Critics Slam NRA's Call for Armed School Guards

Gun control advocates slammed the National Rifle Association today for its proposal to create a force of armed security guards at schools across the country as a response to the Connecticut school shooting.

"It is beyond belief that following the Newtown tragedy, the National Rifle Association's leaders want to fill our communities with guns and arm more Americans," Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said.

Criticism mounted after the NRA addressed for the first time last week's school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which Adam Lanza, 20, used a semiautomatic weapon to open fire on students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 26 at the school.

NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre this morning dismissed the notion that the pro-gun group of about 4 million members would support any kind of gun-control laws, instead saying that "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who represents the district encompassing Newtown, reacted angrily to the comments after attending the funeral of another victim from last Friday's massacre.

"Walking out of another funeral and was handed the NRA transcript. The most revolting, tone deaf statement I've ever seen," @ChrisMurphyCT tweeted.

LaPierre argued that the answer to gun violence in schools is an armed security force that can protect students, made up of trained volunteers stationed at every school across the country.

"It's not just our duty to protect [our children], it's our right to protect them," LaPierre said at a news conference. "The NRA knows there are millions of qualified active and reserved police, active and reserve military, security professionals, rescue personnel, an extraordinary corps of qualified trained citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every single school."

He was interrupted twice by protestors who stood in front of LaPierre's podium holding signs and shouting that the NRA "has blood on its hands" and that the NRA is "killing our kids."

The protestors were eventually escorted out of the room.

Lautenberg, who has introduced legislation that would ban large-capacity ammunition magazines, called the NRA "irresponsible."

"The NRA points the finger of blame everywhere and anywhere it can, but they cannot escape the devastating effects of their reckless comments and irresponsible lobbying tactics," Lautenberg said.

Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut and husband of former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in Arizona, said, "The NRA could have chosen to be a voice for the vast majority of its own members who want common sense, reasonable safeguards on deadly firearms, but instead it chose to defend extreme pro-gun positions that aren't even popular among the law-abiding gun owners it represents."

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

National Rifle Association Calls for Armed Security at Schools Watch Video

President Obama Launches Gun-Violence Task Force Watch Video

President Obama on Gun Control: Ready to Act? Watch Video

The Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy organization, said the NRA's idea of arming security guards at schools would not stop school violence.

"The NRA plan, which cynically allows for the continued sale of the assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines marketed by its gun industry corporate donors, has already been tried, and it did not work," the group said in a statement released today.

It pointed to the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, in which two armed police officers were at the school when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire. The officers exchanged gunfire with the killers, but were unable to stop them from their rampage.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi conceded that the issue is "complicated, but she said the NRA's call for an escalation "is not a positive force" in the renewed gun-control debate.

"For the NRA and others to sort of shield themselves by saying it's the mentally ill or something, and therefore we have to have more armed cops in the schools or more guns in the school -- what are they -- are they going to have [a gun] on the teacher's desk?" Pelosi wondered.

"'Wait a minute, man with a gun; I have it locked up someplace. Wait until I go get it.' I mean, this ... just doesn't make sense; we've got to reduce violence."

LaPierre had dismissed the notion that banning so-called assault weapons or enacting gun-control laws would stop school violence. He instead cast blame for gun violence in schools on violent entertainment, including video games, and the media.

"How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame from a national media machine that rewards them with a wall of attention they crave while provoking others to make their mark?" he asked.

LaPierre announced that former U.S. congressman Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas would lead the NRA's effort to advocate for school security forces. Hutchinson specified that the NRA, with about 4 million members, is calling for volunteers to act as the armed guards, rather than requiring funding from local or federal authorities.

"Whether they're retired police, retired military or rescue personnel, I think there are people in every community in this country who would be happy to serve if only someone asked them and gave them the training and certifications to do so," Hutchinson said.

NRA leaders have held off on interviews this week after refusing to appear on Sunday morning public affairs shows. They said they would grant interviews beginning next week to discuss their position.

NRA News anchor Ginny Simone said Thursday that in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, membership surged "with an average of 8,000 new members a day."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NRA is partially to blame for the tragedy.

"We're not trying to take away your right to advance the interests of gun owners, hunters, people who want to protect themselves," Bloomberg told "Nightline" anchor Cynthia McFadden in an interview Thursday. "But that's not an absolute right to encourage behavior which causes things like Connecticut. In fact, Connecticut is because of some of their actions."

The guns used in the attack were legally purchased and owned by the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza, whom Adam Lanza shot to death before his assault on the school.

In the aftermath of the shooting, many, including Bloomberg, have called for stricter regulations on the type of weapons used in this and other instances of mass gun violence this year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said she intends to introduce a bill banning assault weapons on the first day of next year's Congress -- a step the president said he supports.

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Van-sized space rock is a cosmic oddball

The shattered remains of a high-profile space rock are oddly low in organic materials, the raw ingredients for life. The discovery adds a slight wrinkle to the theory that early Earth was seeded with organics by meteorite impacts.

In April a van-sized meteor was seen streaking over northern California and Nevada in broad daylight. The fireball exploded with a sonic boom and sprayed the region with fragments. Videos, photographs and weather radar data allowed the meteor's trajectory to be reconstructed, and teams quickly mobilised to search for pieces in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in northern California.

Researchers readily identified the meteorites as rare CM chondrites, thought to be one of the oldest types of rock in the universe. "Because the meteorites were discovered so freshly, for the first time we had a chance to study this type of meteorite in a pristine form," says Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the search effort and the subsequent study of the space rocks.

Jenniskens personally found a fragment in a parking lot, where it remained relatively free of soil contaminants. "That's the best you could hope for, other than landing in a freezer," says Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Battered past

CM chondrites make up only about 1 per cent of known meteorites. Most of them contain plenty of organic materials, including amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth.

Jenniskens and colleagues found that the California fragments also have amino acids, including some not found naturally on Earth. But in three rocks collected before a heavy rainstorm, which bathed the other pieces in earthly contaminants, organics are less abundant by a factor of 1000 than in previously studied CM chondrites.

These three rocks could not have lost organics due to space "weathering": analysis of the meteorites' exposure to cosmic rays suggests the original meteor was flying through space for only about 50,000 years before hitting Earth.

Based on its trajectory and its relatively short flight time, Jenniskens thinks the meteor can be traced back to a family of asteroids dominated by 495 Eulalia, a group known as a possible source of CM chondrites. It is probably a piece that broke off during an impact, revealing the relatively pristine material inside.

So what happened to its organics? Jenniskens' team found that the meteorites are breccia – smaller rocks cemented together – which suggests that the asteroid from which they came took a series of beatings. Those impacts, or possibly other processes inside the asteroid, could have heated it enough to destroy most organic material.

Limited delivery

The result might have implications for the organics delivery theory, says Bill Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"It shows that not all asteroids can deliver sufficient quantities. One of the disappointments is that, from a prebiotic organic chemistry perspective, it was very limited," says Bottke. "But this is an unusual case. Most [CM chondrites] are loaded with organic compounds."

Still, studying the space rocks will help us prepare future missions to asteroids such as OSIRIS-Rex, scheduled to take off for asteroid 1999 RQ36 in 2016 and bring a sample back in 2023.

"In some ways, we've had a sample, a very fresh one, come to us," says Bottke. "This is a test bed for the techniques we'll use in that mission."

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1227163

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Football: We must remain focused: Duric

BANGKOK: Thanks to Baihakki Khaizan's late strike sealing a 3-1 win for Singapore over Thailand in the first leg of the ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup final on December 19, it now appears that the Lions have one hand firmly on the trophy.

But forward Aleksandar Duric has declared that there is absolutely no room for thoughts like that in the Singapore camp.

The 22-man squad arrived in Bangkok on Thursday for the return leg, which will be played on December 22 at the Supachalasai Stadium, and the veteran marksman has urged his team-mates to keep their eye on the ball.

"Sure it's a nice score at 3-1 for us, but it's only half-time," said Duric, 42.

"The Thais will have a second chance and I'm sure they will want to grab it. For us it's important to stay cool and not do anything stupid on the field.

"I have been telling the younger players how important it is not to lose sight of the mission that is yet to be completed.

"To be overconfident at this stage is the worst thing that can happen to us. Stay cool, stay focused, keep up the hard work and we will be fine."

Duric was speaking upon the team's arrival at their hotel in Bangkok, following a long journey made more tiring by Bangkok's notorious evening rush hour. But despite the many hours spent seated in the coach, the squad looked relaxed.

After a quick meal, the players spent 90 minutes in the hotel's swimming pool as part of the recovery process.

It was also revealed that left-back Shaiful Esah, who received a knock to his head on Wednesday, has been declared fit.

"It has been one tiring day," said Lions team manager Eugene Loo.

"Getting to the airport, clearing immigration and the slow bus ride to the hotel. But we knew what to expect, so there is no irritation or frustration on our part. We are here to do a job and finish it successfully."

- TODAY

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How to tame annoying alert sounds in OS X

One of the primary uses of computers is, of course, for media, whether you're watching movies, listening to music, playing a game, or running through a feature-packed slideshow. In the middle of the fun, it can be incrediby frustrating to get interrupted by a loud swoosh as you receive a new e-mail, or a speech alert telling you some other program needs attention.

To avoid such interruptions, of course you can quit the various applications like Mail and instant-messaging clients that may cause them, but this will not guarantee silence, as alerts can still crop up from other sources.

There are several ways you can manage alert sounds in OS X:

Place custom sounds in the /Library/Sounds/ folder. You can also separately adjust alert volumes and output devices in the Sound system preferences.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

1. Use a less intrusive sound
   OS X has a few different alert sounds, some more prominent than others. You can try them out in the Sound Effects section of the Sound system preferences and choose one you find less jarring. In addition to Apple's sounds, you can supply custom sounds of your own. Simply take any sound clip in AIFF format and place it in the /Library/Sounds/ folder in the drive named Macintosh HD (or in the library within your user account) and the sound should show up as "Custom" in the Sound Effects list.


2. Reduce alert volumes
   OS X treats alerts differently than other audio (such as audio from games and media players), so you can control their volume separately. Again in the Sound Effects section of the Sound system preferences, set the "Alert volume" slider to a lower value, or lower it completely to mute all alert sounds.


3. Use a different output device for alerts
   If you have multiple audio interfaces, then you can specify one for alerts that's separate from the one for default audio playback. In the same Sound Effects tab, simply choose the device to use in the "Play sound effects through:" menu, and that will isolate them to that interface. You can set the default audio output in the Output section of the Sound system preferences.

Another tip that might be beneficial for people who regularly just plug their Macs in and play audio through them. If you need to adjust playback volume you can usually do so from within the media player itself, or perhaps more conveniently you can adjust the overall system volume using your
Mac keyboard's volume controls. However, this does by default result in a "pop" sound demonstrating the new volume level.

If you don't want to hear this, you can disable it temporarily by holding the Shift key when adjusting the audio volume, or you can disable it completely by unchecking "Play feedback when volume is changed" in the Sound Effects audio preferences.

---

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite

A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.

Bats are a major reservoir for the rabies virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Previous research shows that bats can transmit their strains to other animals, potentially putting people at risk. (Popular Videos: Bats share the screen with creepy co-stars.)

Rabies, typically transmitted in saliva, targets the brain and is almost always fatal in animals and people if left untreated. No current tests detect rabies in live animals—only brain tissue analysis is accurate.

Searching for a way to detect the virus in bats before the animals died, rabies specialist James Ellison and his colleagues at the CDC turned to a captive colony of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Previous studies had found temperature increases in the noses of rabid raccoons, so the team expected to see similar results with bats.

Researchers established normal temperature ranges for E. fuscus—the bat species most commonly sent for rabies testing—then injected 24 individuals with the virus. The 21-day study monitored facial temperatures with infrared cameras, and 13 of the 21 bats that developed rabies showed temperature drops of more than 4ºC.

"I was surprised to find the bats' faces were cooler because rabies causes inflammation—and that creates heat," said Ellison. "No one has done this before with bats," he added, and so researchers aren't sure what's causing the temperature changes they've discovered in the mammals. (Related: "Bats Have Superfast Muscles—A Mammal First.")

Although thermal scans didn't catch every instance of rabies in the colony, this method may be a way to detect the virus in bats before symptoms appear. The team plans to fine-tune their measurements of facial temperatures, and then Ellison hopes to try surveillance in the field.

This study was published online November 9 in Zoonoses and Public Health.

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Manhunt Heats Up for Two Escaped Bank Robbers

The manhunt for two bank robbers who escaped from a downtown Chicago prison this week intensified overnight, with police chasing multiple leads as new footage shows the men getting into a taxi minutes after their brazen escape.

Investigators say surveillance cameras captured Joseph "Jose" Banks, 37, and Kenneth Conley, 38,
getting into a taxi minutes after their early Tuesday escape. They entered the taxi at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Congress Street, just blocks away from the jail.

The FBI considers them "armed and dangerous."

The men then showed up five hours later at the home of Sandy Conley, Kenneth Conley's mother, in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, Ill.

"He was in the house for two minutes," Sandy Conley said. "I can't tell you if he was armed. I made him get out."

Thomas Trautmann of the Chicago FBI said the clock is ticking on finding the men.

"[As] each hour goes by, our chances get longer and longer," he said. "However, we do have several viable leads that we are running down."

He did not specify the information.

PHOTOS: Mug shots of Famed Criminals and Celebrities

Prison Break: Convicts Escape from Jail on Bed Sheets Watch Video

Banks and Conley were last seen Monday at 10 p.m. during a prison head count at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago's Loop district. The two borrowed a move from the film "Escape From Alcatraz" by stuffing their beds with clothes in the shape of bodies.

They men then broke the window of their cell at the federal prison, shimmying out a hole only inches wide, and scaled down the side of the building 17 stories, all the while holding onto a rope of sheets and towels taken from the prison. The rope was strong enough to support the two, one weighing 165 pounds the other 185 pounds.

At 7 a.m. the next morning, as employees arrived at work, they noticed the sheets left dangling from the building and at jailers discovered that Conley and Banks were missing.

While the men have had plenty of time to leave the area, there's no indication that they have, ABC 7 TV's public-safety expert Jody Weis said.

"There's a likelihood that they're going to stay here," Weis, a former Chicago police superintendent, said. "They'll have people they can trust. They can have people they can work with. There are going to be people that might be able to hide them out."

Banks, nicknamed "the second-hand bandit" because of the used clothing disguises he wore in several robberies, was convicted of armed robbery last week. His parting words to his judge, Rebecca Pallmeyer, were, "I'll be seeking retribution as well as damages ... you'll hear from me."

Conley had been in jail for several years.

Pallmeyer and others who presided over the men's cases have reportedly been offered protection.

"If they're willing to go down a sheet 17 floors, they're willing to take a chance," Weis said. "And I think you can draw your own conclusion as to what that might mean."

The FBI and U.S. Marshals are offering a combined reward of $60,000 to find the inmates and bring them back into custody.

Escape Has Similarities to 1985 Prison Break

Banks and Conley's disappearance has some striking similarities to the daring escape made by two convicted murders who also broke out of the downtown jail 27 years ago.

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Today on New Scientist: 19 December 2012

Cassini captures spectacle in Saturn's shadow

Saturn blocks out the sun to reveal its rings in all their splendour in this image from the Cassini spacecraft

Fabricated future: The sceptic's guide to 3D printing

3D printing is a revolutionary technology, but never mind the hype, says MacGregor Campbell - it will make its impact in unexpected ways

Best videos of 2012: Soap bubbles create 3D display

Watch the world's thinnest screen display vivid images, at number 8 in our countdown of this year's top videos.

Nearby Tau Ceti may host two planets suited to life

A star that is a mainstay of science fiction and resembles our sun has become a prime candidate for having habitable planets

Dogs - great people pleasers, less good as chauffeurs

Videos of dogs driving cars have become a global hit and prompted wild claims of canine intelligence. Not so fast, argues an animal cognition researcher

'Pinch-and-paste' app boosts your interior design skills

Want to see what your couch would look like in any colour or fabric? A new augmented reality app lets you virtually trick out your living room before you buy

Our deep relationship with water

A look back through history gives our modern commercial dealings with water a new perspective in Drinking Water by James Salzman

Blame bacteria if you start putting on weight

A man lost about 30 per cent of his body mass on a diet designed to inhibit Enterobacter - adding to mounting evidence that bacteria causes obesity

Micro-origami uses cells to fold itself

Watch cell forces do origami with tiny plastic sheets

2013 Smart Guide: Revolutionary human stem cell trial

Next year will see the first person receive induced pluripotent stem cells - "rewound" adult cells that can grow into any tissue in the body

App for quizzing your way to being a mastermind

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Twin attack could deliver universal flu vaccine

Combining two approaches to preventing flu might create lasting immunity against novel types

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Qantas-Emirates alliance gets conditional approval

SYDNEY: Australia's competition watchdog on Thursday gave its draft approval to a global alliance between struggling carrier Qantas and Dubai-based Emirates, but only for five years initially.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said the benefits, which will see the carriers coordinating ticket prices and flight schedules, would likely outweigh reduced competition on certain routes.

A final decision will be made by March.

"The ACCC considers that the alliance is likely to result in material, although not substantial, benefits to Australian consumers," ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

"The main benefit arising from the alliance is an improved product and service offering by the two airlines to their customers.

"This includes increased customer access to each others' flights, destinations and frequent flyer programmes."

Sims added that the alliance would lessen competition on some international routes, but competition from other airlines should mitigate that impact.

However, he said Qantas and Emirates could reduce or limit capacity on routes between Australia and New Zealand under the partnership, which could result in higher airfares.

It was for this reason that the ACCC only gave an initial five-year approval, half the 10 years requested by the airlines. The decision would then be reviewed.

Under the alliance, Qantas will shift its hub for European flights to Dubai from Singapore in a bid to stem losses after this year posting its first annual loss since privatisation in 1995.

The deal goes beyond code sharing to include coordinated pricing, sales and scheduling and a benefit-sharing model, although neither airline will take equity in the other.

For Emirates customers, the alliance will open up Qantas' Australian domestic network of more than 50 destinations and nearly 5,000 flights per week.

- AFP/de

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Dropbox snaps up cloud-based photo organizer Snapjoy

Dropbox is continuing to reveal its interest in getting into the online photo sharing space. The latest piece of evidence is the acquisition of Snapjoy, a startup that provides a cloud-based photo library.

For reference, Snapjoy's platform can be used to collect photos from a multiude of online and offline sources (i.e., Flickr, desktops, an iPhone, etc.) to be stored in a cloud-based account. Users can elect to share some or all photos, either via invite to select friends or on social networks.

One of the differences that Snapjoy aimed to convey is that its elegant photo stream displays photos in the order in which the user "lived them" -- presumably based on when the original photo was generated.

Snapjoy executives confirmed the news in a blog post on Wednesday. Here's a snippet from their statement:

As a fellow Y Combinator company, we've always admired Dropbox and loved their product. From the moment we met the founders, it was clear we shared a common goal. By combining forces with their amazing team, we can leverage the technology and scale of their platform and focus on what matters -- delivering an incredible photo experience to over 100 million people.

The Snapjoy team added that while they are closing the door on new signups, existing users can continue to use Snapjoy just as they do now. More details are promised to become available to members in the coming weeks.

Earlier this week, Dropbox rolled out a revamped edition of its iOS app, which mainly focused on the photo management and sharing features. Those new functions included a timeline stream of automatically uploaded photos as well as a splashy new viewing feature for the
iPad version.

Thus, with the Instagram kerfuffle this week, it might be perfect timing for Dropbox (not to mention other competitors) to turn up the heat in the photo-sharing space.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. TechCrunch reported that the Boulder, Colo.-based team will be moving to Dropbox's base in San Francisco.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Dropbox nabs cloud-based photo library Snapjoy."

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Grabbing Water From Future Generations

This piece is part of Water Grabbers: A Global Rush on Freshwater, a special National Geographic Freshwater News series on how grabbing land—and water—from poor people, desperate governments, and future generations threatens global food security, environmental sustainability, and local cultures.

Suresh Ponnusami sat back on his porch by the road south of the Indian textile town of Tirupur. He was not rich, but for the owner of a two-acre farm in the backwoods of a developing country he was doing rather well. He had a TV, a car, and a maid to bring him drinks and ensure his traditional white Indian robes were freshly laundered every morning.

The source of his wealth, he said, was a large water reservoir beside his house. And as we chatted, a tanker drew up on the road. The driver dropped a large pipe from his vehicle into the reservoir and began sucking up the contents.

Ponnusami explained: "I no longer grow crops, I farm water. The tankers come about ten times a day. I don't have to do anything except keep my reservoir full." To do that, he had drilled boreholes deep into the rocks beneath his fields, and inserted pumps that brought water to the surface 24 hours a day. He sold every tanker load for about four dollars. "It's a good living, and it's risk-free," he said. "While the water lasts."

A neighbor told me she does the same thing. Water mining was the local industry. But, she said, "every day the water is reducing. We drilled two new boreholes a few weeks ago and one has already failed."

Surely this is madness, I suggested. Why not go back to real farming before the wells run dry? "If everybody did that, it would be well and good," she agreed. "But they don't. We are all trying to make as much money as we can before the water runs out."

Ponnusami and his neighbors were selling water to dyeing and bleaching factories in Tirupur. The factories once got their water from a giant reservoir on southern India's biggest river, the Kaveri (see picture). But the Kaveri was now being pumped dry by farmers and industry farther upstream. The reservoir was nearly empty most of the year. So the factories had taken to buying up underground water from local farmers.

It is a trade that is growing all over India—and all over the world.

Draining Fossil Aquifers

We are used to thinking of water as a renewable resource. However much we waste and abuse it, the rains will come again and the rivers and reservoirs will refill. Except during droughts, this is true for water at the surface. But not underground. As we pump more and more rivers dry, the world is increasingly dependent on subterranean water. That is water stored by nature in the pores of rocks, often for thousands of years, before we began to tap it with our drills and pumps.

We are emptying these giant natural reservoirs far faster than the rains can refill them. The water tables are falling, the wells have to be dug ever deeper, and the pumps must be ever bigger. We are mining water now that should be the birthright of future generations.

In India, the water is being taken for industry, for cities, and especially for agriculture. Once a country of widespread famine, India has seen an agricultural revolution in the past half century. India now produces enough food to feed all its people; the fact that many Indians still go hungry today is an economic and political puzzle, because the country exports rice.

But that may not last. Researchers estimate that a quarter of India's food is irrigated with underground water that nature is not replacing. The revolution is living on borrowed water and borrowed time. Who will feed India when the water runs out?

Nobody knows how much water is buried beneath our feet. But we do know that the reserves are being emptied. The crisis is global and growing, but remains largely out of sight and out of mind.

The latest estimate, published in the journal Water Resources Research this year, is that India alone is pumping out some 46 cubic miles (190 cubic kilometers) of water a year from below ground, while nature is refilling only 29 cubic miles (120 cubic kilometers), a shortfall of 17 cubic miles (70 cubic kilometers) per year. A cubic kilometer is 264.2 billion gallons, or about enough water to fill 400,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Close behind India, Pakistan is overpumping by 8.4 cubic miles (35 cubic kilometers), the United States by 7.2 cubic miles (30 cubic kilometers), and China and Iran by 4.8 cubic miles (20 cubic kilometers) each per year. Globally, the shortfall is about 60 cubic miles (250 cubic kilometers) per year, more than three times the rate half a century ago. Egypt, Uzbekistan, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Syria, Australia, Israel, and others are all pumping up their water at least 50 percent faster than the rains replenish. In some places, water that you could once bring to the surface with a bucket on a short rope is now a mile or more down.

See pictures of the Nile at work >>

Farming's Big Thirst

Overwhelmingly, the problem is agriculture. Farming takes two-thirds of all the water we grab from nature, but that figure rises to 90 percent in many of the driest and most water-stressed regions.

This cannot go on, as the United States is already discovering. For more than half a century now, farmers have been pumping out one of the world's greatest underwater reserves, the Ogallala aquifer, which stretches beneath the High Plains from Texas to South Dakota. The pumping began in order to revive the plains after the horrors of the 1930s Dust Bowl. By the 1970s there were 200,000 water wells, supplying more than a third of the U.S.'s irrigated fields.

For a while it was a huge success. In a good year, the High Plains produced three-quarters of the wheat traded on international markets, restocking Russian grain stores and feeding millions of starving Africans. But the Ogallala water is drawing down, many wells are going dry, and the output of the pumps has halved. A quarter of the aquifer is gone in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and over wide areas the water table has fallen by more than 100 feet. In some places, the sagebrush is returning because farmers are giving up on irrigated planting. (See "That Sinking Feeling About Groundwater in Texas.")

Other countries are heading in the same direction. Water tables are falling by more than a meter a year beneath the North China Plain, the breadbasket of the most populous nation on Earth. Saudi Arabia has almost pumped dry a vast water reserve beneath the desert in just 40 years.

Libya is doing the same beneath the Sahara. Muammar Qaddafi, Libya's late ruler, spent $30 billion of his country's oil revenues on giant pump fields in the desert, and a 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) network of pipes to bring underground water that is thousands of years old to coastal farms. Even though it was bombed by NATO forces last year, what Qaddafi called the Great Manmade River Project appears to still be functioning. But nature will eventually accomplish what the bombs did not. Water tables are dropping, pumping is getting harder, and the water is getting saltier.

Soon we may have a full global picture of how the world's underground water reserves are disappearing. Researchers are using NASA's GRACE satellite, which measures changes in the Earth's gravity field, to spot where the pores in rocks are being emptied of water. Jay Famiglietti, an earth science professor at the University of California, Irvine, is analyzing the findings. He says water security will soon rival energy security as the fastest-rising issue on the global geopolitical agenda.

More and more countries are so short of water for farming that they can feed their citizens only by importing crops grown using someone else's water. But the number of countries with spare water to export in this way is diminishing. The fear is that as the world's water supplies run on empty, the world's stomachs will as well.

Often, even before the water runs out, the pumps start to bring up water that is salty or toxic. In parts of India, there are epidemics of fluoride poisoning caused by drinking water containing high levels of this natural compound, which dissolves from hard rocks beneath water-bearing strata. I have seen villages full of severely disabled children, and adults suffering muscle degeneration, organ failure, and cancer caused by these poisons. Some communities call it "the devil's water."

We should not be doing this, says Brian Richter, freshwater strategist at The Nature Conservancy. "Falling groundwater levels are the bellwethers of the unsustainability of our water use," Richter said. "We're raiding our savings accounts with no payback plan."

We should not be stealing water from future generations, Richter said. We should instead use underground water sparingly and with caution.

Seeking Solutions

This can be done, starting with agriculture. Scientists are already working on new varieties of crops that need much less water to grow. And technologists are coming up with less wasteful ways to irrigate those crops. (See "Saving a River, One Farm at a Time.")

The truth is that, despite growing shortages, water is still usually so cheap that it is often wasted. The majority of the world's farmers irrigate simply by flooding their fields. But only a fraction of that water gets absorbed by the plants. Some of it percolates underground and can eventually be pumped to the surface again. But much of it is lost to evaporation.

Even spraying from pivots loses huge amounts of water to the air, where it may get carried out to sea or otherwise lost to local use. So the race is on to develop cheap drip irrigation, in which water is distributed across fields in pipes and dripped into the soil close to plant roots. That way we may be able to save our underground water reserves for future generations.

Meanwhile, communities across the world are running out of water. Where are things worst? The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) nominates the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave on the shores of the Mediterranean between Israel and Egypt. It looks as though it will become the first territory in the world to lose its only water supply.

Gaza has no rivers. It cannot afford desalinated seawater. So its 1.7 million inhabitants drink from the underground reserves. But pumping is being done at three times the recharge rate, water tables are falling fast, and what comes through the wells is increasingly contaminated by seawater seeping into the emptying rocks. A UN report this year said Gaza's water probably will be undrinkable by 2016. What then?

Gaza is an extreme case. And water is only one of its many problems. But it offers a warning for the world. It shows what can happen as the water runs out—what will happen in many other places if we continue to steal water from our children and their children.

Fred Pearce is a journalist and author on environmental science. His books include When the Rivers Run Dry and The Land Grabbers, both for Beacon Press, Boston. He writes regularly for New Scientist magazine, Yale Environment 360, and The Guardian, and has been published by Nature and The Washington Post.

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