Our best test result right now: the Universal version of Cinema 4D XL, a processor-intensive rendering application, which was 3.3 times faster on the 2GHz MacBook Pro than on the 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. Unreal Tournament 2004 took advantage of both the Intel processor and the MacBook Pro's seriously upgraded video subsystems to post a frame rate 2.5 times greater than that of the PowerBook G4. These results bode well for use of the systems with Universal versions of professional applications and games. (And keep in mind that other Universal applications will likely get faster over time as they are optimized for Intel processors and increasingly take advantage of multiple processor cores.)

Our first Rosetta test on the MacBook Pro was our standard 14-task Photoshop CS2 suite, and the PowerBook G4 completed that task roughly 1.7 times as fast as the MacBook Pro.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blocks plan to dam Susquehanna

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that it is denying a permit for an inflatable dam to be built across the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre.

The Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority had proposed building a structure that would have reached 9 1/2 feet high and impounded 4 1/2 miles of the free flowing river. The corps said in a statement that the dam was not the least environmentally damaging way to control floods in the area.

The proposed $14 million dam would fill an acre of wetlands and disrupt the natural current in violation of the Clean Water Act, which requires the corps to maintain the biological integrity of U.S. waterways, the statement said.

The idea of the dam was pushed for many years by U.S.

Health ministers to push for fluoridation

LONDON, Feb. 3 Health officials in England plan to lobby Parliament for fluoridation as an effective and inexpensive way to help prevent dental problems, it was reported.
Only two areas in England -- the northeast and the West Midlands -- currently have fluoride automatically added to their municipal water supplies, The Mail on Sunday reported.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson says the plan will help poorer children avoid developing dental cavities.
"I want the NHS to do much more to prevent rather than just treat disease," he was quoted as saying. "Fluoridation is an effective and relatively easy way to help address health inequalities, giving children from poorer backgrounds a dental health boost that can last a lifetime."
Proponents point to studies indicating that children living in non-fluoridated Manchester are twice as likely to have dental caries as children in Birmingham, where fluoride has been added to the water supply for over 40 years, the newspaper reported.

NASA Selects Space Astronomy Missions Involving CU-Boulder For Further ...

NASA has awarded the University of Colorado at Boulder $1 million to lead the study of a space observatory to find Earth-like planets in distant solar systems and open the search for life outside our solar system.