From The Outer Regions…

Will California become America’s first failed state?
Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state government is issuing IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong? [full article]

World’s largest dino footprints found
Found in the Jura plateau near the south-eastern city of Lyon, the prints are thought to belong to a giant vegetarian sauropod. The round prints are about one and a half metres wide, which palaeontologists at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) reckon were made by animals around 7.5 metres tall, weighing around 40 tonnes. [full article]

Cheap naked chips snap a perfect picture

HOW can image sensors – the most complicated and expensive part of a digital camera – be made cheaper and less complex? Easy: take the lid off a memory chip and use that instead. [full article]

Pirates hit navy ship ‘in error’
A group of Somali pirates has been captured after attacking a French navy ship by mistake, apparently thinking it was a harmless cargo vessel. [full article]