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SCIENCE
Bone
Mimic Makes Anti-Decay Fillings - [Nature] A new smart
cement could keep dental braces in place while fending off
tooth decay. It might also be used for fillings or treating
damaged teeth, researchers say.
Whole
Genome Scan Finds Depression Hotspots - [New Scientist]
A whole genome analysis has identified 19 specific regions
very likely to contain genetic variations that raise the
risk of a severe form of depression. The new study indicates
that one of the "susceptibility loci", which contains
a gene called CREB1, plays a particularly big role in the
illness.
Galactic
Dust Cooling Earth? - [Nature] The impact of cosmic
rays on our climate might outweigh that of the greenhouse
gas carbon dioxide, a controversial new report suggests.
Astronomers
Find Oldest Planet Yet - [USA Today] The discovery of
a gaseous planet 13 billion years old and 5,600 light-years
away could change theories about planet formation and about
the evolution of life, astronomers say.
Solar
Sailing 'Breaks Laws of Physics' - [New Scientist] The
next generation of spacecraft propulsion systems could be
dead in the water before they are even launched. A physicist
is claiming that solar sailing -- the idea of using sunlight
to blow spacecraft across the solar system -- is at odds
with the laws of thermal physics.
Detailed
Maps Reveal Early Universe Galaxy Distribution - [Spaceflight
Now] Peering back in time more than 7 billion years, a team
of astronomers using a powerful new spectrograph at the
W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has obtained the first
maps showing the distribution of galaxies in the early universe.
The maps show the clustering of galaxies into a variety
of large-scale structures, including long filaments, empty
voids, and dense groups and clusters.
RNA
Silences Mutant Genes - [CBS News] The biotechnology
field is littered with the debris of would-be miracle cures.
These days, the buzz is building around a technology called
"RNA interference," whose legions of fans insist
this one is different and could dramatically alter our understanding
of molecular biology.
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TECHNOLOGY
Luggage
Tracked Via Radio - [ZDNet UK] Singapore's Changi Airport,
Amsterdam's Schiphol, and New York's John F. Kennedy International
will later this year take part in an experiment testing
radio-tagged luggage. The test is part of plans by a newly-formed
consortium of Japanese firms to promote RFID (radio frequency
ID) tags on passenger luggage.
World's
Smallest Electric Rotor Made - [Nature] Scientists have
built an electric rotor 2,000 times smaller than the width
of a human hair. Its gold blade is 300 millionths of a millimetre
long. This sits atop an axle made from a multiwalled carbon
nanotube -- a molecule structured much like a leek. Gold
electrodes at either end of the axle lash the device to
a silicon chip.
Cutting-Edge
Science Creates Stain-Free Pants
- [USA Today] Scientists are wrestling with individual atoms
to develop molecule-sized computers, tiny cancer-fighting
robots that travel the bloodstream... and stain-resistant
trousers. Nanotechnology -- the science of manipulating
materials billionths of a meter wide -- has emerged as a
promising new field that could lead to stunning advances
in years to come.
'Robosnail'
Reveals the Wonders of Goo - [CNN] The slimy trail that
snails and slugs putter along has long puzzled biologists.
How is it that the creatures move along the goo -- the thicker
the goo, the faster they go, while a thinner trail of the
stuff offers more resistance? Massachusetts Institute of
Technology researchers fascinated by those questions have
built what might be the world's first robotic snail to study
a matter that ultimately could lead to advancements in the
medical world.
Tuning
in to the Retail Revolution - [Computer Weekly] Radio
frequency identification could revolutionise retailing,
both in the warehouse and at the point of sale, but is unlikely
to appear in your local supermarket overnight.
Country-Coded
Computer Worms May Be Ahead - [New Scientist] Future
computer worms could be programmed to attack only within
a particular country, according to a leading computer security
expert.
Mobile
Email the Next Killer App - [vnunet] Mobile email, including
access to calendars and contact information, will drive
growth in mobile data services for businesses over the next
five years, industry analysts have predicted.
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BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
iTunes
Clones Ready to Hit Web - [ZDNet
UK] The success of Apple's online music store will spawn
a wealth of imitators catering for PC users.
Ineffective
Email Use 'Costing Millions' - [ZDNet UK] Badly written
or pointless emails are wasting employees' time, finds a
new survey -- and it's costing companies thousands of pounds
per worker per year.
Climate
Change Could Be Next Legal Battlefield - [World Business
Council for Sustainable Development] First it was tobacco
and asbestos.Then it was the turn of the food sector. Now
litigators have yet another target in their sights: those
responsible for climate change. Two
cases have already been launched in the US courts. More
are in the pipeline, according to the newly formed Climate
Justice Programme.
Is
the World Economy Teetering on the Brink of Deflation?
- [The Financial Express] When the IMF considers it timely
to organise a high level forum, as it did at the end of
May, to discuss the threat of deflation in the world economy,
and the Economist of London, that widely read newspaper
among the cognoscenti, carries a special report (in its
June 28 issue) on breaking the deflationary spell, it is
time to sit up and think. Is the world economy on the brink
of deflation?
Where
"Think Different" Is Taking Apple - [Business
Week] Rather than accept being a niche PC maker, Steve Jobs
is transforming his baby into a high-end consumer-electronics
and services company.
The
"4+2 Formula" For Success - [Inc.] Can business
success be reduced to a single formula? Nitin Nohria thinks
so. The Harvard Business School professor recently concluded
an exhaustive study of 160 companies in 40 different industries
over two five-year periods in an attempt to answer the most
basic question in business: Why do some companies flourish
while others fail?
The
Incredible Shrinking Legacy Workforce - [Optimize] Just
as three weather systems collided to devastating effect
in Sebastian Junger's book, The Perfect Storm, enterprise
IT organizations are threatened by the collision of three
ominous trends: the continued reliance on mainframe systems,
an aging Baby Boomer population, and the limited skills
base of younger IT workers. If these factors aren't addressed
within the next five to seven years, we'll all be facing
an IT skills shortage that could prove devastating to businesses
that depend on technology expertise.
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SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Spy
Cameras in Every Class - [BBC] A new school funded by
a Christian charity is to put closed circuit TV cameras
in every classroom to clamp down on rowdy pupils.
Web
Cafe Fraud Highlights Public PC Insecurity - [New Scientist]
A New York man has pleaded guilty to stealing bank details
and other personal data from hundreds of people by installing
clandestine keylogging software on public computer terminals.
Experts say that the case highlights
the risks involved with using public terminals for sensitive
transactions.
FBI
Warns About Bogus Websites Collecting Personal Data
- [SMH Australia] The FBI and US consumer organisations
have issued a warning about a growing fraud scheme involving
emails that lure people to fake websites to collect sensitive
personal or financial data. The scam involves email that
links users to sites that are designed to look like legitimate
sites and deceive consumers into revealing credit card or
bank account numbers or other sensitive data.
Hand-Me-Down
Drugs for HIV in Third World - [IHT] Every three months
or so, a package from the United States arrives at the small
clinic that Mary Annel operates behind an unmarked door
in a run-down neighborhood here. The package contains drugs
to treat those with HIV. But the medications do not come
from an official aid program or a pharmaceutical company.
Instead, they are leftover drugs, prescribed for American
patients.
Poor
Nations Can't Live by Markets Alone - [Business Week]
The '90s boom and free-market reforms adopted by developing
countries haven't done enough to improve their lot, says
a U.N. study.
Bush
Policy Risks Terminal Strain in NATO - [IHT] The trans-Atlantic
alliance is under what may be terminal strain. George Robertson
says NATO will provide no further help to the United States
in Iraq -- meaning that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's
principal European members refuse to let the alliance do
so.
HIV
Spreading Widely in India - [New
Scientist] The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in
India has shown a steep rise, prompting experts and government
officials to call for urgent action. The
estimated number of HIV-positive Indians at the end of 2002
was 15 per cent higher than the 3.97 million cases the year
before.
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ENVIRONMENT
Researchers
Find Decline in Caribbean Coral Reefs - [Seattle Times]
In a study of Caribbean reefs, British researchers have
found that coral has declined by about 80 percent in some
areas, a loss that might take many decades to recover.
Deforestation
Could Wipe Out One-Fifth of Species - [Nature] Up to
one-fifth of the world's plant and animal species could
be wiped out within 100 years by deforestation in Southeast
Asia, according to a survey of extinction rates in Singapore.
Decades
of Devastation Ahead as Global Warming Melts the Alps
- [The Observer] The great mountain range's icy crust of
permafrost, which holds its stone pillars and rockfaces
together, and into which its cable car stations and pylons
are rooted, is disappearing. Already several recent Alpine
disasters, including the avalanches which killed more than
50 people four years ago, are being blamed on the melting
of permafrost.
A
Biotech Approach to Global Climate Change - [SeedQuest]
Can biotechnology save the planet? When most people hear
that question, they probably think about genetically modified
food or new drugs. But the same technologies that are being
developed for farms and pharmaceuticals have scientists
speculating that biotechnology could hold some promise for
moderating global warming caused by the greenhouse effect.
Belize
Marine Protected Area Safeguards World's Largest Fish
- [ENS] A new marine protected area has been created in
southern Belize that will help to protect the world's only
predictable gathering site of the whale shark, the planet's
largest fish. The 3,360 acre marine protected area includes
the water surrounding a tiny island 18 miles off Belize's
southeastern coast.
Top
of Sky is Receding - [Nature] The sky isn't falling
in, say scientists -- it is rising. And it's our fault.
The top of the troposphere -- the atmosphere's lowest layer
-- has risen by several hundred metres since 1979, mostly
because of transport and industrial emissions, reckon Ben
Santer, of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California,
and colleagues.
Greenpeace
Warns of Pollutants from Nanotechnology - [SFGate] Excitement
over nanotechnology is attracting billions in government
and private funding. But now the hot new science, which
deals with manmade structures just a few billionths of a
meter in size, is drawing something else: antagonists in
the environmental movement.
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THE FUTURE
Personal
Fabrication: A Talk with Neil Gershenfeld - [Edge] Neil
Gershenfeld teaches a class at MIT called "How To Make
(almost) Anything," where the students have access
to high-level tools on which the university spends millions
of dollars. He expected his course to be a lab for the top
engineering students to master the machines. Instead, he
is finding that non technical students are showing up and
and bringing varied backgrounds to bear on exploiting the
possibilities and capabilities of the newest technology
available.
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