When it comes to predicting how Earth would look like hundreds of years from now, there are two schools of thought dominating the field of science. First are the conservatives who believe global warming, exhaustion of fuel cells, and destruction of the environment will ultimately lead to our extinction. The second group is the liberals, who think that Homo Sapiens are far too advanced to let these things end their existence - they maintain that we'll be able to come up with scientific methods to clear pollution, produce alternatives for energy, or if all else fails, create a colony of our own outer space.

We're neither fans of human extinction nor are we narcissistic fools, but this latest technological wonder from Netherlands can further fan the flames of that debate.

The folks over at the Delft University of Technology has come up with a solar-powered mouse (not live ones silly, we're talking about computer peripherals here). According to the press release they issued, Sole Mio was designed to be used by anyone with access to sunlight, or even artificial light. The technology behind this product enables it to charge power from sources of light, making it available for the owner's usage. Here's a text from the press release:

With solar energy, under ideal circumstances charging can occur a factor of five times quicker than in the current situation. Over time it is estimated that several hundred million batteries could be saved annually on a global scale. The net environmental benefit is still restricted by the high energy content of current PV cells. However the introduction of new types of cheap and energy-extensive PV cells, on which TU Delft and partners are working, would eventually yield an even higher environmental gain.

So they're looking into making this more environment friendly in the long run. Is this then the first step towards what the liberal wing in science believes as the next stage of man's evolution? Can humans actually create ways to destroy the planet and save itself at the same time?

Wake me up from cryostasis when a solar-powered race is in charge of the planet.

After Al Gore told us about the Inconvenient Truth, the White House seems to be buckling under the inconvenience. This is after an internal memo, distributed in the Alaskan division of Federal Fish and Wildlife Service, appear to be discouraging biologists and other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic to speak regarding climate change, polar bear, and melting ice caps unless assigned to do so.

Late last year, the Bush administration was pelted by calls from environmental groups to include polar bears as one of the species under the Endangered Species Act. The said Arctic mammal is facing sheer loss of numbers from the unusual retreat of sea ice (used by bears for seal hunting) caused by warming climate. Environmentalists are trying to use such a listing to force the United States to restrict heat-trapping gases that scientists have linked to global warming as a way of limiting risks to the 22,000 or so bears in the far north.

The issued memos, to be used by biologists and wildlife officials as a guide in prepping travel requests, carry the heading "Foreign Travel — New Requirement — Please Review and Comply, Importance: High". Here's what's written on the cover note:

Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who'll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears.

The sample memorandums indicate that employees applying for travel permits should understand "the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."

When asked for comment, Alaska Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Bruce Woods defended the memo saying. "What the administration wants to know is who is going to be spokesperson and do they understand administration policy? It's not saying you won't talk about it."

It will be remembered that the US government has been wary of verging into efforts to alter the negative impacts of Earth's deterioration, even choosing to pull itself out of the Kyoto Protocol back in 2001. It's been long argued that capitalist nations would be hit the hardest when the rest of the world has started clamping down on pollution.

When our big-brained folks claimed that science was the only thing more diverse than the universe itself, they weren't joking (not that I know any scientist that could joke anyway, except probably the guys that demoted Pluto, but that's a different story). On one side of the spectrum, we've got people inventing ways to conserve water. On the other, we've got brainiacs who built something that could waste them.

What we're referring to above is this latest creation by Heat & Glo - Aqueon. What's Aqueon? It's a modern-day fireplace that produces fire using water as fuel. Nope, that's not a typo. This particular device creates fire by converting water into a matter that directly contradicts its nature.

The science behind this is a process that includes electrolysis and separation. By feeding Aqueon water through a storage tank inside it, the conversion process will be initiated by electrosis (via a 220 volt electrical service). This would separate the hydrogen and oxygen components of H20. The futuristic fireplace would then utilize hydrogen to create the flame and part of the oxygen would be used to adjust the flame's color and brightness.

Aqueon will supposedly light up our lives this summer, although pricing is still on TBA status. On the bright side, you can now have jokes about The Human Torch and Aquaman living under the same roof.

It's natural for us humans, being naturally born as creatures without traces of dirt save for our mothers' (I don't want to go that far), to be attached to the idea of being pure and clean. So it's not surprising that most of us prefer things to be as white as possible, in terms of cleanliness of course, as the said color is the symbol of purity.

With a recent discovery made by some scientists in Exeter University in England, achieving the color "sparkling white" may not be as hard as it used to. And the possible solution can be extracted from...beetles.

Apparently, a certain specie of beetle - Cyphochilus - carries a particular structure that can produce whitening elements. This structure, which was traced back to the bug's scales, can provide us with the best whitening products - if manufacturers could uncover the process to harness its effects.

According to optical physicist Pete Vukusic, what's really amazing about it is how thin it is. Normally, we can make things go this luminous only if we create more layers, which will make it scatter the light from the Sun, thus making it bright. But with the Cyphochilus, such brightness-to-mass ratio has never been manufactured before. Even in nature, white coloring is considered as unusual because it requires a surface to reflect all wavelengths of light strongly.

So are we that close to reaching purity? Who knows? For now, let's get back to using toothbrush and detergents. Unless you want to scrub beetles to your teeth and clothes...

With all talks about looming global warming, population explosions, forest degradations, it's quite discouraging to even think how Earth would be like, say, 50 years from now. However, there's a school of thought debunking these supposedly Earth killers as mere steps toward evolution. They argued that humans' innate passion for innovation will enable us to conjure up technological solutions to combat these natural problems.

We're running out of biofuels, we turn to the sun. We're running out of potable drinking water, we turn to water purifiers. We're running out of water to wash our clothes, we turn to Sanyo's AQUA washing machine...

Nope, that last sentence wasn't meant to be a joke. Sanyo's about to unleash to the market a washing machine that'll be able to recycle water. Nope, it won't magically produce water, what it does is employ a device called Aqualoop, which in turn recycles water for use in further washes. How? It's a well-guarded secret, but according to it's creators, it can conserve around 50 litres of water per normal washing routine.

It also boasts of an AirWash feature that'll supposedly help owners clean clothes via odor-infusion and bacteria killing chemicals. Pretty much like how modern-day dry cleaners do their thing. Pricing and availability is still on TBA status, but it's highly likely that it'll be released in the Japanese market first.

So there, score one both for the technology freaks and mother nature. Now we can wear clothes without thinking about how much water it took to clean it. Nifty way to help save our planet right? But then again, we can always choose to go naked...

NASA is currently deep in research on methods of how to better prepare astronauts against the health risks of moving in and out of Earth's athmosphere. It has been earlier noted that drastic transition towards space with less or more graviational pull can have adverse effects to a human body. Not only that, those that have been in space for a considerable amount of time, and thus have adjusted to its gravity, may experience the same problem when they came back to Earth.

That's why modern-day astronauts undergo special training to prepare their bodies against this condition. But apparently, NASA scientists are not satisfied with the current methods; that's why they are trying to learn more on what exactly the drastic gravity shifts can do to our body; what specific system, tissue, and if possible, cells they damage. What's their tool for research? The 20-G centrifuge machine - a device that creates artificial gravity forces thru continous rotation that can later multiply the gravitational pull up to 20 times compared to Earth's.

More about the 20-G centrifuge and how it can help reverse aging after the jump.

When one hears about Brazil winning the World Cup, one says, "What's new?" But when one here's that a Brazilian enters space, one will probably yell, "What the f---?!"

Marco Pontes, who was just a few days ago reported to be the first brazilian to be included on the mission, is now actually in space -- inside International Space Station.

Travelling with Russian Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeffrey Williams American, Pontes manned the Soyuz TMA-8 that docked automatically with the ISS at 0419 GMT.

It was Pontes carrying his country's flag while smiling broadly, that entered first after the door was opened at 0559 GMT. The docking was greeted by applause at the control center, where a number of Brazilians were also present.

Traditionally it is the head of mission, in this case Vinogradov, who enters first. But the Russian gave way for his Brazilian counterpart as he make history for his country. The trio joined William MacArthur, another American, and Valery Tokarev, a Russian, who have been on the ISS since October 2005.

After taking off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, the 43-year-old air force officer will return alone to Earth On April 9; his two companions are to stay behind for six more months as they handle the only space station operating since the closure of Russia's Mir orbiter in 2001.

During the mission, Pontes will carry out scientific experiments, some of them in the field of nanotechnology. He will also examine Brazil's surface from space.