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The Biggest Dig

Traveling to the center of the Earth is a fanciful concept, but consider the reality: We have so far drilled just 7.5 miles into the Earth's rocky crust, leaving roughly 3,962 more miles to go. The new Japanese research vessel Chikyu won't exactly breach Earth's core, but it will drill to an unprecedented depth, beginning in late 2007 when it embarks on its first scientific mission off the southwestern coast of Japan.

The 57,500-ton rig is equipped with a 5.9-mile-long drill designed to blast four miles into Earth's crust and strike the semi-molten mantle that lies beneath it.

The Sharpest Image

Graham Flint is the sort of man who uses the structural bracing of a nuclear reactor's safety door as a camera stand. The bracing secures his camera casing to the inside of his minivan and is indicative of the precision and focus with which he approaches all aspects of his life, none more so than his current and most ambitious project: a 1,000-shot survey of America at the dawn of the 21st century, his Portrait of America, taken with the camera he designed and built, the highest-resolution landscape camera ever created.

Foiling the Man

Conspiracy theorists, beware: That aluminum foil beanie-headwear believed, since at least the 1950s, to stop brain-control rays-may make it easier for The Man to read your mind, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology grad students. Inspired by fringe beliefs that invasive radio signals can probe citizens´ thoughts and that wearing foil on your head may fend them off, an experiment by four Ph.D. candidates found that certain key frequencies-owned by the Feds, naturally-are actually enhanced by such â€protection.â€