Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.

Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")

Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.

"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)

The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.

Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.

Root Growth

Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.

"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.

Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.

"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.

The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.

"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")

The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.

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Egypt Terror Leader Possibly Linked to Benghazi Attack Arrested

Dec 8, 2012 2:16pm

Mohammad Hannon/AP Photo

The leader of an Egyptian terrorist cell that planned attacks in Egypt and may be linked with the storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11 has been arrested by Egyptian intelligence officers, according to an official close to Egypt’s intelligence agency and a senior U.S. official.

Mohammad Jamal Abdo Ahmed had become one of Egypt’s most dangerous terrorists and led a small cell of Egyptians that collected suicide vests, bombs and grenades before their Cairo safe house was raided by intelligence officials in late October, according to the U.S. official.

PHOTOS: Benghazi: US Consulate Attack Aftermath

Most of the cell’s targets were Egyptian, but both the U.S. and Egyptian officials said Ahmed admitted to traveling to Libya and assisting Ansar al Sharia, which U.S. officials suspect organized the attack on the consulate that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

READ: More on the Political Fallout From the Benghazi Attack

Until now, neither the United States nor Egypt has determined exactly what role Ahmed played in the attack in eastern Libya, according to both officials.

Ahmed may have also been planning attacks on U.S. targets in Egypt and neighboring countries, the U.S. official said, and had aspirations to join al Qaeda.

Ahmed, who is Egyptian, was arrested two weeks ago in eastern Egypt in the Sharqiyah province, the Egyptian official said.

Egyptian officials continue to question him and he will remain in custody for another 15 days, according to the Egyptian official.

His arrest was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

READ: Four Americans Slain in Libya ‘Come Home’

SHOWS: World News

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Oil slips amid concerns about demand for crude

NEW YORK: Oil prices slipped Friday as a dip in the US unemployment rate failed to allay skepticism about economic recovery in the United States and Europe and the strength of crude demand.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in January, finished at $85.93 a barrel, down 33 cents from Thursday's closing level.

In London trade, Brent North Sea crude for January fell one cent to $107.02

Oil prices were up initially following the release of US government data showing a surprise fall in the nation's unemployment rate to 7.7 per cent in November, its lowest level since December 2008.

"Of course the job report this morning was better than expected," said independent analyst Andy Lipow.

However, he added, there was some amount of skepticism about the impact of Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast in late October and early November. In releasing its statistics, the Labour Department said the hurricane "did not substantively impact" the data.

"Other than that, there (is) still concern with some of the economic news that came out of Europe, notably regarding growth in Germany," he added.

"Those type of headlines continue to weigh on market sentiment."

Also dulling the economic outlook was the release of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, which declined to 74.5 from November's 82.7 -- the best level in five years.

The data is crucial for the oil market because the United States is the world's largest consumer of crude.

Market sentiment was also dampened somewhat after Germany's Bundesbank warned that the eurozone powerhouse could sink into recession early next year, but was well placed to rebound strongly.

The German central bank, in its latest updated twice-yearly forecasts, said there were "indications that economic activity may actually fall in the final quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013."

- AFP/fa

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Supreme Court to Take Up Gay Marriage Cases

The Supreme Court today decided to take up two major cases regarding gay marriage, one of which could ultimately lead the court to decide whether there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage.

The justices announced that the court would hear a challenge to Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot initiative that passed in 2008 that restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples, as well as a challenge to a federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Check Out Same-Sex Marriage Status in the U.S. State By State

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down "Prop 8" in February, ruling that it "serves no purpose , and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California and to officially reclassify their relationship and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples."

It was a narrow ruling, specific to California and its history with Prop 8. The court did not reach the broader question of whether there was a fundamental right to gay marriage.

Supporters of Prop 8 are asking the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of that ruling. Gay marriages have been put on hold in California until the Supreme Court decides the issue. The cases will likely be argued in March.

David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Opponents of Prop 8 are represented by David Boies and Theodore Olson, two lawyers who argued on opposite sides in the historic Bush v. Gore case that resulted in Bush's election as president.

Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

They contend in court briefs that the question about whether the states might discriminate against gay men and lesbians in the provision of marriage licenses could be the "defining civil rights issue of our time."

The court will also hear a challenge to a key section of a federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. At issue in this case is not whether there is a fundamental right to gay marriage, because the same-sex couples are legally married in states that allow gay marriage, but that the gay couples alone are denied federal benefits such as the Social Security survivor assistance.

There were eight DOMA petitions filed with the court. One involved Edith Windsor, who, in 2007, married Thea Spyer, her partner of more than 40 years. The couple were married in Canada, but resided in New York until Spyer died in 2009.

Windsor was forced to pay $363,000 in federal estate taxes. She applied for a refund believing she was entitled to a marital deduction, but she was denied the claim on the grounds that she was not a "spouse" within the meaning of DOMA.

In briefs filed with the court, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. writes, "Although Section 3 of DOMA does not purport to invalidate same-sex marriages in those States that permit them it excludes marriage from recognition for purposes of more than 1,000 federal statutes and programs whose administration turns in part on individuals' marital status."

Recent ABC News-Washington Post polls say that 51 percent of Americans support gay marriage, which is legal in nine states and the District of Columbia.

ABC News' Sarah Parnass contributed to this report.

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Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson to step down

Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson, left, at the Senate Arms Services Committee about the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
(Kevin Lamarque - REUTERS)
Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer, will resign at the end of the year and return to private practice, the military announced on Thursday.

Johnson, who has been the general counsel at the Department of Defense since 2009 and was the Air Force’s general counsel under President Bill Clinton, had a tenure marked by controversy. He has defended increased use of drone strikes, oversaw a reform of military commission trials for terrorism suspects, and co-authored the Pentagon’s landmark 2010 report concluding that ending the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would not harm military readiness.

In a recent speech at the Oxford Union, Johnson also made headlines when he indicated that the military’s fight against al-Qaeda wasn’t open ended. Our colleague Peter Finn reports that Johnson contemplated the day when the terrorist network is so degraded the U.S. fight against the organization will no longer be considered an armed conflict and terrorism will become — again — a law enforcement matter.

“On the present course, there will come a tipping point . . . at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that al-Qaeda as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed,” Johnson said.

He did not, however, predict when the conflict would end, or that the end of what used to be called the the war on terrorism is in any way imminent.

Johnson is expected to return to the law firm of Paul, Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where he was a partner.

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ECB forecast cuts send oil lower

NEW YORK: Oil prices sank along with the euro Thursday after the European Central Bank forecast that the eurozone would continue to contract next year and only return to growth in 2014.

New York's main contract, WTI crude for delivery in January, recoiled $1.62 to $86.26 a barrel.

In London trade, Brent North Sea crude for January dived $1.78 to $107.03 a barrel.

The falls paralleled that of the euro, which sank about 0.8 percent after the ECB announcements following its policy board meeting.

In its regular quarterly staff economic projections, the ECB forecast that the euro area economy will shrink by 0.5 percent in 2012 and another 0.3 percent in 2013, instead of growing by 0.5 percent next year as previously estimated.

The Frankfurt-based central bank also opted not to cut its benchmark interest rate, but ECB chief Mario Draghi left the door open for one in the future.

"Crude oil extended its losses today on a combination of technical selling and growth concerns after the ECB trimmed its GDP forecasts for the eurozone," said analyst Fawad Razaqzada at trading group GFT Markets.

No break in the impasse over the fiscal cliff in Washington meanwhile kept a cloud over the oil market in afternoon trade.

Congress and the White House have until the end of the month to come up with new legislation to avert the harsh spending cuts and tax hikes programmed for January under the "cliff" package.

-AFP/ac

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NH8 stretch on Delhi-Gurgaon border is India’s deadliest road

NEW DELHI: Perhaps, the deadliest stretch in the country falls on the Delhi-Gurgaon border on NH8. Data available with TOI shows that 260 lives were lost on this 40-km stretch last year.

While the Gurgaon section killed 160 people in 2011, another 100 died in road crashes on Kapdiwas border and Daruhera stretch. The high rate of fatalities has exposed how safety of road users has been the lowest priority in comparison to sustained focus on adding lanes to existing highways to ramp up their capacity. In the past 10 months, the Gurgaon portion of the highway has recorded 121 deaths. All stretches, barring the Manesar-Kapdiwas stretch in Gurgaon, recorded high number of fatalities this year in comparison to 2011.

While the 27.7km Delhi-Gurgaon border-Kherki Dhaula stretch has been developed as an expressway, the rest is being expanded to six lanes. Road safety experts have been raising alarm that the safety apparatus have been missing on almost all highway stretches, which are under expansion programme and in the case of already constructed ones there are utter lack of adequate facilities for safe passage of pedestrians and movement of local traffic.

Taking note of the trend, the highways ministry has identified Rajeev Chowk and Hero Honda crossings in Gurgaon as major black spots.

It has also worked out a strategy to rectify the engineering faults, including placing proper signage, to make them safer.

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High-Voltage DC Breakthrough Could Boost Renewable Energy

Patrick J. Kiger

Thomas Edison championed direct current, or DC, as a better mode for delivering electricity than alternating current, or AC. But the inventor of the light bulb lost the War of the Currents. Despite Edison's sometimes flamboyant efforts—at one point he electrocuted a Coney Island zoo elephant in an attempt to show the technology's hazards—AC is the primary way that electricity flows from power plants to homes and businesses everywhere. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Electricity")

But now, more than a century after Edison's misguided stunt, DC may be getting a measure of vindication.

An updated, high-voltage version of DC, called HVDC, is being touted as the transmission method of the future because of its ability to transmit current over very long distances with fewer losses than AC. And that trend may be accelerated by a new device called a hybrid HVDC breaker, which may make it possible to use DC on large power grids without the fear of catastrophic breakdown that stymied the technology in the past.  (See related photos: "World's Worst Power Outages.")

Swiss-based power technology and automation giant ABB, which developed the breaker, says it may also prove critical to the 21st century's transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, by tapping the full potential of massive wind farms and solar generating stations to provide electricity to distant cities.

So far, the device has been tested only in laboratories, but ABB's chief executive, Joe Hogan, touts the hybrid HVDC breaker as "a new chapter in the history of electrical engineering," and predicts that it will make possible the development of "the grid of the future"—that is, a massive, super-efficient network for distributing electricity that would interconnect not just nations but multiple continents. Outside experts aren't quite as grandiose, but they still see the breaker as an important breakthrough.

"I'm quite struck by the potential of this invention," says John Kassakian, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If it works on a large scale and is economical to use, it could be a substantial asset."

Going the Distance

The hybrid HVDC breaker may herald a new day for Edison's favored mode of electricity, in which current is transmitted in a constant flow in one direction, rather than in the back-and-forth bursts of AC. In the early 1890s, DC lost the so-called War of the Currents mostly because of the issue of long-distance transmission.

In Edison's time, because of losses due to electrical resistance, there wasn't an economical technology that would enable DC systems to transmit power over long distances. Edison did not see this as a drawback because he envisioned electric power plants in every neighborhood.

But his rivals in the pioneering era of electricity, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, instead touted AC, which could be sent long distances with fewer losses. AC's voltage, the amount of potential energy in the current (think of it as analogous to the pressure in a water line), could be stepped up and down easily through the use of transformers. That meant high-voltage AC could be transmitted long distances until it entered neighborhoods, where it would be transformed to safer low-voltage electricity.

Thanks to AC, smoke-belching, coal-burning generating plants could be built miles away from the homes and office buildings they powered. It was the idea that won the day, and became the basis for the proliferation of electric power systems across the United States and around the world.

But advances in transformer technology ultimately made it possible to transmit DC at higher voltages. The advantages of HVDC then became readily apparent. Compared to AC, HVDC is more efficient—a thousand-mile HVDC line carrying thousands of megawatts might lose 6 to 8 percent of its power, compared to 12 to 25 percent for a similar AC line. And HVDC would require fewer lines along a route. That made it better suited to places where electricity must be transmitted extraordinarily long distances from power plants to urban areas. It also is more efficient for underwater electricity transmission.

In recent years, companies such as ABB and Germany's Siemens have built a number of big HVDC transmission projects, like ABB's 940-kilometer (584-mile) line that went into service in 2004 to deliver power from China's massive Three Gorges hydroelectric plant to Guangdong province in the South. In the United States, Siemens for the first time ever installed a 500-kilovolt submarine cable, a 65-mile HVDC line, to take additional power from the Pennsylvania/New Jersey grid to power-hungry Long Island. (Related: "Can Hurricane Sandy Shed Light on Curbing Power Outages?") And the longest electric transmission line in the world, some 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles), is under construction by ABB now in Brazil: The Rio-Madeira HVDC project will link two new hydropower plants in the Amazon with São Paulo, the nation's main economic hub. (Related Pictures: "A River People Await an Amazon Dam")

But these projects all involved point-to-point electricity delivery. Some engineers began to envision the potential of branching out HVDC into "supergrids." Far-flung arrays of wind farms and solar installations could be tied together in giant networks. Because of its stability and low losses, HVDC could balance out the natural fluctuations in renewable energy in a way that AC never could. That could dramatically reduce the need for the constant base-load power of large coal or nuclear power plants.

The Need for a Breaker

Until now, however, such renewable energy solutions have faced at least one daunting obstacle. It's much trickier to regulate a DC grid, where current flows continuously, than it is with AC. "When you have a large grid and you have a lightning strike at one location, you need to be able to disconnect that section quickly and isolate the problem, or else bad things can happen to the rest of the grid," such as a catastrophic blackout, explains ABB chief technology officer Prith Banerjee. "But if you can disconnect quickly, the rest of the grid can go on working while you fix the problem." That's where HVDC hybrid breakers—basically, nondescript racks of circuitry inside a power station—could come in. The breaker combines a series of mechanical and electronic circuit-breaking devices, which redirect a surge in current and then shut it off.  ABB says the unit is capable of stopping a surge equivalent to the output of a one-gigawatt power plant, the sort that might provide power to 1 million U.S. homes or 2 million European homes, in significantly less time than the blink of an eye.

While ABB's new breaker still must be tested in actual power plants before it is deemed dependable enough for wide use, independent experts say it seems to represent an advance over previous efforts. (Siemens, an ABB competitor, reportedly also has been working to develop an advanced HVDC breaker.)

"I think this hybrid approach is a very good approach," says Narain Hingorani, a power-transmission researcher and consultant who is a fellow with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. "There are other ways of doing the same thing, but they don't exist right now, and they may be more expensive."

Hingorani thinks the hybrid HVDC breakers could play an important role in building sprawling HVDC grids that could realize the potential of renewable energy sources. HVDC cables could be laid along the ocean floor to transmit electricity from floating wind farms that are dozens of mile offshore, far out of sight of coastal residents. HVDC lines equipped with hybrid breakers also would be much cheaper to bury than AC, because they require less insulation, Hingorani says.

For wind farms and solar installations in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions, HVDC cables could be run underground in environmentally sensitive areas, to avoid cluttering the landscape with transmission towers and overhead lines. "So far, we've been going after the low-hanging fruit, building them in places where it's easy to connect to the grid," he explains. "There are other places where you can get a lot of wind, but where it's going to take years to get permits for overhead lines—if you can get them at all—because the public is against it."

In other words, whether due to public preference to keep coal plants out of sight, or a desire to harness the force of remote offshore or mountain wind power, society is still seeking the least obtrusive way to deliver electricity long distances. That means that for the same reason Edison lost the War of the Currents at the end of the 19th century, his DC current may gain its opportunity (thanks to technological advances) to serve as the backbone of a cleaner 21st-century grid. (See related story: "The 21st Century Grid: Can we fix the infrastructure that powers our lives?")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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McAfee Mystery Deepens With Possible Heart Attack

Software millionaire John McAfee has been taken to a Guatemala City hospital via ambulance after suffering a possible heart attack at the detention center where he is being held.

McAfee, 67 -- who may soon be deported back to Belize, where authorities want to question him about the shooting death of his neighbor -- was reportedly prostrate on the floor of his cell and unresponsive. He was wheeled into the hospital on a gurney, but when nurses began removing his suit, he became responsive and said, "Please, not in front of the press."

Earlier today, McAfee had complained of chest pains.

McAfee was scheduled to be deported to Belize later this morning, ABC News has learned. But a judge could stay the ruling if it is determined that McAfee's life is threatened by being in Belizean custody, as McAfee has claimed in the past several weeks.

Raphael Martinez, a spokesman for the Belize government, said that if McAfee is deported to Belize, he would immediately be handed over to police and detained for up to 48 hours unless charges are brought against him.

"There is more that we know about the investigation, but that remains part of the police work," he said, hinting at possible charges.

He added that a handover by Guatemala would be "the neighborly thing to do."

A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Guatemala said that "due to privacy considerations," the embassy would "have no comment on the specifics of this situation," but that, "U.S. citizens are subject to the laws of the countries in which they are traveling or residing, and must work within the host countries' legal framework."

Just hours before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview Wednesday he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.

Guatemala's National Police/AP Photo

Software Founder Breaks Silence: McAfee Speaks on Murder Allegations Watch Video

John McAfee Interview: Software Mogul Leaves Belize Watch Video

"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."

McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.

"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."

But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.

In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.

McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.

During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.

He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.

Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.

McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.

McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.

"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."

Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.

According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.

"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"

Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.

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Rubio, Ryan look to the future during award dinner speeches

Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class.

“Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the Leadership Award recipient at a dinner hosted by the Jack Kemp Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization named for the late congressman and Housing and Urban Development secretary.

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