VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin's Latin American trip took an odd turn in Cuba earlier this week. After searching for ways that Moscow could help clean up the mess that Hurricanes Gustav and Ike left behind, the two countries had a more lofty goal to discuss: building a Cuban space center.

Yes, really. Though the details are unclear, Russia and its famed Cold War ally discussed the possibility of sharing technology to build Cuba's space program. Russia's Federal Space Agency issued a press release officially announcing the intent to collaborate this morning (sorry, it's in Russian).

Imagery of Cuba and Russia collaborating on anything that flies, of course, conjures up alarmingly unpleasant memories. Too bad the bargaining doesn't end there. After Havana, Sechin took off for Venezuela, where Russia is looking to close a deal to sell fighter jets and air defense systems to President Hugo Chávez after joint military exercises last week.

Just like the Cold War days, get used to Russia reaching for the stars.

FILE; JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

There's a fascinating article in today's New York Times about India's controversial practice of using electronic brain scans for lie-detection in interrogation. Two Indian states have been using electroencephalograms (EEGs) to interrogate criminal suspects since 2006, but this summer was the first time a judge handed down a conviction based on the data. Here's how the procedure works:

This latest Indian attempt at getting past criminals’ defenses begins with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, in which electrodes are placed on the head to measure electrical waves. The suspect sits in silence, eyes shut. An investigator reads aloud details of the crime — as prosecutors see it — and the resulting brain images are processed using software built in Bangalore.

The software tries to detect whether, when the crime’s details are recited, the brain lights up in specific regions — the areas that, according to the technology’s inventors, show measurable changes when experiences are relived, their smells and sounds summoned back to consciousness. The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between people’s memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed.

Based on this scan, a woman who claims to be innocent was convicted in June of poisoning her fiancé.

Neuroscientists have widely condemned this application of EEGs, which has not been sufficiently peer-reviewed to have gained wide acceptance. It's not too far-fetched, though, to see it as the future of criminal investigation. Officials from Singapore and Israel have expressed interest in the Indian program and similar procedures have been developed in the United States.

Before we condemn India for using such an unproven technology in murder trials, it's worth pointing out that U.S. law enforcement agencies still regularly administer polygraph tests even though the Supreme Court ruled them unreliable a decade ago. And of course, there's bullet lead analysis, which the FBI used for four decades before it was discredited.

Let's just be sure these new technologies really work this time around before we start putting them in front of juries.

Lara Tomlin for FP

If global warming, weapons of mass destruction, or an asteroid eliminate human life on Earth, all will not be lost. Stephen Colbert's DNA will be there to save the human species.

Next month, a digitized copy of Colbert's DNA will be sent to the International Space Station as part of "Operation Immortality," a project of video game designer Richard Garriott. In the event that humans cease to exist, aliens can use the DNA to resurrect Homo sapiens.

Colbert, the satirist who was the winning write-in candidate in FP's "World's Top Public Intellectuals" poll, says he is now even closer to his "lifelong dream" of being the floating fetus at the end of the 1968 science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Next Wednesday, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland will switch on the $6 billion Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer particle accelerator that will create physical conditions that haven't existed in the universe since the big bang. It all sounds totally awesome, unless you're one of the very few people who think that the LHC will create a black hole that will expand to consume the planet.

Opponents of the LHC have filed suits in Hawaii and the European Court of Human Rights seeking to prevent the historic experiment, but it's highly unlikely that the court will take action. Scientists involved in the project have also been receiving death threats.

According to a newly released report, naturally occuring cosmic rays regularly produce more powerful collisions than the LHC, so the fact that we're even alive to worry about this is a good sign. Cory Doctorow quotes one physicist saying, "Look, it's a 10^-19 chance, and you've got a 10^-11 chance of suddenly evaporating while shaving."

So we can be pretty confident that the end of the world is not coming next Wednesday. But just in case, it's been great blogging for you all.

(Hat tip: Chris Blattman)

Unsworn Industries

If you've ever had a burning desire to have your voice projected through a megaphone in Norway, today is your last chance.

This summer, a group of artists erected a 23-foot-tall, wind-powered "telemegaphone" on top of a mountain in western Norway that overlooks the village of Dale and a scenic fjord. Dial 47 90 369389, and your voice will be projected through the telemegaphone and across the scenic Nordic landscape. Sing, yell, yodel, pontificate. Better yet, play a concerto.

Today's the last day, however. Tomorrow, Sept. 6, the telemegaphone is being turned off -- deer season is commencing.

What do you do when you're an international pariah dependent on foreign food aid to feed a starving population? Why, develop a "special noodle" that delays feelings of hunger, of course!

Choson Shinbo, a pro-Pyongyang Japanese newspaper, reports that Kim Jong Il's new noodles, which pack more protein and fat than normal noodles, will be available soon:

When you consume ordinary noodles (made from wheat or corn), you may soon feel your stomach empty. But this soybean noodle delays such a feeling of hunger," it said on its website.

While it's nice to see North Korean scientists working on something other than nuclear weapons, a "special noodle" alone isn't going to solve the country's food crisis. It is fitting that, instead of tackling the root causes of the food shortage, the country instead found a superficial means to delay hunger.

To delve further into the mind of North Korea's Dear Leader, check out
"The Secret History of Kim Jong Il" in FP's Sept./Oct. issue, as well as the accompanying photo essay: "Inside the World of Kim Jong Il." (The former requires a subscription and the latter is free.)

NASA/Newsmakers

With the space shuttle set to retire in 2010, and its replacement not ready until 2015, the United States had been planning on hitchhiking to the International Space Station for a few years. That may be a bit of a problem now, as the one country with the ability to transport to and from the station turns out to be -- you guessed it -- Russia.

Beyond the rising rhetorical showdown between the two sides, there's also a legal roadblock that may prevent further space cooperation with Russia. The United States needs to negotiate a new contract with the Russian space program, which may be difficult because Congress must first pass a waiver to a 2000 law banning government contracts with states who supported nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. That includes -- you guessed it -- Russia.

In an election year with an increasingly bellicose Moscow, that's "almost impossible," says Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a supporter of the waiver who admits America is stuck between a rock and a hard place:

It is a lose-lose situation," Nelson said.

"If our relationship with Russia is strained, who knows if Russia will give us rides in the future?" Nelson asked. "Or if they give us rides, will they charge such an exorbitant price that it becomes blackmail?"

Still, who knows what relations with Russia will be like in 2010? Even if the Cold War is truly back, that doesn't necessarily spell the end of U.S.-Soviet -- er, Russian -- space cooperation. A lot could change in the next few years.

The September cover of Esquire is going to be pretty cool. An electronic ink diplay, built on the same technology that E Ink used in the Amazon Kindle, will flash the words "the 21st Century Begins." The logistics of pulling of this feat are a story in globalization:

First Esquire had to make a six-figure investment to hire an engineer in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the magazine cover. The batteries and the display case are manufactured and put together in China. They are shipped to Texas and on to Mexico, where the device is inserted by hand into each magazine. The issues will then be shipped via trucks, which will be refrigerated to preserve the batteries, to the magazine's distributor in Glazer, Ky.

So, has the magical world of Harry Potter and its animated Daily Prophet sprung into being? Esquire Editor-in-Chief David Granger sees a bright future for e-ink:

Pointing to the prototype sitting on a conference room table, Mr. Granger said, "The possibilities of print have just begun. In two years, I hope this looks like cellphones did in 1982, or car phones."

Alternatively, it could look a lot like this.

In some ways, the iPhone is a step backward for Japan, where the masses are accustomed to using their mobile phones for everything from watching television to buying Royal Milk Tea from vending machines. But the iPhone 2.0's lack of such modern conveniences failed to deter the more than 1,000 people who waited patiently overnight outside the Softbank Mobile store in Tokyo to get their hands on Apple's latest device for the first time. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, the richest man in Japan, hailed it as "a historic day."

It's hard to tell from the photo below, but it looks like this guy is so excited, he's made himself an iPhone hat. Either that, or he's wearing a visor and leaning against a very clean glass window:

A great post on Neatorama lists the 10 strangest anti-terrorism patents you'll ever see. Among them are an airplane trap door (shown above), a railroad missile launcher and -- best of all -- a biohazard suit with a built-in toilet. We'll hopefully never see any of this stuff in action, but during the final year of a second-term president with dismal approval ratings? Stranger things have happened.

Bhutan -- Land of the Thunder Dragon -- is on the cutting edge when it comes to postage stamps. It has a stamp on a CD-ROM, roughly 4 inches in diameter, seen in this image. The CD plays a video on the history of the country's kings. Other philatelic highlights from Bhutan include 3-D stamps and scented stamps, as well as stamps printed on steel, silk, and extruded plastic.

Want to buy the stamp? Check out the "Marketplace" tent at the 42nd annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, held through June 29 and again from July 2 to 6. In addition to its exhibition on Bhutan, the event has programs on NASA ("Fifty Years and Beyond") and Texas ("A Celebration of Music, Food, and Wine").

More outsourcing to India. This time, it's homework:

Students studying computing in the UK and US are outsourcing their university coursework to graduates in India and Romania. Work is being contracted out for as little as £5 on contract coding websites usually used by businesses. Students are outsourcing everything from simple coursework to full blown final year dissertations. It's causing a major headache for lecturers who say it is almost impossible to detect."

Slashdot's CmdrTaco cracks,"The irony, of course, is that if they actually get jobs in the sector, this will be how they actually work anyway."

You've heard of peak oil? Get ready for peak phosphorus:

Researchers in Australia, Europe and the United States have given warning that the element, which is essential to all living things, is at the heart of modern farming and has no synthetic alternative, is being mined, used and wasted as never before.

Massive inefficiencies in the "farm-to-fork" processing of food and the soaring appetite for meat and dairy produce across Asia is stoking demand for phosphorus faster and further than anyone had predicted. "Peak phosphorus," say scientists, could hit the world in just 30 years. Crop-based biofuels, whose production methods and usage suck phosphorus out of the agricultural system in unprecedented volumes, have, researchers in Brazil say, made the problem many times worse. Already, India is running low on matches as factories run short of phosphorus; the Brazilian Government has spoken of a need to nationalise privately held mines that supply the fertiliser industry and Swedish scientists are busily redesigning toilets to separate and collect urine in an attempt to conserve the precious element.

Colin Barras of New Scientist stumbled across the following odd bit in the End User License Agreement (pdf) -- you know, the legal document you pretend to have read when you install a software update -- for iTunes 7:

Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons."

This just might be the coolest vending machine of all time:

Michael Keferl of CScoutJapan reports:

Pushing the button on the vendor won’t exactly pop out a car, but it does dispense a branded tube containing pamphlets on the new models, dealer information, and a sheet of Smart Car stickers featuring the available colors.

Not quite as cool as an actual car vending machine, but ingenious nonetheless. I'm still waiting for MIT's Media Lab to roll out its long-hyped stackable cars, though.

(Hat tip: TreeHugger)

Feng Li/Getty Images

The last thing Beijing wants to see at the Olympic opening ceremonies on August 8 is Tibetan flags, "Stop genocide in Darfur" signs, or similar such provocations from "troublemakers." And given Beijing's paranoia, it's hardly surprising that this year's opening and closing ceremonies are going to have some of the tightest security of any event, ever.

Each ticket for the ceremonies will have a microchip embedded with the user's photograph, passport details, addresses, emails, and telephone numbers. All event tickets also have microchips to prevent counterfeiting, but only the ceremony tickets will contain the personal data. Some have raised fears of data theft, and others question whether activists known to the Chinese authorities could even attempt to attend, since many of them are being detained or at least closely watched ahead of the games. Perhaps the biggest concern is that the tickets will be too effective: If you are attending the ceremonies with a few friends or family members and your tickets get switched among you, expect big delays at the gates.

Ryan Anson/AFP/Getty Images

July 11 could not come fast enough for a few million folks dying to get their hands on the new faster, sleeker, cheaper iPhone 3G. (Count me in.) But what I found most interesting about Steve Jobs's big announcement yesterday is Apple's abandonment of its iPhone business model so far: exclusive carrier agreements.

In the six countries where you can officially get an iPhone, Apple has signed deals with mobile carriers (such as AT&T here in the United States) that give Apple a cut of the revenue from the carriers' service plans. But within weeks of the iPhone's launch last year, a massive global gray market in hacked iPhones emerged -- much to Apple's surprise. The company still made money on iPhone handsets, but it was missing out on millions of dollars in revenue it could have gotten from its partners, since more than a million new iPhone users were using hacked phones on different carriers. So, instead of pursuing what was clearly an untenable course, Apple yesterday switched gears, dropping plans for exclusivity agreements in new markets. In other words, they learned from the gray market that their business model simply wasn't the best way to go:

We've changed our business model, from getting a cut of the future revenues to just a more traditional model," Mr. Jobs said in an interview on Monday. "That’s enabled us to roll out around the world much faster."

As for the new business agreement in the States, Apple and AT&T will no longer share revenues as of yesterday. But it still sounds like AT&T will be the exclusive carrier through the end of its multi-year contract, believed to be five years. At the very least, it will be harder to gripe about AT&T's slow download speeds on the new 3G network.

Via Kottke, the latest in Japanese innovation: machine-readable tombstones:

Behind doors on the tombstone that can be locked is a QR code -- a square code read by mobile phones that can link to Web addresses. Grave visitors can use the code to access images and photographs of the person while they were alive. [...] In addition to images of the deceased, people can view a greeting from the chief mourner at the funeral and browse through the guest book. They can also make entries using their cell phones.

Here are a couple photos: