The attendees came to the first-ever Space Hacker Workshop on Saturday and Sunday (May 4 and 5) to learn about how they could build and fly experiments on a new generation of manned suborbital vehicles such as XCOR Aerospace's .

The event, which was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Space Center and Citizens in Space, attracted high-school and college students, university professors, space professionals, scientists, technology experts and others interested in this emerging field. []

New reusable vehicles slated to come online soon will provide affordable and repeated access to space for professional and amateur scientists and help to revolutionizeand science education, said Citizens in Space founder Ed Wright.

"With the suborbital vehicles being developed...there's going to be an opportunity to fly many thousands of small payloads on suborbital vehicles every year," Wright said.

Citizen space scientists

Citizens in Space is a program run by Wright's Texas-based organization, the U.S. Rocket Academy, which has purchased 10 flights aboard the two-seat Lynx just for research. Ten lucky citizen scientists will get to fly in the passenger seat of the vehicle and operate the experiments that they have designed and built. Five of those slots already have been filled.

So, just how cheap will it be to fly experiments in space? Wright said that while a typical tinymight cost between $3,000 and $5,000 to build and another $100,000 or more to launch into orbit, developing and flying scientific payloads aboard the Lynx will be many orders of magnitude cheaper.

"At the base level, you're going to have people who are able to build an experiment for $200 or less and have an opportunity to fly in space through programs such as Citizens in Space, and I think this is just going to change everything," Wright said.

"We may reach the point in five or 10 years where every high school science major will have the opportunity to build and fly a payload in space during the course of his academic career before he graduates, he added.

The development of suborbital vehicles such as the Lynx andis coming at a time when maker spaces are popping up all over the country. Wright said these joint work spaces are perfect places for people to build the types of do-it-yourself science experiments that Citizens in Space wants to fly.

Wright's academy is developing the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, a unit that can hold up to a dozen small experiments in a space behind the pilot's seat. The carrier will give XCOR the ability to flyin the passenger's seat while also carrying scientific experiments as secondary payloads.

A seat on Lynx costs $95,000, while a ticket to fly on SpaceShipTwo which last week made its will set you back $200,000 at the moment. (Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said recently that ticket prices would soon temporarily rise to $250,000.) []

A range of experiments

Four XCOR employees traveled 300 miles (500 kilometers) north from the town of Mojave, where they are building the first Lynx, to address the Space Hacker audience and answer questions.

Khaki Rodway, XCOR's director of payload sales and operations, gave an overview of Lynx's capabilities and a progress update on the assembly of the first vehicle, which could fly by the end of this year.

"We're doing it because there's lots of stuff to do," Rodway said of the emerging market for experiments.

During the two-day workshop, participants heard talks about the experiments that will be carried out in the microgravity environment and vacuum of space. These experiments will range across many different fields, including materials processing, fluid dynamics, life sciences, protein crystal growth and technology demonstrations.

NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle talked about sending odd "water bears" into space. Water bears, also known as tardigrades, are tiny organisms that are virtually impervious to heat, radiation and vacuum conditions. Cagle believes that by studying water bears, scientists can learn a great deal about how to help humans adapt to space.

Jason Reimuller, president of the company Integrated Spaceflight Services, told the audience about his Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) campaign, which will use a Lynx to study the dynamics of clouds over the North Pole. The vehicle will operate out of a high-altitude spaceport in either Alaska or Sweden, Reimuller said.

Ryan Gillespie, an aerospace engineer from Sunnyvale, Calif., said he is interested in pursuing Citizens in Space's High Altitude Astrobiology Challenge, which is offering cash prizes of up to $10,000 for the development of a device that will collect micro-organisms living at the edge of space.

I'm not so much interested in the $10,000 it's more the fact that when you come up with anything, it needs a purpose," Gillespie said. "Here's something that actually has a purpose for mankind."

Driving technology forward

Richard Mains of Mains Associates, who works with the NASA Flight Opportunities Program that funds experiments on , said these new spaceships are driving technology development at a much faster rate than traditional NASA programs tend to do.

"I think what's actually going on here with these reusable suborbital launch vehicles is kind of a whole new paradigm where you're not putting a payload up onfor six months," Mains said. "And these vehicles aren't that big. But they are flying very often, So these payloads now have to be small, smart, autonomous very very easy to kind of activate and deactivate, reprogram, get data out of."

"I see all of that driving technology in a very, very interesting fashion," Mains added, mentioning the emergence of open-source platforms as another powerful driver. "So I'm very excited about what I've heard here."

Silicon Valley was a perfect location to hold the workshop given that it's at the leading edge of technology development, Mains said.

Wright said he was extremely pleased with the workshop, which sold all of its 95 tickets and had a waiting list on Saturday morning.

"I think it's gone very well," Wright said. "It's really been a great turnout. It's been very exciting for everyone here. The people from the NASA Flight Opportunities program were very excited about this. XCOR was very excited about this."

Wright says he hopes to conduct five or six additional workshops in cities across the country over the next year.

Follow us , or . Original article at .

From statehouses to Congress, Republicans have advanced a range of ideas: banning nearly all abortions beyond the 20th week after conception; making abortion clinics follow regulations for surgical care; mandating that clinic physicians have admitting privileges at local hospitals; requiring women to get ultrasounds before terminating a pregnancy.

The issue, which is figuring prominently in early 2016 White House race maneuvering, energizes social conservatives who influence many Republican primaries and drive GOP success in nonpresidential years when the electorate is older, whiter and more conservative. And some Republicans say more moderate voters will support their agenda in the wake of the murder conviction against Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor who jurors determined killed babies who'd survived the procedure.

But Democrats and abortion-rights advocates say Republicans already have overreached the noticeable uptick in restrictions began with GOP gains in 2010 elections, before Gosnell's prosecution began and that moderate voters have other priorities.

"Defense workers are being furloughed, student loan interest rates have doubled and these Republicans insist on a relentless pursuit of more restrictions on women's freedoms," said Rep. Steve Israel, chairman of the Democrats' national congressional campaign for 2014. "Swing voters are by their very nature moderate; they want solutions, not ideological warfare."

The House of Representatives adopted a 20-week ban in June. It has no chance of passing the Democratic-run Senate. A top anti-abortion lobbyist, National Right to Life Committee president Carol Tobias, told The Associated Press that her organization is working on a bill with the office of Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who is a high-profile possibility for the 2016 presidential race.

North Carolina's newfound legislative supermajority wants to regulate clinics more heavily, though the Republican governor has pushed back after promising as a candidate not to sign any new restrictions. Texas Gov. Rick Perry called his GOP legislature back into session to consider a 20-week ban and sweeping regulatory changes after a Democratic filibuster derailed the measure and drew national attention last month. The legislature passed the bill Friday and it's headed to Perry's desk.

Rick Santorum, a failed 2012 presidential candidate who's considering another run, has traveled to Texas to lobby for the bill. Perry, meanwhile, is among several anti-abortion governors mulling a presidential bid. Scott Walker in Wisconsin recently signed a bill requiring ultrasounds before abortions, though a federal judge blocked the law. Louisiana's Bobby Jindal has signed several more restrictive bills, including two these year.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, which works on reproductive health issues including abortion-rights, states this year have enacted at least 43 new laws that restrict or further regulate abortion. That comes after more than 120 new laws, several held up by federal courts, the previous two years.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, "There's a political price for Republicans trying to roll back the clock," and some of the legislative debates have already drawn comparisons to Republican losses in 2012, when controversial or scientifically inaccurate statements from Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock grew into a national liability.

Israel predicated abortion would be an issue again in the 2013-14 elections that will determine who controls Congress and dozens of statehouses during the final two years of Democratic President Barack Obama's term. He mentioned 12 Republicans who represent districts that Obama won last year and four more where Republican Mitt Romney won by less than 2 percentage points. Hogue said it could matter in the North Carolina Senate race, as well, particularly if state House Speaker Tom Tillis ends up as the GOP challenger to Sen. Kay Hagan. The first-term senator took to her Twitter account recently to blast Raleigh Republicans. "Women are watching," she wrote.

Democrats need 18 more seats to run the House. Republicans must net a six-seat gain to control the Senate.

At the National Republican Congressional Committee, spokeswoman Andrea Bozek suggested the best GOP strategy would be to shift the conversation to Obama's health care law, key parts of which the president has delayed. "Let's be clear: It's the House Democrats who are extreme on women's health care," she said. "That law is something women are extremely concerned about, and that's the politically toxic issue for Democrats."

Polls on abortion have long suggested nuanced divisions in public opinion. In a May Gallup poll, 26 percent of Americans said the procedure always should be legal; 20 percent said outlaw it in all cases. Fifty-two percent, meanwhile, said it should legal under some circumstances, implying acceptance of legal restrictions. Yet fewer 42 percent feel it's morally defensible to end a pregnancy, while 49 percent said it's morally wrong.

A Pew Research Center poll in January, 41 percent said Democrats better represent their views on abortion; 36 percent opted for Republicans on the issue.

"The country is not willing yet to ban all abortions, but they do want a lot more limitations," argued Tobias, the National Right to Life chief. She said tighter clinic regulations and the "fetal-pain bills," the mid-pregnancy bans based on the presumption that a fetus can feel pain at that point, are "very reasonable ... protections for the unborn child and their mothers."

The Supreme Court holds that states can ban most abortions at the point a fetus could survive once born. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has opposed fetal-pain proposals. The group notes that medical professionals date pregnancy from a woman's last menstrual period, not conception or fertilization. The Congress says viability occurs about 24 weeks from the start of a pregnancy and that the most comprehensive study of fetal pain "concluded that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester," which begins with week 28.

Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead predicted Gosnell trial and conviction will prove a turning point. "The other side just talks about the rights of a woman to do what she wants with her body, but they never about the child within that body," Armistead said. "The middle ground will yield to the conservative side the more hard evidence we see that we're dealing with a life inside the woman's body."

Yet voters' ambiguity leaves at least a few Republicans wincing at making abortion a top issue. "Everyone already knows the Republican Party is the pro-life party," said New Hampshire's Steve Duprey, an RNC member who supports abortion rights.

The national party's analysis of the 2012 election loss, released in March with considerable fanfare, didn't mention abortion. But it acknowledged characterizations of the GOP as "narrow minded," ''out of touch" and a party of "stuffy old men" labels used in focus groups of former Republican voters. Abortion, Duprey said, fits into that critique: "The more strident we sound, the more difficult it becomes" to expand.

But Tobias promised the issue won't go away any time soon. If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid does what's expected and doesn't bring an abortion bill to the floor, she said, "We'll just ask the House to vote on it again in 2014."

___

AP Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta in Washington and Associated Press writer Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Barrow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP

The government said Monday that Sam Rainsy is welcome home but could face arrest if he returns.

Rainsy made the announcement Sunday in a letter to the international community from France where he is living to avoid a 12-year prison sentence on charges widely seen as politically motivated.

The opposition leader is barred from running for office due to the conviction. He says his return will test whether the elections are "free and fair" as the government claims.

The U.S. State Department has said the exclusion of Rainsy calls into question the legitimacy of Cambodia's democratic process. There are also doubts over the neutrality of the election commission and the composition of voter rolls.

"We urge the Cambodian government to allow Sam Rainsy to return without fear for his personal safety or incarceration," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday. "Free and fair elections require a level playing field, including the unfettered participation of opposition parties and voters and respect for human rights."

U.S. lawmakers and human rights activists are pushing to cut the more than $70 million in annual American aid to Cambodia if the State Department judges the elections as not "credible and competitive."

In the run-up to elections, opposition lawmakers were expelled from parliament for merging parties to contest the vote. The opposition was already handicapped by Rainsy's absence.

Hun Sen is one of Asia's longest-serving and most ruthless leaders. He has run Cambodia since 1985 with little tolerance for opposition, propelled by his well-financed political machine. Rainsy is seen as the sole Cambodian politician with the charisma and resources to present any real challenge.

"I have decided to return because my presence as leader of the opposition and the fate that awaits me will be a test of the reality of the 'free and fair' elections," Rainsy wrote in his letter.

"(I am) fully aware of the personal risks that I will run, to return before the voting day, " he said.

Yim Sovann, spokesman for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, declined to reveal the date of Rainsy's return but said he would be greeted at the airport by thousands of party members.

"I can confirm that Sam Rainsy will definitely arrive in Cambodia ahead of election day," the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a government spokesman said Rainsy would have to face the law.

"We have never barred him from returning to Cambodia, but once he arrives he must face the law, because he is a convicted person," said the spokesman Tith Sothea.

Rainsy was sentenced in 2010 to two years in jail for uprooting border markers with Vietnam. He was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for spreading false information about the border dispute. Critics called both cases examples of the government's use of the courts to intimidate opponents.

Hun Sen, who is 60, said recently that he intends to wield power until he is 74 revising an earlier vow to stay in power until he's 90.

____

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

There was no official update Saturday morning on the condition of the 94-year-old former president, who is in critical but stable condition after being diagnosed with a recurring lung infection. He was taken to a hospital in Pretoria, the capital, on June 8.

The government has said Mandela is not in a vegetative state, contrary to recent court documents. A close friend told Sky News that the anti-apartheid leader was conscious and responsive earlier this week.

There has been an outpouring of concern in South Africa and around the world for Mandela, a transformative figure who led the tense shift from white rule to democracy two decades ago in a spirit of reconciliation.

When the No. 1-ranked Djokovic faces No. 2 Murray to determine Wimbledon's champion Sunday, it will be their fourth meeting in a major final and third in less than a year.

Djokovic beat Murray at the Australian Open in 2011. Murray beat Djokovic at the U.S. Open last September. Djokovic beat Murray at the Australian Open this January.

That's not yet quite up to the lofty standard set by Federer and Nadal, who played each other in eight Grand Slam title matches from 2006-11. Djokovic and Nadal have contested five major finals since 2010, including a stretch of four in a row.

While part of the appeal of the Federer-Nadal matchup lies in their vastly contrasting games all the way down to the most basic level, righty vs. lefty Djokovic-Murray features two guys who employ rather similar styles.

They are improving servers and fantastic returners who managed to silence big hitters in the semifinals Friday: Tough to decide whether it was more surprising that Djokovic had a 22-4 edge in aces during his 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory over No. 8 Juan Martin del Potro, or that Murray had a 20-9 edge in aces during his 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 victory over No. 24 Jerzy Janowicz.

They also are cover-every-inch hustlers who can switch from defense to offense, quick as can be.

"There is some similarities there, in terms of if you look at stats and stuff. I mean, both of us return well. That's probably the strongest part of our games. Both play predominantly from the baseline," said Murray, who is aiming to become the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.

"We both move well, but a different sort of movement," Murray continued. "He's extremely flexible and he slides into shots, even on the courts here. He slides more. He's quite a bit lighter than me. So I'd say I probably move with more power, and he's much more flexible than me."

In the women's final Saturday, 15th-seeded Marion Bartoli of France won her first Grand Slam title, beating 23rd-seeded Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-1, 6-4.

Djokovic, the 2011 Wimbledon champion, is seeking his seventh Grand Slam title overall and will be playing in his 11th major final. Murray is 1-5 in major finals. He has reached the championship matches at each of the last four Grand Slam tournament's he entered; he skipped this year's French Open because of a bad back.

Murray didn't need to expend too much energy to get past Janowicz, but Djokovic's win against del Potro was physically and emotionally sapping. It lasted 4 hours, 43 minutes, a record for a Wimbledon semifinal, and was filled with intense points.

"I did play a very long match, but I had situations before where I had to recover even just in 24 hours for the match the next day," Djokovic said Saturday. "I kind of got used to it and I know my body. I have a great team of people around me that make sure that we respect everything that we usually do. I'm confident I'll be ready for tomorrow."

Del Potro's take about how much Djokovic will have left for Sunday: "He will be OK."

Djokovic and Murray have put up remarkably close numbers over this fortnight.

Djokovic has lost two sets, Murray three. Djokovic has dropped 80 games through six matches, Murray 82. Djokovic has won 95 of 101 service games, Murray 95 of 103. Djokovic has 76 aces and only seven double-faults; Murray has 80 aces and 11 double-faults.

Born a week apart in May 1987, Djokovic and Murray first met as junior players.

"We know each other since we were 11 years old. On and off the court, we have lots of respect for each other. Always very fair, very honest relationship," Djokovic said. "Now we are big rivals and it's difficult. ... So we don't get together and have dinners and parties, but we definitely always chat and remember the fun days we had as juniors."

The two men get along well enough that when both were at the semifinal stage of last year's U.S. Open, they sat in front of a computer together and watched online while Murray's Scotland and Djokovic's Serbia played to a 0-0 draw in a qualifying match for soccer's World Cup.

"We have a professional friendship, I think, now. When we were younger, it was more friendly," Murray said.

"We've spent a lot of time discussing various issues within tennis and doing what I think sometimes what was best for the sport. But I don't think it goes more than that right now. I would hope when we finish playing, it will be different," Murray added. "But it's just hard, because playing in big, big matches with a lot on the line, you can't be best of friends when that's happening."

Djokovic leads the head-to-head series 11-7, including winning their most recent three matches. While this is their first Wimbledon encounter, they did play on the All England Club's grass in the semifinals of last year's London Olympics, and Murray won 7-5, 7-5 on his way to a gold medal.

That's part of year-plus stretch in which Murray has won 17 consecutive matches on grass, and 23 of 24.

His victory over Federer in the Olympic final, four weeks after losing to the 17-time major title winner on the same court in the Wimbledon final, gave Murray a real boost of confidence.

There's a tremendous amount of pressure and expectations heaped on Murray every year at this time, because of the considerable wait for a British champion.

He knows that, of course.

So does Djokovic, who is aware there will not be many people pulling for him in the stands Sunday.

"It's normal to expect, in a way, that most of the crowd will be on his side. He's a local hero," Djokovic said.

Murray says he thrives with the backing of 15,000 or so flag-waving, top-of-their-lungs-yelling spectators every time he plays on Centre Court.

"There's that extra bit of pressure that probably Novak doesn't have," said Murray's older brother, Jamie, who won the 2007 mixed doubles title at the All England Club. "If (Andy) deals with that well, then I'm sure he can perform in the final. Whether he wins or not I don't know, but they're two evenly matched guys, and they've had a lot of great matches in the past. Hopefully Sunday will be another one."

Instead of another Federer vs. Nadal, No. 1 vs. No. 2, match on the last Sunday, this time it'll be Djokovic and Murray. In as unpredictable a Wimbledon as anyone can recall, Nadal lost in the first round, and Federer exited in the second, both against men ranked outside the top 100.

Murray was asked how his mindset might be different in his second Wimbledon final than it was in his first, 12 months ago.

"I'll be probably in a better place mentally. I would hope so, just because I've been there before. I won a Grand Slam. I would hope I would be a little bit calmer going into Sunday," Murray said. "But you don't know. You don't decide that. I might wake up on Sunday and be unbelievably nervous, more nervous than I ever have been before. But I wouldn't expect to be."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

Under a longstanding system, thousands of young men are allowed to skip compulsory military service to pursue religious studies. This has caused widespread resentment among secular Jewish Israelis.

The new system, which needs parliamentary approval, would reduce the number of exemptions and require ultra-Orthodox men to register for service. It would go into effect in three years.

The draft was a central issue in January elections and propelled Yesh Atid, the secular rights party behind the new regulations, into the government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the law will be implemented "gradually."

Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders condemned the decision, charging it would infringe on their lifestyle.

[More from BGR: ]

Among the top complaints surroundingiPhone 5 launch were the phones lack of innovation, its switch from the old 30-pin dock connector to the new lightning port, the poor quality of photos captured on some new iPhones,and .

[More from BGR: ]

We Are Social also notes that the iPhone 5 was by far the most talked about smartphone launch. The firm logged 1.7 million social media conversations immediately following the iPhone 5s debut compared to300,000 mentions of BlackBerrys Z10, 140,000 Galaxy S4 mentions and just 45,000 posts discussing the Lumia 920.

This article was

There still are a lot of details to be worked out, including whether a federal judge agrees that the government has gone far enough or whether cheaper generics can be sold without restrictions too.

But the move does mark a major societal shift in the long battle over women's reproductive rights, and influential doctors' groups welcomed the step Tuesday.

"Allowing unrestricted access to emergency contraception products is a historic step forward in protecting the health of our patients who are sexually active," said Dr. Thomas McInerny, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "The science has always been clear: Emergency contraception is a safe, effective tool to prevent unintended pregnancy in adolescents of any reproductive age."

On the other side, social conservatives argue that the drug's availability undermines parental supervision, and accuse the administration of politicking.

"We are disappointed that this administration has once again sided with its political allies and ignored the safety of girls and the rights of parents," said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council.

A look at the medical, legal and political issues surrounding over-the-counter sales of backup birth control:

Q: How quickly will emergency contraceptives be sold on the drugstore shelves?

A: "I don't expect to see the product at the neighborhood pharmacy instantly," cautioned Susannah Baruch of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project.

First, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York must decide whether the Obama administration's decision complies with his April order that the government lift all age restrictions on nonprescription sale of morning-after pills. Korman wanted unrestricted access to all brands, not just the best-selling Plan B One-Step. Generic versions are cheaper, and the judge didn't want to place a disproportionate burden on the poor and minorities. But he did say the government could try to make the case that one-pill versions like Plan B One-Step are better than the two-pill versions.

Court case aside, manufacturer Teva Women's Health must submit an application to the Food and Drug Administration to begin sales with no age limits. Teva didn't say Tuesday how quickly that might happen.

Q: What if my condom breaks in the meantime?

A: The old rules remain in effect. Four or five versions of emergency contraceptives are sold without a prescription only to customers who can prove to a pharmacist that they're 17 or older.

For Plan B One-Step, the age was soon to drop to 15, but those sales haven't begun yet. It's a moot point now anyway.

Q: Why did the Obama administration change course?

A: The administration gave in because it already had lost multiple rounds in court, and it appeared it would lose again. Just last week, an appeals court said girls of any age could buy the two-pill generic emergency contraception without a prescription while the government appealed Korman's initial ruling. That set the stage for massive confusion in drugstores and signaled that the appeal could fail. If the messy battle reached the Supreme Court, it would be a big distraction to President Barack Obama's second-term goals, including immigration legislation, a budget deal and efforts to combat climate change.

Since some version was going to be sold over the counter no matter what, the FDA said it should be the simpler one-dose Plan B One-Step, not two-pill versions originally designed to be taken 12 hours apart even though studies show taking them simultaneously is OK.

"It was the decision, given that court ruling, to proceed with making the simpler version of Plan B available, because at the very least, that addresses some of the concerns about the ability of younger girls to use that medication," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Q: Generics are cheaper; will they be sold over the counter too?

A: That's not clear. Plan B One-Step may get some exclusive marketing rights that would affect how and when other one-pill versions could sell, and the FDA has no plans to allow unrestricted sales of two-pill generics. Women's groups pledged to continue pushing for all versions to be treated the same. Plan B One-Step costs about $40 to $50, and generics typically cost $30 to $40.

Q: How did this controversy start?

A: Back in 2011, the FDA was preparing to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill with no age limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move. She was worried that girls as young as 11 would use the pill with no supervision, a concern that Obama echoed.

Doctors' groups and contraceptive advocates, however, argue that easier access to emergency contraception could cut unintended pregnancies, and that the drug is safe even at younger ages. Korman said hardly any 11-year-olds would use the pill, calling Sebelius' decision political pandering in an election year.

Legally, the requirement is that over-the-counter drugs are safe and effective if used as intended, said Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights, noting that parents don't know whether their 11-year-old is buying Tylenol to treat a hangover either.

Q: Why was there opposition?

A: Social conservatives argued that easier availability would encourage girls to become sexually active, and that it wasn't safe for them to take the pills without a doctor's or parent's involvement. And some groups argued that Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus a contention that has been scientifically discredited.

Q: Wait, doesn't this mean that people will have easier access to emergency contraception than to some cold medicines?

A: Age wasn't the concern with cold medicines; it was a law enforcement issue. A federal law required an ID for purchases of cold medicines containing a particular ingredient, pseudoephedrine, because it can be used to manufacture methamphetamine.

Q: So if emergency contraception is OK over the counter, what about regular birth control pills?

A: Stay tuned. Just last fall, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists the doctors who make money writing prescriptions for the pill say it's safe enough to be sold without a prescription too. But no manufacturer has indicated it wants to try.

___

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

The Austrian parachutist known as "Fearless Felix" reached 843.6 mph, according to official numbers released Monday. That's equivalent to Mach 1.25, or 1.25 times the speed of sound.

His top speed initially was estimated at 10 mph slower at 834 mph, or Mach 1.24.

Either way, he became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurized suit and hopped from a capsule hoisted by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

Baumgartner was supersonic for a half-minute "quite remarkable," according to Brian Utley, the record-keeping official who was present for the Oct. 14 feat.

The 43-year-old's heart rate remained below 185 beats a minute, and his breathing was fairly steady.

The leap was from an altitude of 127,852 feet. That's 248 feet lower than original estimates, but still stratospheric.

"He jumped from a little bit lower, but he actually went a little bit faster, which was pretty exciting," said Art Thompson, technical project director for the Red Bull-sponsored project.

"It's fun for us to see reaching Mach speeds and proving out a lot of the safety systems," Thompson said in a phone interview from his aerospace company in Lancaster, Calif.

Thompson said everything pretty much unfolded as anticipated, with no big surprises in the final report. The updated records were provided by Utley, official observer for the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Utley was in Roswell, N.M., for Baumgartner's grand finale following two test jumps.

Based on all the data collected from sensors on Baumgartner's suit, Utley determined that Baumgartner was 34 seconds into his jump when he reached Mach 1. The speed for breaking the sound barrier depends on the temperature at a given altitude; for Baumgartner, that came together just shy of 110,000 feet.

He reached peak speed by the time he was at 91,300 feet, 50 seconds into the jump, and was back to subsonic by 75,300 feet, give or take, 64 seconds into his free fall.

His entire free fall lasted four minutes, 20 seconds. He used a parachute to cover the final 5,000 feet, landing on his feet in the desert outside Roswell.

Not everything went well.

Baumgartner went into a dreaded flat spin while still supersonic. He spun for 13 seconds at approximately 60 revolutions per minute, making 14 to 16 spins before using his body to regain control, Thompson said. The skydiver was well within safety limits the entire time, he noted. Baumgartner's brain remained under 2G, or two times the force of gravity, during the spin.

If the flat spin had lasted longer and been more severe exceeding six continuous seconds at 3.5 G Baumgartner's drogue, or stabilizing, parachute would have deployed automatically. Doctors worried about him blacking out and suffering a stroke or, in the case of a suit tear, his blood boiling at such an extreme altitude. The outside temperature registered as low as minus 96 Fahrenheit.

In the foreword of the 71-page report, Baumgartner said he never imagined how many people would share in his dream to make a supersonic free fall from so high.

Some 52 million people watched YouTube's live stream of the exploit.

The scientific and engineering experts who helped bring him back alive "broke boundaries in their own fields just as surely as I broke the sound barrier," Baumgartner wrote.

Baumgartner shattered the previous record set by Joe Kittinger, an Air Force officer, in 1960. Kittinger did not quite reach supersonic speed during his jump from 19.5 miles up.

Kittinger noted in the Red Bull Stratos report (Stratos for stratosphere) that future work is needed to test a stabilizing parachute for use at extreme altitudes.

The private project was aimed, from the start, at helping future space crews whether NASA or commercial survive high-altitude accidents.

If a highly trained jumper like Baumgartner with 2,500 jumps couldn't prevent a flat spin, "an astronaut, pilot or space tourist could not overcome this spinning probability," Kittinger wrote.

Thompson agreed, noting that given the right safety gear and the right conditions, there's "a remote possibility" a space crew could survive even under such harsh circumstances as were faced by the space shuttle Columbia astronauts.

All seven astronauts perished as Columbia returned to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003. One of the crew, Laurel Clark, was married to the former NASA flight surgeon who led Baumgartner's medical team, Dr. Jonathan Clark.

"You never know what the possibilities are ... that's the direction we need to look at," Thompson said.

___

Online:

http://www.redbullstratos.com/

More urgent. More crowded. More expensive. Also, more flexible and accessible to millions.

That, in a nutshell, is how higher education has changed around the world in the wake of the global financial crisis that struck five years ago, and the Great Recession that followed.

Here's how it happened: Increasing financial pressures to get more people through higher education more efficiently opened the door to new technologies. Those technologies, in turn, have begun "unbundling" individual classes and degrees from traditional institutions much in the same way iTunes has unbundled songs from whole albums and the Internet is increasingly unbundling television shows and networks from bulky cable packages.

Here are four trends whose origins predate the Great Recession, but which have been unmistakably fueled by it:

Certificates. Austerity by European governments and U.S. states hammered the budgets of public universities, leaving students to foot more of the bill. Many have responded by seeking faster and more affordable options, targeted to deliver immediate jobs. Certificates bite-sized credentials typically in narrow, occupational fields don't count as formal degrees, but they're cheaper and can produce a substantial salary boost. Their popularity has exploded in the United States about 11 percent of American workers now have them, up from 2 percent in 1980. And while data is spotty, Anthony Carnevale of the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce in Washington, D.C., says their equivalents are growing elsewhere in the developed world, and possibly in developing countries as well, where the inaccessibility of four-year degree programs is even more pressing.

Competency-based learning. Until now, the main currency of academia has been the "credit hour" if you spend a certain amount of time in the classroom and pass the course, you earn credit. That may be changing with a broad-based move toward giving students credit for what they can demonstrate they know, regardless of how much time they spend in class. Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Education signaled to colleges they can get approval to collect federal aid dollars for competency-based programs, and such programs are starting to emerge. These options could save students time and money. As technology makes self-directed learning more available in the rest of the world, other countries will be pressed to consider similar moves.

Accreditation. The very definition of a university may be changing. Traditionally, in the United States, the "club" of higher education has been guarded by a process of accreditation that's essentially run by traditional universities themselves. Regional and national associations determine whether schools meet specific standards, and can continue to issue diplomas. The government wants more flexibility that would bring into the system specialized providers companies that can offer targeted teaching even if they lack the full trappings of a traditional college. Many countries around the world envy the United States its accreditation system as a quality control. But they face similar, or even greater, challenges to ramp up higher education capacity quickly, so they also will be thinking outside their own traditional boxes.

Pressure to cut costs and "scale up" teaching helped pave the way for the popularity of MOOCs, or "Massive Open Online Courses" taught by elite universities. Two leading platforms, Coursera and edX, are closing in on five million users worldwide. These courses started out as a way for learners to sample teaching by famous professors at top universities, but options for gaining academic credit are beginning to emerge, and they are quickly infiltrating the teaching at traditional universities. To some critics, the MOOCs are little more than glorified online lectures, and dangerous ones at that; their cost-cutting promises could become an excuse for politicians to cut funding for higher education even further. MOOCs also have huge drop-out rates, with estimates that 90 percent who sign up fail to finish. Some evidence is emerging that mixing MOOCs and in-person learning can be effective. Close to half the students who've signed up for edX and Coursera come from developing countries, where demand for higher education massively outstrips supply.