"The observed strain rates confirm that the southern section of the San Andreas fault may be approaching the end of the interseismic phase of the earthquake cycle," he wrote in the science journal Nature.

A sudden lateral movement of 7 to 10 meters would be among the largest ever recorded.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906 was produced by a sudden movement of the northern end of the fault of up to 21 ft.

Fialko said there had been no recorded movement at the southern end of the fault - the 800-mile long geological meeting point of the Pacific and the North American tectonic plates - since the dawn of European settlement in the area.

He said this lack of movement for 250 years correlated with the predicted gaps between major earthquakes at the southern end of the fault of between 200 and 300 years.

Elsewhere on the fault, there were average slippage rates up to a couple of centimeters a year that prevented the build-up of explosive pressure deep underground.

When these became blocked and then suddenly broke free they produced tremors or earthquakes of varying intensity depending on the movement that had taken place before and the duration of the blockage.

USGS says the most recent major earthquakes in the northern and central zones of the San Andreas fault were in 1857 and 1906.

Fialko said there were three possible explanations for the lack of observed movement in the southern section

The names were proposed this spring by the team that discovered the satellites. Before the satellites received their official names, they were called P1 and P2.

In Greek mythology, Nyx was the goddess of the night and the mother of Charon, the boatsman who ferried souls across the River Styx into the underworld ruled by Pluto. The IAU changed the spelling to "Nix" after the Egyptian spelling of the goddess to avoid confusion with two asteroids that had already been named "Nyx."

The outermost of Pluto's two new satellites is named after Hydra, the nine-headed mythological serpent that guarded Pluto's realm.

"We thought it was an appropriately scary image to be the guard at the gate," said Alan Stern, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Arizona who led the team that initially discovered the satellites

In addition to their relation to Pluto, the names were chosen because their first initials, "N" and "H," are also the first letters of New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft launched in January towards the Pluto system. The Hubble Space Telescope was providing support for the New Horizons mission when it spotted the tiny satellites.

"The 'P' and the 'L' in Pluto are in honor of the Percival Lowell, who instigated the search that resulted in the discovery of Pluto," Stern told SPACE.com. "The 'N' and the 'H' are exactly parallel to honor New Horizons which instigated the search that led us to [the new satellites]."

Stern said that the team also considered the name "Cerberus," the three-headed hound who also guarded the gates to Hades, but rejected it because many people associate Pluto with the Disney cartoon character, and having one object in the system associated with a dog was enough.

The new names were reported yesterday on ScienceNow.com, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A formal announcement will be issued June 23.

For decades now, eyes and sky have met to witness the buzzing of our world by Unidentified Flying Objects, termed UFOs or simply flying saucers. Extraterrestrials have come a long way to purportedly share the friendly skies with us.

UFOs and alien visitors are part of our culture-a far-out phenomenon when judged against those "low life" wonders Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.

And after all those years, as the saying goes, UFOs remain a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Why so? For one, the field is fraught with hucksterism. It's also replete with blurry photos and awful video. But then there are also well-intentioned and puzzled witnesses [See Top 10 Alien Encounters Debunked].

Scientifically speaking, are UFOs worth keeping an eye on?

Unusual properties

There have been advances in the field of UFO research, said Ted Roe, Executive Director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), based in Vallejo, California.

"The capture of optical spectra from mobile, unpredictable luminosities is one of those innovations. More work to be done here but [there are] some good results already."

NARCAP was established in 2000 and is dedicated to the advancement of aviation safety issues as they apply to, what they term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

Roe said that a decade from now, researchers should have even better instrumentation at their disposal and better data on UAP of several varieties. His forecast is that scientific rigor will prevail, demonstrating that there are "stable, mobile, unusual, poorly documented phenomena with quite unusual properties manifesting within our atmosphere," he told SPACE.com.

Paradigm shifting

NARCAP has made the case that some of these phenomena have unusual electromagnetic properties. Therefore, they could disrupt microprocessors and adversely effect avionic systems, Roe explained, and that for those reasons and others UAP should be considered a hazard to safe aviation.

"It is likely that either conclusion will fly in the face of the general assertion that UAP are not real and that there are no undocumented phenomena in our atmosphere," Roe continued. That should open the door, he said, to the realization that there's no good reason to discard outright the possibility that extraterrestrial visitation has occurred and may be occurring.

"Physics is leading to new and potentially paradigm shifting understandings about the nature of our universe and its physical properties," Roe said. "These understandings may point the way towards an acceptance of the probability of interstellar travel and communication by spacefaring races."

Sacred cows to the slaughter

As UFO debunker Robert Sheaffer's web site proclaims, he's "skeptical to the max." He is a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and a well-known writer on the UFO scene.

Being an equal-opportunity debunker, Sheaffer notes that he refutes whatever nonsense, in his judgment, "stands in the greatest need of refuting, no matter from what source it may come, no matter how privileged, esteemed, or sacrosanct ... sacred cows, after all, make the best hamburger."

Sheaffer told SPACE.com, in regards to the cottage industry of UFO promoters, there's a reason there are still so many snake-oil sellers.

"It's because nobody, anywhere, has any actual facts concerning alleged UFOs, just claims. That allows con-men to thrive peddling their yarns," Sheaffer said. "UFO believers are convinced that the existence of UFOs will be revealed 'any day now'. But it's like Charlie Brown and the football: No matter how many times Lucy pulls the football away-or the promised 'disclosure' fails to happen-they're dead-certain that the next time will be their moment of glory."

Trash from the past

"I would have to say that we're stuck in neutral," said Kevin Randle, a leading expert and writer on UFOs and is known as a dogged researcher of the phenomena. There's no real new research, he said, and that's "because we have to revisit the trash of the past."

Randle points to yesteryear stories, one stretching back in time to a supposed 1897 airship crash in Aurora, Texas, long proven to be a hoax by two con men-yet continues to surface in UFO circles. 

Then there's the celebrated Thomas Mantell saga, a pilot that lost his life chasing a UFO in 1948. There are those that contend he was killed by a blue beam from a UFO, Randle said "even though we have known for years that the UFO was a balloon and he violated regulations by climbing above 14,000 feet without oxygen equipment. I mean, we know this, and yet there are those who believe that Mantell was killed by aliens."

Randle's advice is to the point: "We need to begin to apply rigorous standards of research ... stop accepting what we wish to believe even when the evidence is poor, and begin thinking ahead."

Paucity of physical evidence

"I've no doubt that UFOs are here to stay," said Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "I'm just not convinced that alien craft are here to stay ... or for that matter, even here for brief visits.




"First, despite a torrent of sightings for more than a half-century, I can't think of a single, major science museum that has alien artifacts on display," Shostak said. "Contrast this paucity of physical evidence with what the American Indians could have shown you fifty years after Christopher Columbus first violated their sea-space. They could have shown you all sorts of stuff-including lots of smallpox-infested brethren-as proof that they were being 'visited,'" he said.

When it comes to extraterrestrial visitors in the 21st century, the evidence is anecdotal, ambiguous, or, in some cases, artifice, Shostak suggested.
Calling it "argument from ignorance", Shostak pointed to the claim that aliens must have careened out of control above the New Mexico desert simply because some classified government documents sport a bunch of blacked-out text. "How does the latter prove the former?"

Sure, the missing verbiage is consistent with a government cover-up of an alien crash landing, Shostak said. "But it's also consistent with an infinitude of other scenarios...not all of them involving sloppy alien pilots," he added.



Shostak said that it is not impossible that we could be visited. It doesn't violate physics to travel between the stars, although that's not easy to do.

"But really, if you're going to claim-or for that matter, believe-that extraterrestrials are strafing the cities, or occasionally assaulting the neighbors with an aggression inappropriate for a first date, then I urge you to find evidence that leaves little doubt among the professionally skeptical community known as the world of science."

Residue of sightings

Why is there precious little to show that world of science that UFOs merit attention?

"Obviously there is not a simple answer, but part of it is reluctance of the scientific community to support such research," explained Bruce Maccabee, regarded as a meticulous researcher and an optical physicist using those talents to study photographs and video of unexplained phenomena.

Why this reluctance? 

"In my humble opinion it is largely a result of 'tradition'...tradition set by the U.S. Air Force in the early years when they publicly stated that everything was under control, they were investigating...and finding nothing that couldn't be explained," Maccabee said.  

Nevertheless, Maccabee observed, work on the phenomenon will carry on.

"UFO studies will continue until all the old cases have either been explained or admitted to being unexplainable-meaning a residue of sightings that could be ET related-and/or until people stop seeing unexplainable UFO-like events throughout the world," Maccabee concluded.

New federal guidelines recommending three servings of whole grains a day have put a spotlight on wheat, but exposure to barley, brown rice and other options has also grown, said Alice Lichtenstein, chair of the nutrition committee at the
American Heart Association.

According to the marketing information company ACNielsen, sales of products with whole grain claims on their packages for the year ending April 22 increased 9.5 percent from the previous year.

NuWorld Amaranth, one of the country's main buyers of amaranth, reported a 300 percent increase in sales in the past three years. Bob's Red Mill, which sells alternative wheat-free grains, saw a 25 percent increase in sales in the past year, with quinoa driving the bulk of the growth.

Amaranth, grown for millennia by the Aztecs, has twice as much iron as wheat and is higher in protein and fiber. Quinoa, an ancient Andean crop, has less fiber but more protein and iron than wheat.

It may take some time for the unfamiliar grains to find broad acceptance. The American palate is still adjusting to whole wheat, and amaranth's distinct, slightly nutty taste could take some getting used to.

One reason for the fledgling demand is a growing awareness of celiac disease, which is triggered by gluten, the protein found in wheat. Symptoms range from severe cramping to chronic fatigue and even organ disorders. The condition is believed to affect about 2 million Americans, with others sensitive to the protein.

There is also a growing crossover market of health-conscious shoppers in search of the most nutritious grains, said Diane Walters, spokeswoman for NuWorld.

ConAgra Mills is working with farmers to expand the supply of sustagrain, a type of barley with a 30 percent fiber content, said Don Brown, vice president of business development at the company.

While products made entirely of amaranth and quinoa may not hit the mainstream anytime soon, the demand for such grains as ingredients will likely get a boost as multigrain products proliferate, said Robert Myers, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute, a research center in Columbus, Mo.

"Once they get past corn, wheat and oats, they'll eventually get around to picking up grains like amaranth," he said.

Alternative grains also benefit from the popularity of organic goods, Fenster said - Whole Foods even has a line of bakery goods devoted to gluten-free diets.

"As people go into those stores, they can't help but notice those products," she said.

Supply of some alternative grains is still limited, however. Estimates of U.S. farmland devoted to amaranth, for example, range from 1,000 acres to 3,000 acres - compared with 50 million acres for wheat, according to the Thomas Jefferson Institute.

But the supply of white wheat in the country was also limited until Sara Lee recently launched its white wheat bread, said Cynthia Harriman, director of food and nutrition at the Whole Grains Council. To ensure adequate supply, ConAgra began contracting with farmers about five years before the product launch.

The same thing could happen for other grains that are easy and inexpensive to grow, Myers said.

She was the first canine recipient to win the VITA Wireless Samaritan Award, given to someone who used a cell phone to save a life, prevent a crime or help in an emergency, the Orlando Sentinel reported Monday.

Weaver first heard about service dogs while he was working as a flight attendant after befriending a frequent passenger who taught dogs to help diabetic patients. Using their keen sense of smell, the animals can detect abnormalities in a person's blood-sugar levels.

The dog periodically licks Weaver's nose to take her own reading of his blood-sugar level. If something seems off to her, she will paw and whine at him.

"Every time she paws at me like that I grab my meter and test myself," Weaver said. "She's never been wrong."