Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2008 June 13

At Last, GLAST
Image Credit: Jerry Cannon, Robert Murray, NASA

Explanation: Rising through a billowing cloud of smoke, this Delta II rocket left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch pad 17-B Wednesday at 12:05 pm EDT. Snug in the payload section was GLAST, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, now in orbit around planet Earth. GLAST's detector technology was developed for use in terrestrial particle accelerators. But from orbit, GLAST can study gamma-rays from extreme environments in our own Milky Way galaxy, as well as supermassive black holes at the centers of distant active galaxies, and the sources of powerful gamma-ray bursts. Those cosmic accelerators achieve energies not attainable in earthbound laboratories. GLAST also has the sensitivity to search for signatures of new physics in the relatively unexplored high-energy gamma-ray regime.

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Where are the Sunspots? Are we in for a Quiet Solar Cycle?

So what's up with our Sun? Is it going through a depression? It seems as if our closest star is experiencing a surprisingly uneventful couple of years. Solar minimum has supposedly passed and we should be seeing a lot more magnetic activity, and we certainly should be observing lots more sunspots. Space weather forecasts have been putting Solar Cycle 24 as a historically active cycle… but so far, nothing. So what's the problem? Is it a ticking bomb, waiting to shock us with a huge jump in solar activity, flares and CMEs over a few months? Or could this lack of activity a prelude to a very boring few years, possibly leading the Earth toward another Ice Age?

It's funny. Just as we begin to get worried that the next solar maximum is going to unleash all sorts of havoc on Earth (i.e. NASA's 2006 solar storm warning), scientists begin to get concerned as to whether there is going to be a solar maximum at all. In a conference last week at Montana State University, solar physicists discussed the possibility that the Sun could be facing a long period of calm, leading to the concern that there could be another Maunder Minimum. The Maunder Minimum (named after the late 19th Century solar astronomer Edward W. Maunder, who discovered the phenomenon) was a 17th Century, 30-year period when very few sunspots were observed on the disk of the Sun. It is thought by many scientists that this period contributed to what became known as the "Little Ice Age" here on Earth. As the Sun provides Earth with all its energy, during extended periods when the solar output is lower than average, it seems possible a lack of sunspots on the Sun (i.e. low activity) may be linked with periods of cold down here.

"It continues to be dead. That's a small concern, a very small concern." - Saku Tsuneta, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and program manager for the Hinode solar mission.

However, solar physicists are not too worried about this possibility, after all, it's only been two years since solar minimum. Although activity has been low for the beginning of Cycle 24, sunspots have not been non-existent. In January of this year, a newborn spot was observed, as expected, in high latitude regions. More spots were seen in April. In March, sunspots from the previous solar cycle even made an appearance, putting on an unexpected show of flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

As pointed out by David Hathaway, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the fact that sunspots have already been observed in this new cycle means that it is highly unlikely we face anything as extreme as another Maunder Minimum. Hathaway says there is nothing unusual about having a relatively understated solar cycle after several particularly active cycles. Solar Cycle 23 was a very active period for the Sun with a greater than average number of sunspots observed on the solar surface.

It appears there are two different predictions for the activity level of the next solar cycle. On the one hand we have scientists that think this cycle might be below average, and on the other hand we have scientists who believe the next cycle will be the biggest yet. We certainly have a long way to go before we can begin making any accurate solar forecasts…

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2008 June 12

Phoenix and the Snow Queen
Credit: Kenneth Kremer, Marco Di Lorenzo, Phoenix Mission, NASA, JPL, UA,
Max Planck Inst., Aviation Week and Space Technology

Explanation: A flat, smooth, shiny feature dubbed the Snow Queen is near the top of this color mosaic of the surface beneath the Phoenix Mars Lander. Recorded with the lander's robotic arm camera as it was maneuvered to look under the lander, the region also includes a leg and plate-sized footpad. An intriguing detail near the footpad at about the 2 o'clock position, is a metal spring partially buried in martian soil, a piece of the arm's now opened biobarrier. The smooth Snow Queen feature is strongly suspected to be ice originally just under the soil, uncovered by the thruster rockets as Phoenix set down on the north polar plains of Mars. In fact, the apparent holes or depressions in the Snow Queen's otherwise flat surface are located just under the thrusters.

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Google co-founder Brin books space flight

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google co-founder Sergey Brin wants to go to space and has made a $5 million down payment to book a seat on a future orbital space flight with Space Adventures, the space tourism company said on Wednesday.

The company said it was creating an Orbital Mission Explorers Circle of members who will each contribute $5 million to pay for the company to launch its first private mission to the International Space Station.

The $5 million will be credited to the cost of a future space flight, which could cost $35 million or more, Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson said.

The down payment gives members first option on a seat on the mission.

"I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space," Brin said in a statement.

Previously Space Adventures has bought seats on Russian missions to the International Space Station for its clients but Anderson said it would now build its own rocket for fully private missions that could start as soon as 2011.

(Reporting by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Bill Trott)

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Space Adventures Charters Entire Russian Spacecraft

official—the company that brokered the first tourist flights to the International Space Station is now a major world player in manned spaceflight

Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson: Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson briefs the press on his company's new charter flights to the International Space Station. Photo by Michael Belfiore

Space Adventures, the broker of the first tourist flights to space celebrated its ten-year anniversary today here at the Explorer's Club in New York with the announcement that it had scored a deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency, or RKA, to buy an entire flight to the International Space Station.

The first private citizen to buy a ride into space took off on a Space Adventures brokered flight in a Russian Soyuz spaceship to the International Space Station in 2001. That flight, for which California technology entrepreneur Dennis Tito paid $20 million, proved the business case for space tourism, and opened the door to private investment in commercial space travel.

Said Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson, “It showed people around the world that there was a market” for private space travel. It also helped to jump start a fledgling private space travel industry, whose most visible success besides that of Space Adventures was the 2004 flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately built manned ship to reach suborbital space.

Now Space Adventures has upped the ante by buying not just one seat aboard one of the expendable Soyuz spacecraft that have been the mainstay of the Russian space program since the 1960s, but an entire flight. A professional Russian cosmonaut will command the flight for two ticket-paying passengers some time in late 2011.

From then on, Space Adventures plans to fly one charter flight to the International Space Station a year through the station's operational life. RKA will add new spaceships to its manifest rather than bumping existing flights, such as those that might have to be used by NASA after the Space Shuttle retires in 2010.

As an indication that the whole idea of commercial spaceflight has not only gained traction in the investment community in the last 10 years, but also that it has acquired general respectability, Anderson left open the possibility that those charter flights might be filled not just by private citizens, but by the astronauts of national governments who can't get to space any other way.

Not that paying your own way to to the International Space Station is necessarily any less respectable. Next on the Space Adventures passenger list is video game entrepreneur Richard Garriott, who as the son of Skylab and Space Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott claims fame as America's first second-generation astronaut. Garriott aims not just to enjoy himself on his $35 million flight, he said at the press conference, but also to conduct experiments for private companies who have at this point paid him several hundred thousand dollars to grow protein crystals in orbit for later analysis on Earth. He'll also conduct educational programs for school kids.

In line for a Space Adventures flight to the Space Station after Garriott is Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who has already put down a $5 million deposit for the privilege of becoming the first in Space Adventures' new Orbital Mission Explorers Circle program for reserving a future flight.

What's next in commercial orbital spaceflight? Look for the first commercial space walks in the not-to-distant future, and, within the next five years, says Anderson, the first private mission to the moon, again flown by the Russian Federal Space Agency and brokered by Space Adventures.

Anderson won't say how much his company will pay for the charter flights to the Space Station or how much tickets on it will cost, but tickets to fly around the back side of the moon and come back home without landing are set at $100 million each.

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Superconductor electric vehicle

Sumitomo Electric has developed what is being called the world’s first automobile powered by a superconducting motor. The electric passenger sedan (a modified Toyota Crown Comfort), which is powered by a 365-kilowatt high-temperature superconducting motor cooled by liquid nitrogen, was unveiled in Osaka on June 12 and will go on display at the Hokkaido Toyako G8 Summit on June 19.

Superconductors — energy-efficient materials that can carry electrical current without resistance — are used in applications ranging from medical devices to linear motors for trains. Until now, however, they have never been used to power an automobile, says Sumitomo.

Sumitomo’s motor uses high-temperature superconducting wires instead of the copper wire typically used in the coils in electric vehicle motors. When cooled to an extremely low temperature, electrical resistance and current loss are reduced to nearly zero, so the motor can operate with greater energy efficiency and torque — in other words, the motor uses less electricity to do the same amount of work. The company says the prototype vehicle can travel 10% farther than conventional electric vehicles running on the same type of battery.

The development comes as demand for electric vehicles grows, and as manufacturers step up efforts to improve battery and motor performance to increase the distance that vehicles can travel on a single charge.

Sumitomo intends to further improve the motor with the aim of putting a vehicle on the market in the not-too-distant future. The company is looking to develop superconductor motors for buses and trucks as well.

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MYSTERY OF INFAMOUS 'NEW ENGLAND DARK DAY' SOLVED BY TREE RINGS

At noon, it was black as night. It was May 19, 1780 and some people in New England thought judgment day was at hand. Accounts of that day, which became known as 'New England's Dark Day,' include mentions of midday meals by candlelight, night birds coming out to sing, flowers folding their petals, and strange behavior from animals. The mystery of this day has been solved by researchers at the University of Missouri who say evidence from tree rings reveals massive wildfires as the likely cause, one of several theories proposed after the event, but dismissed as 'simple and absurd.'

"The patterns in tree rings tell a story," said Erin McMurry, research assistant in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Tree Ring Laboratory. "We think of tree rings as ecological artifacts. We know how to date the rings and create a chronology, so we can tell when there has been a fire or a drought occurred and unlock the history the tree has been holding for years."

Limited ability for long-distance communication prevented colonists from knowing the cause of the darkness. It was dark in Maine and along the southern coast of New England with the greatest intensity occurring in northeast Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and southwest Maine. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington noted the dark day in his diary while he was in New Jersey.

Nearly 230 years later, MU researchers combined written accounts and fire scar evidence to determine that the dark day was caused by massive wildfires burning in Canada.

"A fire comes along and heat goes through the bark, killing the living tissue. A couple of years later, the bark falls off revealing the wood and an injury to the tree. When looking at the rings, you see charcoal formation on the outside and a resin formation on the top that creates a dark spot," said Richard Guyette, director of the Tree Ring Lab and research associate professor of forestry in the MU School of Natural Resources.

The researchers studied tree rings from the Algonquin Highlands of southern Ontario and many other locations. They found that a major fire had burned in 1780 affecting atmospheric conditions hundred of miles away. Large smoke columns were created and carried into the upper atmosphere.

"This study was a unique opportunity to take historical accounts and combine them with modern technology and the physical historical evidence from the tree rings and solve a mystery with science," McMurry said.

The study – "Fire Scars Reveal Source of New England's 1780 Dark Day" – was published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

##

Contact:

Jennifer Faddis
University of Missouri-Columbia
573-882-6217
FaddisJ@missouri.edu

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How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit?

Cellphones emit varying levels of radiation, depending on make and model. (Lisa Poole/Associated Press)

The technology news site CNET has compiled two interesting lists showing which cellphones give off the most and the least radiation.

In publishing the information, CNET editors note the data aren’t meant to imply that cellphone radiation poses a risk, nor is it meant to say that the phones are safe. As I recently reported in my Well column last week, the data on cellphone safety is mixed, although a few recent international studies have suggested a link with three types of brain tumors. The Food and Drug Administration also says there’s not enough information to determine conclusively whether cellphones are safe or unsafe.

The charts focus on the specific absorption rate, or SAR, of a cellphone, which is a way of measuring the quantity of radio frequency energy that is absorbed by the body, according to CNET.

For a phone to pass F.C.C. certification, that phone’s maximum SAR level must be less than 1.6 W/kg (watts per kilogram). In Europe, the level is capped at 2 W/kg, while Canada allows a maximum of 1.6 W/kg. The SAR level listed in our charts represents the highest SAR level with the phone next to the ear as tested by the F.C.C. Keep in mind that it is possible for the SAR level to vary between different transmission bands and that different testing bodies can obtain different results. Also, it’s possible for results to vary between different editions of the same phone (such as a handset that’s offered by multiple carriers).

Four Motorola phones top the list, with the V195s putting out the maximum 1.6 W/kg. The popular BlackBerry Curve 8330 rounds out the No. 5 spot. To see the full top 10 list, click here.

The list of lowest-radiation cellphones includes the LG KG800 and the Motorola Razr V3x, which put out 0.135 W/kg and 0.14 W/kg, respectively. To see all the lowest radiation phones, click here.

If you don’t see your phone on the list, the site includes lists of cellphones by brand name. My iPhone was listed under “other” brands, but I was interested to learn that its SAR number is 0.974.

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Carl Sagan - A thousand years of darkness

This is a video response to PALE BLUE DOT

Retuning Bacteria

Gene-silencing techniques for bacteria could mean better treatments for infections and more-efficient biofuel production.

Silencing bacteria: Duke University graduate student Sara Morey and civil- and environmental-engineering professor Claudia Gunsch are developing a method for silencing genes in bacteria.
Credit: Duke University

Researchers at Duke University are hoping to develop methods to reversibly turn off harmful or unwanted genes in bacteria. If they succeed, gene silencing could be used to treat persistent infections by turning off antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria and in environmental and industrial applications, including water filtration. The technique could also make it possible to engineer bacteria to more efficiently make biofuels and other industrial products.

The Duke researchers, led by environmental engineer Claudia Gunsch, hope that gene silencing in bacteria will be as useful as it has been in so many other organisms. Gene silencing by a pathway called RNA interference has proved a powerful tool for biologists, who have used the technique to silence particular genes in order to study their functions in development and disease in animals from yeast to worms to mice. And RNA-interference-based therapies that work by shutting down genes involved in macular degeneration and other diseases have shown great promise in clinical trials. But RNA interference doesn't work in bacteria, which don't have the necessary molecular pathways.

Although still in very early stages, Gunsch's work has shown hints of success. Instead of the short pieces of RNA used to induce RNA interference, Gunsch used short single strands of DNA to silence a test gene in yeast. She is now testing the technique in bacteria.

In one promising application of the Duke work, the gene-silencing methods could be used in water filters. Gunsch presented proof-of-concept data for this application at the American Society for Microbiology meeting last week. For gene-silencing water filters, DNA would be embedded in a gel that would filter the water right at the sink. Waterborne pathogens, including bacteria, often mutate and become resistant to the existing treatment methods, ultraviolet light and chlorination. "Chlorine-resistant bacteria are starting to show up," says Gunsch. The advantage of gene-silencing filters would be that the genes they target could be changed as the pathogens mutate.

If Gunsch can get bacterial gene silencing to work, says James Collins, a biomedical engineer at Boston University, metabolic engineering of microbes to produce biofuels and drugs would be a good application. Designing organisms to efficiently make a particular end product, such as ethanol, without wasting energy and fuel making side products is challenging. Most metabolic engineering is binary: researchers give a microbe a gene or delete it. "But in many cases, the better way to go would be to tune down the expression of a gene, then allow it to come on at other stages," says Collins.

However, Gunsch and her coworkers face enormous challenges. Bacteria do have gene-silencing mechanisms, but they're different from those in other cells, says Susan Gottesman, chief of the biomedical genetics section at the National Cancer Institute's laboratory of molecular biology. Gottesman says that it could be possible to draw on bacterial pathways to induce gene silencing, but previous attempts have not met with much success. And Gottesman is skeptical that the Duke researchers will be able to overcome the hurdles that have prevented other labs from developing gene-silencing techniques for bacteria.

Gunsch acknowledges that the work is in its early stages. The Duke researchers will have to prove that they can target bacterial genes and get the silencing agent, whether RNA or DNA, into bacterial cells efficiently. "Our results seem to indicate that it's possible," says Gunsch.

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Man's destruction of Africa revealed

Declining water levels in Lake Chad. Persistent droughts and increased agricultural irrigation have reduced the Lake’s extent in the past 35 years to one tenth of its former state

Image :1 of 4

Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

Glaciers, lakes and forests have disappeared from Africa at an alarming rate in the past 36 years, satellite photographs have revealed.

The changing face of the continent was brought home to African ministers yesterday when they were presented with an atlas charting the speed of environmental destruction.

The loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro and the vanishing waters of Lake Chad were among the best-known problems, but deforestation, urbanisation and the spread of agriculture have also taken their toll.

Other great changes included tree loss and land degradation caused by refugees in the Sudan, the virtual disappearance of Lake Ngami in Botswana, the expansion of the city of Bujumbura in Burundi,and the loss of Cameroon's rainforest to rubber and palm plantations.

Hundreds of “before and after” satellite images offered a sobering assessment of the damage caused to the natural environment in less than four decades. The images formed part of Africa - Atlas of Our Changing Environment, launched yesterday after a two-year project by Unep, the United Nations Environment Programme.

Examples where the landscape has been restored or improved included the re-establishment of trees in Niger and the creation of mangroves on the Eritrean coast, but the majority of images highlighted cases of environmental damage.

Marion Cheatle, deputy director of Unep's early warning division, said that the atlas - presented in Johannesburg at the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment - was intended to show where and why action needed to be taken. “What we are really trying to do is to make people aware of the extent and rate and the enormity of changes taking place,” she said. “We are trying to make policy and decision-makers realise they can take decisions that will stanch this degradation.”

The biggest factor contributing to the changes, she said, was the rise in Africa's population to 965 million.

From 2000-05 the population rose 2.32 per cent each year compared with the global average of 1.24 per cent, and 20 of the fastest growing countries around the world in terms of population are located in Africa. This has meant the area of land available for each individual has fallen from 13.5 hectares in 1950 to 3 today and is forecast to fall to just 1.5 hectares by 2050.

Ms Cheatle said: “Where we've got problems at the moment, they are likely to get worse with climate change.”

Deforestation was a key concern in 35 African nations, most notably the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi and Rwanda. About four million hectares (15,500 sq miles) of forest is lost in Africa a year. Biodiversity loss was highlighted in 34 countries and land degradation from erosion - up to 50 tonnes of soil are lost per hectare - was a “major worry” for Ghana, Cameroon and 30 other nations. In the Rwenzori mountains, Uganda, glaciers shrank by half between 1987 and 2003. Monika MacDevett, of Unep's world conservation monitoring centre, said: “If we carry on business as usual, we'll destroy our planet.”

Achim Steiner, a senior UN official, said there were many examples of how action has been taken to restore the environment and he said those projects should act as beacons. But he said the outlook for many areas and the people who live there remain poor unless remedial work is undertaken.

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Synthetic dingo urine could save marsupials

Raw dingo urine supply is limited due to the small number in captivity

The lives of millions of Australian marsupials could be saved with the invention of a synthetic equivalent of dingo urine.
Countless possums, wallabies and kangaroos are killed with poison by timber companies wanting to protect young saplings.

Scientists have found that the urine of Australia's native wild dog acts as a powerful deterrent to the marsupials.

They hope to invent a synthetic equivalent which could then be produced on a commercial scale, providing an effective but harmless alternative to poisons such as cyanide and the compound 1080.

A team led by Dr Michael Parsons, of Curtin University in Western Australia, has found that dingo urine - made into a gel - repels all but the most determined animals from gardens and plantations.

During trials conducted in Tasmania, 80 per cent of possums and 78 per cent of wallabies steered clear of areas marked by the gel.

Dingoes never reached Tasmania, but it is thought the urine triggered a response similar to that which would have been produced by encountering a Tasmanian tiger, prior to the species' extinction in the 1930s.

A "urine barrier" kept Forester kangaroos away from a garden full of rose beds for a month.

Film footage of the kangaroos showed them freezing about five metres from the garden's edge, before turning tail and hopping away.

The raw urine was collected from animals kept at the Australian Dingo Conservation Association in Canberra, and flown fresh to Perth.

But its limited supply - there are only a few dingoes in captivity, and pure-bred dingoes are a vanishing breed in the wild because of inter-breeding with feral dogs - means that the gel is expensive.

A 40ml bottle costs A$20 to produce - hence the necessity to come up with an artificial replica.

Researchers found that dingo urine contains a surprisingly complex range of chemicals. "We're talking about 200 different elements, from pheromones to minerals," Dr Parsons said today.

Each chemical will have to be carefully copied by scientists at the government-run Chemistry Centre in Western Australia.

"Twenty years ago this wouldn't have been possible. If we can synthesise it then we can reduce the cost of a bottle to a matter of cents rather than $20. We're looking at 2010 as our target date," said Dr Parsons.

"We're really excited because we've shown that dingo urine works as a deterrent. "It's a humane, safe, biodegradable alternative to trapping, shooting and poisoning."

The project, which was recently awarded a A$1.6 million grant, is supported by the Australian RSPCA.

The gel is likely to be of interest not only to timber companies but by gardeners fed up with the night-time marauding of their local possum population.

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GE Boosts Efficiency for Fuel-Strapped Fleets

GE is taking smart advantage of the rising gas prices, unveiling an environmental service that will help businesses with auto fleets reduce their fuel costs and emissions, making businesses and the environment that much better. From GE’s ecomagination service comes Environmental Performance, telematics that baseline where and how each vehicle is performing, covering everything from driving routes to driver habits. The service can help businesses save as much as 15% in their annual fuel costs. Among mixed vehicle fleets, GE estimates their service can equate to a savings of 8%, meaning about 240 gallons of gas, or about $690, per vehicle each year. And among trucks, they estimate simple fixes like auxilary power units can reduce burning gas during idling by 75%, for a savings of about $3,000.

While it’s a fairly “duh” idea that driving better reduces costs and emissions, and we at EcoGeek have our own solutions to saving gas, it is nonetheless very helpful to have a techy device tell you just what changes to make. The metrics captured and analyzed include distance driven, fuel use, drive time, and CO2 emission of each vehicle. When analyzed, the data can help fleet managers streamline driving routes and driver habits, not only saving on fuel, but also saving time, improving customer service, increasing productivity, and even decreasing liability as the data can catch bad habits like speeding. They even help fleets choose the right vehicle for their business needs. And, beyond GE’s telemetrics unit, there are other cool devices and services that businesses can utilize that help drivers avoid traffic and save fuel and emissions.

This is a service that can be utilized regardless of gas prices, but businesses are likely to latch on as they feel the crunch – fuel represents 33% of a commercial fleet’s total costs, which is 11% higher than last year. GE is off to a good start, too. Already working with several dozen customers in 2007, their goal is to deploy 40,000 telemetric units this year, which can mean $26 million savings in fuel costs (based on $4 per gallon…which would be cheap gas in my neck of the woods) and 48,000 metric tons of CO2 reduction. By 2011, GE hopes to have 220,000 telemetric units out to customers, which could mean over $145 million in fuel cost savings, and 270,000 metric tons of CO2 reduction. In other words, helping customers drive efficiently will mean BIG numbers for businesses and air-breathers.

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First Time Ever: Prius is Most Searched New Car on Cars.com

Cars.com has announced that for the first time ever, the Toyota Prius has become the most searched for new vehicle on the popular vehicle classifieds site — surpassing long time favorites such as the Accord and Camry.

Not only that, their top ten list for new car searches (see below) now contains mostly fuel-sippers including the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit.

The Prius first appeared in the top 10 most searched vehicles list last summer.

Patrick Olsen, Cars.com editor in chief, had this to say about it:

“It’s not surprising that the Prius became the No. 1 most searched vehicle on Cars.com at the same time gas reached a $4 national average. Surveys have shown $4 to be the tipping point in consumer purchase behavior, and we are seeing that ring true in shopping patterns on Cars.com.”

One of the surveys he’s probably referring to in his statement was recently conducted by the Ipsos News Center on how high the price of fuel has to go before Americans change their driving habits. The main conclusions of that survey are:

• 67% say they have already changed their driving habits as a result of rising gas prices.
• Of those who have already made changes to their driving habits, the pressure price for this group was $3.20/gallon.
• At $3.00/gallon, 35% of Americans had changed their habits.
• By $4.00/gallon — now a reality in the US — it is 74%.
• By $5.00/gallon, 85% of all Americans will have changed their driving habits

The Ipsos study also found, interestingly, that one in ten Americans say they will never change their driving habits, regardless of the how high the price of gas climbs.

Cars.com Top Ten New Car Searches for May 2008:

1		Toyota Prius
2		Honda Civic
3		Honda Accord
4		Toyota Corolla
5		Toyota Camry
6		Honda Civic Hybrid
7		Toyota Yaris
8		Nissan Altima
9		Ford Mustang
10		Honda Fit

I don’t know about you, but to me that Ford Mustang sure looks out of place on this list.

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