Heavy hydrogen excess hints at Martian vapour loss

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Gravity means most things are lighter on Mars but it seems the Red Planet likes its hydrogen heavy. In its first chemical analysis of the Martian soil, the Curiosity rover has discovered an unusually high proportion of heavy hydrogen, also known as deuterium. Combined with future results, the finding may help pin down when and how Mars lost most of its atmosphere.













Most hydrogen atoms contain just a proton and an electron, but some contain an extra neutron, forming deuterium. On Earth, deuterium is much rarer than hydrogen – for example, in our oceans one in every 6420 hydrogens also has a neutron. As deuterium is thought to have been produced in the big bang, it should have once appeared in similar abundances on all the planets in the solar system.











That's why the new discovery by Curiosity, which landed in an area of Mars called Gale Crater on 6 August, is intriguing. After heating a soil sample to 1100 °C and analysing the resulting vapour, Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) experiment found a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio that is five times higher than that on Earth: one deuterium for every 1284 hydrogens.













"This is one of those ratios that's just way, way different," SAM principal investigator Paul Mahaffy told a press conference on 3 December at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San Francisco.











Bygone water













Mars's atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's and is thought to be vanishing. Mahaffy suggests that Mars could have lost a bunch of its light hydrogen when its climate was warmer and wetter. Ultraviolet light from the sun could have broken up water vapour in the atmosphere, creating free hydrogen. The lighter isotopes of hydrogen would then escape into space more rapidly, leaving proportionately more deuterium behind.











Knowing the modern deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio doesn't paint that picture on its own. But looking at the ratio captured in hydrated minerals on Aeolis Mons, a mountain thought to preserve a layered history of Martian geology, could help fill in the historical record. "It will help us understand the processes that may have stripped an early atmosphere from Mars," Mahaffy said.













More details will come with the MAVEN mission, set to launch in 2013, which will measure the current rate at which hydrogen is escaping from the atmosphere.












"Those escape rates extrapolated back in time, combined with atmospheric measurements we're making, and hopefully combined with what we might find in very ancient rocks 3.5 billions years ago when a lot more water could have been at Gale Crater, all of those will help us make a model of the early environment and whether it's conducive to life," Mahaffy said.


















































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Tough new anti-dumping measures in Australia

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SYDNEY: Australia Tuesday announced tough new anti-dumping measures to counter an influx of cheap products that are hurting its struggling manufacturing industry and costing jobs.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the moves would "deliver stronger protection for Australian industry against unfair competition from overseas".

"It is not acceptable for Australian jobs to be put at risk by products being dumped into this country," she said, while refusing to single out any specific nations or put a value on dumped goods.

Dumping refers to the unfair trade practice where imported goods are sold at prices below their normal value, hurting local businesses and their workers.

"The government will support manufacturing by strengthening the system for investigating dumping and applying remedies where dumping is injuring local producers," Gillard said.

The measures include establishing a new Anti-Dumping Commission to probe complaints while boosting funding to Customs by nearly A$25 million (US$26 million) so it can double the number of investigators.

New laws will also be introduced to deal with overseas producers who deliberately circumvent Australia's anti-dumping rules.

Australia's manufacturing industry employs a million people with products affected by dumping in recent years including steel, chemicals, aluminium goods and paper products.

While Australia's mining-driven economy dodged recession during the global financial crisis, its manufacturers have been hit not only by cheap dumped products, but a high Australian dollar and intense global competition.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, which has long campaigned with other unions for a dedicated anti-dumping commission, welcomed the announcement.

"Australian industry and jobs have been suffering from the impact of dumped goods for too long," said CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor.

"This new agency should help level the playing field for locally produced goods through investigating and penalising dumpers."

- AFP/ck



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New Mac malware spreading from Dalai Lama-linked site

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Gyalwarinpoche.com, which is hosting the 'Dockster' malware.



(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)



A new piece of
Mac malware has been discovered on a Web site linked to the Dalai Lama, using a well-documented Java exploit to install a Trojan on visitors' computers and steal personal information.


Dubbed "Dockster," the malware was found lurking on Gyalwarinpoche.com, according to security research firm F-Secure. The malware takes advantage of the same vulnerability exploited by the "Flashback" malware to install a basic backdoor that allows the attacker to download files and log keystrokes.


(For more technical information about how the malware operates, see this report by my colleague Topher Kessler.)




Although "Dockster" leverages an exploit that has already been patched, computers not updated or running older software may still be at risk. F-Secure notes that this is not the first time Gyalwarinpoche.com has been compromised and warns that Mac users aren't the only ones who should avoid visiting the site; Windows malware has also been detected on it.


At its height, the original Flashback, which was designed to grab passwords and other information from users through their Web browser and other applications, was estimated to be infecting more than 600,000 Macs. The original malware typically installed itself after a user mistook it for a legitimate browser plug-in while visiting a malicious Web site. The malware would then collect personal information and send it back to remote servers.

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Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds

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NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected several simple carbon-based organic compounds on Mars, but it remains unclear whether they were formed via Earthly contamination or whether they contain only elements indigenous to the planet.

Speaking at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, Curiosity mission leaders also said that the compound perchlorate—identified previously in polar Mars—appeared to also be present in Gale Crater, the site of Curiosity's exploration.

The possible discovery of organics—or carbon-based compounds bonded to hydrogen, also called hydrocarbons—could have major implications for the mission's search for more complex organic material.

It would not necessarily mean that life exists now or ever existed on Mars, but it makes the possibility of Martian life—especially long ago when the planet was wetter and warmer—somewhat greater, since available carbon is considered to be so important to all known biology.

(See "Mars Curiosity Rover Finds Proof of Flowing Water—A First.")

The announcements came after several weeks of frenzied speculation about a "major discovery" by Curiosity on Mars. But project scientist John Grotzinger said that it remains too early to know whether Martian organics have been definitely discovered or if they're byproducts of contamination brought from Earth.

"When this data first came in, and then was confirmed in a second sample, we did have a hooting and hollering moment," he said.

"The enthusiasm we had was perhaps misunderstood. We're doing science at the pace of science, but news travels at a different speed."

Organics Detected Before on Mars

The organic compounds discovered—different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine—are the same or similar to chlorinated organics detected in the mid-1970s by the Viking landers.

(Related: "Life on Mars Found by NASA's Viking Mission?")

At the time, the substances were written off as contamination brought from Earth, but now scientists know more about how the compounds could be formed on Mars. The big question remains whether the carbon found in the compounds is of Martian or Earthly origin.

Paul Mahaffy, the principal investigator of the instrument that may have found the simple organics—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)—said that while the findings were not "definitive," they were significant and would require a great deal of further study.

Mahaffy also said the discovery came as a surprise, since the soil sample involved was hardly a prime target in the organics search. In fact, the soil was scooped primarily to clean out the rover's mobile laboratory and soil-delivery systems.

Called Rocknest, the site is a collection of rocks with rippled sand around them—an environment not considered particularly promising for discovery. The Curiosity team has always thought it had a much better chance of finding the organics in clays and sulfate minerals known to be present at the base of Mount Sharp, located in the Gale Crater, where the rover will head early next year.

(See the Mars rover Curiosity's first color pictures.)

The rover has been at Rocknest for a month and has scooped sand and soil five times. It was the first site where virtually all the instruments on Curiosity were used, Grotzinger said, and all of them proved to be working well.

They also worked well in unison—with one instrument giving the surprising signal that the minerals in the soil were not all crystalline, which led to the intensive examination of the non-crystalline portion to see if it contained any organics.

Rover Team "Very Confident"

The simple organics detected by SAM were in the chloromethane family, which contains compounds that are sometimes used to clean electronic equipment. Because it was plausible that Viking could have brought the compounds to Mars as contamination, that conclusion was broadly accepted.

But in 2010, Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center and Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico published an influential paper describing how dichloromethane can be a byproduct of the heating of other organic material in the presence of the compound perchlorate.

They conducted the experiment because NASA's Phoenix mission had discovered large amounts of perchlorate in the northern polar soil of Mars, and it seems plausible that it would exist elsewhere on the planet.

"In terms of the SAM results, there are two important conclusions," said McKay, a scientist on the SAM team.

"The first is confirming the perchlorate story—that it's most likely there and seems to react at high temperatures with organic material to form the dichloromethane and other simple organics."

"The second is that we'll have to either find organics without perchlorates nearby, or find a way to get around that perchlorate wall that keeps us from identifying organics," he said.

Another SAM researcher, Danny Glavin of Goddard, said his team is "very confident" about the reported detection of the hydrocarbons, and that they were produced in the rover's ovens. He said it is clear that the chlorine in the compounds is from Mars, but less clear about the carbon.

"We will figure out what's going on here," he said. "We have the instruments and we have the people. And whatever the final conclusions, we will have learned important things about Mars that we can use in the months ahead."

Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.


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Kate's Illness Sometimes Linked to Twins

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Hyperemesis gravidarum, the reason newly pregnant Kate Middleton is in the hospital, is a rare but acute morning sickness that results in weight loss and accounts for about 2 percent of all morning sickness, doctors say.


The condition is sometimes associated with women having twins, experts said.


Women diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum have lost 5 percent of their pre-pregnancy weight, or 10 pounds, said Dr. Ashley Roman, a professor and OB/GYN at New York University Langone Medical Center.


It poses little danger to the tiny heir, doctors said.


"It's traditionally thought that nausea and vomiting is a sign of a healthy pregnancy," Roman said


Dr. Nancy Cossler, an OB/GYN at University Hospitals in Ohio said the condition does not cause loss of pregnancy or birth defects, but it can be a torture to endure.


"The biggest problem with this is how it interferes with your life," Cossler said. "Constantly feeling sick and puking is difficult."


Click here to read about other women with hyperemesis gravidarum.


Hyperemesis gravidarum is thought to be caused by higher levels of the pregnancy hormone, hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, Cossler said. Extra hCG can often be brought on by carrying more than one fetus, she said.






Chris Jackson/AFP/Getty Images











Kate Middleton Pregnant, Admitted to Hospital Watch Video









Kate Middleton, Prince William Expecting Their First Child Watch Video









Prince William and Kate Middleton's Big News Watch Video





In other words, it could be a sign that Middleton is carrying twins. Although there's very little data on twins and hyperemesis gravidarum, one study showed that women carrying twins had a 7.5 percent higher risk of experiencing the acute morning sickness, Roman said.


The extreme morning sickness is usually diagnosed about nine weeks into the pregnancy, and in most cases resolves itself by 16 or 20 weeks, Roman said. In rare cases, it can last the whole pregnancy.


"As the pregnancy is in its very early stages, Her Royal Highness is expected to stay in hospital for several days and will require a period of rest thereafter," a statement from St. James Palace said. Prince William is at the hospital with Middleton, according to the Britain's Press Association.


Click here for photos of Kate through the years.


Roman said doctors prescribe vitamins and ginger capsules at first. If that doesn't stop the vomiting, they will prescribe antihistamines and stronger anti-nausea medications.


Women with hyperemesis gravidarum are also treated with fluids, said Dr. Jessica Young, an OB/GYN at Vanderbilt University. But if left untreated, a pregnant woman who is severely dehydrated for a long period of time could die, "just like any person," Young said.


In extreme cases in which the woman is losing weight and unable to eat, doctors will treat her with intravenous nutrition, Young said.


Hospital stays can vary, and women will often have to be admitted more than once before the condition passes, doctors said.


Hyperemesis gravidarum is somewhat mysterious because some expectant mothers have acute morning sickness during only one of their pregnancies, but have no morning sickness for subsequent pregnancies.


There is a chance that higher levels of hCG, which likely caused Middleton's nausea, could be a sign of a molar pregnancy instead of twins, Cossler said. This would mean Middleton is carrying only a benign growth in her uterus instead of a fetus, or she is carrying a fetus with abnormal DNA and a benign growth. Neither is considered a viable pregnancy.


However, Cossler said molar pregnancies become apparent early on, and doctors would already know whether Middleton had one.


"They would not have released this information," Cossler said of the birth announcement. "I'm certain that they have already eliminated both of those [types of molar pregnancies]."



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Tiny tug of war in cells underpins life

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TUG of war could well be the oldest game in the world. Cells use it for division, and now researchers have measured the forces involved when an amoeba plays the game.












Hirokazu Tanimoto and Masaki Sano at the University of Tokyo, Japan, studied what happens during the division of Dictyostelium - a slime mould that has barely changed through eons of evolution. The amoeba uses tiny projections or "feet" to gain traction on a surface.












The pair placed the amoeba on a flexible surface embedded with fluorescent beads. They used traction force microscopy to measure how the organism deformed the pattern of beads: the greater the deformation, the greater the force.












Dictyostelium normally exerts a force of about 10 nanonewtons when it moves, but the pair found this roughly doubles during division. That's because the cell uses its feet to pull itself in opposite directions, as if playing tug of war with itself.












The forces involved are about 100 billion times smaller than those used in the human form of the game, Tanimoto says (Physical Review Letters, in press).


















































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SIA in talks to sell off Virgin Atlantic stake

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SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines said on Monday it was in talks with "interested parties" on a possible sale of its 49 per cent stake in Virgin Atlantic as media reports listed US carrier Delta Air Lines as a possible buyer.

"Singapore Airlines wishes to announce that it is in discussions with interested parties concerning the possible divestment of its 49 per cent shareholding in Virgin Atlantic Limited," the carrier said in a statement.

"These discussions may or may not result in a transaction," it added without naming any of the parties involved in the talks.

Virgin Atlantic was founded by British transport mogul Richard Branson in 1984, with the flamboyant entrepreneur owning a majority 51 per cent stake in the airline.

Britain's Sunday Times newspaper identified Delta as one of the interested parties and reported that the US carrier had approached SIA directly over the stake, which SIA had paid 600 million pounds for in 1999.

If the sale goes through, Delta's European partner, Air France-KLM, may then buy part of Branson's 51 per cent stake which would see him losing control for the first time of the airline he founded, the report added.

Delta was not immediately available for comment.

- AFP/xq



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Your smartphone's secret afterlife (Smartphones Unlocked)

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A Green Citizen technician swaps out a broken iPhone screen.



(Credit:
CNET/CBS Interactive)


A blue mat, a fine-tipped screwdriver, and a dozen itty bitty screws. This is Titus Green's workspace, set within a warehouse that processes 2 million pounds of unwanted electronic waste each year.


Green, 22, and his team at San Francisco Bay Area e-waste collection center Green Citizen, refurbish 30 cell phones a day to put back into customers' hands.


If you don't chuck your electronics down the trash chute (and please don't,) the most likely cycle is that the phone will be refurbished and resold, one way or another.


Of the appliances that come through Green Citizen's doors -- computers, old phones, even an ancient sewing machine -- 21 percent will get a second chance at life. The remaining 79 percent of unwanted cables, motherboards, and TVs are too ancient or too broken for anything beyond tossing individual parts into scrap bins.



Four ways to ditch your old electronics




From there, towering bins containing circuit boards here and batteries there ship out to certified partners that either turn the parts into some other electronic, or smelt metals and other materials out of phones -- like copper or silver, for instance. In addition, certified e-waste recycling centers deal with noxious chemicals in ways that, happily, avoid poisoning people.


Cell phones could kill you


Electronic waste is a huge problem around the globe. The worst-case scenario is that electronic trash winds up in unregulated or mismanaged heaps, slowly leaking corrosive chemicals into the soil and water table.



Nickel, cadmium, mercury, and lead can leach poisons into the earth, taking 20 years or more to decompose.


Let's take lithium for example, the main ingredient in cell phone batteries. It can harm the nervous system and vital organs, according to the Basel Action Network (BAN,) a Seattle-based non-profit. Nickel, cadmium, and silver have also been linked to organ damage.


"One cell phone in the trash isn't a big deal," said Steve Manning, CEO of cell phone reseller ReCellular. "100 million in the trash in an environmental disaster."


For a closer look, my colleague Jay Greene recently investigated the fate of used-up iPhones during a trip to China.


Even if you do donate or recycle your phone, there's still a chance that the parts could wind up in this worst-case scenario. Some companies ship parts and whole units abroad, while others prohibit sending e-waste overseas where its use could be unregulated.



Children in Manila uncoil copper from broken light bulbs, incinerating loose wires. According to a CBS report, burning e-waste is increasingly commonplace in Manila's dumps, especially among children.



(Credit:
CBS/Barnaby Lo)


The Basel Action Networks' E-Stewards and R2's certification programs are two such examples, and many of the companies I spoke with for this story emphasized that the recycling partners they work with process all electronic parts within the U.S.


The U.S. problem with dumping


Thankfully, e-waste poisoning isn't an issue in most solid-waste landfills in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But that doesn't let us off the hook.


We still have to consider all the money and energy that goes into manufacturing and shipping brand-new phones across the globe, and digging into the ground for all those copper components in the first place.


Lakes of radioactive chemicals are no joke. These and other toxic horrors are unfortunately still commonplace enough when it comes to obtaining the materials that make a cell phone.


See also: The mines where iPhones are born

The U.S. generates upwards of 2.37 million tons of electronic waste materials each year, according to an EPA 2009 report. To put it into perspective, energy savings from recycling 1 million laptops can power 3,657 U.S. homes, says the EPA.


Small as they are, cell phones make up a significant amount of the total e-waste haul, maybe not in terms of weight, but in terms of volume.


Exact numbers of how many phones are trashed, resold, and recycled are unfortunately hard to come by. Most reports are several years old, but organizations can estimate numbers based on their own data and mathematical models.



The EPA estimates that Americans alone turn over about 130 million cell phones each year, and the number is growing as more people in more households adopt smartphones as their primary communication tool. Cell phones also have shorter lifespans than, say, a computer or a TV, about 18 months on average before owners buy the next hot thing.


However, the good news is that businesses and non-profits are increasingly accepting e-waste like cell phones, from online outfits that will give you money for your old stuff, to certified recyclers like Green Citizen, who will take pretty much anything with a plug, without charging you a drop-off fee.


Yet there's still a long way to go. Globally, we buy 1.7 billion cell phones each year, according to ReCellular CEO Steve Manning. In the US, the figure is closer to 340 million phones sold every year. Only 10 percent-to-12 percent of that quantity make it to a recycling center, and numbers are even lower worldwide says Manning, closer to 9 or 10 percent.


The EPA estimates that for every million cell phones the U.S. recycles, we can recover 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium -- resources we won't have to dig up fresh from a mine.


Take 2: Back on shelves


So, where do dead cell phones go? The first place you'll see them is back in people's hands. A few phones may get turned into emergency devices to dial 911; these often wind up in shelters serving victims of domestic violence, or in the hands of elderly users.



At Green Citizen, a technician repairs a broken iPhone for resale.



(Credit:
CNET/CBS Interactive)


A much more likely scenario is refurbishment. Whether you donate to a charity, sell your phone online or in a retail store, or drop it off at a recycler, the first order of business for most is to refurbish the phones and sell them back on the thriving secondary market.


Carriers and resellers can give you a cheaper or free refurbished cell phone if you break or lose your original, and independent sellers also stock shelves with these less expensive models.


"You can turn two bad phones into one good phone," said James Kao, Green Citizen's founder and CEO. Green Citizen resells its patched-up handsets to wholesalers and eBay customers.


By the numbers

Some surprising figures about cell phones' second life. Most numbers are estimates.

1.7 billion
Cell phones sold each year worldwide.

1.3 million
Yearly cell phone sales in the U.S.

10-to-12
Percentage of cell phones recycled domestically.

18
Average number of months a person uses a single cell phone model.

4,740,000,000
Pounds of e-waste accumulated in the U.S. in 2009.

500 million
The conservative number of unused smartphones thought to be sitting in people's homes. Others estimate closer to 1 billion.

35 thousand
Pounds of copper that can be recovered from 1 million recycled handsets.


San Francisco's Green Citizen may only employ 15 technicians to refurbish repairable devices, but they contribute to a roughly $900 million industry for secondary products, according to Kate Pearce, Sr. Strategist and Consultant at Compass Intelligence.


Numbers are conservative and the industry is still undergoing research, but Pearce bases her estimate on 2012's carrier trade-in sales so far for all cell phones and
tablets.


Retailers like Best Buy, resellers like EcoATM in the mall, and charities like Cell Phones for Soldiers all pass along the bits and pieces to partners who restore cell phones to working order.


The incentive is twofold. First, why let perfectly good parts go to waste when there's plenty of money to be made? Second, drumming up support from consumers puts unwanted phones in the right hands so they can cycle back through the market and stay out of landfill.


ReCellular is one recycling and resale titan behind many U.S. carriers' recycling and sustainability programs (not to be confused with the trade-ins,) and also picks up recycled cell phones from major stores like Costco and Best Buy. In addition, the company processes all donations made to Cell Phones for Soldiers and Verizon's Hope Line program.


The company's CEO, Steve Manning, says ReCellular can put about 73 percent of the phones it touches back on the secondary market. What it can't sell here in the U.S. through Mobile Karma and other outlets goes to distribution partners in Asia and Latin America.


Believe it or not, the original Motorola Razr is still a big seller in Latin America. "It's built like a tank," Manning said.


What happens to the leftovers?


Phones deemed unfit to remain whole are likely to get dismantled by a recycling facility, with the bits and pieces sold into the commodities market. Nickel, steel, glass, and plastic materials are still valuable, either whole or melted down and turned into something else.


Resources: Sell or donate your cell phone


There are many ways to pass on unwanted cell phones after they've served their purpose, but here are a few resources to get you started.


Online sales or recycling outlets (Including trade-ins)
BuyMyTronics
Swappa
Gazelle
YouRenew
NextWorth
FlipSwap
Amazon
Target
eBay
Craiglist
Your carrier's buy-back program


Physical sales or recycling outlets
Best Buy
RadioShack
Costco
EcoATM


National charities
Cell Phones for Soldiers
Hope Phones
Hope Line Phones (Verizon)


Local charities
City drives - check with your city government
Local domestic violence centers


What you do with old phones


I was curious about what CNET readers do with their unused cell phones, so I reached out on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook -- do you sell your phones, give them away, donate them?


With a little help from a CNET retweet, I received over 100 submissions. Some people offered more than one answer, which is fair. For instance, I might sell a high-end device, but may want to hold onto a flip phone for emergencies.


Here's what CNET readers do with their old phones, according to my casual social networking poll.



(Source: 2012 CNET social network poll)

Of the respondents, 33 use eBay, Craigslist, Gazelle, and Swappa to get cash for old phones, while a relative few (6) said they return old phones to carriers. 37 of you stick old phones in a drawer or closet for backup, for tinkering and testing, or because you plain forget.


Those of you who pass phones on (12) give to organizations benefitting refugees, the elderly, and battered women, while 11 said have taken their handsets to recycling roundups.



Many of you (28) save unwanted cells for your kids, friends, and parents.


Let's not forget the six jokesters who boast getting a kick out eating or dissecting dead phones. Only one respondent claimed to throw old phones in the trash.


What's your personal experience with a cell phone's afterlife? Share them in the comments.



Smartphones Unlocked
is a monthly column that dives deep into the inner workings of your trusty smartphone.


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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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Boehner on Fiscal Cliff Talks: 'You Can't Be Serious'

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President Obama and his White House team appear to have drawn a line in the sand in talks with House Republicans on the "fiscal cliff."


Tax rates on the wealthy are going up, the only question is how much?


"Those rates are going to have to go up," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner flatly stated on ABC's "This Week." "There's no responsible way we can govern this country at a time of enormous threat, and risk, and challenge ... with those low rates in place for future generations."


But the president's plan, which Geithner delivered last week, has left the two sides far apart.


In recounting his response today on "Fox News Sunday," House Speaker John Boehner said: "I was flabbergasted. I looked at him and said, 'You can't be serious.'


"The president's idea of negotiation is: Roll over and do what I ask," Boehner added.


The president has never asked for so much additional tax revenue. He wants another $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, including returning the tax rate on income above $250,000 a year to 39.6 percent.






TOBY JORRIN/AFP/Getty Images















Obama Balances Fiscal Cliff, Defense Department Appointment Watch Video





Boehner is offering half that, $800 billion.


In exchange, the president suggests $600 billion in cuts to Medicare and other programs. House Republicans say that is not enough, but they have not publicly listed what they would cut.


Geithner said the ball is now in the Republicans' court, and the White House is seemingly content to sit and wait for Republicans to come around.


"They have to come to us and tell us what they think they need. What we can't do is to keep guessing," he said.


The president is also calling for more stimulus spending totaling $200 billion for unemployment benefits, training, and infrastructure projects.


"All of this stimulus spending would literally be more than the spending cuts that he was willing to put on the table," Boehner said.


Boehner also voiced some derision over the president's proposal to strip Congress of power over the country's debt level, and whether it should be raised.


"Congress is not going to give up this power," he said. "It's the only way to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would if left alone."


The so-called fiscal cliff, a mixture of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, is triggered on Jan. 1 if Congress and the White House do not come up with a deficit-cutting deal first.


The tax increases would cost the average family between $2,000 and $2,400 a year, which, coupled with the $500 billion in spending cuts, will most likely put the country back into recession, economists say.



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