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SCIENCE
Genes
Linked to High-Risk Personalities - [New Scientist]
People who smoke, take street drugs or become heavy drinkers
may be genetically predisposed to their habits, suggest
the results of a large new study.
UCSD
Researchers Estimate Approximately 400 Fragile Regions in
the Human Genome that are Vulnerable to Evolutionary 'Earthquakes'
- [UCSD] Researchers from the University of California,
San Diego (UCSD) Jacobs School of Engineering have uncovered
evidence that major evolutionary changes are more likely
to occur in approximately 400 ‘fragile’ genomic
regions that account for only 5 percent of the human genome.
Y
Chromosome Sequence Completed - [Nature] Reports of
the demise of the Y chromosome and an impending extinction
of men may have been exaggerated. The Y's full genome sequence
reveals that we have underestimated its powers of self-preservation.
Ancient
Organism Challenges Cell Evolution - [BBC] Scientists
have found an organelle -- an enclosed free-floating specialised
structure -- inside a primitive cell for the first time.
Researchers
View Protein's Structural Changes In Real Time
- [Science Daily] Dramatic structural changes that take
place inside a protein in less than a billionth of a second
have been filmed in high resolution with X-ray crystallography,
enabling scientists to view them like a movie. The ability
to watch a protein functioning on the inside may lead to
a better understanding of how it works.
'Gene
Tells Time for Bed - [Nature] Whether you are a morning
or an evening person could depend on a single gene, a study
of extreme sleeping habits has revealed.
Shyness
Linked to Brain Differences - [New Scientist] A new
neuroimaging study provides the strongest evidence to date
that unusual shyness in children may result from differences
in their brains.
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TECHNOLOGY
Mixing
Things Up in Phones - [c|net] Multitasking is coming
to cell phones. Chipmakers are developing memory chips capable
of storing more than a laptop's worth of data. And handset
makers plan to soon add more processing power to cell phones.
Smart
Cellphone Would Spend Your Money - [New Scientist] A
consortium of the world's top consumer electronics firms,
mobile networks and broadcasters are funding the development
of cellphones that will spend money on your behalf. The
consortium, called Mobile VCE, includes Nokia, Sony, Vodafone
and the BBC.
Europe's
Largest Wi-Fi Hotspot Goes Live - [New Scientist] The
largest wireless computer hotspot in Europe has gone live
at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, allowing
cable-free internet access to staff and students anywhere
on campus.
Where
is the Mysterious Internet Code Coming From? - [Silicon.com]
Network administrators and security experts continue to
search for the cause of an increasing amount of odd data
that has been detected on the internet.
Building
Robot Soldiers - [MSNBC] After years of on-again, off-again
funding of advanced robotics, the U.S. defense research
establishment is finally putting big, long-term money into
military robots.
Pentagon
Pushes Next Version of IP - [PC World] The next version
of the Internet Protocol, which provides a 128-bit standard
to transmit data, is getting a jump-start for adoption with
its endorsement by the Department of Defense. The result:
A boost in the number of available Internet addresses, to
eventually number as many as an address for every cell in
every person on the planet.
Saving
Lives with Living Machines - [MIT
Technology Review] Hybrid devices that are part machine,
part living cells, offer new hope to patients for whom purely
artificial treatments like dialysis aren’t good enough.
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BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Amazon's
Top Product is its Technology - [Mercury News] In developing
a new way of selling books, music and videos over the Internet,
Amazon unwittingly created its single most valuable product
offering.
Globalization
of Services: The Backlash Begins - [Ethical Corporation]
Large companies are increasingly shifting service functions
to developing countries and are insufficiently prepared
for the likely political and reputational fall-out.
Someday
Robots Will Replace Us - [Mercury News] It's been six
months now since Home Depot rolled out ``Self-Service Checkout
Express'' and by all accounts, well by Home Depot's account,
it's going peachy. The machines scan your items and weigh
your order to make sure you're not taking something you
didn't pay for. A security camera keeps an eye on you, too.
Fast
Food Indsutry Under Attack - [ninemsn] The US Chamber
of Commerce, which describes itself as the largest business
federation in the world, launched a campaign seeking to
fend off the growing threat of lawsuits against restaurants
and food manufacturers.
For
India, a Shrinking Chinese IT Monster - [Business Week]
Suddenly, Indians are realizing that their big edge in English
skills and multinational investment should hold off China's
software threat.
Learning
How to Speak to Gen Y - [Fast Company] When presenting
his new-car design proposal to Toyota's executive-committee
members, Tetsuya Tada skipped the numbers. Instead of offering
reams of data that showed how profitable his car would be,
Tada simply played a seven-minute music video. Its contents:
thumping techno, gritty urban scenes, and images of a boxy,
low-slung vehicle that resembled a baby Astro van. Its message:
If Toyota hoped to win the "millennials" -- the
8-to-23-year-olds worldwide who will dominate global car
sales by 2020 -- it had to revamp both its product and its
thinking.
Death
to Cool - [Inc.] For years, iRobot designed stuff cool
enough for the Sci-Fi Channel, but its new product sells
on the Home Shopping Network. Here's how a boutique high-tech
firm broke out by reinventing itself as an appliance company.
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SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Microsoft
Launches Major Attack on Spam - [New Scientist] Microsoft
has launched the largest ever legal assault on companies
and individuals accused of sending "spam" email.
The software giant disclosed details of 15 law suits against
defendants in the US and the UK accused of deluging the
company's customers.
Europe
Debates New Rules for Internet Publishers - [DW] A European
body has proposed a plan that would require Internet publishers
to provide people with the right to respond to published
information about them. But critics say it could suppress
free speech for Web bloggers.
New
Bill Injects FBI into P2P Battle - [ZDnet] A bill introduced
in Congress would put federal agents in the business of
investigating and prosecuting copyright violations, including
online swapping of copyrighted works.
U.S.
Seeks WTO Panel in Case Against EU Biotech Moratorium
- [USA Today] Having failed in recent talks to persuade
the European Union to lift its moratorium on biotech food,
the United States is taking the fight to the World Trade
Organization.
Should
All Babies Get DNA Screening? - [Telegraph] John Reid,
the new Health Secretary, has asked the Government's genetics
watchdog to "consider the case" for DNA screening
of every newborn baby, it emerged yesterday. The
Human Genetics Commission is to investigate the ethical,
scientific and economic implications of starting a national
database of genetic profiles.
Pentagon
Developing System to Track Every Vehicle in a City -
[USA Today] Police can envision limited domestic uses for
an urban surveillance system the Pentagon is developing
but doubt they could use the full system which is designed
to track and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a
city. Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project
is intended to help the U.S. military protect troops and
fight in cities overseas.
Schools
Turn to Phone Scanners to Foil Cheats - [Telegraph]
Schools are using electronic scanners to prevent pupils
cheating in A-levels and GCSEs by using their mobile telephones.
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ENVIRONMENT
GM
Seeds 'Spread by Human Activity' - [BBC] Seeds may be
a bigger danger than pollen in allowing GM crops to escape
into the countryside.
In
Denial on Global Warming - [IHT] When it comes to global
warming, the Bush administration seems determined to bury
its head in the sand and hope the problem will go away.
Worse yet, it wants to bury any research findings that global
warming may be a threat to human health or the environment.
Farmers
Get Wind of Tax on Livestock Emissions - [Independent]
Farmers in New Zealand are enraged to learn they are to
be charged a "flatulence tax" as part of the country's
efforts to combat global warming. Greenhouse gases expelled
by livestock are responsible for about half of New Zealand's
emissions.
A
Call to Arms: The War Against Invasive Species
- [ENN] Cornell University reports that exotic plants and
animals on land and water cost the United States up to $138
billion annually, impacting human health, commercial activities,
community infrastructures, natural resources, and agriculture
production. Between 200 and 250 invasive plant species are
recognized as major problems in world agriculture.
Global
Warming 'Catastrophe' - [Canberra
Sunday Times] Global warming over the next century could
trigger a catastrophe to rival the worst mass extinction
in the history of the planet, scientists warned. Researchers
at Bristol University have discovered that a mere six degrees
of global warming was enough to wipe out up to 95 per cent
of the species which were alive on Earth at the end of the
Permian period, 250 million years ago.
Russian
Pollution 'Killing' Baltic - [BBC] Sweden's Commission
on Marine Environment has warned that the Baltic Sea is
in a "critical" condition and in danger of dying
unless pollution from the Russian city of St Petersburg
is drastically cut.
Indonesia
Facing Catastrophic Rise in Pollution
- [Ethical Corporation] In its first environmental report
on Indonesia, the World Bank warned the government that
it risks harming a substantial proportion of the population
unless it starts tackling the worsening environmental situation
in the country. Indonesia has an appalling pollution problem,
with an epidemic of air pollution-related diseases and with
one in three children at risk of permanent health problems.
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THE FUTURE
The
New World: 30 Spaces for the 21st Century - [Wired]
AMO (an architectural think tank and consulting firm) invited
a cadre of writers, researchers, critics, and artists to
report on the world as they see it. What follows are 30
spaces that fall into three rough clusters: waning spaces
once celebrated, now hemorrhaging aura; contested spaces,
continuously refined by the battles for their dominion;
and new spaces, only recently understood as space at all.
Together they form the beginning of an inventory, a fragment
of an image, a pixelated map of an emerging world.
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