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SCIENCE
Fusion
Power 'Within Reach' - [BBC] Fusion power is "within
reach", according to atomic scientists in the UK.
Gene
Tweak Halts Mad Cow Disease - [Nature] Toxic by-product,
not rogue proteins, may cause fatal brain wasting.
The
Adjacent Possible: A Talk With Stuart Kauffman - [Edge]
Kauffman asks a question that goes beyond those asked by
other evolutionary theorists: if selection is operating
all the time, how do we build a theory that combines self-organization
(order for free) and selection?
Bilingual
Brains are Better - [SABC News] A new study in the development
of language has revealed that children raised bilingually
may actually be “smarter” than their monolingual
peers.
'Stem
Cells Restore Feeling to Paralysed Patients' - [Ananova]
Scientists claim to have been successful in restoring feeling
to patients who had been paralysed for two years or more
by harvesting their stem cells and then putting them back
into the body.
Bacterium
May Change DNA Testing - [BBC] A bacterium found in
a vent in the side of Antarctica's only active volcano,
Mount Erebus, is set to revolutionise DNA testing by making
it much faster.
Earthlike
Planets Might Be Common, Model Indicates - [Spaceflight
Now] Astrobiologists disagree about whether advanced life
is common or rare in our universe. But new research suggests
that one thing is pretty certain - if an Earthlike world
with significant water is needed for advanced life to evolve,
there could be many candidates.
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TECHNOLOGY
Who
Are You? - [Darwin] And how do I know you are who you
say you are? Learning to rely on digital identity.
'Park
and Ring' Scheme Launched - [BBC]
Motorists in Edinburgh are now able to use their mobile
phones to pay for parking.
US
Begins Hypersonic Weapons Program - [New Scientist]
The US military has begun development of an ultra-high speed
weapons system that would enable targets virtually anywhere
on Earth to be hit within two hours of launch from the continental
US.
Walking
Robot Carries a Person - [New Scientist] The first walking
robot capable of carrying a human was unveiled in Tokyo,
Japan.
Sub-1-Inch
Hard Disk Drives On the Horizon - [InfoWorld] The growing
demand for low-cost, high-capacity, and compact storage
for mobile devices is pushing development of small form-factor
hard-disk drives and the first of a new generation of sub-1-inch
(2.5 centimeters) drives should hit the market in 2004.
U.S.
Considers Turning Scooters into War Robots - [CTV] It's
called the Segway Human Transporter, but the Pentagon is
drafting the two-wheeled scooter as part of a plan to develop
battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate
with troops.
Nano-Transistor
Self-Assembles Using Biology - [New Scientist] A functional
electronic nano-device has been manufactured using biological
self-assembly for the first time.
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BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
Bangladesh
Dials Up Internet Phone Calls - [BBC] The Bangladeshi
government has approved plans to allow internet telephony
in the county's private sector for the first time.
McDonald's
Wi-Fi Bid Will Compete With Starbucks - [Internet Week]
McDonald's takes another step in the direction of competing
with Starbucks' already thriving Wi-Fi hotspot universe.
The fast-food company announced that it will follow iPass
Inc.'s Wi-Fi certification regimen in its hotspot rollout.
Caught
in the Pull of Globalization - [Mercury News] Economists
say the flow of work overseas is unstoppable and healthy
for U.S.
Offshore
IT Services: East or West - [The Register] The offshore
IT services industry is clearly split into two rival camps:
east and west. Vendors from both hemispheres compete on
price for the same clients' business.
Wal-Mart
Kickstarts RFID Technology Boom - [NZ National Business
Review] Expensive and made controversial by consumer privacy
protection groups, radio frequency identification (RFID)
technology is still almost universally considered the next
big step in supply chain management. Now, it is getting
a giant boost from Wal-Mart, reported to be about to invest
over $US3 billion on the technology over the next few years.
Credit
Agencies Sending Our Files Abroad - [San Francisco Chronicle]
Two of the three major credit-reporting agencies, each holding
detailed files on about 220 million U.S. consumers, are
in the process of outsourcing sensitive operations abroad,
and a third may follow suit shortly, industry officials
acknowledge for the first time.
BPO
Will Propel 21st Century Growth -
[rediff.com] Taking cue from the global manufacturing sector,
outsourcing of services in the technology segment will dominate
the 21st century and become the engine of growth, contributing
substantially to the GDP of those countries from where they
are outsourced.
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SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Video
Game Violence Isn't Harmless Fun - [Christian Science
Monitor] The frequency of sex, profanity, and violence in
movies and on TV is wellknown. Less well understood is the
degree of violence in video games.
Legal
Globalization - [FindLaw's] Why U.S. courts should be
able to consider the decisions of foreign courts and international
bodies.
Post
Office Gets Pressured to Pry - [Wired] Under political
pressure to increase profitability and security, the United
States Postal Service is introducing new technology that
can trace the progress of mail from sender to recipient
and record the identity of both parties.
The
Privatisation of War - [Guardian] Private corporations
have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are
now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in
Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.
Palestinians
Turn to Internet to Cope with Restrictions - [Sydney
Morning Herald] Cooped up in their communities for most
of the past three years of fighting, Palestinians have found
a way to escape: going online.
Children
Abuse Steroids 'To Look Good' - [BBC] Schoolchildren
as young as 14 are using anabolic steroids to enhance their
appearance, the head teacher of a Rhondda Cynon Taff school
has revealed.
On
the Web, Research Work Proves Ephemeral - [Washington
Post] It was in the mundane course of getting a scientific
paper published that physician Robert Dellavalle came to
the unsettling realization that the world was dissolving
before his eyes.
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ENVIRONMENT
Cold
Comfort for Russia's 'Driest City' - [BBC] Residents
in the Russian far eastern city of Vladivostok are facing
an indefinite cut in their hot water supplies.
Green
Groups Sue USDA to Stop Bio-Pharm Planting - [USA Today]
A coalition of environmental groups and consumer advocates
sued the U.S. Agriculture Department in federal court to
try to halt the experimental planting of biotech crops engineered
to make medicine.
Growing
Population Drives the Need for Change - [ENN] In the
next 50 years, 2.6 billion more souls will be added to our
little club called humanity. That's more people than were
alive on the entire planet in 1950, and it will bring our
population to nearly 9 billion.
Keeping
Nature on Ice for the Future - [International Herald
Tribune] Even some ardent conservationists acknowledge that
the diversity of life on Earth cannot be fully sustained
as human populations expand, use more resources, nudge the
climate and move weed-like pests and predators from place
to place.
Big
Technology Won't Solve Water Problems - [ENN] On a planet
where 71 percent of the surface is covered with water, it
can be hard to imagine that more than 1 billion people do
not have access to safe drinking water, while another 2.4
billion don't have adequate sanitary services.
Climate
Change 'Cost $60b' in 2003 - [CNN] Climate change may
have cost the world over $60 billion in 2003, triggering
a spate of natural disasters from a deadly heat wave in
Europe to massive flooding in China, the United Nations
has said.
Global
Warming is Killing Us Too, Say Inuit - [Guardian] The
Inuit people of Canada and Alaska are launching a human
rights case against the Bush administration claiming they
face extinction because of global warming.
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THE FUTURE
Why
Care About the Future? - [Ernest Partridge in Plausible
Futures] "In this paper I will accept Rawls's criterion
of stability and will argue, against Thompson, not only
that it is possible to care about the remote future, but,
even more, that failure to do so exacts a considerable cost
in well-being to those individuals and those societies that
disavow any care for the future."
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