You can now have your DNA sequenced and framed to hang on your living room or office wall as unique, one-of-a-kind modern art. Founded this year by Adrian Salamunovic, a marketing, design, and technology veteran, and Nazim Ahmed, who has a degree in Molecular Genetics and a background in biotech, DNA11 creates framed art from DNA fingerprints. The DNA is gathered using a cheek swab that you collect yourself and deposit in a tube that is sent to a lab. The images are printed as digital high-resolution giclee fine art pieces and signed by the artists. The cost of the prints range from $390 for an 18" by 24" print to $790 for a 36" by 54" print. The Ottowa-based company gained popularity this year with the commission of prints by Absolut Vodka for their fruit-flavored vodka advertising campaign, which portrayed DNA fingerprints from the fruits used for each flavor of vodka.

You thought it was all over when Katrina hit New Orleans. Oh, no, siree. Katrina is heading north toward Ohio, New York, and Maine, and carrying flood and flash flood watches with her. You can follow this link to the National Weather Service public advisory on Katrina and follow the storm with the NOAA Storm Tracker. The NOAA homepage has plenty of headlines for you as well. Just for fun, look for any references on how global warming could be creating stronger hurricanes. In their rush save the Gulf of Mexico oil wells, the Bush Administration might not have deleted them all from the NOAA site yet.

In his Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, Dr. Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, and author of "Freedom Evolves" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea, explains how supporters of Intelligent Design have spread the thinking that there is a legitimate scientific debate over Darwinism. There isn't. But Prof. Dennett says, "Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach.... Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. "Smith's work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat," you say, misrepresenting Smith's work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: "See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms." And here is the delicious part: you can often exploit the very technicality of the issues to your own advantage, counting on most of us to miss the point in all the difficult details." There's more in the article if you follow the link (NY Times registration required).

In two announcements published yesterday in the NY Times, a total of nearly $800 million will be invested in biotech research and industry over the next two years to make New York City "one of the nation's primary bioscience clusters," according to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a California-based real estate investment trust that specializes in medical facilities, agreed to build a $700 million biotech complex on the East Side of Manhattan between 28th and 29th Streets (pictured right). Construction will begin in 2006 with occupancy slated for 2008. Separately, Dr. Jan T. Vilcek, a professor and researcher in microbiology at the NYU School of Medicine who made a fortune with the drug Remicade, used to treat Crohn's disease, announced a donation of $105 million to his home institution at NYU. The funds will go toward supporting microbial research and will be used to recruit scientists, upgrade laboratories, and support the ear, nose, and throat department of the medical school. "We know that biotechs tend to cluster around great academic institutions, so why not New York?" said Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, to the NY Times in reference to the Alexandria deal. "I hope this will change the city's image, and make people feel this is a place where biotech is and wants to be."

NASA's Astrobiology Magazine has posted the final installment in a four-part series that examines the potential connections between methane and life on Mars. Methane on Earth is mostly produced by living organisms, but it isn't clear whether the same can be said for methane on Mars. Scientists have determined that Martian methane must be younger than 600 years old and must be produced at a rate of 126 metric tons per year to maintain present levels of methane in the atmosphere. Extraterrestrial methane sources have been estimated to be miniscule. While a biogenic methane source is intriguing, methane could alternatively be seeping out from abiogenic sources within or below the rocky crust much like methane-rich vents found on the seafloor at mid-ocean ridges (see Element FYI post on the Lost City vent field). If the source is biogenic, scientists seem to favor the idea that anaerobic microbes living at or beneath the rocky surface could be the source--hardly the little green men in science fiction films.

Yes, it's summer, and I'm afraid that not a lot of big research is going on. Of course, there are probably one or two things, but most professors and their graduate students are taking time off for summer vacations. Yaaaaawwn. I could use one myself. Why don't YOU send in a story or a web link? You can submit stories or links to cool science websites for inclusion in the Element List directory. We particularly look for stories that are beyond the radar of mainstream news media. Send your science link or story to . If they're really cool, we'll profile them on Element FYI.

Google has added aerial photos of the Moon for Google Maps in honor of the first manned Moon landing by NASA astronauts on Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. According to the Google website, "Google will fully integrate Google Local search capabilities into Google Moon, which will allow our users to quickly find lunar business addresses, numbers and hours of operation, among other valuable forms of Moon-oriented local information." Google Moon is reportedly a product of Google's Copernicus initiative, otherwise known as the Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.), which will conduct studies in "entropized information filtering, high-density high-delivery hosting (HiDeHiDeHo) and de-oxygenated cubicle dwelling." The new lunar mapping feature could come in handy when you're looking for a landing pad of your own from Craigslist.
P.S. - Readers are encouraged to use the zoom feature to see a close-up of the moon.

Einstein is the most famous scientist of the last 100 years, but few can explain exactly why he is famous. Now a multimedia special report by the National Science Foundation (NSF) commemorating the World Year of Physics 2005 explains the ideas behind the papers published in 1905 that made Einstein, then a 26-year-old patent clerk, famous. From Einstein's explanation of Brownian motion, to his inquiries into the nature of light, to his work on relativity, the NSF special report uses multimedia videos and flash animation to explain Einstein's work. The site is one of the best to come out this year. You can find the NSF special report here and links to more World Year of Physics sites on the Element List feature page here.

Dr. Robert "Bob" Ballard, the scientist who first discovered hydrothermal vents off Galapagos in the 1970s and later found even greater fame by locating the Titanic, will broadcast live from the Lost City hydrothermal vent field on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge this Saturday, July 23, at 10 a.m. EDT. The expedition is being co-led by Dr. Deborah Kelley from the University of Washington, who discovered white smokers off the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 2000. The broadcast will beam live pictures of white smokers from 2,100 feet below sea level in the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition will study the Lost City hydrothermal vent field for 24 hours per day for 10 days using remotely operated vehicles, with four live broadcasts per day at 10 a.m, noon, 2 p.m., and 4 p.m until August 1.

Tsunami research, monitoring, and mitigation efforts have intensified since the 2004 Sumatra earthquake that devastated communities around the Indian Ocean. Here we've compiled links to some of the best websites about the Sumatra event and various research and education efforts on tsunamis. In this Element List feature, you can find video simulations of the Sumatra event, satellite photos, information on the earthquake that generated the event from the USGS, and more.

Swarthmore College biology student Colin Purrington has come up with "Charles Darwin Has A Posse" stickers to promote Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection in public spaces. The design is a takeoff of the "Andre the Giant Has A Posse" street art project that spread throughout the world in the 1990s. Purrington's website offers not only various T-shirts, mugs, etc. for sale with the Darwin image, but also graphics files of the image for free, which anyone can download and affix to their object of choice. "Take a photograph of a Darwin Has A Posse sticker in action," says Purrington, "and I'll gladly post it on the "Darwin Sightings" page (coming soon). My goal is to have photographic evidence of Darwin appreciation in all 50 states by his 200th birthday, in 2009."

The USGS has taken a major step toward creating the earthquake equivalent of a real-time weather map for California, the most seismically active state in the US. The Real-time Forecast of Earthquake Hazard map for California shows the probability of a "strong shaking" at locations throughout the state within the next 24 hours. The average statewide estimated probability is between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 100,000, while the highest probabilities of strong shaking are found at point around Los Angeles and San Francisco along the San Andreas Fault and are estimated to be 1 in 10,000 per day. To give a relative feel for these probability estimates, the USGS website notes that the probability of being in a car accident is much higher at 1 in 2,500. The map, which has been developed by the Swiss Seismological Service and the USGS Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), is updated every hour based on known fault locations and recorded up-to-the-minute earthquake history.

Anyone who has ever taken a chemistry class knows the formula for water, H2O. Considering that water covers three quarters of the surface of the Earth and is essential for life, you'd think we'd know everything about it. But scientists have only skimmed the surface, so to speak. Water expands and floats as it freezes, whereas most other fluids become more dense. Fog and sea spray contain dissolved substances that erode rock masses and react with the atmosphere in surprising ways. A new National Science Foundation special report on the chemistry of water covers the latest research questions about this curious substance that are being explored by top scientists from around the world.

With gas prices going up, more and more people are looking to alternative energy sources to keep our lights on and our cars moving. Finding an alternative that is cost efficient and environmentally friendly, however, is proving to be a big challenge. Researchers at the Motor Systems Resource Facility at Oregon State University have developed a way to harness the energy in ocean waves using buoys which house magnetic generators. The buoys are anchored 1-2 miles offshore from the Oregon coast, where repetitive ocean swells generate electricity by causing electric coils in the buoys to move up and down around a magnetic shaft. A range of coil-magnet geometries and configurations are being tested, including a rotary generator. The researchers say that only 0.2% of the ocean's energy is needed to provide power for the entire world. But the real question is, how many buoys will we need???

The terms "internet" and "world wide web" capture the common vision of the internet as a global network, but if you had to map it, how would you do it and what would it look like? A program called the DIMES (Distributed Internet Measurements & Simulations) Project has set out to map the internet, with the help of volunteers who are being asked to contribute their internet location. The DIMES project, which has been operational since September 1, 2004, uses Internet measurements such as TRACEROUTE and PING, to identify agent locations and linkages. Volunteers receive maps of the internet relative to their location and a personal "Internet weather report" on internet activity around their node. The DIMES project is being run by researchers at Tel-Aviv University and is part of the EVERGROW consortium of researchers for complex systems research.