Scientists race to build smallest 'car'

Scientists at Rice University, Houston, have zoomed ahead in the race to build the smallest "car" - a very small moving object that has applications only at the molecular level.
The "nanocar" resembles the average automobile only in shape as it measures only three by four nanometres - so small that a million of them parked bumper to tail may just be barely visible to the naked eye.
A human hair, by comparison, is about 80,000 nanometres in diameter. The nanocar, however, has a rolling movement like a car.
The innovation is described in a research paper that is to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters.
"The synthesis and testing of nanocars and other molecular machines is providing critical insight in our investigations of bottom-up molecular manufacturing," said James M Tour, one of the two lead researchers.
"We'd eventually like to move objects and do work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale, and these vehicles are great test beds for that. They're helping us learn the ground rules," a university press release quoted Tour as saying.
Other research groups have created nanoscale objects that are shaped like automobiles, but study co-author Kevin F. Kelly said Rice's vehicle is the first that actually functions like a car, rolling on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles.
Kelly and his group, experts in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), provided the measurements and experimental evidence that verified the rolling movement.
"It's fairly easy to build nanoscale objects that slide around on a surface," Kelly said. "Proving that we were rolling - not slipping and sliding - was one of the most difficult parts of this project."
To do that Kelly and graduate student Andrew Osgood measured the movement of the nanocars across a gold surface. To prove that the cars were rolling rather than sliding, Kelly and Osgood took STM images every minute and watched the cars progress.
Because nanocars' axles are slightly longer than the wheelbase - the distance between axles - they could determine the way the cars were oriented and whether they moved perpendicular to the axles.
The Rice team has already followed up the nanocar work by designing a light-driven nanocar and a nanotruck capable of carrying a payload.

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Self-defense backfires for Iraqi politician

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Politics is a deadly business in Iraq
with public figures in constant fear of assassination or kidnap, but self-defense measures backfired on one member of parliament Tuesday.
Police reported a Sunni Arab lawmaker from northern Nineveh province had been wounded in an attack.
But his party leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi, told Reuters: "Hashim Yahya al-Taee was not the victim of an assassination attempt. He was shot in the leg as he was cleaning his pistol."

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All tradition, no bikinis for Mayan beauty queens

COBAN, Guatemala - Pretty young women sashay across stage, thoughtfully answer questions and perform dances but the Rabin Ajaw pageant, which picks Guatemala's Maya Indian beauty queen, is no typical beauty contest

Instead of bikinis and high heels, the 78 female contestants dress in traditional Mayan knee or calf-length skirts, headdresses and shawls embroidered with flowers and animals.

Parading on a stage that was covered in pine needles, some contestants carried woven baskets or ceremonial candles from their home regions. Others bore corn stalks, carved gourds, fresh fish or a copy of the Popol Vuh, the Mayan holy book.

During a four-day festival in the city of Coban that ended Sunday with a traditional feast of turkey leg soup and spicy chili, the girls gave speeches in their native languages for judges to select one Rabin Ajaw, or "daughter of the king."

The judging is based on contestants' knowledge of Mayan culture and the beauty of their costumes. Some used the stage at the often solemn six-hour pageant to highlight racism against indigenous groups, which account for more than half of Guatemala's population but suffer the highest levels of poverty and have little access to political power.

This year's winner, Mariana Sales Jacinto, 21, spoke in her native Mam language about environmental damage caused by international companies that exploit resources on lands traditionally used for agriculture.

Jacinto won $1,000 and a trip to south Florida to visit a community of Guatemalans in exile who left during country's civil war.

PAGEANT CONTROVERSY

Critics say the pageant, sponsored this year by Coca-Cola, a film company and Domino's Pizza, offends Mayan culture by turning it into a tourist attraction.

"This folklore festival is a violation of young rural indigenous women because all that is important is their outfits, their dances and the color of their skin," said anthropologist Irma Alicia Velasquez.

Maya Indians bore the brunt of Guatemala's 36-year civil war between leftist guerrillas and government forces. About 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, most of them from poor indigenous villages.

A series of dictatorships and military-backed governments supported the pageant in the 1980s even as they used brutal anti-insurgency tactics. Villages in the lush green mountains near Coban suffered some of the worst massacres of the war.

"The festival was founded and financed by the military that used the event as a strategy to display Indians as submissive," Velasquez said.

Although the war ended in 1996 and Guatemala now holds democratic elections, most indigenous areas still are locked in poverty with poor education and health services.

But for those hoping to win the heavy silver crown festooned with the long green feathers of the national Quetzal bird, the Rabin Ajaw is a way to revive interest in cultures that were nearly wiped off the map.

"This is an important event to show indigenous women can succeed and go far in this world," said Delfina Cuc Bac, an 18-year-old contestant from the Alta Verapaz region. "We want to show our traditional dresses but also everything they represent."

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What could possibly go wrong?

LONDON - British police have condemned a role-playing game where contestants travel all over London armed with water pistols looking to "assassinate" other players, saying it could spark terrorism alerts.

"StreetWars," which is described on its Web site as a "three-week long, 24/7, water gun assassination tournament," begins Tuesday in the British capital.
The game, which has taken place in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Vienna, involves players hunting down targets whose details they have been given and then squirting them with water to eliminate them.
But angry police say the appearance of people behaving suspiciously, armed with what could look like real guns, risked sparking major alerts in a city where four suicide bombers attacked the transport system last year, killing 52 commuters.
"The sight of people carrying what appears to be a firearm on the London Underground system one year after the tragic events of July 2005 will cause passengers and staff genuine fear," British Transport Police said in a statement.
They warned they would come down hard on any players who caused trouble.
London's Scotland Yard also said the game could divert essential resources.
"A seemingly innocent bit of fun can escalate with armed officers responding to what potentially is reported as a life-threatening situation," a spokesman said.

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