Via National Geographic: Human-Alligator Encounters Rising In Southeast U.S.

Via WIRED: In France, Push Comes to SUV:

The spokesman told Wired News that deflating SUV tires does not constitute a criminal act under the French penal code, according to legal advice the group obtained from eco-friendly attorneys who back Greenpeace and other environmental activist groups. The only legal risk they face are civil lawsuits by the SUV owners, who would have to prove property damage in a French civil court, the spokesman said.

The attacks come as SUV sales are rising in Europe. According to the Association des Constructeurs Europens d'Automobiles, Europe's leading car and truck trade association, the share of SUV registrations in European Union countries has more than doubled, from 3.2 percent in 1998 to 6.5 percent at the end of last year.

Sales are flourishing amid gas prices that would shock most Americans. In France, for example, before prices began to go up last week in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, you could easily pay $6.60 per gallon of gas. At that rate, it would cost more than $210 to fill up a Hummer H2 SUV and drive it 310 miles, based on the manufacturer's published range at 30 to 40 miles per hour on a hard surface and rolling terrain.

Also via WIRED: Butterfly Wings on Every Eyelid:

[...] But next year, L'Oreal officials say the company will release cosmetics that use chemistry and light instead of the pigments, waxes and oils, used in lower-tech offerings.

L'Oreal is working on lip, eye and nail color that it claims will give customers surrealistic effects they could never obtain with traditional makeup. [...]

Creatures like winged insects and peacocks use chemistry to produce color for various reasons. A bright blue morpho butterfly might use the effect to be visible to its peers from far away, while another creature might employ it as a type of camouflage.

[...] Nature achieves this color effect in several ways. One is by layering uniform-sized troughs of air between a clear, protein-packed material -- often referred to as cuticle -- which makes up things like an insect's wings. When white light waves hit the various parts of the cuticle, they interfere with each other as they pass through it at various angles. The result can be a variety of brilliant colors that may change depending on your point of view.

A stack of cuticle layers 80 nanometers high will yield blue, while one of 120 nanometers will yield red, Vukusic said. Each material must have a different refractive index, which refers to the speed at which light travels through something, in order for the effect to work, he said.

To re-create the brilliant colors that appear in nature, scientists vary the thickness of nano-scale layers of material like mica, liquid crystals or silica, Pineau said.

The makeup will appear white in the packaging, Pineau said, so products will have to be labeled to let customers know how they'll look on various skin tones when they're applied. Once applied and exposed to light, vibrant color will show and change depending on the angle from which it's viewed.

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