD, this past January, I'm not sure how much longer I could have continued cycling. Pruitt, founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, literally wrote the book on bike fitting. He’s also an accomplished racer—a two-time world champion in disabled cycling (he’s a below-the-knee amputee on his right side) who achieved elite Category 2 status against able-bodied cyclists. I’ve crossed paths with him at a few cycling-industry events over the years, and he’s suggested some minor position tweaks. But it wasn’t until he got me to his lab in Boulder, Colorado, that we realized what a biomechanical disaster I really am.

Since about the age of 30 (I’m 37), I’ve had a dull pain in my left knee that has grown more pronounced each year. Increasingly, it has forced me to cut my bike rides short. I’ve also had lower-back pain, though I’ve generally been able to ride through that. I attributed all of this to injury buildup—I suffered a partial tear of the MCL in my left knee once, and I’ve also broken both ankles and a wrist and had arthroscopic surgery on a shoulder.

But Pruitt discovered that my knee pain was largely due to the fact that my right leg is a full centimeter shorter than my left. X-rays we took at his lab showed my hips tilting down drastically to the right, with my spine twisting to compensate. (The image at right shows me standing up straight.) Pruitt also found that my toes point further out than normal and that I have a more pronounced varus tilt than average (hang your legs off the edge of a table and note how the outside of your foot drops down lower than the inside; that’s varus tilt).

Basically, my feet were too flat on the pedals and pointing too close to straight forward, which forced my knees to roll in and twist laterally. And by settling on a saddle height that felt most comfortable (or, rather, least painful), I was actually sitting too low for my left leg and too high for my right. My left knee was suffering from a lifetime of being over-torqued.

“The knee is usually the victim,” Pruitt told me. “The hips and ankles are the culprits.” Then he changed cycling for me. He put shims inside my shoe and under my cleats, to compensate for my varus tilt, and turned the cleats so that my toes pointed out as much as possible. This would keep my feet in their natural position throughout the pedal stroke, thus reducing knee strain.

Pruitt then moved my left cleat all the way back, which meant that my foot would be farther forward on the pedal, effectively shortening my leg, since it would now have to extend farther at the bottom of the pedal stroke. He also added three millimeters’ worth of risers under the cleat on my right shoe, effectively lengthening that leg. Combined with the cleat shift on my left shoe, this would roughly equal my legs out. Finally, Pruitt shortened my stem, giving me a more upright (less racer-like) position, which cyclists eventually have to move into in middle age. (Sigh.) All of this took about 10 minutes. (Download bradley-email012108-1.doc )

A big part of getting a medical bike fit is video analysis. Pruitt and BCSM biomechanics technician Sean Madsen set my bike up on a stationary trainer surrounded by an array of video cameras. Madsen attached infrared markers to specific points on my body (hips, knees, ankles, heels, etc.), which the motion-analysis software would use to track my movement in three dimensions. Videos shot before and after my position changes showed immediate improvement. (Download john_bradley.pdf) I looked more comfortable on the bike, and the motion analysis showed my knees tracking in a much straighter line. I didn’t suddenly have the pedaling grace of 2008 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, but at least I looked at home in the saddle. “The goal is to make the bike fit the rider,” Pruitt said. “Not the other way around.”

The real test, of course, would come on the road. I’m happy to report that there was no break-in period with the new position—it worked immediately. I’m up to about 12 hours a week on the bike, and I haven’t experienced a single moment of knee pain in the four months since my fit session. I’m also putting out more power at lower heart rates for longer periods.

By Pruitt’s own admission, I’m a rare case. He said probably worst five percent. For most people, a fit session from trained bike-shop staff will be enough. But if that doesn’t have you feeling more comfortable, a full clinical bike fit just might save the sport for you. It did for me. Cost for a full medical fit at BCSM is $450 to $550. Full price list here.

—John Bradley

P.S. This weekend’s training rides will happen in Austin, Texas, where I’ll be attending the grand opening of Lance Armstrong’s new bike shop, Mellow Johnny's. Check back next week for a full report.

Sign up to win a $6,000 road-bike frameset here.

Improving Vision: New Tests and Skills

The basic mistake is to assume that great vision boils down to puzzling out the smallest line on a chart. It's much more complex than that. Researchers at the Sport Vision Performance Center at the University of Houston are experimenting with a Canadian device trademarked Dynavision, a vertical peg board with a target array of 64 LED lights and a host of sensors that help determine "reaction time, peripheral awareness and accuracy of movement." (Watch a video of the board, and a Canadian hockey player, in action here.) Dynavision has been used in occupational therapy, military training and, more recently, to enhance athletic performance.

The basic insight? When viewed in all its intricacy, the eye's many functions and skills can be isolated, rated and improved. We looked into this last year, when we ran our complete guide to better vision. Just don't stare at it too long.

-- Matthew Fishbane

The Catastrophe On Tour: Elizabeth Kolbert in Santa Fe

The usher kept warning ticket-holders to the Lensic Theater in downtown Santa Fe that the event was not likely to be an enjoyable experience. The host introduced the subject as an "obviously very non-comic topic." 

Finally, out marched Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker writer, Lannan fellow and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change (one of our Top Ten environmental books last year).  She promised not to take the time to convince her audience that global warming is real. Not in the Spring of 2008, she said, to a scattering of applause. Instead, she promised a snapshot of where we stand.  Cue "An Inconvenient Truth Lite," PowerPoint images of melting Arctic ice and graphs of CO2 emissions pushing 385 parts per million.  By most accounts it won't be long before  we're living in a very different world.  "Some people say," Kolbert said, "a different planet."

Kolbert spoke in unnervingly quiet and matter-of-fact tones about the stark realities of global climate change.  For example, that "we have already determined the climate for our children, and we are working on the climate for our grandchildren." That just to stabilize current greenhouse gas levels, we'd need to cut our emissions by 60 to 70 percent. That the Greenland Ice Sheet alone, fully melted, will raise the world's oceans by twenty feet. Nonetheless, global climate change is a problem whose solution can still be viewed as both a "moral obligation" and an "economic opportunity" for America. 

What to do about it? "The honest answer," Kolbert said, "is we need to do everything." Unfortunately, this is not how we like to solve problems. "We like silver bullets." But ecologists like to say that there are no silver bullets, "only silver buckshot."

From our archives, Bill McKibben agrees. He suggests we change in all sorts of ways right now to limit the warming.

Which leads me to the best question Kolbert asked the audience all night, "What exactly are we waiting for?"

--Matthew Fishbane

Video: Olympic Flame Reaches Everest Summit

After adverse weather delayed summit attempts for more than a week, the Chinese took an Olympic torch to Everest's summit. Tibetan female climber Ceran Wangmo carried the flame the final few meters, after which the Chinese team stopped to yell, "Beijing welcomes you."

The Everest climb was the most  ambitious part of a torch relay that has resulted in numerous protests and riots. For the upcoming group of torch carriers and the Chinese security that surrounds them, the fun has just started. Next comes a trip through the provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang, where minority Tibetan and Muslim populations, repressed for years, will probably not be won over by China's proclamation of welcome. Even if it was shouted out from the top of the world.

Watch the video below...

--Joe Spring

Bollywood Cricket, With Scantily Clad Cheerleaders

Your idea of cricket probably involves a bunch of white-clothed, snob-nosed British guys and a boring multiple-day event that makes "The Hills" seem more action-packed than a UFC fight. Mine too.

But leave it to the birthplace of Bollywood to jazz things up—to the tune of laser light shows, kiss-blowing movie stars, and mini-skirted cheerleaders in fishnet tights. The Indian Premier League plays an abridged sort of cricket called Twenty20, that crams the whole game, plus stilt-walkers and soccer-hooligan-style brawls, into a televised three hours.

Sponsored by Indian zillionaires (Was Tex Schramm reincarnated as an Indian?), American corporations, and multinational firms, the League has raised a fair number of eyebrows. Local police rove the stadiums on the lookout for obscenity-law breakers. Old-school fans complain that the multinational teams have sucked the patriotism out of the sport. No matter—ratings are high, profits are higher, and fans pack into the stadiums by the thousands.

“It is cricket’s version of tabloid journalism,” Rajdeep Sardesai, the son of a professional Indian cricketer, told The New York Times. “It is much more now about glamour and entertainment than about what happens between the players.”

-Claire Napier Galofaro

Myanmar Government Refuses Aid

The death toll in Myanmar could reach as high as 100,000 if the isolationist military dictatorship does not accept more foreign aid, reports the New York Times. The government is refusing to give visas to relief workers and has restricted movement in the Irrawaddy Delta, the area hit hardest by Saturday's cyclone. France even suggested that the U.N. use its powers to force aid onto the country; supplies are currently being marshaled in Thailand. Sounds like a plan to me. But government officials say they're doing just fine - state-run media outlets have been releasing pictures of soldiers helping victims, giving the impression that the military is in control.

For Outside takes on Myanmar/Burma, see Stephanie Pearson's "See Mo' Evil" or Mark Jenkins's "The Ghost Road."

--Emily Matchar

Fighting Fatigue Like a Sled Dog

In search of the magical switch that humans could use to turn off fatigue, researchers are looking to Iditarod sled dogs, whose natural endurance is likely unparalleled by any other creature. For weeks on end, sled dogs burn two-and-a-half times more calories per pound than a typical Tour de France cyclist, but without tapping into stored fat and glycogen like mere humans.

“They have a hidden strategy that they can turn on,” sled-dog researcher Dr. Michael S. Davis told The New York Times. “We are confident that humans have the capacity for that strategy. We have to figure out how dogs are turning it on to turn it on in humans.”

Studies have show that the dogs somehow change their metabolism during the 1,100-mile race, making them “fatigue-proof.” Now, with millions of dollars in grant money, researchers are looking for a way to rip off sled god endurance to make super-hero soldiers and athletes.