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Ray Hull is a noise and hearing loss expert at Wichita State University. Lately he's been prying the earbuds from iPod-listening college students, and measuring the volume. He doesn't like what he's found.

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For the longest time, scientists believed newly forming leaves on a plant secreted a chemical that inhibited growth of other leaves around it. This process was thought to be the basis for intricate spiral seed patters in sunflowers or the determining factor in the architectural relationship of one branch to another. But other, newer theories raised doubts about the leaf secretion idea.

Now, scientists at the University of Calgary have developed a computer model that lends credence to the new theories. The 3-D model follows the growth of the absolute tip of a growing plant. It took more than two years to develop.

Calgary PhD student Richard Smith says the simulation shows it's possible that carefully timed injections of plant hormones actually trigger new growth.

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Congress is rewriting the 1996 Telecom Act this year. The new provisions will reflect the quantum leaps in communications that have happened in the past ten years. Communications industry giants like Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon say they intend to preserve the open nature of the Internet. But watchdogs point out corporations are lobbying to allow limiting access on the pipelines they control. The Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America and Free Press launched an effort this month to preserve what they say is "Internet neutrality".

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It wasn't too long ago that the Internet was a place regarded with suspicion by a lot of people outside a certain population of geeky boys and a few college professors. It had a reputation for promoting isolation and feeding dubious social habits. A new report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project bolsters arguments that Internet communication strengthen rather than stifles social networks. The survey finds the Internet is pivotal in helping people make major decisions.

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There's an area of Earth's orbit populated by about 13,000 fragments of man-made objects each traveling at speeds up to 27,000 miles per hour. It's a moving obstacle course for spacecraft carrying things like satellites that feed the popular GPS systems on the dashboards of many new cars or beam Howard Stern to the ears of his faithful audience. Those rockets then also contribute to the growing amount of what is called "space junk". It's not a pressing problem now, but NASA scientists say it's getting a lot worse. Nicholas Johnson is NASA's Program Manager for Orbital Debris. In a recent article for Science Magazine he graphed a 200-year prediction for space junk.

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The pharmaceutical company Pfizer says it's putting radio frequency identification--or RFID--tags on large containers of the impotence drug Viagra. The tags give off electronic signals that help the company keep track of shipments and assure pharmacies they're getting the real stuff and not some counterfeit. Viagra is one of the most counterfeited drugs on the market. But an organization that keeps watch on RFID applications worries Pfizer is not taking enough precautions to protect customers' privacy. They envision the potential for an RFID tag going home with a cunsumer, increasing the potential for a privacy breach. The organization Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering or CASPIAN, is headed by two women. Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre wrote a book together about RFID tags called "Spychips--How Major Crporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move With RFID". McIntyre says the tags are fine for the warehouse, but not on the shelves.

In a written statement on its Web site, Pfizer says it's possible but unlikely that customers will get the tagged containers. They also say the tags allow no tracking of patient information.

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An Ontario researcher has mathematically ranked the three top prime minister candidates according to the amount of spin in their speeches. Queens University Professor David Skillicorn is a specialist in data mining. He applied a complex text analysis to numerous speeches by Incumbent Prime Minister Paul Martin, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper and New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton. According to the analysis, which looks at subtle language clues, Martin's speeches reveal the largest gap between what he says and what he believes.

The computer analysis he used is based on a model developed by University of Texas at Austin researcher James Pennebaker.

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The nation's new cyberstalking restrictions started this month. The legislation updates laws designed to protect people from harrassment. The updated law makes it illegal to use the Internet to harrass someone. But a provision of the legislation also adds the word "annoy" to the types of communication that's illegal.

One of the people who picked up on this new language is the creator of the Web site annoy.com. Clinton Fein calls himself a political artist. He's based in San Francisco. He photoshops irreverant and frequently offensive digital postcards for users to send anonymously to whomever they want--the attorney general of the United States, for example, or perhaps your boss. Fein readily admits to pushing legal boundaries. But he wonders who, under the new law, decides what is legally annoying.

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Cingular Wireless has obtained a temporary restraining order against operators of Locatecell.com, one of many Web-based companies that sell detailed customer telephone records to just about anyone willing to pay the fee.

In Minnesota, the attorney general and four lawmakers are pushing a proposal that would protect phone records. And several lawmakers in Washington, D.C. appear ready to introduce legislation.

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In games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, players earn virtual goods like weapons, characters, and clothing. Many players trade their imaginary assets, or sell them for real cash. Some even make a nice living this way, and the income they earn is clearly taxable. But what about simply owning an imaginary ogre, or swapping it for a pretend lightsaber? Is the IRS going to want a taste of that?

Journalist and gamer Julian Dibbell explores these questions in a recent essay in Legal Affairs magazine.

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Two startup companies are working on new wireless technologies that will let neighbors tie together their DSL and cable modems to make for a much faster Internet connection. Both Mushroom Networks of San Diego and WiBoost of Seattle plan to sell technology that will gather unused Internet capacity from neighbors. One possible roadblock is possible opposition from Internet service providers, which have fought the sharing of Internet connections in the past.

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Satisfaction with e-commerce dipped in the 2005 holiday shopping season, according to research firm Foresee Results.

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Thirty-three percent of teens surveyed in the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index predict the demise of gasoline powered cars by 2015. The survey also found teens are somewhat optimistic that technology can help solve many of the world's environmental problems.

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Internet users will soon be able to join in a Web-based search for grains of dust originating from stars that are millions of light years from earth.

The project at the University of California, Berkeley is called Stardust@Home. Researchers have devised a way to turn your computer into a virtual microscope to help for submicroscopic grains of interstellar dust captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.

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Facebook is an online social networking directory that has become the rage on college campuses since it debuted in 2004. College students have created around six million accounts. Students make personal profiles pages, which typically contain photos. They can exchange messages, and join groups of friends. Profiles often contain a lot of personal information, such as relationship status and sexual preference.

Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, has just completed a study of Facebook use by freshman from the class of 2009.

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Several web services unveiled in the last year allow users to participate more in the news. Sites like Digg and Gather let readers customize their online news, submit links to articles, comment on stories, and even post their own work for others to read. The latest example is Newsvine, which is in a private beta test for a few more weeks. Beta testers are giving it positive reviews. CEO Mike Davidson says Newsvine is a way to read, write and influence the news.

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Microsoft has shut down a blog that discussed politically sensitive issues, such as China's relationship with Taiwan.

Microsoft says its Weblog hosting service shut down the blog at the Chinese government's request. A spokesman for Microsoft's M-S-N online division says the company has to comply with global laws as well as local laws and norms.

The censorship move was first publicized by Rebecca MacKinnon, a former Beijing Bureau Chief for CNN and current researcher at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

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New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer is moving ahead on his antitrust probe of major record labels regarding digital music prices. Sony BMG, EMI, Universal Music Group and Warner have all confirmed receiving information requests from Spitzer. Now CNET News.com reports that Spitzer has also contacted several digital music services.

News.com reporter John Borland says the investigation could delay plans to move away from the familiar 99 cents per song price tag.

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A dangerous security hole in Windows that lets hackers hijack computers is generating an increasing number of attacks, but Microsoft is not releasing its patch until next Tuesday. Some security experts are fuming over the slow response.

The WMF expolit can infect PCs if users simply visit a Web site with images containing malicious code. Microsoft's decision to delay the fix until a regularly scheduled security update has prompted independent security researchers to issue their own fix.

Alan Paller, research director of the nonprofit computer security
organization SANS Institute, says the newest Windows hole is a big one.

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The Fullerton, California school district wants to give all elementary and middle school students an Apple iBook. Well, give isn't exactly the right word. They want to make parents pay $500 per year for three years to cover the cost of the machine.

Right now, students in four schools in this Los Angeles area city have the laptops, and school officials say they're getting good results in student performance and teacher morale. But many parents are unhappy about the prospect of paying for an expensive computer, and the ACLU is threatening to sue, saying the program runs afoul of the California constitution, which guarantees a free education.

The disctrict has halted plans to expand the program for now.

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The year's biggest technology gala - the International Consumer Electronics Show - begins this week in Las Vegas. The Houston Chronicle's Dwight Silverman says the major theme of the event will be the the coming together of video and computing.

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Phishing is one of the fastest growing Internet crimes. So, who are these guys? Lance James, author of the new book Phishing Exposed, says phishers tend to be from Russia or Romania. They employ "mules" from the U.S. and Australia to do much of their legwork.