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SCIENCE
Gene
Length Predicts Depression Risk - [Nature] Variation
in a single gene may explain why some people weather stressful
events while others are plunged into depression, say scientists.
Metal-Rich
Stars Found Key to Planets - [MSNBC] Common stars like
our sun rich in heavy elements are more likely to harbor
planets, according to a new study. The finding suggests
extrasolar planets might be more common than thought, and
it should help planet hunters pick their targets more effectively.
Fewer
Earthbound Asteroids Will Hit Home - [Science Daily]
Scientists report in Nature that significantly fewer asteroids
could hit the Earth's surface than previously reckoned.
Researchers from Imperial College London and the Russian
Academy of Sciences have built a computer simulation that
predicts whether asteroids with a diameter up to one kilometre
(km) will explode in the atmosphere or hit the surface.
You
Are What Your Mother Ate, Suggests Study - [New Scientist]
What mothers eat during pregancy could have a fundamental
and lifelong effect on the genes of their children, suggests
an intriguing new study in mice.
Maiden
Flight Looms for Solar Sail - [MSNBC] Before the year’s
end, a team of civilians united by a passion for space travel
will launch a spacecraft into orbit to test a new space-traveling
technology. The mission, which will use a solar sail to
carry a spacecraft ever farther from Earth, is the first
use of a propulsion technology that may pave the way for
interstellar flights.
Cross-Species
Mating May Be Evolutionarily Important and Lead to Rapid
Change - [Science Daily] Like the snap of a clothespin,
the sudden mixing of closely related species may occasionally
provide the energy to impel rapid evolutionary change, according
to a new report by researchers from Indiana University Bloomington
and three other institutions.
Gene
Bank to Target Scots - [BBC] About 100,000 people in
Scotland are to be asked to donate blood samples for a study
which could lead to the creation of a national DNA data
bank.
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TECHNOLOGY
Quantum
Logic Gate Lights Up - [Physics Web] Physicists in the
US have taken another important step towards making a quantum
computer. Duncan Steel of the University of Michigan and
co-workers have created a logic gate using two electron-hole
pairs -- also known as "excitons" -- in a quantum
dot.
Jelly
Lenses Could Fix Ageing Eyes - [New Scientist] A neat
fix for ageing eyes could soon be tested in humans. The
treatment, which involves replacing the contents of the
lens in the eye with a soft polymer gel, could allow millions
of people to throw away their reading glasses.
Silent
Pump for Water-Cooled PCs Developed - [New Scientist]
A new water-cooling system for computer chips has been developed
that incorporates a clever pump with no moving parts. The
system, developed by Californian start-up company Cooligy,
aims to silently solve the problem that the faster chips
get, the hotter they become.
'Tiny
Soldiers In War On Terror - [CBS] Grains the size of
dust that can sense their environment, orient themselves
and assemble in groups have been developed by a team of
California chemists who want to build miniature robots.
Scientists
Aim to Develop Conscious Robot - [CORDIS] Researchers
from the UK are launching an ambitious project to develop
a conscious robot, with the aim of advancing the technology
of intelligent machines and improving our understanding
of human consciousness.
Robot
Child Funding Sought by Japanese Researchers - [silicon.com]
Japanese researchers are pressing the government to invest
in an ambitious robot development scheme, with the aim of
creating a machine with the artificial intelligence of a
human child.
RFID
Blocker May Ease Privacy Fears - [ZDNet UK] RSA Security
will develop technology that jams the signals emitted by
radio frequency identification tags.
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BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
Vietnam’s
Net Phone Revolution - [CIOL] Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, founder
of EIS or Electronics and Information System Inc. says he
will offer rates of five U.S. cents a minute to the United
States and Australia -- about one-twentieth of the $1.1
a minute consumers pay currently. His company is poised
to become one of the first Internet phone services. Thuc,
has already tested the concept in high-tech hub Singapore,
which hosted his flagship enterprise, One Connection.
Heavy
Traffic Jams Mobile Phones - [NDTV] As a fallout of
the phenomenal growth of cell phone subscriptions in recent
months, there are now complaints that the growing customer
base has taken a toll on the telecom infrastructure which
is leading to a poor quality of service. "Message
sending failed." When mobile phone users get such messages,
they are only becoming aware of the new interrupted reality
of India's cellphone revolution.
Climate
Change: Liability Looms for Directors - [Scoop] Professionals
and company directors should beware the risks of climate
change, an environmental lawyer warns. These risks include
increases in average temperature, sea level rise, and increased
frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, as well
as changing regulatory, social and economic expectations.
WTO
Sets Up Panels to Rule on EU Biotech Import Ban - [USA
Today] The World Trade Organization decided to set up a
panel of experts to rule on the legality of a European Union
refusal to allow imports of biotech food.
Ads-Only
TV Channel On the Way - [Independent] It's the ultimate
in commercial television - a channel devoted entirely to
ads. An extension of the concept of home shopping channels,
it will initially be dedicated to interactive ads, enabling
viewers to buy stuff from their armchairs.
Generic
Drug Deal Reached by WTO - [VOA] Spurred on by pleas
from African nations, World Trade Organization member governments
approved a deal that will allow developing countries to
import cheap generic drugs. Trade representatives say they
believe the agreement will boost prospects for making progress
toward a global free trade agreement.
Bills
May Rise to Improve Electricity System - [IHT] Utility
bills may increase now that the nation's biggest blackout
has fueled arguments that the creaky electrical maze needs
a $50 billion to $60 billion fix.
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SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Coming
Soon: Biometric Passports - [MSNBC] Biometric technology
that scans faces, fingerprints or other physical characteristics
to confirm people’s identities is about to get its
biggest, most public test: at U.S. border checkpoints.
Privacy
Advocates Call for RFID Regulation - [ZDNet] A handful
of technology and consumer privacy experts testifying at
a California Senate hearing called for regulation of a controversial
technology designed to wirelessly monitor everything from
clothing to currency.
Binge-Drinker
Children Pour Into Hospitals - [Guardian] Children as
young as six are being sucked into a dangerous drinking
culture, with hundreds ending up in accident and emergency
departments after 'binge drinking' on alcopops and lager.
Bionic
Youth: Too Much Information? - [MSNBC] Back when comic
books were the rage, South Korean kids would gather excitedly
at the corner shop to get a look at the latest translation
of “Slam Dunk,” a Japanese series about high-school
basketball players. Now they congregate at places like PC
Bang, a kind of Internet cafe without the cafe—a dimly
lit room filled with smoke and the bleating of videogames.
Goodbye,
New World Order - [Mother Jones] The Bush administration's
go-it-alone war has delivered the coup de grâce to
the idea of an international community. Now what?
End
of an Era for File-Sharing Chic? - [c|net] Not too long
ago, civil liberties groups aiming to protect peer-to-peer
networks like Napster and Kazaa were happy to dispense some
free legal advice to the Recording Industry Association
of America.
Mercenary
as Future Peacekeeper? - [UPI] The controversial idea
of using for-profit military forces as peacekeepers in war-torn
countries is gaining momentum with nations' increasing unwillingness
to man such operations and the growing integration of private
companies into government military operations around the
world.
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ENVIRONMENT
Whale
Numbers Disputed - [Nature] new study estimating the
original size of North Atlantic whale populations - before
whaling took its toll - is being heavily criticized by researchers.
Yet it backs the case for a continued ban on whale hunting.
Global
Commitment by Lafarge to Reduce CO2 Emissions - [AME
Info] Lafarge's global commitment is to reduce its CO2 emissions
by 20 percent per tonne of cement produced worldwide over
the period 1990-2010. This corresponds to a 15 percent reduction
by 2010 of the absolute level of its CO2 emissions below
1990 levels in industrialised countries.
Lost
Worlds of the Ocean Threatened by Trawlers - [Telegraph]
Deep-water trawling is threatening to destroy the lost worlds
of the oceans before scientists have been able to study
the unusual creatures that inhabit them, a conference was
told.
Workplace
Pollutants Linked to More Cases of Deadly Lung Disease
- [USA Today] On-the-job exposure to dust or toxic fumes
may cause as many as 5 million cases of a group of deadly
lung disease called COPD, a study says.
Dry
Cleaners Ponder Cleaning Options, Increased Regulation
- [ENN] For dry cleaners, the issue of how clothes should
be cleaned is at the heart of a debate prompted by increasing
questions about perchloroethylene, or perc, the industry's
most popular cleaning solvent.
Poaching
Causes Hippo Population Crash - [New Scientist] The
world's biggest population of hippos has crashed by 95 per
cent, leaving the giant creature as the latest of the planet's
megafauna to be in danger of extinction.
Modern
Global Warming More Damaging Than in the Past - [Science
Daily] In the past when climate changed, populations of
a species would die out on one edge of their habitat range
and expand into newly available habitat at the other edge.
This colonization process was crucial for the survival of
species during the unstable climate of the last ice ages.
However this broad movement of species is not likely to
operate effectively in the modern world.
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THE FUTURE
The
New Humanists: Science at the Edge - [Edge] Something
radically new is in the air: new ways of understanding physical
systems, new ways of thinking about thinking that call into
question many of our basic assumptions. A realistic biology
of the mind, advances in physics, information technology,
genetics, neurobiology, engineering, the chemistry of materials
-- all are challenging basic assumptions of who and what
we are, of what it means to be human. The arts and the sciences
are again joining together as one culture, the third culture.
Those involved in this effort -- on either side of C.P.
Snow's old divide -- are at the center of today's intellectual
action. They are the new humanists.
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