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• The 'Obama Jacket'
• How To Help The Hackers
• Slimy, but Smart
• Big Names in...Basketball
• Would You Like Fries with Your Curry?
Why Mikey Hates to Fly
The first time that Michael Hicks was frisked by airport security, he cried—like any 2-year-old would. He shares a name with one of the 13,500 people on the watch list of the the F.B.I.'s Terrorist Screening Center, so flying is always tricky for Mikey—now an 8-year-old third-grader and Cub Scout from Clifton, New Jersey. His family travels frequently, and Mikey is often stopped for extra screening. On a trip to the Bahamas in January, he was frisked both going and coming home. Mikey isn't the only one whose name makes it hard to get on a plane: Hundreds of others also get caught up because they share a name with someone on the watch list. In the past three years, 82,000 frustrated fliers have asked to be removed from the list. Now, under a new Secure Flight Program, airlines will collect passengers' birth dates and gender, along with names—so Mikey's date of birth should prevent his being mistaken for a terrorist. "We can't just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it security," says William J. Pascrell Jr., Mikey's Congressman. "If we can't get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list becomes suspect."
The 'Obama Jacket'
President Obama was wearing the jacket when he was photographed at the Great Wall of China in November. And it wasn't long before the manufacturer, Weatherproof Garment Company in New York, was promoting it as the "Obama Jacket"—even posting a giant billboard in Times Square that used the news photo from China. But a White House spokesman said the President hadn't approved the use of his image, and that the ad wrongly implied that Obama endorses the jacket. (The White House has long disapproved of using a President's name and likeness for commercial purposes, even if it's probably not illegal under the First Amendment.) Although Weatherproof has taken down the billboard, it apparently did its job: A company spokesman says the presidential jacket has "blown out of every Macy's."
How To Help The Hackers
It's the digital version of leaving a key under the doormat: picking simple, easily guessed passwords. Yet one out of five Web users does it, says Amichai Shulman of Imperva, which makes software for blocking hackers. Shulman studied a list of 32 million passwords that a hacker stole from RockYou, a site offering social-networking tools. Nearly 1 percent of the list used "123456," and 20 percent chose from a pool of the same 5,000 passwords. This makes it a lot easier for hackers to break into accounts just by trying the most common passwords, often firing off thousands of tries per minute. Many sites now force users to mix letters, numbers, and even symbols into their passwords.
Slimy, but Smart
Slime mold may look like just a blob, but it's a smart one. Researchers in Japan have found that the fungus-like organism can design a network as efficient as one that took humans years to develop: the Tokyo rail system. As slime mold feeds on bacteria found on decaying plant material, it spreads out and builds tubular connections between food sources. Scientists laid 36 bits of food in a pattern corresponding to cities in the Tokyo area and placed a slime mold in the spot representing Tokyo. Within 26 hours, the slime mold had created a series of tubular links resembling the railroad network. Using the slime mold's performance as a guide, researchers hope to create a mathematical model that could help design networks like those used in mobile communications.
Big Names in...Basketball
They haven't gone platinum or won any Grammy Awards, and besides, they're much more concerned with rebounds and free throws. As starters for the University of Colorado women's basketball team, Whitney Houston and Brittany Spears share the names (if not the spellings) of two far more famous entertainers. Houston is a lightning-quick 5-foot-5 guard, who's averaging 10.5 points. And 6-foot-1 Spears is on track to become Colorado's career leading scorer and may be headed for the W.N.B.A. "It's fun sometimes with their names," says assistant coach Patrick Harrington, "but it's more fun when you see them play ball."
