Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable operator, said subscribers whose use of the Internet exceeds 250 gigabytes of data a month may get a warning call and could lose their service.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Tanned, dirty and hungry, two men who spent three months crossing the Pacific on a raft made of plastic bottles to raise awareness of ocean debris finally stepped onto dry land.

"We made it," hollered Marcus Eriksen to a crowd of about two dozen gathered at Ala Wai Harbor on Wednesday. "Where's the food?"

Friends greeted Eriksen and fellow eco-mariner Joel Paschal with lei, fresh food and beer to celebrate the end of their 2,600-mile voyage on what they call the JUNK raft.

The Associated Press: A raft made of junk crosses Pacific in 3 months

When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

The Energy Challenge - Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid’s Limits - Series - NYTimes.com

The New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, announced an agreement on Wednesday with one of the country’s largest builders of coal-fired power plants that would require the company to disclose to investors the financial risks of global warming.

Xcel to Disclose Global Warming Risks - NYTimes.com

When the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it had cracked the long-unsolved anthrax case, the turning point cited by the bureau was its identification of a laboratory flask as the source of the anthrax.

The dots, or in this case more than a thousand separate anthrax samples, were connected with the help of a group of scientists working secretly for some seven years. They succeeded by using a combination of new techniques not even invented in late 2001 when the anthrax-laced letters were sent, and that most old-fashioned attribute of expert scientists and detectives: a trained eye.

A Trained Eye Finally Solved the Anthrax Puzzle - NYTimes.com

A reaction to McCain's recently announced technology policy. (Stupidly unclear in the video: the initial graph is U.S.'s global ranking in broadband penetration -- so starting high (#5) in 2000, and declining to #22 by 2008. The rankings are based on OECD data.)

Me on McCain on Technology (Lessig Blog)

"When I was growing up, NASA united Americans to a common purpose and inspired the world with accomplishments we are still proud of. Today, NASA is an organization that impacts many facets of American life. I believe NASA needs an inspirational vision for the 21st Century. My vision will build on the great goals set forth in recent years, to maintain a robust program of human space exploration and ensure the fulfillment of NASA's mission. Together, we can ensure that NASA again reflects all that is best about our country and continue our nation's preeminence in space."

Barack Obama: Advancing the Frontiers of Space Exploration | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens

A legal dispute involving model railroad hobbyists has resulted in a major courtroom victory for the free software movement also known as open-source software.

In a ruling Wednesday, the federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.

Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software - NYTimes.com

So for non-lawgeeks, this won't seem important. But trust me, this is huge.

I am very proud to report today that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (THE "IP" court in the US) has upheld a free (ok, they call them "open source") copyright license, explicitly pointing to the work of Creative Commons and others. (The specific license at issue was the Artistic License.) This is a very important victory, and I am very very happy that the Stanford Center for Internet and Society played a key role in securing it. Congratulations especially to Chris Ridder and Anthony Falzone at the Center.

huge and important news: free licenses upheld (Lessig Blog)

Biologists have constructed a genetic map of Europe showing the degree of relatedness between its various populations.

Science Visuals - The Genetic Map of Europe - NYTimes.com