Innovation Watch Newsletter 1.07
April 20, 2002

SCIENCE

China Confirms Space Station Plan - China has confirmed that it will construct a crewed space station. The announcement came after the recovery of the capsule from the third test flight in China's quest to put an astronaut in space. The Shenzhou craft is designed to carry future Chinese astronauts and the pod that would be occupied by humans was recovered from Inner Mongolia on Monday. Shenzou 3 was launched from the Jiuquan Space Launch Centre in Gansu Province, northwest China on Monday 25 March. The spacecraft orbited the Earth 108 times before a return capsule detached and touched down in Mongolia at 0751 GMT on Monday 1 April.

Life on Mars Hopes Raised - Scientists have found "intriguing" new evidence that may indicate there is life on Mars. An analysis of data obtained by the Pathfinder mission to the Red Planet in 1997 suggests there could be chlorophyll - the molecule used by plants and other organisms on Earth to extract energy from sunlight - in the soil close to the landing site. Researchers stress their work is in a very preliminary state and they are far from making definite claims.

Exotic Star is Made Entirely of Quarks - Astronomers using the Chandra X-ray observatory have unexpectedly found an exotic star made entirely of quarks. They came across the bizarre find while looking at the debris of recent supernovae - the titanic explosions that happen when stars run out of fuel. In a supernova, a star's core can collapse so rapidly that atomic nuclei are squashed into a "liquid soup" of neutrons. The process squeezes material weighing as much as our Sun into the volume of a large city.

Antimatter - According to the laws of physics, the world should not exist. To explain why we're here, scientists are recreating the universe's fiery beginnings by pitting matter against antimatter and watching them annihilate.

New Gene-Silencing Enzyme Discovered: Implications Seen for Treating Aggressive Cancers - Although the human genome is estimated to contain about 35,000 genes, only a fraction of these genes are turned on in a given cell type under normal circumstances. Precise control of gene expression is essential; many cancers have been linked to the improper activation of genes that should remain repressed, or silenced. Now, researchers at The Wistar Institute report the identification of a new enzyme that is required for the silencing of certain genes. The enzyme functions by placing a molecular marker on a gene that causes the gene to be silenced. When this molecular marker is lost, certain genes may be improperly reactivated, which can result in cancer. Discovery of the enzyme could lead to new cancer therapies.

Anti-Freeze Chemical Found in Milky Way - Astronomers have discovered ethylene glycol -- better known as the chemical commonly found in anti-freeze -- in a massive interstellar dust cloud, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory announced. One of the five largest organic molecules discovered in space so far, the molecule, while commonly known as the antifreeze ingredient "is associated with the formation of more complex sugar molecules that are necessary for life," said Jan Hollis of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Flares Illuminate the Secret Life of a Quiescent Black Hole - Astronomers probing the intimate details of apparently quiescent stellar black holes have discovered that in reality they are dynamic, lively places, subject to flares that briefly illuminate the whole of the gas disc around the black hole.

Hoover to Design Robotic Vacuum Cleaner - A robotic vacuum cleaner will be on the market by the end of this year, making it possible for the first time to clean carpets without human guidance, a company said Tuesday. The Hoover Co., a division of the Newton-based Maytag Corp., announced that it has joined forces with the company that developed the robotic lawnmower to create a vacuum that cleans floors by itself. Hoover, based in North Canton, Ohio, and Friendly Robotics Inc. have agreed to work together to develop the first robotic vacuum cleaner.

Glasses Read Dyslexics' Eyes - Eye-tracking glasses developed to reduce fighter pilots' workload by enabling their eyes to direct weapons could help to diagnose dyslexia. Qinetiq, part of the British government's former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, has just received a grant to create child-size prototype glasses. Some scientists think that eye movements offer clues as to why dyslexics struggle to read and write. Dyslexia affects between five and ten per cent of the world's population.

Robots Make the Rounds to Ease Hospitals' Costs - Whenever a new patient is admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center here, a four-foot eight-inch talking robot rolls up to the nurses' station nearest to the patient's room, bringing doses of whatever drugs the doctor has ordered. TOBOR, the robot, is a delivery "droid" that glides along the corridors day and night, ferrying medicines from the hospital's central pharmacy to its wards. Bigger and boxier than R2D2, the rolling robot in the "Star Wars" movies, TOBOR shares the hospital's elevators many times a day with patients and visitors. It announces its intentions in a clear baritone voice.

Quantum Dot Arrays for Computation - A major step toward developing computational "brain" power to speed up the processing of signal patterns is being taken by a multidisciplinary nanotechnology project at ORNL, supported partly by internal funding from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program. Researchers at the Laboratory are fabricating a nanoscale pattern-recognition device, using gold nano-particles on a DNA template, which may eventually prove the feasibility of this concept. Specifically, the ORNL team is designing a quantum-dot array that can be operated at room temperature to carry out innovative computations.

Spintronics - Later this year physicists will be celebrating the centenary of Paul Dirac's birth. One of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, Dirac combined quantum mechanics and special relativity to explain the strange magnetic or "spin" properties of the electron. What Dirac could not have foreseen, however, is how the spin of the electron could change the field of microelectronics. Indeed, the spin of the electron has attracted renewed interest recently because it promises a wide variety of new devices that combine logic, storage and sensor applications. Moreover, these "spintronic" devices might lead to quantum computers and quantum communication based on electronic solid-state devices, thus changing the perspective of information technology in the 21st century.

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BUSINESS

The Secret of Life - Craig Venter, president and chief scientific officer of the Celera Genomics Group, is the kind of man who inspires stories -- like this one from five months ago: Venter, now 53, is speaking at Harvard Medical School. He announces that Celera's next great undertaking will be to map the roughly 1 million proteins in every human being. He goes on to say that Celera hopes to complete its so-called proteomics project in just three years.

The Innovator's Rule Book - You'd think that -- after all the hype about innovation during the Internet boom -- we'd be sick of the subject. So why is there suddenly such a sense of urgency about it now? I think the answer has to do with the current recession. During the 1980s and 1990s, much lip service was paid to innovation, and massive corporate expenditures on technology created the illusion that a lot of it was happening. But with the economic downturn, it has become increasingly clear that a lot less innovation has been going on than was commonly supposed. Rather than innovating, it turns out, a lot of companies have been caught in what you might call the optimization trap.

Business Pros Flock to Weblogs - Omar Javaid describes himself as a "pretty prolific" Internet reader who used to fire off hundreds of e-mails each week with news tidbits that might interest staff and customers of his consulting firm. Then about six months ago he began a sort of online diary known as a Weblog and began posting his thoughts and findings there instead. The experiment has been so successful that Javaid says he plans to expand it until virtually everyone at his 60-person company, Mobilocity, has a Weblog. Javaid's brief experience has convinced him that far from an exercise in self-indulgence, Weblogs actually can be used to increase worker efficiency.

Drug Use Linked to Ancestors' Habits - If drugs are so bad for us, why do so many people use them? Because they helped our ancestors survive, argue two anthropologists. Our predilection for psychotropic substances is usually seen as a biological accident. The conventional view is that drugs fool the brain into thinking it is getting a reward when in fact it is not. But anthropologists Roger Sullivan of the University of Auckland and Edward Hagen of the University of California at Santa Barbara point out that our ancestors were exposed to plants containing narcotic substances for millions of years. In the April issue of Addiction, they argue that we are predisposed to drug-taking because we evolved to seek out plants rich in alkaloids.

Why the Digital Divide Is Still Very Real - In recent weeks, there's been a spate of essays by pundits who've embraced the notion that the digital divide doesn't exist. These essays have gleefully heralded a new report by the U.S. Department of Commerce, "A Nation Online." The report suggests that the digital divide has been solved, and writers have latched onto it with uncritical abandon, embracing its analysis as the new gospel on digital divide policy. Some are even suggesting that the digital divide is a myth--a phantom stirred up by civil rights activists looking for a new crusade. But let's have a reality check. These rumors of the demise of the digital divide are greatly exaggerated, to say the least. In fact, they are flat-out wrong.

Nigeria Goes Mad for Mobiles - Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is in the grip of mobile phone fever. Investors have long recognised the growth potential for mobile phones on a continent where existing landline networks are limited. But nowhere is the potential greater than in Nigeria. The state-owned telecoms company, Nitel, has only 400,000 lines for a population of 120 million - one of the lowest connectivity rates in the world.

Courting Disfavour - The cause is worthy, but the timing is terrible. For its supporters, the dream of an international criminal court became a reality on April 11th. With ten more nations ratifying the treaty setting up the court, the number exceeded the 60 that were required. The milestone was passed years before anyone thought it possible. Fulfilling a promise made after the Nuremberg trials more than 50 years ago, the court will at last provide a permanent forum for holding trials of the world's greatest criminals-mass murderers, war criminals and plotters of genocide or ethnic cleansing-who have so often committed their bloody deeds secure in the knowledge that no one would ever hold them accountable.

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ENVIRONMENT

Massive Coral Bleaching Strikes Great Barrier Reef - An epidemic of coral bleaching has hit the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the world's largest coral reef, for the second time in four years. It is also reported to be spreading through the coral islands of the South Pacific. An extensive survey of the Great Barrier Reef carried out over the last month has revealed "widespread bleaching", says Terry Done, chief conservation scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Canada May Open 'Pandora's Box' on Climate Change: EU - The European Commission said on Monday it was worried the Kyoto protocol on climate change would unravel if Canada persisted in demanding extra concessions before moving to ratify. "If Canada went down that route that would open a Pandora's box," a spokeswoman for the EU's environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom told a daily news briefing of the European Union executive.

Earth's Warming Trend is Truly Global - Researchers from Michigan and Canada worked together to find that over the past half century, the rocks that make up Earth's continental crust have significantly warmed up, in tandem with the warming of the oceans, atmosphere, and ice reported by other researchers last year. They say determining that the continents have warmed right alongside the other pieces of Earth's climate system shows that the warming of our planet has been truly global.

Rising Sea Levels Destroying China Coast - According to China's state media, the country is at risk of losing its prosperous eastern seaboard to rising sea levels caused by global warming. The sea level of China's coastline has been rising quickly over the past five decades, said the official Xinhua news agency, quoting the latest observations from domestic tide stations. Over the past few years, the rate has gone up to 2.6 millimeters a year, said the agency. Over the next 30 years, meteorologists predict that the sea level will have risen by between one and 16 centimeters. By 2050, it will have reached between six to 26 centimeters higher. And by the end of the 21st century could have risen 30 to 70 centimeters, the report said. China's long coastline, with about 70 percent of its large cities, over half of its population and nearly 60 percent of the national economy, will suffer the most, said experts.

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THE FUTURE

We Are Becoming Cyborgs - (Raymond Kurzweil) We are growing more intimate with our technology. Computers started out as large remote machines in air-conditioned rooms tended by white coated technicians. Subsequently they moved onto our desks, then under our arms, and now in our pockets. Soon, we'll routinely put them inside our bodies and brains. Ultimately we will become more nonbiological than biological.