I don't advise playing any drinking games on New Year's Eve, but when scientists play with their drinks, the results can make for interesting cocktail-party conversation.

Here's a recap of research relating to the physics and chemistry of liquids in a glass:

Tweak your twirl: Swirling red wine in the glass aerates the vintage and facilitates the release of all those wonderful aromas that distinguish a Rothschild from rotgut. The ideal is to have one smooth wave breaking around the bowl of the glass, and this year physicists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland figured out the fluid dynamics of the perfect swirl.

They used glasses of different shapes plus a healthy supply of cheap merlot to study the factors that determined the shape of the wave rolling around the glass. Three factors emerged, as described in this ScienceNOW summary: the ratio of the level of the wine poured in to the diameter of the glass; the ratio of the diameter of the glass to the width of the circular shaking; and the ratio of gravitational force pushing downward to the centrifugal force pushing outward.

---

A smooth wave can be achieved in glasses of widely varying sizes, as long as the three ratios are preserved. To get a feel for the right level of slosh, study the video below. Be careful not to swirl too vigorously, though: The researchers found that when the merlot was accelerated at 40 percent of the force of gravity, the slosh turned into an unwelcome splash.

Baby your bubbly: French researchers reported last year that the best way to baby that New Year's Eve champagne is to pour it gently down the side of your glass. This is one kind of wine you don't want to slosh: If you do, a lot of the carbonated bubbles are released before you bring the glass to your lips. And it's the bubbles that make champagne so pleasurable. The researchers found that champagne is best served when it's cold (39 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3.8 degrees Celsius). Warmer temperatures cause faster CO2 loss. And besides, who wants to drink warm champagne?

When it comes to serving champagne, narrow-mouthed flutes are currently preferred to wide. saucer-shaped glasses for similar reasons. The greater surface area of the saucer bowl leads to faster CO2 dissipation.

The same research group found that smooth-walled flutes tend to tone down the bubbles in poured champagne, while scratches in the glass promote bubble nucleation. Some glassmakers intentionally put microscratches in the inner surface to create showier special effects. If you want to do something similar, try wiping the inside of the flute with a cloth towel; the tiny fibers that are left behind produce a similar effect on nucleation. This video from the American Chemical Society tells you more about the chemistry of champagne:

Shaken or stirred? Physics and chemistry often determine whether an alcoholic drink takes flight or flops, as Harvard physicists Naveen Sinha and David Weitz explain this month in a report on cocktail physics for PhysicsWorld (free access with registration).

Straight shots of aquavit, vodka or other spirits are best served cold — zero degrees F, or -18 degrees C — because that reduces the burning sensation you get in the throat and chest when you toss the shot down the hatch. But low temperatures also make it harder to savor the taste and aroma of other ingredients, which is why mixed drinks are usually served at higher temperatures.

A nice chill helps balance the taste of a gin martini, though. If it's anywhere close to room temperature, the gin tends to overwhelm the vermouth.

Speaking of martinis, The Straight Dope provides some words of wisdom about the "shaken-vs.-stirred" debate. The way Cecil's pals tell it, a gin martini is best stirred, not shaken — because shaking dissolves more air into the mix, "bruising" the gin and supposedly giving the martini more of a bitter taste.

On the other hand, a vodka martini (which some drinkers refuse to recognize as a martini at all) is best served as cold as possible, and shaking with ice is a more effective way to cool down the drink. Also, shaking breaks down the oils in the vermouth more completely. In case you've forgotten, Agent 007 James Bond preferred his martinis with vodka — and "shaken, not stirred." A decade ago, researchers found that shaking deactivates the hydrogen peroxide in a martini better than stirring does, producing more of an antioxidant effect. They concluded that "007's profound state of health may be due, at least in part, to compliant bartenders."

If you're making a manhattan, don't follow 007's lead. Sinha and Weitz observe that "a manhattan, which contains whisky, vermouth and bitters, can become cloudy when shaken."

"This results from small air bubbles introduced into the beverage while shaking, which are then stabilized by the bitters," they write. "A stirred manhattan, in contrast, is clear, which is why it is typically served stirred, not shaken, unlike James Bond's martinis."

For more about the physics of mixology, including a high-tech recipe for a hot and cold gin fizz, check out the full report from Physics World. Whatever you do, drink responsibly ... and have a happy and safe New Year's Eve.

More about the science of alcoholic drinks:

• The high-tech cocktail: Future happy hour is now!
• Eight ancient drinks uncorked by science
• How to pour that drink, scientifically
• The why behind a wine's bouquet

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

One of the last astronauts to ride on a space shuttle will be riding a totally different vehicle on Monday: a flower-bedecked float in the 2012 Rose Parade.

Say what?

The 5.5-mile journey down the parade route in Pasadena, Calif., doesn't hold a candle in distance or danger to the 5.3 million-mile journey that NASA astronaut Rex Walheim made in July during STS-135, Atlantis' program-ending mission. But it's a perfect follow-up for several reasons:

---

• Walheim will be riding on the "Garden of Imagination" float with his brother, Lance, a horticulturist who wrote the book "Roses for Dummies." Lance is the go-to garden guy for Bayer Advanced, an arm of the chemical conglomerate that makes lawn and garden prducts.
• With Lance's encouragement, Rex carried up a dried rose as one of his personal items during a 2008 mission on Atlantis. That rose was featured on Bayer Advanced's trophy-winning Rose Parade float in 2009.
• This Rose Parade appearance gives Rex a chance to smell the roses, literally, after a high-pressure spaceflight. It also gives him an opportunity to reflect on how a little gardening could come in handy for future generations of space explorers.

"If you think about it, that's one of the things we need to develop on our long-term vehicles," he told me this week. "We need to have a self-supporting ecosystem, environmental control systems for recycling air and water, and you have to grow your own food. We're doing that in space. ... These skills that any astronaut has as a young child when they work in the garden and help their parents, well, those turn out to be important on the most advanced vehicles ever made, and on the most complex exploration missions."

It's not clear whether Walheim will have a chance to do some of that space gardening himself. The 49-year-old already has three shuttle flights under his belt, and he's not currently on the schedule for a future spaceflight. With the shuttle program finished, journeys to the International Space Station are the only game in town for NASA astronauts. By the time NASA is ready for trips beyond Earth orbit, Walheim could well be pushing 60.

"I'm not giving up on ever flying again, but it's a litt more difficult to do at this point," Walheim acknowledged.

My interview with Rex and his brother Lance touched on life after the shuttle, the story behind the Rose Parade ride and the future of spaceflight. Here's an edited transcript of the Q&A:

Cosmic Log: So, Rex, what have you been up to since the last shuttle mission?

Rex Walheim: Well, immediately after the mission we did a number of debriefs ... the training folks and the flight controllers. We told them how the mission went, and then we started doing debriefs at the different NASA centers. Then we took our post-flight presentation out farther around, to different organizations and places. We had a chance to go overseas to Italy and Turkey, and talked to some of the military people and their families. That was very rewarding.

Then I went by myself to Australia, to Melbourne, to a museum down there that was doing a space exhibit, and that was my chance to see Australia for the first time. We topped it off with a trip to the White House on Nov. 1. We got to meet President Obama in the Oval Office, and that was exciting. The next day we had a picture taken with John Young and Bob Crippen of STS-1.

Now it's time to transition to a ground job. I'll be working in the exploration branch, on some of the Orion systems, mostly the launch abort system, and also some of the ground launch systems. And I'll keep my hand in the EVA [spacewalk] business. I'll be working on the early flight suit — kind of a modified ACES [Advanced Crew Escape Suit, popularly known as "the pumpkin suit"], and then work on the next-generation suit for going to an asteroid or to Mars.

Q: Are you interested in a rotation on the space station?

Rex: It's a possibility, but I wouldn't do that for a few years. I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to do that or not, since I've flown three times already. But we'll see. I'm not giving up on ever flying again, but it's a little bit more difficult to do at this point.

Q: If it turns out that you're not in the space station rotation, how do you see the next few years working out? Would astronauts be involved in flight tests?

Rex: Yeah, we'll be involved in the flight tests and in the development of the vehicle, just like we were with the space station. When I first came here in '96, I was involved in the project even before the early assembly flights, developing the procedures, monitoring systems development, things like that.

We already are involved in the same way with Orion, with the crew displays and development of the flight systems. I love working down here at Johnson Space Center. I want to stay here for a while, and be in the Astronaut Office and provide our experience from having flown on the shuttle and having been on the space station to design the next generation of vehicles — whether they be commercial crew or the Space Launch System / Orion exploration system.

Q: Some of your colleagues have gone over to the commercial side. Do you feel as if there are some significant losses in expertise, or is it good to spread that expertise around?

Rex: I think it's really good to spread that expertise around. We'd love to have a lot of these folks stay with NASA, but I think it's great that they're going to the commercial providers and the other contractors, because we need to keep that experience around. The hard part would be to see people going to different industries, and I know that's a possibility for some people. It's hard-won experience, and it's nice to retain that.

The people we've had working on the shuttle program and the space station program are some of the best people I've come in contact with. I enjoy working with them and hate to see them go. But the fact that some are working with the commercial providers will give those companies a realistic appreciation for the difficulties and dangers of spaceflight. That experience will help those companies come along and develop the vehicles they're working on.

Q: I suppose it's a challenge for anyone who's involved in exploration to go through a transition like this. Are there things that you've found are helpful? How do you keep your focus on what's ahead?

Rex: Two ways. One is getting these commercial providers to give us American launches from American soil as soon as possible. Obviously I have a special connection with that, since I was one of the last ones launched. I really have a visceral desire to see people launched from the United States again, so to be able to help out with that ... that hopefully will be a short-term goal, three to five years. There's a lot of work being done on that.

And then there's the chance to dream a little bit, too. Let's get out of Earth orbit. Let's go to these places we've never been to before. That's always exciting to think about, and it's need to be a part of that. That's more long-term, but if you concentrate a little bit on both, the short term and the long term, that gives you a good balance.

You've got to keep in mind that we've been through this kind of transition before, between the Apollo program and the shuttle program. It's not easy, there's no question about that. A lot of people lost their jobs, and they're great people, but we'll gear up again and do some new and exciting programs.

Q: Do you and the other astronauts think about those future trips? What will it take for trips to a near-Earth asteroid, or to Mars?

Rex: I think it'll take the kind of people who left Europe and headed for America and didn't know what they were going to find. They left their old life completely behind. That's what it's going to take for the early explorers of Mars. They'll have a chance to come back, but it's going to be a three-year voyage. When they leave Earth, Earth becomes not this beautiful planet underneath them, like it is with the space station, but it's going to become like any other star. They're going to find themselves in a void of blackness with stars all around them. I've heard people say it's going to rewrite the definition of loneliness. But we have those people. We've had them in the past, and we'll have them in the future: people who will leave their homes and their families for three years on a very risky mission to be the first people to go live on Mars.

That' the kind of person it's going to be. It's going to be the younger folks, because it's going to take some time to get there, but we have those brave explorers coming up. I hope the kids in school now are studying math and science, so they can be among those first explorers who really reach out into the solar system.

Q: How does it feel to be a member of the last crew to fly on a shuttle?

Rex: You know, it's interesting. You don't really think about that a whole lot during the mission. During the preparation for the mission, you never know whether you're going to be the last one, or whether you're going to get to fly. Remember, there was a funding question about our mission. But it's neat to be a part of the last mission and see the tributes that people have done for the shuttle program.

It does start to hit you a little bit later than other folks. A lot of folks felt it at the launch, or when their part of the mission was done. For us, we were so busy over the last four or five months that it took a while to sink in. But when you see people leaving — for example, when Fergy [STS-135 commander Chris Ferguson] left NASA to go work at Boeing — it does sink in. The band is breaking up, and we're going on to different things.

Q: So how did this whole idea of being with your brother on the Rose Parade float come up?

Rex: I'll let Lance take that one.

Lance Walheim: People always said to me, "Why don't you have your brother take a rose up into space?" They were thinking about a live rose. I kidded him — I said, "Well, Rex can't even keep a rose alive in his backyard, how's he going to keep it alive in outer space?" So we came up with the idea of taking a dried rose up, and Rex did that on his previous flight, before the last one. Then we put it on the Bayer Advanced float in 2009.

It just became natural to do something with the theme of the parade this year: "Just Imagine." We thought this'd be the perfect place to pay tribute to Rex and the whole shuttle program. We weren't sure until fairly recently that we were going to be able to do it, but it all worked out. I'm the Bayer Advanced expert, of course, so we're very proud to have him on the float.

Q: How does space tie in with the theme of the parade?

Lance: Well, the title of the float is "Garden of Imagination," and it's the story of two brothers who worked in the gardens when they were young and imagined bigger and better things. Rex was imagining going to space, and I was really into plants and wanted to work with plants. There will be a rocket on the float, and there's a trail going up. We'll be at the base of that trail.

Rex: The tie-in with the "Garden of Imagination" is that it's a place where you have a chance to dream. When you're gardening, you have a chance to let your mind wander. I think it's a place where you can do a lot of good thinking. When I was in our backyard, in our garden or where we were landscaping, it was in San Carlos, which is near San Francisco. You can see down into the Bay Area, and the neat thing about it was the airplanes that were landing at San Francisco International Airport. I could watch the 747s fly over and dream of flying one day. That's where my dreams of flying really took flight, in my backyard in California.

Q: Do you feel as if you have a little more time to spend in the garden, spend with your family, or are there more things that you have to keep your eye on?

Rex: There's always more to accomplish, and a lot of hard work ahead, but the neat thing is that the pressure is off now. It's always tense when you're preparing for a mission and getting ready to fly. The time you have with your family is somewhat limited, and there's always a little pressure there, realizing that you're going to be doing something dangerous. So when you come back, there's almost a joy of life you get. It turned out well, and everybody's safe. It adds a little bit of freshness to all the things that you do. Unfortunately, it doesn't always last that long, but for me, it's lasted a really long time. I just went skiing with my boys in New Mexico, and we spent some time outside and really enjoyed ourselves.

Q: So, Lance, would you say Rex's gardening has improved?

Lance: It's been a little while since I've been to Rex's garden, but hopefully I'll find out soon. A couple of years ago, I sent him some rose bushes as a Christmas present. So the first thing I'm going to do is look for those roses and see how they're doing.

Rex: Well, to be honest, he sent me three rose bushes. Two of the three still survive, and the first one never made it into the ground. I just didn't get around to planting it. But Lance is my consultant, whenever I find some new disease or pestilence out in my backyard here in Texas, I call Lance and ask "what the heck is that" and send him a picture. And he gives me the advice on what to do about it.

Q: Sounds like you better get that garden spruced up, because the boss is coming.

Rex: That's right.

More on the future of spaceflight:

• Next steps in the new space race
• From July: Meet the last shuttle crew
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

---

NBC and other networks are airing television coverage of the 123rd Annual Tournament of Roses Parade at 11 a.m. ET Monday (check your local TV listings). The "Garden of Imagination" float will be the fifth float and the 10th unit in the parade lineup. Look for it on TV between 11:10 and 11:20 a.m. ET (8:10 to 8:20 a.m. PT) Monday.  

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

A new generation of workout machines that generate electricity as you work up a sweat are poised to invade fitness centers and help you keep your New Year's resolution to trim down your waistline.

The electricity generated by the machines is fed back into the grid, helping the gym save on its utility bills.

---

The so-called Green System from Woodinville, Wash.,-based SportsArt Fitness, represents a novel way to harness "human power," Ken Carpenter, director of sales for the company, told me.

It joins a growing list of similar concepts, including PaveGen's pavers that generate electricity as people walk (and boogie) on them and devices such as shoes and a backpack that charge batteries as you go for a jog or hike in the woods.

Sweaty watts
The Green System consists of recumbent and upright bikes as well as elliptical trainers, each with a box that captures 75 percent of the watts you generate during a workout. 

Boxes in several machines are hooked together and routed through an inverter that can handle up to 2,000 watts. Assuming an average of 133 watts per person, a pod might have 15 machines on it, Carpenter said.

"Most facilities are going to be drawing so many watts and amperage, you'd have to have a lot of inverters to really reverse that meter, because of light bulbs, air conditioning, and all the other things being powered," he said.

Nevertheless, 2,000 watt hours are enough to power a clothes washer for 6 hours, a microwave oven for 2.5 hours, or a 27-inch flat screen TV for 17 hours, according to SportsArt Fitness.

This is enough electricity that the system will pay for itself in about three years, according to Carpenter. The company has an online calculator where you can figure out your potential savings.

The system includes an inverter and the exercise machines. The inverter runs about $3,000, while the the machines could cost about $3,500 to $7,000.

Generating award points
The system is also hooked up with Victoria, Canada,-based EcoFit, which produces digital technology to calculate the number of watts an individual generates during a workout, put it on a graphical display and keep track of watts over time on a card.

In the future, the companies hope to turn these "eco-points" generated at the gym into currency accepted at coffee shops and other retail outlets. 

Back at the gym, the display technology also allows individuals to compete. For example, if you see your buddy is generating 115 watts, you might ramp it up so you can generate 130 watts.

Right now, most people measure their performance at the gym in terms of workout time, or distance biked, or calories burned, but Carpenter said he thinks this paradigm will shift to watts "the more eco-conscious people get."

So, eat, drink, and be merry this weekend. But come the New Year, hit the gym and generate some watts.

More on harnessing human power:

• Shoes redefine 'power walking'
• Backpack generates its own electricity
• Pavers generate electricity from steps
• Device produces electricity from a swinging knee

 

---

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

 

Laughing babies, talking dogs and Rebecca Black may be Internet sensations, but if you want to add something more substantive to your viral video diet, turn your dial to dueling chatbots, dancing Ph.D. theses and other highlights from the past year's surfeit of science videos.

Talking bots can be just as surprising and silly as talking dogs. Take "AI vs. AI," for example. Cornell researchers Igor Labutov, Jason Losinski and Hod Lipson took two Cleverbot artificial-intelligence programs, hooked them up to each other, and typed in "Hi" as an ice-breaker. Hilarity ensues.

"We just assembled the pieces, the audio and the avatars, and let the program run," Lipson, an associate professor at the Cornell Creative Machines Lab, told me today.

---

The funniest line in the video comes when one AI program tells the other that they're chatting together as robots. The other bot replies, "I am not a robot, I am a unicorn." Where did that come from?

"The conversations are based on millions of conversations that it had before," Lipson said. "Probably this term is something it had encountered in some conversation with a human." The best guess is that someone made a reference to the unicorn from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," and somehow that stuck in the Cleverbot's electronic brain.

The takeaway is that artificially intelligent chatbots can become as petulant and irrational as the humans who made them. This Cleverbot conversation provides further evidence of that. ("I'm talking about you ... how you are a creep," one clone-bot tells another.)

Here are 10 other clever and creepy science videos from 2011 to while away the minutes with. I've added links to more information about each of them at the bottom of this item:

Update for 8:35 p.m. ET: For 10 more must-see, humorous science videos, check out this Tree of Life blog posting by UC-Davis biologist Jonathan A. Eisen. He says his No. 1 pick,  the "Bad Project" Lady Gaga parody, is "simply awesome" — and I simply agree.

More about the videos:

• Cleverbots at Cornell: AI vs. AI
• How the Cleverbot chats like a human
• Night flights: Sleigh ride in orbit
• Night flights: The best of NASA's night lights
• Ph.D. dance-off makes science sexy
• A Day Made of Glass: The story from Corning
• Future of Tech: The evolution of glass
• Scientific American explains the walking octopus
• Txchnologist: Ten of 2011's top science videos
• Top 10 videos of 2011 from C&EN, including soft robot
• Four-legged battlefield robot evolves into 'AlphaDog'
• Minute Physics' YouTube channel
• Video wows with quantum levitation
• Vi Hart's math blog | The Tau Manifesto
• The Scientist's 2011 Labby Awards | Doctor Bugs

More year-end reviews:

• Cast your vote for the Weird Science Awards
• 11 scientific twists from 2011
• The biggest ancient mysteries of 2011
• The year in space | 2011 slideshow
• Who's on the A-list for bad celebrity science?

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

 A rare species of fish described as “faceless and brainless” was among the unusual finds made by marine scientists off Britain’s coast, according to a Scottish government report published on Thursday.

The prehistoric amphioxus species, which grows to about two inches long and has no fins, was recorded off Orkney, part of the Northern Isles that lie off the far northern coast of mainland Scotland.

---

The elusive fish is regarded as a modern representative of the first animals that evolved a backbone, the Scottish government said.

With a nerve cord down its back, it has no specific brain or face. According to The Scotsman newspaper, it has a translucent, fish-like body but has no true skeleton.

It is usually found buried in sand in shallow parts of temperate or tropical seas, the newspaper said. In Asia, the species is harvested commercially to use as food for pets.

Other rare finds from the marine surveys, which covered over 2,000 square miles, included giant mussels with shells measuring up to 18 inches and new communities of Northern Feather Star, a brightly colored species with 10 feather-like arms fanning out from a central disc, which were revealed off the Sound of Canna, near Skye.

The Scottish Government said the findings will further the country's knowledge of the biodiversity of its seas.

Scottish Natural Heritage and Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University were among organizations that carried out the work.

Underwater video was shot and acoustic and 3D images were used in the surveys.

Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with environmental campaign group WWF Scotland, added: “These surveys highlight that Scotland’s seas and coasts are home to a truly amazing range of weird and wonderful wildlife.

“By providing vital information on what lies beneath the waves, these surveys will help inform decisions on better ways to protect this important resource.”

Related articles on msnbc.com

'Doomsday' minister mum on 2012 forecast

Samoans drop Friday from this year's calendar

Smokin' hot island rises in the Red Sea

How beavers helped build America

Dino-chicken: Wacky but serious science idea of 2011

 

 

Even with the supposed Mayan doomsday coming up, it's going to be hard for 2012 to match 2011 when it comes to weird science: What other year can boast a bird-killing "aflockalypse," a chupacabra prowling around the nation's capital, two Loch Ness-type monster sightings and two doomsday predictions. (News flash: The predictions were wrong.)

That's why the Weird Science Awards exist: To pay tribute to the strange but scientific (or pseudo-scientific) tales of each year. This year's winners of the fifth annual Weirdies will take their place alongside glow-in-the-dark cats and dogs, reattached rabbit penises, the 2,700-year-old marijuana stash and the Stone Age sex toy as talismans of this wacky age.

---

We're offering 30 nominees from the past year, and it's up to you to pick the top 10 award-winners. One of the nominees — the one about pee pressure — is a laureate from this year's Ig Nobel award ceremony, which honors "research that makes people laugh and then think." You can use that as your judging criterion, or you can go for the article that makes you laugh, and then ask, "What on earth were they thinking?"

Write-in votes and second-guessing are encouraged; you can register them in your comments below.

The 10 nominees that get the most votes as of noon ET on Jan. 3 will be recognized as the 2012 Weirdy winners, and to mark the occasion, we'll review the year in weird science on Wednesday with Ig Nobel creator Marc Abrahams.

Here are the nominees from the past year, in chronological order:

• Animals die in 'Aflockalypse'; technology gets blamed
• Pole shift forces makeover of airport runway
• 13th zodiac sign causes stir, but astrologers shrug
• World's smallest periodic table inscribed on shaft of hair
• Gorilla wows spectators by walking like a human
• Fungus turns ants into zombies to do its bidding
• Picture of 'Bownessie' monster causes a stir
• Microbes in lake and meteorite spark weird-life debate 
• Sugar wards off death for flies hooked on meth
• Chimps play video games with a sense of self
• He-she birds cross the animal world's gender lines
• Loch Ness monster-like beast filmed in Alaska
• Father of cryonics movement frozen for the future
• Dog's glow-in-the-dark effect has an on-off switch
• UFO fans latch onto report of underwater anomaly
• Mysterious orange goo gunks up Alaska shore
• Chupacabra? It's probably a mangy old fox!
• Science reveals how to win at 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'
• Dolphins learn how to use shells to catch fish
• Corpse-dissolving machine invented
• Cleverbot chats like human, passes Turing test
• Tool-using fish caught for first time on video
• Ig Nobel Prizes: Judgment clouded by pee pressure
• Preacher's doomsday prediction goes wrong ... twice!
• Roman-era couple held hands for 1,500 years
• Spot the devil that's hidden in Giotto fresco
• Mexico adds another brick to 2012 Maya legend
• These beds haven't been made in 77,000 years
• Scientists say Shroud had to be created in a flash
• Just this once, Samoa drops Friday from the calendar

Review the nominees, then cast your vote. We'll talk about the winners next Wednesday on "Virtually Speaking Science." In the meantime, take a walk down memory lane with these Weirdies from past years:

• 2011 Weird Science Awards
• 2010 Weird Science Awards
• 2009 Weird Science Awards
• 2008 Weird Science Awards

More year-end reviews:

• 11 scientific twists from 2011
• The biggest ancient mysteries of 2011
• The year in space | 2011 slideshow
• Who's on the A-list for bad celebrity science?

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

Just this once, Samoa is making Dec. 30 disappear.

It's the key step in the Pacific island nation's plan to move from the eastern to the western side of the International Date Line and mesh its work week with two of its primary trading partners, New Zealand and Australia. The New Zealand territory of Tokelau is making the switch as well.

---

"In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week," Stuff.co.nz quoted Samoan Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele as saying. "While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand, and when we're at church Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane."

Samoa will go directly from 11:59 p.m. Thursday, through midnight to 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

"It hasn't been controversial," the editor of the Samoa Observer, Mata'afa Lesa, told me today. (Yes, definitely still today.) "People are realizing when they sleep tomorrow night, they'll wake up on Saturday."

Hotel guests won't have to pay for an extra night, but employers will be required to pay workers for Friday. "For the business community, it's very difficult," Lesa said, "They'll be paying for a day that doesn't exist."

As for folks born on Dec. 30 ... well, this year they're in the same boat as Feb. 29 birthday babies.

American Samoa, 100 miles to the east, will not be making the switch. All this means that Samoa and Tokelau will be among the first places in the world to see each day's sunrise. (Stuff.co.nz says the "first light honors" will belong to Fakaofo in Tokelau, although Kiribati and Antarctica also have claims on the title.) Meanwhile, American Samoa will become known as the last place to see each day's sunset. And if you want to celebrate your birthday or anniversary (or New Year's Eve, for that matter) two days in a row, you can just make the hourlong flight from Samoa to American Samoa.

This isn't the first step taken by the Samoan government to bring itself more in line with its bigger Pacific neighbors. Two years ago, drivers were ordered to switch from right-side to left-side driving — to reduce the cost of converting cars brought in from Australia and New Zealand.

It's also not the first time Samoa has switched sides on the calendar: Back in 1892, Samoans gained an extra day when they went from the west side of the imaginary Date Line to the east side. The king made the switch to please U.S. traders — and to celebrate, he gave his subjects a double dose of the Fourth of July that year.

Update for 10:45 p.m. ET: Some of the comments suggest there's been a bit of confusion over how many Fridays will be dropped from the calendar because of Samoa's shift from one side of the International Date Line to the other. It's just one. I've rewritten the headline to make that clearer.

More calendar considerations:

• Is it time to overhaul the calendar?
• Scramble the calendar for palindromes
• Britain may consider time zone switch

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

The past year brought us the supercomputer that trounced flesh-and-blood champions on the "Jeopardy" TV show ... genetic discoveries that showed us the tangles in humanity's family tree ... a tsunami that shouldn't have been as catastrophic as it was ... and neutrinos that shouldn't be going as fast as they seem to. Which scientific twist of 2011 do you find most intriguing? Now's the time to cast your vote for the top science story of 2011.

This year's crop of top stories is trickier than usual because they cross so many lines. I've pared them down to a list of 11, but the only reason I'm able to do that is because of the way the lines are being drawn. I've already touched on two of the biggest science stories of 2011 in our "Year in Space" roundup: the end of the space shuttle era and the avalanche of extrasolar planets. Our "Ancient Mysteries" roundup casts a spotlight on the big stories in archaeology, anthropology and paleontology. I'm also leaving out some big stories with technology angles, such as the Arab Spring protests and the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

So what's left? In this list, I'm stressing the twists in science and technology that go against expectations — or set up great expectations for the year ahead. I'm also including some personal favorites that you can feel free to quibble over. Check out this chronological list, review the details by clicking on the links, then cast your vote for the year's top science story:

---

Japan hit by quake, tsunami, nuclear crisis: The magnitude-8.9 quake that hit Japan in March qualifies as a top story on any scale, but the safety gaps at the Fukushima nuclear facility showed scientifically how nature can confound engineers' best-laid plans. It was just this month that Japan's prime minister announced the facility was in a stable state of "cold shutdown." Fukushima may be an albatross around the neck of the nuclear power industry for years to come. Or maybe not. Check out "After the Wave," msnbc.com's special report about the earthquake's aftermath. 

AIDS virus on the run? An international study finds that people who take antiretroviral drugs — medicine that weakens the HIV virus that causes AIDS — not only benefit from treatment but are far less likely to infect their sexual partners. The finding was so remarkable that the results were made public four years early, and last week the editors of the journal Science hailed it as the year's top breakthrough.

Climate highs and lows: This month, a U.N. climate conference reached agreement on a new plan to control greenhouse-gas emissions, but it's not clear whether the plan will pay off. Meanwhile, a former climate skeptic says he no longer doubts the reality of global warming, the climate issue creates a controversy on the GOP campaign trail, "Climategate 2.0" fails to gain traction, and Arctic sea ice is close to record lows.  

Goodbye, Tevatron ... hello, Higgs boson? After 28 years of service, the Tevatron collider was shut down in Illinois in September, leaving the Large Hadron Collider as the only experiment hunting for the elusive Higgs boson. Discovery of that particle could show scientists how mass arose in the universe. Researchers at the LHC suspect that they've got the subatomic bugger cornered, but the actual discovery (or determination that it doesn't exist after all) will have to wait until next year.

Faster-than-light neutrinos? Physicists at CERN and Italy's Gran Sasso laboratory say they've clocked bunches of neutrinos traveling between the two labs at a speed that's just a bit faster than the speed of light — something that relativity theory contends should be impossible. Most observers are confident that the claim will be proven wrong in 2012, due to some sort of experimental error. But a rerun of the test in November, under somewhat different conditions, came up with the same result. Stay tuned...

Watson wins on 'Jeopardy': IBM programmed a supercomputer named Watson to dominate the "Jeopardy" TV trivia game, and dominate it did. The point of the exercise wasn't to win the $1 million prize, which was donated to charity; rather, the technology behind Watson is being applied to medical diagnoses and other applications. We puny humans can take heart in the fact that Watson is not infallible. After all, it thought Toronto was a U.S. city, and it actually lost a game to U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (although, come to think of it, that might have been a political move on Watson's part).

Gamers untangle protein puzzles: Game-playing humans struck back this year by figuring out the molecular structure of a key enzyme in an AIDS-like virus that afflicts rhesus monkeys. The protein-folding achievement, accomplished by the players of an online game called Foldit, served as further evidence that non-scientists can help conduct valuable scientific research through collaborative software. Foldit's game-playing teams even came up with new mathematical algorithms for solving biochemical puzzles more efficiently.

Genetic family tree gets tangled: Late last year, researchers announced that they found genetic twists in our DNA that pointed to a previously unknown branch of our ancient family tree. Some of our ancestors interbred with creatures in Siberia that were not like modern humans or Neanderthals, but were of a distinct strain now known as the Denisovans. This year, geneticists reported that interbreeding with Denisovans and Neanderthals gave a big boost to our ancestors' immune systems. There's also evidence that our ancestors swapped genes with other now-extinct populations even before they left Africa. "Everywhere you look now, we find a little bit of interbreeding," said University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer.

Personalized medicine really works: Scientists have been saying for years that someday we'll all have our entire genomes sequenced, and that genomic analysis will open up a brave new world of personalized medicine. This year, it really happened. Physicians found a flaw in a California teen's genetic code that guided them to prescribe new medication for her bouts of sudden breathlessness. The success story serves as "the leading edge of what will become, pretty soon, a deluge of such reports," said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

Heaviest antimatter created: Researchers at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider reported seeing traces of antihelium-4 nuclei, made up of two antiprotons and two antineutrons. These are the heaviest bits of antimatter ever detected on Earth, and that record's likely to stand for a long, long time. Sorry, Dan Brown: The antimatter bomb you wrote about in "Angels & Demons" will have to remain firmly in the realm of fiction.

Fingerpainting at prehistoric preschool: Here's something completely different: Researchers measured the widths of finger marks  to figure out that kids as young as 2 years old exercised their artistry on prehistoric cave walls, with an occasional boost from the grown-ups. It's amazing how archaeology can bring a 13,000-year-old culture to life.

So what am I forgetting? Space-time cloaking devices? New York's new bee species? Remember that I have a whole 'nother list of top stories for space exploration as well as for ancient mysteries, and that I'm putting the Arab Spring and Steve Jobs' death in a different category. Let me know what else is missing by leaving a comment below, and get ready to take a walk on the wild side later this week when it's time to judge the 2012 Weird Science Awards.

More year-end reviews:

• The biggest ancient mysteries of 2011
• The year in space | 2011 sllideshow
• Who's on the A-list for bad celebrity science?
• Science: Top breakthroughs of the year
• Scientific American: Top 10 science stories of 2011
• Nature: 10 people who mattered in science
• Discover Magazine: Top 100 stories of 2011
• Physics World: Top 10 breakthroughs for 2011
• RealClearScience: Top 10 stories of 2011
• Ars Technica: 2011's biggest science stories

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

When and where will Russia's doomed probe to a Martian moon fall back to Earth? The RIA-Novosti news service caused a stir when it reported that the 13-ton Phobos-Grunt spacecraft would crash in southwestern Afghanistan at 2:22 a.m. Moscow time on Jan. 14. The report attributed the prediction to the U.S. Strategic Command, but experts say it's way too early to be that precise about the Phobos-Grunt debris zone.

"Yes, it is much too early to predict" the circumstances of Phobos-Grunt's re-entry, Gene Stansbery of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at Johnson Space Center told me today.

The U.S. Strategic Command is being circumspect as well, deferring comment to NASA and to Roscosmos, Russia's space agency.

---

The most that can be said about the impact zone right now is that it will be somewhere between 51.4 degrees north and 51.4 degrees south latitude. That's a swath of the planet that stretches from Calgary, Alberta (or Ghent, Belgium) in the north to the Falkland Islands in the south and takes in the vast majority of the world's population. Satellite-watcher Marco Langbroek reports on the See-Sat-L discussion forum that the predicted time of re-entry is Jan. 13, plus or minus 11 days. A couple of weeks ago, Roscosmos estimated that re-entry would come sometime between Jan. 6 and 19.

Typically, the projected area of the debris zone can't be narrowed down until hours before re-entry, if then. It's possible that RIA-Novosti picked up on a prediction that was centered around a precise time and place of re-entry, but left out the part about the plus-or-minus uncertainty. (You can see where Phobos-Grunt is right now by checking the Heavens-Above website.)

The spacecraft was launched from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 9 local time, and was supposed to leave Earth orbit hours later for the trip to Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons. Along the way, it would have deployed a Chinese mini-probe in Martian orbit. If everything went well, the $165 million Phobos-Grunt mission would have brought a sample of Phobos soil back to Earth in 2014. ("Phobos-Grunt," or the more correctly transliterated "Fobos-Grunt," is Russian for "Phobos-Soil.")

Everything didn't go well, as we now know: The spacecraft's upper-stage thrusters didn't fire, and it's been stuck in Earth orbit ever since. This month, Russian officials finally gave up on attempts to revive the craft and admitted that it would fall to its destruction next month.

Most of the spacecraft's mass consists of the toxic propellants it would have used to get to Phobos. There's also a small amount of radioactive cobalt-57 that was meant to power a spectrometer. The Russians say that the fuel will burn up in Earth's atmosphere, and that the cobalt won't pose a contamination threat.

Twenty to 30 parts from the probe with a total weight of up to 440 pounds (200 kilograms) are expected to survive the plunge. One of those parts could be the sample return capsule, which is designed to withstand the intense heat of atmospheric re-entry. David Warmflash, the principal investigator for one of the mission's experiments, said "it is quite possible" that his team's LIFE capsule will make it back to Earth intact.  

If it lands in Afghanistan, the chances of recovery might be poor, given the proximity to a war zone. But if it lands in the ocean, which is currently the likeliest scenario, the chances aren't any better. Over the past few months, two other high-profile satellites — NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite and Germany's ROSAT space telescope — fell through the atmosphere over the South Pacific and the Bay of Bengal, respectively, and no trace of them was ever found.

More about Phobos-Grunt and other falls to Earth:

• Mars probe to crash to Earth in January
• Russian leader suggests punishing space failures
• Skywatcher snaps photos of stranded probe
• Christmas Eve fireball sparked by Russian rocket debris
• Russian communications satellite falls after launch

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

A low-level electric current running through domed-shaped metallic structures in the waters off Bali is giving a jolt to coral reef survival there, according to news reports.

The Biorock technology is seen by some conservationists as a means to repair coral reefs damaged by years of destructive cyanide and dynamite fishing practices, as well as steadily warming oceans.

---

Warming oceans are a threat to the reefs since they result in more frequent episodes of coral bleaching, a phenomenon when higher temperatures cause photosynthetic algae that provide corals with food and color to leave, turning the corals white.

Without food for a sustained period of time, the corals will die. A coral bleaching event in 1998 killed one sixth of the world's tropical reefs. 

Biorock technology builds from the late German marine architect Wolf Hibertz's discovery in the 1970s that electrified metallic structures cause dissolved minerals in the water to crystallize on them.

This grows "into a white limestone similar to that which naturally makes up coral reefs and tropical white sand beaches," the Global Coral Reef Alliance explains.  

Marine life including corals and oysters colonize this limestone.

"Corals grow two to six times faster. We are able to grow back reefs in a few years," Thomas J. Goreau, a marine biologist who is leading the development of the technology, told AFP.

Goreau is president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, a U.S.-based non-profit dedicated to the protection, preservation, and sustainable management of coral reefs. 

Bali success
The alliance today works with organizations around the world to implement the Biorock technology, including a 20-year-long project in Pemuteran Bay off the north coast of Bali.

Today there are about 60 of the electrified metallic cages in the bay, creating a coral reef there that is "flourishing better than ever before," AFP reports.

What's more, researchers overseeing the project say that the Biorock technology makes the corals more resistant to global warming.

"Biorock is the only method known that protects corals from dying from high temperatures. We get from 16 to 50 times higher survival of corals from severe bleaching," Goreau told AFP.

These restored reefs in turn attract fish and tourists.

Technology limits?
While the technology is useful for small areas, the scale of coral bleaching is just too large for it to be a cost-effective solution, Rod Salm, a coral reef specialist with The Nature Conservancy, told the Associated Press in a 2007 story about Biorock technology.

A more effective method of saving reefs from mass coral bleaching may be large marine protected areas that offer plenty of shade and cooler waters for the reefs, Salm noted in a 2010 blog post for Nature.

But at the small scale, at least, Goreau argues that Biorock is more cost-effective than other solutions. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently touted the successful recovery of 376 square feet of coral in Florida that was damaged when a boat ran aground in 2002. 

With $56,671 in settlement funds, the government agency attached corals to a special cement that hardens underwater. By 2010, the restored reef was healthier than an adjacent undamaged section.

Goreau issued a press release countering the agency's success story saying that his Biorock technology is more cost effective. Based on the settlement funds used for the restoration, the government project cost $1,622 per square foot. Biorock technology can be used to grow six foot tall reef structures for $13 to $20 per square foot, he claims.

The technology will be featured in One Day on Earth, a television program sponsored by the United Nations, in early 2012. You can check it out in the video below.

More on coral reef damage and restoration:

• Coral reefs built with current, the electric kind
• Damaged Florida Keys coral reefs make amazing recovery
• Great Barrier Reef corals frozen for future conservation
• Hawaii protecting coral reefs with huge fines
• Concrete orbs become Caribbean reefs

---

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

 

If anyone questioned whether Comet Lovejoy would become the star of the season — and a lot of people did — the pictures of the past few days have removed any doubt. In the Southern Hemisphere, the death-defying comet is truly this year's "Star of Wonder."

---

Not only do we have an amazing video of the long-tailed iceball rising from the horizon, as seen from the International Space Station, we also have the stunning pictures and video released today by the European Southern Observatory. Skywatchers at the ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile captured the comet against the glittering backdrop of the Milky Way.

"For me, this comet is a Christmas present to the people who will stay at Paranal over Christmas," said Guillaume Blanchard, who snapped a picture of dawn at Paranal with the Milky Way and Lovejoy dominating the sky.

Gabriel Brammer put together a time-lapse sequence of the comet rising just before the sun. For devotees of the night sky, it's the latest must-see video. The clip also features the pencil-thin laser beam that Paranal's Very Large Telescope uses as a guide star for its astronomical observations. Expand the video to full screen to increase the awesomeness.

"With this spectacular sequence of the 2011 Christmas Comet Lovejoy, ESO would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," the observatory's staff says in today's image advisory.

Amen to that!

More about Comet Lovejoy:

• 'Amazing' view of comet from space
• Lovely Lovejoy! Comet shot at sunrise
• Sun rips comet's tail during close encounter
• Still more pictures from IceinSpace.com.au

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

One of the most enjoyable parts of Santa's job must be to see the world from on high on Christmas Eve — but thanks to the astronauts on the International Space Station, we can get a similar view on video. Over the past year, the space station's night flights have produced some fantastic pictures of city lights and auroral displays. This video puts together some of the latest clips posted to NASA's Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

You're actually looking at five time-lapse clips, strung together for a west-to-east journey:

---

• The first five seconds are from a trip heading up the U.S. East Coast on Dec. 11, with bright city lights strung up all the way from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Washington. You'll notice a green auroral glow in the upper left corner.

• The northern lights are the main attraction in the clip running from 0:05 to 0:25. This was the view looking north on Dec. 11 as the station was heading from Nova Scotia to northern Italy.

• Our virtual sleigh travels over Africa, Europe and Asia from 0:25 to 0:50, with the camera pointed toward the northeast. Among the sights from Dec. 4 are the Iberian Peninsula and north Africa, England and France, the Baltic Sea, Moscow and central Russia, and atmospheric airglow that gives way to the beginnings of sunrise in the east. Once again, there's a taste of northern lights in the upper left corner.

• The next clip, from 0:50 to 1:13, chronicles an Oct. 21 pass that begins at the coast of France and heads right across Europe. A couple of lightning flashes can be seen over Italy, then the space station makes its way across Turkey and onward to the Arabian Peninsula.

• My favorite part of the trip runs from 1:13 to the end, and takes in a swath of our planet from Central Asia to South Australia. This video was assembled from pictures taken during the space station's night flight on Oct. 29. Here's how the folks at NASA's Johnson Space Center describe the view:

"The video begins just northwest of the Tibetan Plateau, where the greenish glow is from airglow. The line separating the plateau and the city lights to the right of track are the Himalaya Mountains, with cities like New Delhi, Lahore, and Islamabad standing out. Continuing down track, one can spot the brightly lit city of Calcutta just right of track before flying over Burma and Thailand. Thailand's capital city, Bangkok, is the brightest-lit city in the video. The white lights of the city can be seen nearby the green and purple lights on the Gulf of Thailand, which are fishing boats and oil rigs. Once across the Gulf of Thailand, cities like Kuala Lumpur and Singapore stand out right of track before flying over the island of Java (long, thin island downtrack from Singapore). Near the end of the video the ISS flies southeast over Australia and lightning storms, and the Milky Way can be seen rising in the sky."

There's no soundtrack for the video, but feel free to play Christmas music in the background. You could fire up some "Space Age Santa Claus," or take a listen to the first live music broadcast from orbit: "Jingle Bells." Archive.org has the audio recording from 1965's Gemini 7/6 mission. The harmonica and jingling bells come in around 2:10 in the clip.

And now for something completely different: Check out this sleigh ride over Mars:

Looking for more night flyovers? Here's a sampling:

• 'Amazing' view of comet from space
• The best of NASA's night lights
• See the world from space ... in 60 seconds
• Fly over the southern lights in the space station

And if there's anything you've missed from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, here's your chance to catch up. We'll present our final image from the calendar on Christmas Day:

• The full Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Dec. 1: An ornament in outer space
• Dec. 2: The masses in Mecca
• Dec. 3: Santa's shrinking domain
• Dec. 4: The monster of Madagascar
• Dec. 5: Antarctica stripped naked
• Dec. 6: Streaking for home
• Dec. 7: Pearl Harbor from above, 1941-2011
• Dec. 8: The rise and fall of the Dead Sea
• Dec. 9: How an eclipse dims Earth
• Dec. 10: Psychedelic storm
• Dec. 11: Beauty of the Inland Sea
• Dec. 12: Drone-spotting stirs up debate
• Dec. 13: Light up your St. Lucy's Day
• Dec. 14: Satellite spots Chinese aircraft carrier
• Dec. 15: Hooray for Hollywood
• Dec. 16: Olympics under construction
• Dec. 17: Mystery in the Gobi Desert
• Dec. 18: Glow over Miami
• Dec. 19: North Korea's dark ages
• Dec. 20: Happy Hanukkah from space
• Dec. 21: Season's tiltings
• Dec. 22: Circle of power
• Dec. 23: North Pole revealed
• Hubble calendar, from The Atlantic's In Focus
• 2011 Zooniverse Advent calendar

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.  

Gadgets are great. We're enticed to buy new ones every few years. Sometimes that's because the new features are too awesome to resist, but other times we're simply buying replacements. As cool as gadgets are, they are prone to break and hard, if not impossible, to repair.

That frustration of throwing away perfectly good technology just because it doesn't work may be history, thanks to a "self-healing" electronics developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.

---

This system restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink, the university reports. It does this with tiny microcapsules on top of a gold line functioning as a circuit in a chip.

"As a crack propagates, the microcapsules break open and release the liquid metal contained inside. The liquid metal fills the gap in the circuit, restoring electrical flow," reads a new release on the technology.

While this technology could find a home in gadgets, the reality is you'll still want to replace them every few years to take advantage of technological leaps. But for other uses, such a ship en route to Mars, self-healing electronics could be a life saver.

For more information, check out the news release on the study reported in the journal Advanced Materials as well as the video above with lead author Scott White, a professor of aerospace engineering.

More on self-healing tech:

• Fix scratches in a flash, literally
• Metals with memory could fix dents
• Self-healing car coating repairs scratches
• Bendy antennas could reshape electronics

---

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

 

Last updated noon ET Dec. 27:

Italian researchers have resurrected the idea that the Shroud of Turin's mysterious image of a Christlike figure could only have been created by a powerful flash of light — but skeptics still aren't buying it.

Scientists have tussled with believers, and with each other, over the origins of the centuries-old cloth for decades: Many believers think it's the true image of Jesus, left behind miraculously on his burial cloths after his resurrection. Analyses of the Shroud's chemical makeup, as well as radiocarbon dating of fiber samples, have led lots of researchers to conclude that the image was painted onto the cloth during the 14th century. But other researchers, sympathetic to the Shroud's cause, say those tests were faulty.

---

The Italian studies, conducted at the ENEA Research Center in Frascati, addresses a specific question in Shroud science: Could a burst of radiation have created the coloration seen on the linen? The answer is yes, although the results reported in the latest studies aren't a perfect match. So does that mean the Shroud image could only have been created by the flash of a miraculous resurrection? The answer is no, despite what you might read on the Web.

Five years of tests
"Sadly, we have seen many claims spread in the Web made by journalist/bloggers that discuss the content of a paper they never read," lead researcher Paolo Di Lazzaro told me today in an email. "It is obvious that a serious scientific work cannot prove any supernatural action. We have shown that the most advanced technology available today is unable to replicate all the characteristics of the Shroud image. As a consequence, we may argue it appears unlikely a forger may have done this image with technologies available in the Middle Ages or earlier. The probability the Shroud is a medieval fake is really low. In this sense, the Shroud image is still a scientific challenge."

Di Lazzaro and his colleagues based their conclusions on five years of tests, using an ultraviolet laser apparatus and strips of modern-day linen. They blasted the cloth with UV at different power levels, and reported that they "achieved a very superficial Shroud-like coloration of linen yarns in a narrow range of irradiation parameters." The best effect depended on laser pulses lasting less than 50 nanoseconds.

"These processes may have played a role in the generation of the body image on the Shroud of Turin," the researchers report.

They don't go so far as to claim a miracle. But the fact that UV laser blasters didn't exist in the 13th century, let alone in Jesus' day, strongly implies that they suspect something out of the ordinary was going on.

Di Lazzaro told me that the tests were not financed by ENEA, which is a government-sponsored research agency, and were conducted outside working hours. "The research was curiosity-driven, the attempt to replicate an image which is considered 'the impossible image' due to its very peculiar characteristics," he said.

Over the years, Di Lazzaro and his colleagues have published a long list of studies, including peer-reviewed papers (see below). The latest studies were presented at a May conference in Frascati and published in November as an ENEA technical report (with a disclaimer saying that the contents didn't necessarily express ENEA's opinion). But they didn't really get traction until this week, just in time for Christmas, thanks to a series of sensationalized British news reports.

Critiquing Shroud science
Shroud science, also known as sindology, usually percolates outside the scientific mainstream — but every once in a while a sensational claim comes into the public spotlight. Joe Nickell, an investigator for the New York-based Center for Inquiry, has been following sindology for decades. He noted that the Italian research revives a discussion going back to the 1980s, spearheaded by a group called the Shroud of Turin Research Project, or STURP.

"This is really nothing new," Nickell told me today. "This is a supposed vindication of STURP."

Nickell said Di Lazzaro and his colleagues started out with the assumption that the coloration on the Shroud couldn't have been created by applying pigment to the linen — which runs counter to the conclusions drawn by other studies. Starting out with the idea that the human figure shown on the Shroud is an "impossible image" stacks the deck in favor of a miraculous explanation, he said.

"Making the assumption of a miracle is a really, really, really, really, really big assumption," Nickell said. "That it's done in the name of science is just astonishing."

Nickell said the latest findings don't prove much of anything, even though they're dressed up in high-tech tests.

"It is made up of whole cloth," he said. "The pro-Shroud people start with the answer, and then they have to get some scientific evidence to back this up."

Some folks would suggest that the Shroud of Turin is a valuable focus for faith, whether it's real or not. What do you think? How much value is there in studying the Shroud, and how much impact do scientifico-religious debates like this one have on your own thinking? Check out the Web links below, give it some thought, and add your comments.

Update for 4:15 p.m. ET Dec. 22: Di Lazzaro sent a follow-up email calling attention to his group's publications, which I've added below, and he poses this question for Joe Nickell: "Was he (or anybody else) able to reproduce by chemical paint, acid and any other color a depth of coloration which is 0.2 micrometer thick (that is, one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter)? We are talking of this, because on the Shroud, the image has a coloration depth so thin that it is impossible to do with any kind of painting. I can quote peer-reviewed papers that show this is the coloration depth of the Shroud image.

"By the way, Nickell will be interested to know that using VUV photons we obtained this shallow coloration thickness," Di Lazzaro wrote.

I'll pass the question along to Nickell, who says he doesn't use email. I suspect the answer could go along two tracks: One is that it's a tough thing to try to reproduce a precise coloration depth under any circumstances. The other is that centuries of wear and tear might have had an effect that's not easily replicated by the contemporary application of pigments or other chemicals. But we'll see what Nickell has to say.

Update for 2:15 p.m. ET Dec. 23: Nickell responded to Di Lazzaro's question, and added a couple of questions of his own:

"Paolo Di Lazzaro claims the Turin 'Shroud' coloration depth is 0.2 micrometers, but surely he does not claim that that was uniformly measured throughout the cloth. The coloration indeed appears to be generally confined to the topmost fibrils (although the face image does show faintly on the back of the cloth). Using a two-part hypothesis I put forward in 1983, Italian chemist Luigi Garlaschelli has produced a replica shroud with such superficial staining. So let me ask Lazzaro a question in turn: Have you been able, using your high-intensity ultraviolet laser technique, to produce a replica shroud yourself? Until you do, shouldn’t you stop slashing carelessly with Occam’s razor?"

Here's a 2009 Reuters report about the Garlaschelli replica.

Update for 3:50 p.m. ET Dec. 26: Di Lazzaro sent this response to Nickell's questions via email:

"In 1978, several sticky tapes were used to sample the Shroud in different points of the body image. When the image fibers were pulled out of the adhesive, their colored coatings had been stripped off the fiber and remained in the adhesive. These coatings were independently analyzed by Profs. Alan Adler and Ray Rogers, and all of them were too thin to measure accurately with a standard optical microscope. This means the thickness of all coatings was smaller than the visible light wavelength, say thinner than 0.6 micrometer.

"Recently, these results have been confirmed by a direct measurement of another fiber, showing the thickness of the colored coating around the fiber is about 0.2 micrometer. As a consequence, there is quite a good probability most of the image fibers throughout the body image have a coloration depth smaller than 0.6 micrometers.

"Prof. Garlaschelli claimed he obtained 'a superficial coloration' without mentioning 'how much' superficial. Is it 100 micrometers thick? 10 micrometers? One micrometer? Nobody knows. I asked chemists [who are] colleagues at ENEA, and they told me it is impossible to obtain a coloration depth smaller than 10 to 20 micrometers with the chemicals used by Prof. Garlaschelli. This fact alone means the results of Garlaschelli are not comparable with the Shroud image.  Mr. Nickell may be interested to know Prof. Garlaschelli refused to reply the letter sent to the editor of JIST (the journal that published his results) where several points of his work were criticized, including the lack of a measurement of the coloration depth.

"Coming to the question of Mr. Nickell: We never claimed to have reproduced the whole Shroud image. We were interested to gain a deeper insight into the physical and chemical processes that generated such an unusual image. And we were successful to find photochemistry processes that are able to generate a Shroud-like coloration of linen fibers.

"Concerning Occam's razor, I am a scientist, and when I wish to understand a phenomenon, seeking for a scientific explanation, I use microscopes, spectrometers, image detectors and other laboratory tools. I see Mr. Nickell prefers using philosophical instruments like the medieval Occam's razor, a theory proposed in the 14th century. Each of us is free to choose the most familiar tool to find answers."

Update for noon ET Dec. 27: And Nickell responds...

"Di Lazzaro equates the depth of colored coatings that were stripped from surface fibers (using adhesive tape) with the depth of penetration that might be determined by cross-sectioning of actual threads, then asserts that a single fiber’s examination (still apparently not cross-sectioned) has 'confirmed' the dubious claims. Given the tremendous evidence against the 'shroud' — its incompatibility with Jewish burial practices, lack of historical record, bishop's report of the forger’s confession, the still-bright-red 'blood' which failed forensic serological tests, the presence of pigments and paints throughout the image, three laboratories' radiocarbon dating of the cloth to the time of the confession (1260–1390), and much additional evidence — it would seem that Di Lazzaro is straining at a gnat and attempting to swallow a camel. Let him produce a shroudlike image according to whatever theory he can muster, and we'll talk again."

The chatter on the Shroud:

• ENEA: Shroud-like coloration of linen fabrics by vacuum UV radiation
• Int'l Workshop on the Scientific Approach to Acheiropoietos Images
• Telegraph: Study claims Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe
• Daily Mail: The Turin Shroud DOES have miraculous powers
• The Independent: Scientists say Shroud is supernatural
• Center for Inquiry: Turin 'Shroud' called 'supernatural'
• Telegraph: The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it

Earlier tales of the Shroud of Turin:

• Documentary looks at the face in the Shroud
• 'Jesus-era' cloth casts doubt on Turin Shroud 
• Could new test settle Shroud of Turin debate?
• Public gets a look at the Shroud of Turin

Journal references from Paolo Di Lazzaro:

Peer reviewed Journals:
G. Baldacchini, P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, G. Fanti: “Coloring linens with excimer lasers to simulate the body image of the Turin Shroud” Applied Optics vol. 47, 1278-1283 (2008).

P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, A. Santoni, G. Fanti, E. Nichelatti, G. Baldacchini: “Deep Ultraviolet radiation simulates the Turin Shroud image” Journal of Imaging Science and Technology vol. 54, 040302-(6) (2010).

Conference Proceedings
P. Di Lazzaro, G. Baldacchini, G. Fanti, D. Murra, E. Nichelatti, A. Santoni: “A physical hypothesis on the origin of the body image embedded into the Turin Shroud” Proceedings of the Int. Conf. on The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma, edited by G. Fanti (Edizioni Libreria Progetto Padova 2009) pp. 116 – 125. ISBN 978-88-96477-03-08 01-12.

P. Di Lazzaro, G. Baldacchini, G. Fanti, D. Murra, A. Santoni: “Colouring fabrics with excimer lasers to simulate encoded images: the case of the Shroud of Turin”, XVIII Int. Symposium on Gas Flow, Chemical Lasers, High-Power Lasers, edited by R. Vilar, Proceedings SPIE vol. 7131 (2009) pp. 71311R-1 – 71311R-6.

P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, A. Santoni, G.- Baldacchini: “Sub-micrometer coloration depth of linens by vacuum ultraviolet radiation”, Proc. International Workshop on the Scientific approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, edited by P. Di Lazzaro (2010) pp. 3 – 10.

D. Murra, P. Di Lazzaro: “Sight and brain, an introduction to the visually misleading images”, Proc. International Workshop on the Scientific approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, edited by P. Di Lazzaro (2010) pp. 31 – 34.

Technical Reports
G. Baldacchini, P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, G. Fanti: “Colorazione di tessuti di lino con laser ad eccimeri e confronto con l’immagine sindonica” ENEA RT/2006/70/FIM (2006).

P. Di Lazzaro: “Wissenschaftliche Hypothesen zur Entstehung des Bildes auf dem Turiner Grabtuch” 30Tagen n.4 (2010) pp. 63-66.

P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, E. Nichelatti, A. Santoni, G. Baldacchini: “Colorazione similsindonica di tessuti di lino tramite radiazione nel lontano ultravioletto: riassunto dei risultati ottenuti presso il Centro ENEA di Frascati negli anni 2005 -2010” RT/2011/14/ENEA (2011).

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

During 2011, NASA said goodbye to the Spirit Mars rover and the space shuttle program — but there's hope that during 2012, new players will strut their stuff on the space effort's huge stage, stretching from Cape Canaveral to the Red Planet.

This is my 15th annual "Year in Space" roundup, and in all those years I can't think of a starker time of transition between the year that's past and the year to come. The space shuttles are being readied for museums, and work hasn't yet started on the big rocket that NASA says it will need for the next era of human space exploration. The space agency's plans for commercializing operations in low Earth orbit could well be tied up in budgetary knots, and there are questions about how much farther its robotic Mars exploration program can go.

---

Farewells and failures, including Russia's Soyuz glitch and Phobos-Grunt gremlins, dominated the news from space over the past year.

But it's not all gloom and doom: One of NASA's Mars rovers may have given up the ghost, but the other one — Opportunity — has begin its most ambitious adventure yet, exploring the 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater on Mars. Juno, GRAIL and Mars Science Laboratory were launched toward Jupiter, the moon and Mars, respectively. Other planetary probes are purring along, all the way from Mercury to the solar system's edge.

One of the most promising frontiers for 2012 is being explored by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft: The past month has seen the unveiling of Earth-sized planets as well as a Neptune-sized planet sitting in the habitable zone around its parent star. Those alien Earths are still too hot for life, but lots of folks are speculating that we could hear about the first Earth-sized planets in an Earth-type orbit within a year or two.

Which outer-space tales has intrigued you the most over the past year, and what sounds most intriguing for the year ahead? That's what this lineup is all about. I'll list five top stories for 2011, and five top trends for 2012. You can pick your favorite using the Live Vote ballots. Who knows? Your preferences may influence my to-do list for the coming year. Take a run through our "Year in Space Pictures" slideshow to refresh your memory, then cast your vote. We'll crown the winners in an update next week.

Top stories of 2011
It's always tough to limit the list to five, so I'm including an "other" category in this bunch. Please tell me in your comments why you think I'm underplaying or missing your favorite outer-space story.

• NASA ends space shuttle program: Policymakers decided years ago that the shuttle program would have to end once the International Space Station was complete, due to safety and cost concerns. The end finally came in July. Grounding the shuttles theoretically frees up money for exploration programs that go beyond Earth orbit, but in the short term, thousands of jobs are lost. For the time being, NASA has to depend on Russia and other countries for space transport.
• Spirit rover gives up the ghost: After months of trying to re-establish contact with the six-wheeled little trouper, NASA declared that Spirit was really most sincerely dead — felled by stuck wheels and a winter freeze-up. It had a good run: Six years of operation on Mars as part of a mission that was expected to last only 90 days. The Opportunity rover soldiers on, reaching Endeavour Crater after three years of trekking. And it recently made a significant find: gypsum deposits that appear to confirm water once flowed on Mars.
• 'Hubble's successor' dodges a bullet: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope had been in danger of cancellation, but the White House and Congress worked out a deal to keep the project alive on an $8 billion budget. However, the budget negotiations dealt a heavy blow to the White House's request for commercial crew vehicle development, and there are continuing worries about other space science programs, such as the ExoMars missions that NASA is supposed to be working on with the Europeans.
• Earth-sized planets and super-Earths: As I mentioned above, the Kepler science team has been finding a bonanza of planets, including super-hot super-Earths. A parallel effort led by European astronomers is also yielding scores of promising planets. All these discoveries are providing new target lists for colleagues who have been searching for signals from intelligent aliens.
• Downers in Earth orbit: Sometimes the sky seemed to be falling in 2011. In August, an unmanned Soyuz rocket blew up after launch, sparking an investigation that might have led to the evacuation of the International Space Station. NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite fell to Earth in September, and the German-built ROSAT satellite followed in October. There was lots of hand-wringing over the potential risk from falling debris, but nobody got hurt. The glitch that affected Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe in November will eventually lead to another fall in the new year (see below).
• Other top stories: China tests orbital docking. High-profile love story focuses on congresswoman and astronaut. Alien bacterial claim causes a stir. Asteroid threat downgraded. NASA probes reach Mercury and Vesta. Other spacecraft head for Jupiter and the moon. Auroras put on spectacular shows.

Top trends of 2012
As Yogi Berra supposedly said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." I'm signaling the speculative nature of the prediction business by sprinkling a few question marks here and there:

• Commercial flights to space station? SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft is currently scheduled to link up with the International Space Station for the first time in February, potentially marking the beginning of a new age in NASA's orbital operations. Orbital Sciences is due to follow later in the year. Meanwhile, commercial ventures will be working on designs for spacecraft capable of putting astronauts in orbit by 2017 or so. How far will NASA's funding get them?
• Monster rover reaches Mars: NASA's November launch of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory could justifiably rank as one of 2011's top stories, but the real payoff comes in August, when a rocket-powered sky crane is due to drop the 1-ton, car-sized Curiosity rover onto Gale Crater's scientifically intriguing terrain. The big question is: Will that thing really work? But if the rover sets down safely on the surface, we could be in for years of stunning imagery and scientific discovery.   
• Earth's twin detected at last? As the Kepler probe takes more observations, Earth-size candidates that lie in Earth-type orbits may well be added to the list of potential planets. Further confirmation would be required to make sure the candidates are truly alien Earths, but even hints that such worlds are on the list could cause a sensation of "Avatar" proportions.
• NASA works on future course: NASA wants to go to an asteroid in the mid-2020s, and send astronauts as far as Mars in the 2030s. But there are lots of blank spaces that still need to be filled in. For example, who'll help NASA build the multibillion-dollar heavy-lift rocket that Congress mandated? What will happen to space science priorities such as Mars sample return and  proposed missions to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn? In an era of tightening budgets, how much exploration can NASA afford? Will the presidential election lead to yet another change of vision?
• SpaceShipTwo actually in space? Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, has said powered tests of the company's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane will begin in 2012, and he may well take a ride with his family as a Christmas present next year. If he sticks to that schedule, humans will ride into outer space on a privately developed rocket ship for the first time since SpaceShipOne's trips in 2004. But the tests to date have not been glitch-free, and a question mark is definitely in order.
• Other top stories: Phobos-Grunt plunges in January. Transit of Venus in June. Total solar eclipse in November. Doomsday hype in December. Solar activity rises toward maximum.

There you have it: Click on the links to get more background, weigh the field, and cast your vote. This could be more fun than the Iowa caucus, and I'm saying that as a former Hawkeye. For even more end-of-the-year musings, check out these links:

• Space.com's most memorable spaceflight stories
• Space.com's most amazing astronomy stories
• Space.com: Biggest space flops of the year
• Next steps in the new space race
• 2011: The Year in Space Pictures
• NASA: Year in Review 2011

---

For something completely different, check out my review of the year's top ancient mysteries.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Tonight is the longest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere, due to the winter solstice. The season officially changes from autumn to winter at 12:30 a.m. ET Thursday ... unless you're south of the equator. In that case, spring is turning to summer.

You probably learned in school why the seasons (and the temperatures) change during the course of the year, but in case you need a refresher on how the 23.5-degree tilt of Earth's axis affects the weather, we have the full story for you. This picture, snapped by Eumetsat's Meteosat-9 weather satellite today, shows the situation graphically.

---

Meteosat-9 is camped out in a geosynchronous orbit that puts it precisely above an equatorial point on the west coast of Africa. Every day at around 6 a.m. local time, it has a great view of the terminator line between day and night, cutting straight across Earth's disk. The slant of that line changes from day to day, due to the changing orientation of Earth's tilted axis with respect to the sun.

On the day of the December solstice, the slant is at its most extreme angle, leaving the north pole in the dark while exposing the south pole to 24 hours of daylight. That's what you're seeing in the photo above. National borders and crosshairs have been added to help you get oriented properly.

This video, put together by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, shows you how the slant changes from one September equinox to the next:

If you check out Eumetsat's near-real-time imagery from Meteosat-9 for 1 a.m. ET (06:00 GMT) Thursday, you can see the solstice effect pretty much at its peak. These pictures of the shifting seasons serve as tonight's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which has been featuring daily images of Earth from space during the run-up to Christmas. Feel free to click through these previous images in the series, and check back on Thursday for another satellite image that will take the edge off winter.

• The full Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Dec. 1: An ornament in outer space
• Dec. 2: The masses in Mecca
• Dec. 3: Santa's shrinking domain
• Dec. 4: The monster of Madagascar
• Dec. 5: Antarctica stripped naked
• Dec. 6: Streaking for home
• Dec. 7: Pearl Harbor from above, 1941-2011
• Dec. 8: The rise and fall of the Dead Sea
• Dec. 9: How an eclipse dims Earth
• Dec. 10: Psychedelic storm
• Dec. 11: Beauty of the Inland Sea
• Dec. 12: Drone-spotting stirs up debate
• Dec. 13: Light up your St. Lucy's Day
• Dec. 14: Satellite spots Chinese aircraft carrier
• Dec. 15: Hooray for Hollywood
• Dec. 16: Olympics under construction
• Dec. 17: Mystery in the Gobi Desert
• Dec. 18: Glow over Miami
• Dec. 19: North Korea's dark ages
• Dec. 20: Happy Hanukkah from space
• Hubble calendar, from The Atlantic's In Focus
• 2011 Zooniverse Advent calendar

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.