Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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School Safety Questioned After Conn. Shooting

Along with fire drills, schools have been conducting lockdown drills -- often known as active shooter drills -- since the Columbine massacre in 1999.

But safety officials do not agree yet on what teachers and students should do when a homicidal gunman invades their school.

At Sandy Hook Elementary School, teachers, staff and students had been drilled on how to handle such a situation.

"We practice it, and they knew what to do, and you just think about protecting the kids, and just doing the right thing," library clerk Mary Ann Jacob said.

She said had been drilled to send the kids in the library to a back closet between book shelves, a plan developed in advance.

"You have to have a certain amount of fire drills, and evacuation drills, and a certain amt of lockdown drills," she said. "Kids know the routine, and the teachers know the routine, and everyone has a spot in the room where they are supposed to go to."

School safety expert Ken Trump told ABC News that he thinks the Sandy Hook teachers did what they could to protect their students.

"It does sound as though the teachers did everything humanly possible, down to risking their lives, to protect the children in this Connecticut school," Trump said.

The school's principal and five other adults died in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

"Teaching kids to lock down, securing your rooms, and, in some cases, teachers stepping forth to protect the children at the risk of their own lives, is something that we see occurring more and more over the years in school safety," Trump said.

Oregon Mall Shooter Identified, Ex-Girlfriend Speaks Watch Video

Aurora, Colorado Shooting: New Video Released Watch Video

He and others particularly praised the actions of first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, who locked her classroom door and barricaded herself and her 14 students in a locked bathroom.

Click here for more photos of the scene.

But former SWAT officer Greg Crane told ABC News that he thinks existing lockdown procedures aren't sufficient.

"What she [Roig] did was a fantastic move," said Crane, who founded a school safety program called ALICE, which stands for alert, lock down, inform, counter, evacuate.

"Was she taught that move? Did every teacher know to lock the door and also barricade it? If that's the case, why weren't other teachers taught that?" Crane asked.

Click here for live updates.

Most schools tell teachers to lock their doors and sit quietly until helps arrives, Crane said.

Typical are the procedures, obtained by ABCNews.com, outlined by a New Jersey school district that calls their drills "Lock Down Yellow."

Instructions to the students include:

"Go to the room nearest your location in the hallway.

"No one will be able to leave room for any reason.

"Silence must be maintained (Use of cell phones are not permitted).

"Make sure you are marked present.

"Do not leave the classroom until directed by PA System, telephone or by an administrator."

But Crane founded ALICE because he believed there was something wrong with the lock down-only policies in most schools.

"We've taught a generation of Americans to be passive and static and wait for police," said Crane, whose wife was an elementary school principal in Texas at the time of the Columbine attack.

"We don't recommend just locking a door because locked doors have been defeated before," Crane said. "Try to make yourself as hard a target as possible."

ALICE argues students and teachers should not be passive and that they should improvise. He even suggests they throw things are their attacker.

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

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Obama calls for solidarity after school massacre

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Saturday called for Americans to "come together" to prevent tragedies like the school massacre that killed 20 young children and six adults, one of the worst mass shootings in US history.

"This weekend, Michelle and I are doing what I know every parent is doing -- holding our children as close as we can and reminding them how much we love them," said Obama, father of Sasha, 10, and Malia, 14.

"There are families in Connecticut who can't do that today. And they need all of us now," he added, in his weekly address.

Twenty-seven people, including the shooter, were killed on Friday morning at an elementary school in Connecticut. US media reported that a 28th victim, found at a residence in the town, was the shooter's mother.

"While nothing can take the place of a lost child or loved one, all of us can extend a hand to those in need -- to remind them that we are there for them; that we are praying for them; and that the love they felt for those they lost endures not just in their own memories, but also in their community, and their country," he continued.

"Every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt," Obama said. On Friday, he fought tears in an emotional address about the tragic incident.

"We grieve for the families of those we lost. And we keep in our prayers the parents of those who survived. Because as blessed as they are to have their children home, they know that their child's innocence has been torn away far too early," the president said.

Obama said the tragedy was all too familiar, after similar deadly shootings at a shopping mall in Oregon, at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and at a movie theatre in Colorado earlier this year.

"Any of these neighbourhoods could be our own. So we have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics," the president said, echoing his message from the day before.

Obama did not give details, but some US politicians called for a serious look at gun control laws, a subject which Obama, re-elected on November 6, did not tackle strongly in his first term.

- AFP/xq

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Do I really need insurance for my smartphone?

You may have only paid $200 for your latest smartphone, but if you had to replace that device before you are eligible for a subsidy from your carrier it cost your more than $600. Is it worth it to get device insurance?

That's the question I answer this time in Ask Maggie. I also offer some advice to an Apple iPhone fan who wants to know if he should wait for the next iPhone rumored to be out in June or July.

To buy insurance or live dangerously without?

Dear Maggie,
I am getting my son an
iPhone 5 for Christmas. I was wondering if I should also consider getting an insurance policy for the phone. Is it a good idea or a waste of money? Would I need to get Apple Care in addition to an insurance plan? And do you think I should get the insurance from a carrier or through a third party company?

Thanks,
Karen

Dear Karen,
The problem with buying any kind of insurance is that you simply don't know what will happen in the future. If your son's new iPhone is lost, stolen or damaged in the first few months of owning it, then it's a terrific bargain. But if he goes two years with not so much as a scratch on his precious new gadget, it's a waste of money.

Some people would rather save the money they'd spend on the insurance premiums and deductible, and hope nothing bad happens to their gadget. While others would prefer to have the peace of mind that comes with knowing their device can be replaced right away without having to pay full price for a new device.

The first thing you need to figure out is how much insurance will cost you and what it will cover. As you alluded to in your question, there are several options for purchasing smartphone and other gadget insurance. Wireless operators offer insurance plans as do third party companies. There are also extended warranty plans from device makers like Apple or from retailers like Best Buy, that typically cover mechanical defects to the device and may on some occasions cover some accidental damage coverage. But these programs typically do not cover you for a lost or stolen device.

In general, insurance plans will offer more coverage than an extended warranty. Here are a few things that many insurance policies will likely cover:

• Accidental damage (including shattered screens and liquid damage)
• Loss
• Theft or burglary
• Mechanical breakdown or malfunction beyond the manufacturer warranty

Some insurance policies may also cover things like credit monitoring as well as lock, wipe and locate services if your device is lost or stolen.

Every insurance policy will also include a fee or premium. And they all have a deductible. The fees and deductibles often depend on what kind of device you are insuring. Be aware that many policies charge higher premiums and have higher deductibles for the Apple iPhone as compared to other smartphones.

So make sure you double check the policy to see what the fees and deductibles are. Before you sign up for any insurance, you should check the specifics and fine print to see what is and is not covered.

To get you started on your search, here's a little information about a few options.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless offer insurance for the iPhone. But Sprint, which offers an insurance plan for other smartphones, does not offer a policy for the iPhone. T-Mobile, which doesn't offer the iPhone on its network, also does not have a policy that would cover the iPhone.

There are also insurance policies from third party companies you may want to consider. One such company is called ProtectYourBubble.com. It offers insurance for the iPhone as well as other gadgets. This company offers a 10 percent discount for additional policies you have either on other iPhones or on other gadgets.

Here's a quick look at the offers:

AT&T

Premium: $6.99 per month

Deductible: $199

Verizon Wireless

Premium: $9.99 per month

Deductible: $169 for 8GB, 16GB
iPhone 4, 16GB
iPhone 4S and, 8GB, 16GB iPhone 5 and $199 for 32GB iPhone 4 and 32GB, 64GB iPhone 4S and 32GB, 64GB iPhone 5

Protect Your Bubble

Premium: $7.99 per month

Deductible: $120 (Other smartphones have a deductible of $100.)

Which insurance plan is better? As you can see from the information listed above, Verizon has the most expensive insurance plan. Two years of premiums, plus the deductible will set you back $410. AT&T's premiums and deductible are $368 for the iPhone. And Protect Your Bubble's total comes to $312.

Are any of these policies really worth the cost? Again, it's hard to answer this question since it really depends on how likely it is that you'll need the insurance versus how much risk you're willing to live with if you don't get any insurance.

Remember that if you have to replace the device before your son is eligible for a new contract, it will cost you between $649 to $849 to replace his iPhone with a new iPhone 5 depending on the model you select. You may be able to get a used or refurbished iPhone for a bit less, but iPhones hold their value pretty well, so you will likely still end up paying several hundred dollars to get the same device.

Personally, I am a bit of a cheapskate. And I'm willing to take the risk of something happening to my device. I have never had insurance on any of my smartphones. And (knock on wood) I have never had a cracked screen or a device damaged by water or any other liquid. My iPhone 3G was stolen out of my backpack when I was playing in a flag football game a few years ago, but I was eligible for an upgrade from my carrier, so I only ended up paying $200 for a new phone anyway.

That said, I may soon be one of the few people who does not get insurance for my smartphone. According to Stephen Ebbett of Protect Your Bubble, 45 percent of smartphone subscribers have insurance for their devices. And he said that his company is seeing more and more people sign up for coverage.

"Our sales are growing week on week," he said. "We've been very encouraged by people recognizing the value of their smartphone in their lives. It's not just the cash value of their devices, but the fact that they really can't live without their smartphone for a week."

What about Apple Care?

Apple's AppleCare+ program costs $99 and extends the warranty of the iPhone for another year. The plan covers all repair coverage and technical support. And it also covers up to two incidents of accidental damage, each with an additional cost of $49.

While Apple Care+ is considerably less expensive than the insurance plans, you must remember that it is essentially an extended warranty. And it does not cover you if the device is lost or stolen. For iPhone users, this is a particularly important distinction since iPhone thefts are on the rise. The New York City Police Department said earlier this year that iPhone and iPad thefts went up 40 percent between January and the end of September.

Why? Compared to other gadgets, iPhones have high resale values, so they are often a target for thieves.

Do you need Apple Care+ in addition to insurance? The short answer to that question is no. The insurance policy for the phone will likely cover the same types of technical and accidental damage that the Apple Care+ service offers. The only thing you may lose by forgoing Apple Care+ is online and telephone technical support from Apple. But you should still be able to get some tech support from the Genius bar at your local Apple store. And your son's iPhone will be covered under the regular warranty for the first year that he owns it.

I hope this advice was helpful. And good luck! Happy holidays!

Should I wait for the next iPhone?

Dear Maggie,
I am in need of a new phone (currently using Blackberry Bold 9930 from Sprint) and would like to get the new iPhone. Here is the issue - as a guy who likes to have all the latest and greatest tech I'm rather scared to buy the iPhone 5 with all the "iPhone 5S" rumors that just started. I know it is pretty much impossible to stay up to date with every piece of technology (especially phones) . But if I am going to upgrade I would at least like the newest iteration. So what do you think about these rumors? Any chance that these will be true (it seems nearly every Apple rumor comes true these days)? Should I wait until June/July or just go ahead and get the iPhone 5 that is available now? Lots of questions I know, but these are confusing times.

Thanks in advance,
Jordan

Dear Jordan,
As you mentioned in your question, it is almost impossible to stay up to date with every piece of technology. So my recommendation to you is to not even try to play that game. The soonest we'd likely see an iPhone 5S, if it even exists, is June. That's is still half a year away. That's a long time in the fast-paced smartphone market.

Earlier this month, French Web site Nowhereelse.fr spotted alleged pictures of the next iPhone, commonly referred to as the iPhone 5S, on a forum run by iPhone5parts.net.

(Credit:
Screenshot taken by Roger Cheng/CNET)

It sounds like you need a new smartphone now. So I'd recommend that you stop waiting and purchase a phone that you like right now. If a new iPhone comes out in six months, you could always sell it and still make bake a good portion of your money, which you could put toward a new iPhone.

Good luck with your decision.

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers' wireless and broadband questions. The column now appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double dosage of Ask Maggie's advice. If you have a question, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put "Ask Maggie" in the subject header. You can also follow me on Facebook on my Ask Maggie page.

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

Read More..

School Shooting: Officials Seek Details on Gunman

The FBI is in at least three states interviewing relatives and friends of the elementary school gunman who killed 20 children, seven adults and himself, trying to put together a better picture of the shooter and uncover any possible explanation for the massacre, ABC News has learned.

The authorities have fanned out to New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts to interview relatives of Adam Lanza, 20, and his mother, who was one of Lanza's shooting victims.

The victims died Friday when Lanza invaded Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and sprayed staff and students with bullets, officials said. Lanza also was found dead in the school.

Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died later in a hospital.

Six adults also were slain, bringing the total to 26. Among them was the school's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, multiple sources told ABC News. Another adult victim was teacher Vicki Soto, her cousin confirmed.

In addition to the casualties at the school, Lanza's mother, Nancy Lanza, was killed in her home, federal and state sources told ABC News.

According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left his house armed with at least two semi-automatic handguns, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, and a semi-automatic rifle. He was also wearing a bulletproof vest.

READ: Connecticut Shooter Adam Lanza: 'Obviously Not Well'

Lanza then drove to the elementary school and continued his rampage, authorities said.

Newtown Teacher Kept 1st Graders Calm During Massacre Watch Video

Newtown School Shooting: What to Tell Your Kids Watch Video

It appeared that Lanza died from what was believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The rifle was found in his car.

"Evil visited this community today," Gov. Dan Malloy said at a news conference Friday evening.

CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.

In the early confusion surrounding the investigation, federal sources initially identified the suspect as Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24. Identification belonging to Ryan Lanza was found at the shooting scene, federal sources told ABC News.

Ryan Lanza soon took to Facebook to say he was alive and not responsible for the shooting. He later was questioned by police.

During the rampage, first-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, 29, locked her 14 students in a class bathroom and listened to "tons of shooting" until police came to help.

"It was horrific," Roig said. "I thought we were going to die."

She said that the terrified kids were saying, "I just want Christmas. ... I don't want to die. I just want to have Christmas."

A tearful President Obama said Friday that there was "not a parent in America who doesn't feel the overwhelming grief that I do."

The president had to pause to compose himself after saying these were "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10."

As he continued with his statement, Obama wiped away tears from each eye. He has ordered flags flown as half staff.

It is the second worst mass shooting in U.S. history, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when 32 were killed before the shooter turned the gun on himself. The carnage in Connecticut exceeded the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.

Friday's shooting came three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Oregon mall, killing two before turning the gun on himself.

The Connecticut shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which includes 450 students in grades K-4. The town is located about 12 miles east of Danbury, Conn.

The massacre prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said.

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The end of race history? Not yet

Osagie K. Obasogie, contributor

(Image: Tom Pilston/Panos)

Two books illuminate how ideas of a post-racial world conflict with ongoing use of race in science

HAVE we gone beyond race? Many argue society has now overcome centuries of strife to become "post-racial" - a moment that law professor Sumi Cho of DePaul University in Chicago refers to as "the end of race history".

Two seemingly disparate developments have been used to lend support to this claim. In politics, Barack Obama's 2008 election as the first racial minority-member to become US president has been lauded as a racially transcendent moment. In science, the completion of the Human Genome Project's first draft in June 2000 offered seemingly definitive evidence that race is not real. As geneticist Craig Venter noted at the HGP announcement, "the concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis".

Yet this supposed new era of race relations met a backlash on two fronts. The political dimension has been widely publicised; President Obama's first term has been distinguished by elements of hatred and disrespect unquestionably coloured by race.

Another, less well-known dimension has roots within the scientific community. Despite pronouncements that race is genetically meaningless, some researchers insist that there are natural divisions between human groups that align with social categories of race. They argue that taking account of biological differences between racial groups can lead to beneficial innovations such as better understandings of individual ancestry, race-specific therapies, and new tools that can help law-enforcement fight crime.

But science is not on the side of these scientists. It has been widely documented, for example, that the presumption of a biological basis for social categories of race can shape research methods as well as the interpretation of results. Such findings can lead to a troubling re-emergence of biological race in mainstream science that, despite good intentions, is not unlike past versions used to further racial subordination.

Two recent books by legal scholars address these issues. Jonathan Kahn's Race in a Bottle provides a stunning case study of BiDil, the first drug to receive approval by the US Food and Drug Administration as a race-specific therapy. It was designed to treat African-Americans suffering from heart failure - based mainly on a mistaken belief that there are meaningful disparities in heart failure outcomes between blacks and whites caused by biological differences. Although BiDil was initially created as a race-neutral drug, Kahn offers a compelling account of the many influences that turned what is in essence a combination therapy of two widely available generic treatments into a pill "for black people only".

With a meticulous yet accessible and entertaining narrative, Kahn outlines the broader legal and political landscapes that not only allowed BiDil to get as far as it did, but also actively provided an incentive for this approach as the "dream" of personalised medicine marches on. He then shows how an inflexible response from public agencies to these markets and innovations in a genomic age can effectively recreate the notion of biological race.

Dorothy Roberts's Fatal Invention, now out in paperback, extends this insight to examine how the re-emergence of biological race is having a broader impact - not only on innovations such as genetic ancestry-testing and racialised aspects of DNA forensics, but also on how we think about basic notions of racial difference. Advocates of biological race argue that today's use of race in biomedicine is different from past usages within science that supported racism, eugenics and questionable research practices.

Yet Roberts brilliantly identifies the continuity of thought on biological race that links past, present and, perhaps, future. She points out that the continued acceptance of biological race in science and medicine works, for example, to obscure social and environmental causes of the very disparities thought to necessitate race-specific interventions. This reframes minorities' poor health outcomes as a function of their "bad genes" rather than the discriminatory social practices that these groups endure. By identifying this historical thread, Fatal Invention offers remarkable insight into how persistent claims of racial difference as biological difference retain residual notions of racial hierarchy as poisonous today as at any time before.

Taken together, Race in a Bottle and Fatal Invention tackle one of the most important concerns pertaining to race facing our society today. How do we make sense of the re-emergence of biological race amid assertions that race no longer matters? There are no better scholars than Kahn and Roberts to help us think through these issues. The growing acceptance of post-racialism, premature as it may be, is forcing a new conversation on how race is no longer merely a social or political issue, but is becoming a distinctively biopolitical concern that requires us to bring our commitments to racial justice to science. Kahn and Roberts offer an unmatched articulation of this new biopolitical terrain that, regardless of your perspective, is must-read material.

Osagie K. Obasogie is an associate professor of law at the University of California, Hastings, with a joint appointment at UC San Francisco's Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley

Book information:
Race in a Bottle: The story of BiDil and racialized medicine in a post-genomic age by Jonathan Kahn
Columbia University Press
£24/$35

Fatal Invention: How science, politics, and big business recreate race in the twenty-first century by Dorothy Roberts
New Press
£14.99/$19.95

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NSP says not contesting in Punggol East by-election

SINGAPORE: The National Solidarity Party (NSP) has said it appreciates the open and responsible way that the PAP has handled the discovery of the extra-marital affairs of former Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer.

In a media statement, NSP's Secretary-General Hazel Poa said "regardless of his or her position, each person should be responsible and accountable for his/her actions." And "this is a principle we must uphold."

Ms Poa said the NSP noted with concern the rise in the number of high-profile cases of marital infidelities, and "urged the MCYS to study if these are signs of a rising social problem, and if so, the underlying causes."

She said the impact of a social breakdown to a person's quality of life can never be compensated by economic achievements.

On the possibility of a by-election at Punggol East, Ms Poa said the NSP has decided not to create a multi-cornered fight by contesting, "in the interest of furthering the opposition cause".

The Workers' Party contested in the Punggol East single-member constituency (SMC) at the last election and has indicated its desire to do so again in the event of a by-election.

- CNA/de

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Crave giveaway: Sprint LG Optimus G smartphone

Congrats to Oliver M. of Anaheim, Calif., for winning a copy of Symantec's Norton 360 Multi-Device security suite in last week's giveaway. Now, for this week's prize... Is your smartphone starting to look (and act) a bit shabby? You're in luck! We're offering up a free LG Optimus G from Sprint (please note: you'll be responsible for your own voice and data plan; Sprint includes an unlimited data plan among its choices).

CNET reviewers love this quad-core Android smartphone, calling it "undoubtedly the best phone LG has ever offered." In particular, they're fond of the phone's zippy Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, attractively bright 4.7-inch display, and 13-megapixel camera. The device is also 4G LTE-enabled.

The phone sports a 13-megapixel camera.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

Normally, the LG Optimus G would run you $549.99 without a contract, but you have the chance to get one gratis. How do you go about doing that? There are a few rules, so please read carefully.

• Register as a CNET user. Go to the top of this page and hit the Join CNET link to start the registration process. If you're already registered, there's no need to register again.


• Leave a comment below. You can leave whatever comment you want. If it's funny or insightful, it won't help you win, but we're trying to have fun here, so anything entertaining is appreciated.


• Leave only one comment. You may enter for this specific giveaway only once. If you enter more than one comment, you will be automatically disqualified.
  


• The winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) Sprint LG Optimus G, with a retail value of $549.99.


• If you are chosen, you will be notified via e-mail. The winner must respond within three days of the end of the sweepstakes. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.


• Entries can be submitted until Monday, December 17, at 12 p.m. ET.

And here's the disclaimer that our legal department said we had to include (sorry for the caps, but rules are rules):

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. YOU HAVE NOT YET WON. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR D.C., 18 YEARS OLD OR AGE OF MAJORITY, WHICHEVER IS OLDER IN YOUR STATE OF RESIDENCE AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. Sweepstakes ends at 12 p.m. ET on Monday, December 17, 2012. See official rules for details.

Good luck.

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