Syria's regime is showing signs that it is weakening, according to reports from newspapers in the United Kingdom and Israel.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has sought asylum for himself, his family, and associates in Latin America if his regime falls and he is forced to flee Damascus, reported Haaretz, an Israeli daily paper.

The report indicates that nation's deputy foreign minister met with leaders in Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela, and brought personal letters from Assad to local leaders.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reported Tuesday that former Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, is traveling to the United States after apparently defecting. Makdissi, the newspaper notes, is the most senior Christian official who hasn't abandoned Assad's regime. He arrived Monday in London, where he previously served in the Syrian embassy.

It's another day in Washington, and another day of talk about the "fiscal cliff," with the emphasis on "talk." There are no public, sitting-down-at-the-table negotiations under way to avoid the tax increases and deep spending cuts scheduled to trigger on the first two days of January. Of course, it being Washington, you never know who is talking to whom behind the scenes.

What is known is that President Barack Obama is scheduled to talk about his plan for averting the fiscal cliff when he meets with corporate CEO members of the Business Roundtable on Wednesday.

What is known is that House Republican leaders and House Democratic leaders will be talking about their fiscal cliff proposals when they meet with the press on Wednesday, and so will Senate Democrats at a press conference they have planned.

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What is known is that the White House made a fiscal cliff

As our lives become more enmeshed in the digital playground, we reveal more information about ourselves than ever before in the history of mankind. Every online search, store purchase, Facebook post, Tweet or Foursquare check-in is creating a flood of data that, when organized and categorized and analyzed, reveals trends and habits about ourselves and society at large.

In the last two years, humans have created 90% of all information ever created by our species. If our data output used to be a sprinkler, it is now a firehose that's only getting stronger, and it is revealing information about our relationships, health, and undiscovered trends in society that are just beginning to be understood.

In his new book The Human Face of Big Data, author and photographer Rick Smolan and his partner Jennifer Erwitt use pictures, essays and startling facts to put our unprecedented output of information into perspective. Mr. Smolan sat down with us this week to discuss some of what he discovered

Marco Rubio speaks during Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad's annual birthday fundraiser, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, in Altoona, Iowa. (AP/Charlie Neibergall)

WASHINGTON—It is unfashionable to admit to harboring lustful thoughts about the 2016 presidential race so soon after the November election, but it is naive to think it wasn't on the minds of the conservatives who came to hear Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan speak at the Jack Kemp Foundation Awards Dinner on Tuesday.

The two lawmakers, both under the age of 43, represent the youthful and enterprising wing of the Republican Party and seem more than willing to lead the GOP into a new generation. The foundation—which is named after Jack Kemp, a New York Republican who died in 2009—honored Rubio with its leadership award. Kemp was a personal mentor to Ryan, who was the first to receive the award last year.

Rubio, of course, is already well-known in Republican circles, having risen to national prominence in 2010 after he upset Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to win his Senate seat. He was considered among conservatives to be a top pick to become Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON--Florida Sen. Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that he had finally finished paying off his student loan debt this year using proceeds from sales of his autobiography.

Rubio was honored Tuesday night at the Jack Kemp Foundation Awards dinner, where he made a case for broad policy reform, including changes to the nation's education system.

"We need to reform our federal college grant and loan programs. To me college affordability is an issue that is very personal. Because the only reason why I was able to go to college--the only reason--was because of federal grants and loans.  But when I graduated from law school, I had close to $150,000 in student debt," Rubio said after accepting the award. "That's a debt I just paid off just last year with the proceeds of my book 'An American Son,' the perfect holiday gift and available on Amazon for only $11.99."

As late as this summer, Rubio said he was one of the few members of Congress still paying off loans. The 41-year-old Republican

A new Verizon patent envisions an application that would target advertisements by filming and recording viewers (AP)It won't be long before our televisions are watching us.

You don't have to be paranoid or even a privacy expert to find this development a little creepy. Verizon has filed a patent on a new DVR technology that works by filming and recording viewers in order to send them targeted ads through their TV's.

"If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words," Verizon states in its application,which was first reported by Fierce Cable.

The patent was actually filed by Verizon in 2011 but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn't required to release patent filings for 18 months.

And before you dismiss concerns over the new technology, which works as a software application, just consider two of the examples Verizon gives of how its new DVR

An image from Cy Kuckenbaker's time-lapse video (Vimeo)Photography and film professor Cy Kuckenbaker has created a time-lapse video collage showing every plane landing at San Diego International Airport on the day after Thanksgiving from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

In an interview with PetaPixel, Kuckenbaker says he was inspired to create the video after seeing a montage by Ho-Yeol Ryu at Hannover Airport.

"I moved to a new neighborhood in San Diego a little over a year ago that put me close to the San Diego Int Airport," he said. "Since then I have become increasingly interested in the rhythms of the airport and the airplanes themselves."

A researcher descends toward the crater of an active volcano. (Discovery Channel)Could a supervolcano someday erupt in the U.S., burying most of North America in ash, dimming the sun and sending the continent into a volcanic winter? That's the focus of the Discovery Channel's "Volcano Time Bomb," part of the network's Curiosity series.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a supervolcano is one that possesses "a volcanic center that has had an eruption of magnitude 8 on the Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), meaning the measured deposits for that eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles)."

The show focuses on volcanic giants that loom over Portland, Seattle and Vancouver and comes on the heels of Hawaii's Kilauea spilling lava into the ocean. Using computer-generated imagery, the show will take viewers inside some of these volcanoes. But the show also focuses on the latest scientific efforts by researchers who are attempting to forecast when and where the next major eruption will take place.

Other supervolcanoes in the U.S. are located in