We have approximately 25 days left to live. Well, depending on when you read this, and depending on when the scientists at CERN finally switch on the Large Hadron Collider, and depending on whether they were wrong about it being safe. At any rate, while we're still here, it's time for another edition of the Science Weekend Warrior!

Biofuels are more environment-friendly than fossil fuel, sure, but is it worth the price? According to a leaked report, Biofuel production has forced global food prices up by as much as 75%. When you use food to create gas instead of eating it, a tug-of-war was inevitable. Read more about it in the full article.

 

Speaking to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, God of War's David Jaffe, noted several reasons why the planned PSP game Heartland was aborted. The said PSP game was supposed to depict an America invaded by China, and was supposed to feature a Chinese-American faced with heavy moral decisions.

Jaffe explains how Sony's response to the matter was mixed, and how the folks from Sony wished that Jaffe decide to make this game for their big black PlayStation 3. Here's his words:

The game was very much a liberal person's response to the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. When I was entertaining lofty thoughts, the idea was to create an experience that would try to make the players--whom I mostly assumed would be of the Western world--feel what it must be like to have their own homeland occupied by another country. SCEA and I went back and forth over if we would ever say it was CHINA vs. AMERICA as they were a bit worried about being so literal, but that fight had not yet occurred when we pulled the plug.

As for Phil (Harrison, Sony president of worldwide studios), his biggest issue was thinking a game so epic should be on PS3. But I was always pushing for PSP, saying that Heartland should do for the PSP what Halo did for the Xbox. But as you know, Phil's a total supporter of innovation and games as art and so he was more than willing to see if I had anything worthy to say, as well as the talents to say it through the medium.

Other reasons for the cancellation of the game include manpower problems as the WarHawk team kept growing while Jaffe's team kept shrinking. He explains:

If the team would have been the right size, we would still be in production with Heartland today. That was the main reason we killed it, not enough folks to make the game. Granted, I would be 40 pounds overweight again, sad, depressed, and maybe even divorced, as it would have consumed me just like God of War did. But that aside, the main issue that made it clear that we could not continue was that WarHawk kept taking our team members as they were further along in production and were the top priority.

Jaffe then later adds that he could have worked harder in SCEA to get more people for his team, but his "heart was just not in it".

Well, we do hope that this "pop song" phase of game making that David Jaffe finds himself in at the moment becomes rewarding enough for him, so that after all the Calling All Cars and all those "light" games he's into right now, he can find the heart to move back to making those game "operas" that we loved oh so much.

For the complete Newsweek interview, feel free to head to it via our Read link below.

Ah, America. Land of political WTF-ery. In one of the strangest foreign policy moves ever done during the Bush administration , the US government is trying to impose trade sanctions against North Korea, specifically against items that Kim Jong Il likes or which are gifted to him by loyalists.

What does the North Korean leader like, aside from platform shoes and bling-bling? Why, tech stuff and other assorted luxuries, of course. The Associated Press report says that, in addition to any new tech, such as iPods, PS3s and the like, they also want to ban just about everything else, even sports equipment (Kim compensates for his short stature with a love for basketball, apparently).

The AP article cites a lot of other items among those to be placed under trade sanctions:

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

Now, let's get some perspective on this. The man makes secret nuclear tests in his country and the people under his rule suffer from food shortages. That's a result of rather selfish decisions on Kim's part, as well as a lack of foreign aid because no one really likes him for messing with nukes right now.

The plan, as "creative" as some of the supporters of the trade sanctions might think of it, would only push North Korea's world leader to use more money to purchase the same things through the black markets (or eBay). If the leader of nuclear-capable nation wants a PS3, why would you try a stunt like this to get him to listen to you?

Robert J. Einhorn, a former senior State Department official who once went to Korea, said of the plan, "It can't hurt, but whether it works, we don't know." Trust a gamer to tell you this plain and simple: if PS3 fanboys are willing to wait out in the cold for days to get a PS3, and grey market sellers don't mind shooting people for those goods, you are wrong in assuming it can't hurt.

AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth could be in for a bit of legal trouble.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit tore through George W. Bush's domestic eavesdropping program. In a 43-page opinion, the judge declared the warrantless wiretaps to be unconstitutional. They violate the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. The National Security Agency has been ordered to immediately stop all monitoring of the phone calls and emails of Americans suspected of dealing with terrorists.

Telecommunications and internet companies who have been accused of working with Bush in the eavesdropping program could be in for some serious legal problems. There are already lawsuits against AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth because of the eavesdropping. Now that a judge has found that warrantless wiretapping is illegal, the cases against them can only get stronger.

Of course, there wouldn't be a strong case against the telecoms if this ruling is appealed to a higher court and then overturned. So maybe, all the telecoms have to do is wait. Maybe the Bush administration will win the court battle in the end.

No, we don't expect this issue to end there. Who wants to bet this ends up in the Supreme Court?

Don't worry the chip didn't fall off from a secret military project. It came with the cow as part of the Bush administration's strategy to pinpoint origins of mad cow and other diseases within 48 hours. According to Plan A, livestock facilities and individual animals will receive ID numbers to document the movement of cattle. About 100 million of them.

The radio-frequency identification chips are attached on the cattles' ears. These give off short-range broadcast of just a few feet (aka passive tags) which are detected by sensors. Although the chip system won't be fully online until 2009, many producers seem open to the automated data gathering.

But as in any country where democracy is practiced (you know, where you have the freedom to say what's on your mind and not get kicked in the keester for expressing them), some cattle ranchers think the whole idea is a pile of organic waste that plops out of a bull's butt.

If a cow lost a tag or needs to be tagged, the animal has to be caught, placed in a head chute and held there until the chip is attached. The process can take 30 seconds each. Not much for a single cow but totally different scenario if you have thousands of beasts needing ear-piercing. Besides that, human contact and other stresses actually affects a cow's ability to gain or maintain weight. Since beef is sold by the pound, ear-tagging can thus affect profit margins.

Many producers also expressed fears that chip tracking would not only add cost but the databases would reveal private business information to rivals, regulators, animal-rights activists, fraternities who turn over sleeping cows on their sides, devil worshippers who slaughter cows for their guts, and aliens from outer space who prefer their Bic Macs really, really raw.