Effective January 1, 2008, spare lithium batteries - extra batteries not installed on devices - will no longer be allowed in checked baggage. Spare lithium batteries may be packed in carry-on baggage and lithium batteries installed in a device may be packed in either checked or carry-on, as long as the battery is installed in the device, according to the Transportation Security Adminstration (TSA).

Read the full U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) press release after the jump.

With the proliferation of online photo sharing and print fulfillment sites, creating a custom family Christmas card has never been easier. All you need is an idea and a couple of willing subjects.

Maurice Krafft's bootlaces are melting. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I'm standing with Maurice—a pioneer in the perilous business of filming volcanoes—on the crater floor of an erupting volcano in Tanzania.

The Maasai's sacred mountain, Ol Doinyo Lengai, is stirring. The crater floor bubbles with hot lava interspersed with cooling black and white lava. Maurice suggests walking on the safer, cooler, white areas, but visions of melting bootlaces keep flashing in my mind. "It is not a worry," he says with his French inflection. "My boots just fell through into the hot red lava. Walk lightly." He offers to go first. It's a test of faith—but no one has better credentials to navigate the floor of an erupting volcano. Maurice and his wife, Katia, were often the first to arrive when volcanoes erupted around the world; over two decades they filmed more than 150 of them. We cross an infernal landscape punctuated with spewing lava. In a few hours, my bootlaces are melting too, but, like Maurice, I don't care. We camp on a dirt ridge for three days. The nights are breathtaking. The lava glows fiery red. The stars sparkle in the clear African sky. I know now why this 9,700-foot (2,956 meter) volcano is sacred to the Maasai. "Volcanoes are bigger than us," Maurice always said. "We are nothing compared to them."

In 1991 Maurice and Katia Krafft died while filming at Japan's Unzen volcano. A pyroclastic flow unexpectedly swept onto the ridge where they stood. "I am never afraid because I have seen so much eruptions in 23 years that even if I die tomorrow, I don't care," Maurice once said.

Indonesia—a place the Kraffts visited many times—is a volcano hot spot. It is also a place where volcanoes are a religion. This month writer Andrew Marshall and photographer John Stanmeyer discover how volcanoes have shaped that country's life and culture. "Volcanoes are the thrones of the gods," a Balinese tycoon told Marshall. The Kraffts showed us the view from those thrones.

Photograph by Maurice and Katia Krafft, Conservatoire Régional de l'Image

OK, it’s not like we watch America’s Next Top Model religiously, praying for something to blog about—like, say, the so-called environmental theme (which pretty much went up in smoke when a photo shoot was staged next to a burning car) or the fact that the models’ (and host Tyra Banks’s) modern-day weaves can’t compare to the awesome mummy with a weave. But really, how can we not watch? This show is a cultural touchstone! Don’t take our word for it. This week, the New York Times profiled Heather, the contestant with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Anyway, there we were last night, tuning in for the penultimate episode in this sorry cycle (because really, Tyra, kicking Heather and Lisa off—what are you thinking?), and the models are in China, which is a topic of interest to National Geographic. And the show gave the impression that China's Great Wall can be seen from space.

Now it sure would be amazing if the Great Wall could be seen from the space, or specifically from the moon. That lunar claim has been made at least since 1923—and in National Geographic Magazine!. But according to NASA’s Web site, when astronauts went to the moon in 1969, they couldn’t see the Great Wall at all. Nor does the wall readily pop up in photos from the International Space Station.

A NASA spokesman explains: "In fact, it is very, very difficult to distinguish the Great Wall of China in astronaut photography, because the materials that were used in the wall are similar in color and texture to the materials of the land surrounding the wall.”

But there are exceptions. In radar photography from space, the Great Wall is visible. As Tyra might say, “I have in my electronic hands, a picture of Mongolia, taken from the International Space Station in 2004 (image above). The light was just right, the wall was set off by snow. If you squint, you can make out segments of the Great Wall.” (The arrows help). And if you squint even harder, you can see Tyra’s weave.

— Marc Silver

Photograph courtesy NASA