The new Capitol Visitor Center — a 580,000-square-foot complex buried beneath the east side of Capitol Hill — opens its doors on December 2 to as many as 15,000 nation-lovin' pilgrims a day.

What's the solution to America's crisis in science education? More comic books. In December comes The Stuff of Life : A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA, a remarkably thorough explanation of the science of genetics, from Mendel to Venter, with a strand of social urgency spliced in. "If there was ever a time that we needed a push to make science a priority, it's now," says Howard Zimmerman, the book's editor and, not coincidentally, a former elementary-school science teacher. "Advances in treatments for disease cannot take place in a society that shuns science." Zimmerman works with the New York literary publishing house Hill and Wang, which discovered Elie Weisel and has been creating a new niche for itself as one of the premiere producers of major graphic "nonfiction novels" like the war on terror primer After 9/11 and the bio-comic Ronald Reagan.

Tell love story on YouTube this Christmas

Updates to Mosby's Confederacy have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Mosby's Confederacy

• Water optimizations and options settings control

iRingPro Launches Global Search for "The Best Free Ringtone on Earth"

Shaun White Snowboarding is now available in North and South America for $29.99

Weekly mortgage applications in the United States increased sharply in the week ending Nov. 28, according to data released from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) on Wednesday, which reported a 112.1% week-over-week rise in applications.

The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology is calling for the next Doctor Who to be a woman, in order to inspire girls to take up careers in science (and time-lording). A spokeswoman from the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) said: "There is a distinct lack of role models of female scientists in the media and recent research shows that this contributes to the under-representation of women in the field. "The UKRC believes that making a high profile sci-fi character with a following like Doctor Who female would help to raise the profile of women in science and bring the issue of the important contribution women can and should make to science in the public domain." The UKRC have set up a group on social networking site Facebook in a bid to get the BBC and members of the public behind their cause before the future Time Lord, or Lady, is chosen in time for the next full series set to air in 2010. 'Doctor Who should be a woman' say female scientists (via IO9)...

Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner said there is no evidence that programs boosting community lending spurred the mortgage crisis . Delivering remarks on the topic of the Community Reinvestment

Neighborhoods across Manhattan saw condo prices slide in September compared to a year ago, with the steepest drop seen in the financial district, where prices fell 16.1%, according to a report from Radar Logic.

This is one of the baddest-ass gift ideas I've seen yet this holiday season. So, you may recall an earlier Boing Boing blog post about the Periodic Table rendered in lenticular 3D photographs.... Theodore Gray has been making the ultimate periodic table, a one-of-a-kind wooden table with real samples that sits in his office. For the rest of us who don’t visit his office he has he has created an incredible (and very tastefully designed) photographic poster "after four years of collecting and photographing samples of all the chemical elements, months of struggling to select the very best example of each one." Mr. Gray is producing those posters still, and they're vivid and lovely. But he's also offering a custom banner service so you can print out a name (yours, that of your loved one, or your beloved blog, whatever) in photographic elements. Ours is above. Also, he's just begun offering a really cool puzzle with the same imagery, and a deck of index cards -- unlike other "elements" card decks, this one has perfectly square cards with all the info about that element on the back. You can reassemble them to make the periodic table. I've seen all of this stuff, it's sitting in the Boing Boing tv office right now, and it's beautifully printed, packaged, and presented. I'm going to buy a bunch for holiday prezzies. UPDATE: Oh, cool -- a special offer for Boing Boing readers! Theodore, the guy who makes all this stuff, says: I've added a "Where did you hear about my products?" comment field to the PayPal order page (it comes near the end of the ordering process). If anyone puts in boingboing, I'll send them a free extra product. If they order any size of poster, I'll include an extra 18x36 poster. If they order something non-rolled (like place mats, 3D lenticular print, card deck, or puzzle), I'll send something else that's not rolled. (Sending both a rolled and non-rolled item costs much more than sending two of the same type.) Previously: Periodic table of condiments - Boing Boing Periodic Table in haiku - Boing Boing The dinner table of the elements - Boing Boing Periodic Table of Videos: elements as short YouTube episodes ... Periodic Table Printmaking Project - Boing Boing Periodic table of comic book elements - Boing Boing Periodic Coffee Table - Boing Boing Periodic table jewelry - Boing Boing Periodic table rendered in photos, and in wood - Boing Boing...

It was recently announced that sci-fi remake series Battlestar Galactica is getting a whole new spinoff prequel series called "Caprica." Signed on for twenty hours worth of finished product, including a two-hour pilot, the new series is to be set 50 years prior to Battlestar Galactica, and will focus on two rival families, the Graystones and the Adamas. "Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics. 'Caprica' will deliver all of the passion, intrigue, political backbiting and family conflict in television's first science fiction family saga."

(Image above by keerthi). Today marks one week since the attacks in Mumbai that killed and injured hundreds (BB post #1, BB post #2). Skimming headlines this morning in the Times of India, the post-attack narrative has now turned to the possibility of punitive strikes on Pakistan by India, with some Indian media implying US support -- things could get a lot scarier, fast, given that both nations have nukes. US Secretary of State Rice just arrived, and on this same day, they've found bombs in the Mumbai train station that was an attack site. One of the other aftermath stories I've been following: what tech devices the attackers used to orient themselves and coordinate communications before, during, and after the attacks. VOIP phones, SIM cards, and Garmin GPS units, among them. Some of this information is apparently the result of interrogation with the one known surviving attacker (God only knows what methods they're using). All of this first circulated in Indian tabloids. I'm not sure of how reliable any or all of it is. But here's a snip from a possibly-more-reputable-than-others source, caveat lector, etc.: [T]he terrorists who carried out the rampage in Mumbai procured with ease five cell phone SIM cards -- three of which were being purchased from Delhi's Karol Bagh area while the rest from West Bengal's 24 Parganas district, interrogation records of the only arrested ultra have revealed. Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman has told interrogators that right through the fighting, the Lashkar-e-Taiba headquarters in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir remained very much in touch with them, frequently calling their mobile phones via a voice-over-Internet service. The government last year imposed strict rules on the issuance of SIM cards by cellular services operators following the Mecca Masjid blasts in Hyderabad in May, where terrorists had copiously used cell phones to trigger improvised explosive devises and send text messages to their handlers in Pakistan. Here's another account: Each man was equipped with a Kalashnikov rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition and grenades. The group also had at least one state-of-the art Garmin global positioning system set, and several mobile phones fitted with SIM cards, which have now been determined to have been purchased in Kolkata and New Delhi. Three men had larger bags, packed with five timer-controlled Improvised Explosive Devices. Over at WIRED Danger Room blog, Noah Shachtman has two must-read posts up about post-attack analysis, including insight from Bruce Schneier: Mumbai Terrorists Used Pirates' Tactics, and Sorting Fact From Fiction in Mumbai Attacks. More about the attackers, who were apparently men in their early twenties, from Pakistan: reports circulating (which we at BB can't verify) say they took large amounts of cocaine and LSD before and during the attacks to stay awake, in an altered state of consciousness. And, they apparently worked out a lot as part of a training bootcamp program in Pakistan, taking steroids to build muscle mass. And, a random, weird thing: one attacker captured alive by the Indian authorities is shown below in a CCTV camera still. Remember how Indian TV news was reporting that his shirt read "CRSA," speculating that this was some new terror organization, when the attacks were taking place? Well, take a closer look. That's "VERSA", with the rest of the word cut off -- is it "VERSACE ?" Presumably a knockoff tee, common throughout India (and the rest of the world), but still -- they wore Versace. Loren Coleman has more, and reminds us of an obliquely resonant factoid: the Versace design label's founder Gianni Versace was killed by a psychopathic murderer. Previously: Suketu "Maximum City" Mehta on the Mumbai attacks - Boing Boing India: Mumbai Attacks, Day Two; tech speculation - Boing Boing Maximum City: exhausting and beautiful love-note to Mumbai - Boing ... Blasts kill hundreds in Mumbai: local bloggers react - Boing Boing Boing Boing tv Update: Econopocalypse, Julie Amero, Holiday Gifts ... India: 80+ Reported Dead, 200+ injured in Bombay Terror Attacks ......

Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Jeffrey Lacker said a dramatic increase in Fed lending could destabilize the U.S. financial system. Delivering remarks to a panel discussion on the economic out