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Recent news items raise these and many other
questions.
Life, hidden and revealed...
Is there life on Mars? Italian scientist
Vittorio Formisano says it's a possibility. The Mars Express
probe has detected trace gases on the red planet that could
be created by biological activity. Formisano says the only
way to know for sure is to analyze samples of the soil.
Life has proven that it can survive for
millennia in extreme conditions... here on Earth. NASA scientists
have thawed Alaskan ice and revived bacteria dormant for
32,000 years. They have named the previously unknown species
Carnobacterium pleistocenium, for the Pleistocene
epoch when the bacteria coexisted with woolly mammoths.
Emotional intelligence...
Will machines someday empathize with humans?
Media Lab researchers at MIT have designed a voicemail system
that labels incoming messages as urgent, happy, excited
or formal. The system compares each message with stored
"acoustical fingerprints" based on volume, pitch
and speech rate. Experts say that in the future machines
will be able to sense our emotions and respond appropriately.
Hitting the wall...
Lack of skills may soon hobble the global
economy, a new study by Deloitte Research concludes. Declining
educational standards, Baby Boomer retirement, and problems
retaining skilled staff are now seen as a threat by more
than 70 percent of executives surveyed. According to the
study, this is a global phenomenon. The U.S. Department
of Education says only 20 percent of the workforce will
be equipped with the skills required for 60 percent of new
jobs in the 21st century.
Running flat out...
A four, five or six-hour commute? Not unusual,
Business Week says, in an article on "extreme
commuting." Some commuters now leave home as early
as 3 a.m. to get to work. "Most people travel long
distances with the idea that they'll accept the burden for
something better, be it a house, salary, or school,"
the magazine says. But in the end it doesn't pay off. "People
usually overestimate the value of the things they'll obtain
by commuting -- more money, more material goods, more prestige
-- and underestimate the benefit of what they are losing:
social connections, hobbies, and health."
National Geographic reports that,
on average, Americans get an hour less sleep each night
than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Half of adults between
18 to 34 say sleepiness interferes with their work. New
York University's Sleep Disorders Center estimates that
90 percent of college students suffer from lack of sleep.
The global knowledge revolution...
New Scientist says high-tech companies
are moving to India "to find innovators whose ideas
will take the world by storm." The country's IT industry
is by now a familiar success story, more than doubling its
contribution to India's GDP in the last five years from
1.3 percent in 1999 to 3 percent in 2004. The magazine says
the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries will be
next. Goldman Sachs predicts that India will have the third
largest economy in the world by 2050, after China and the
United States.
David Forrest
we welcome your comments and feedback at mail@innovationwatch.com
SCIENCE
Mitochondrial
DNA Mutations Play Significant Role In Prostate Cancer
- [Science Daily] Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
play an important role in the development of prostate cancer,
according to research by scientists at Emory University
School of Medicine and the University of California, Irvine.
DNA
Map to Help Target New Drugs - [BBC] Scientists have
published data on over one million crucial DNA variations
in three racial groups, paving the way for "individualised"
medicines.
Seafloor
Still About 90 Percent Unknown, Experts Say - [National
Geographic] The US nuclear submarine San Francisco crashed
into an uncharted underwater mountain in the South Pacific
last month, killing one submariner and injuring dozens of
others. The incident remains under investigation, but it
spotlights a troubling nautical reality -- we may know more
about the geography of the moon than that of the ocean floor.
Catch
a Gravity Wave - [Astronomy.com] Armchair astrophysicists
rejoice: Now, you can help scientists find gravity waves
-- ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by spinning
neutron stars. All you need is a computer, a fast connection
to the Internet, and the Einstein@Home screensaver.
Pig
Stem Cells to Be Used to Grow Human Organs? - [National
Geographic] It might be possible to transplant embryonic
stem cells from pigs into humans to grow new organs, a new
study shows.
Martian
Gases Pose Life Question - [BBC] An Italian scientist
working on the Mars Express probe says gases detected in
the planet's atmosphere may indicate life exists on the
Red Planet today. Vittorio Formisano told a Dutch space
conference methane and formaldehyde could signify biological
activity.
Ice
Age Bacteria Brought Back to Life - [New Scientist]
A bacterium that sat dormant in a frozen pond in Alaska
for 32,000 years has been revived by NASA scientists. Once
scientists thawed the ice, the previously undiscovered bacteria
started swimming around on the microscope slide.
TECHNOLOGY
New
Tools Ease Online Collaboration and Publishing - [Boston
Globe] A new crop of tools aims to help turn the Web --
be it on the public Internet or a company network -- into
much more than a collection of documents one visits like
a museum: Look, but don't touch. The idea is to make it
easy to quickly post and remove stuff from digital bulletin
boards where the online communities of the future will gather
to catch up and trade ideas, images, and work.
Closer
to the Remote-Controlled Home - [Business Week] iControl,
a young California company, is launching a Web-based service
that lets people monitor their house, business, or even
the kids.
Chips
that Thrive on Uncertainty - [Business Week] Transistors
are like snowflakes: No two are exactly the same. This variation
hasn't mattered much so far, but that will soon change.
Voicemail
Software Recognises Callers' Emotions - [New Scientist]
A voicemail system that labels messages according to the
caller's tone of voice could soon be helping people identify
which messages are the most urgent. The software, called
Emotive Alert, is designed by Zeynep Inanoglu and Ron Caneel
of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Devastating
Attack in the Net's Near Future, Experts Say - [Internet
Week] Count on at least one devastating attack on the Internet
in the next 10 years, an overwhelming majority of technology
experts polled by a major research group says.
Novel
'Canary on a Chip' Sensor Measures Tiny Changes in Cell
Volume; Provides Assay Results in Minutes - [Science
Daily] A novel technology that can test cells in minutes
for responses to any stimulus, including antibiotics, pathogens,
toxins, radiation or chemotherapy, has been developed by
scientists at the University at Buffalo.
Ambitious
Solar Sail Could Launch this Spring - [Spaceflight Now]
The Planetary Society's oft-delayed Cosmos 1 solar sail
is finally on the verge of launching on its test mission
to validate the practicality of a revolutionary propulsion
method that relies on sunlight instead of chemical rocket
fuels.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
On
Leadership: Executives need to be Alert for Major Shifts
in Business - [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] Scientists are
constantly working to develop early detection systems to
warn the world of impending events with dramatic consequences
like the recent tsunami. Chief executive officers and senior
managers need to develop early warning systems as well.
Retiring
Workforce, Widening Skills Gap - [Supply & Demand
Chain Executive] Impending Baby Boomer retirements, a widening
skills gap driven by declining educational standards, and
outdated and ineffective approaches to talent management
are combining forces to produce a "perfect storm"
that threatens the global business economy, according to
new research conducted by the Human Capital practice of
Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte Research, a part of Deloitte
Services.
The
Endangered Department Store - [Boston Globe] The potential
merger of department store parents of Macy's and Filene's
makes some wonder if the mass-market department store as
we know it is dead. Squeezed at the high end by luxury retailers
like Neiman Marcus and boutiques, and at the low end by
Wal-Mart and Target, the Macy's and Filene's of the world
need to reinvent themselves in order to survive.
With
Dollar Falling, Foreign Buyers Pursue US Firms - [Boston
Globe] Foreign buyers are capitalizing on the weak dollar
to snap up US companies at bargain-basement prices, boosting
investment in high-tech regions like New England but also
fueling concerns about jobs and technology flowing out of
the country.
How
China Will Change Your Business - [Inc.] Fourteen things
every entrepreneur should know about the capitalist explosion
heading our way. But don't assume that conceding China's
rise means conceding to China.
The
Silicon Subcontinent - [New Scientist] Some of the biggest
names in IT are heading towards Bangalore once more, and
this time round it's not cheap labour they are looking for.
They are hunting down the brightest, most inventive minds
in India to populate a swathe of cutting-edge research facilities.
Radio
Changes Its Tune - [Christian Science Monitor] The radio
business may be undergoing its biggest shakeup ever. So
many new digital technologies are beckoning to its traditional
listeners that it's hard to know what radio is anymore.
SOCIETY
An
Incubator for Social Innovation - [Financial Times]
What India needs today, says Vivek Bharati, "is an
institution that can 'incubate' new ideas that stimulate
social innovation for transforming the lives of the poor
in our country, just like there are incubators for nurturing
scientists and technologists with ideas for new products
and services and turn them into entrepreneurs."
Extreme
Commuting - [Business Week] For the last leg of their
five- and sometimes six-hour, door-to-door commutes, the
working moms who call themselves the "Bus Buddies"
of the Adirondack Trailways' Red Line run usually talk about
one thing: How can I get off this thing? How to end the
exhausting odyssey from New York state towns such as New
Paltz and Woodstock, waking up at 5, 4, and even 3 a.m.
to board a smelly long-hauler to Manhattan, where the salaries
are 70% more?
US
Denies Patent for Part-Human Hybrid - [Boston Globe]
A New York scientist's seven-year effort to win a patent
on a laboratory-conceived creature that is part human and
part animal ended in failure Friday, closing a historic
and somewhat ghoulish chapter in US intellectual property
law.
Generations
are Split over Social Security's Future - [Houston Chronicle]
Republicans find young people open to reforms and older
workers skeptical of plans.
Robotics
in War: Technology v. Morality - [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
As in medicine, our skill at creating technology is outpacing
our ability to grasp its ethical application. This time,
the gap between ingenuity and morality is on the battlefield.
We are all but ready to build robots to fight our wars but
far from prepared to resolve the cadre of attendant ethical
questions.
U.S.
Racking Up Huge "Sleep Debt" - [National Geographic]
Sleep is a biological need, much like food and water. If
totally deprived of shut-eye, humans ultimately perish.
Yet millions of Americans are increasingly skimping on their
sleep.
A
Job or a Cigarette? - [MSNBC] Most companies already
ban tobacco use in the workplace and more than a half dozen
states and hundreds of cities have enacted laws to the same
effect. Now, citing rising health-insurance costs and concerns
about employees’ well-being, a growing number of companies
are refusing to hire people who smoke, even if they do so
on their own time and nowhere near their jobs.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Most
Indians Say 'Thumbs Up' to Second Bush Term - [Christian
Science Monitor] Based on a combination of business links,
immigration trends, shared views on terrorism, and national
self-interest, India's increasingly warm approach toward
Washington is one of the reasons the US now regards India
as a rising global and regional power, and a partner above
most other nations in Asia.
U.S.
Rebuffs Germany on Plan for NATO - [International Herald
Tribune] A German proposal to reform the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization by establishing a trans-Atlantic forum
to develop strategies was brushed aside by U.S. officials
and rejected by the organization at a major security conference
in Munich over the weekend.
India’s
Population ‘to Outstrip China by 2030’ - [Financial
Times] According to the UN's latest World Population Prospects,
released on Thursday in New York, there will be 1,395m people
in India in 2025 and 1,593m in 2050. In China the population
will grow to 1,441m by 2025, before dropping to 1,392m in
2050.
The
Next Knowledge Superpower - [New Scientist] Over the
past five years alone, more than 100 IT and science-based
firms have located R&D labs in India. These are not
drudge jobs: high-tech companies are coming to India to
find innovators whose ideas will take the world by storm.
Their recruits are young graduates, straight from India's
universities and elite technology institutes, or expats
who are streaming back because they see India as the place
to be -- better than Europe and the US. The knowledge revolution
has begun.
With
20 Official Languages, Is EU Lost in Translation? -
[National Geographic] The European Union has been operating
in 20 official languages since ten new member states joined
the legislative body last year. With annual translation
costs set to rise to 1.3 billion dollars (U.S.), some people
question whether EU institutions are becoming overburdened
by multilingualism.
Candid
Words on Russia's Drift from Democracy - [Economist]
Vladimir Putin and George Bush have had a “candid”
discussion about American fears that the Russian leader
is sliding back into his country's old, authoritarian ways.
Despite differences on this, the two leaders agreed on other
important issues—and emerged from the summit still
apparently friends.
Worries
About Weapons, cont'd - [Economist]
America is angry that the European Union plans to lift an
embargo on sales of weaponry to China, which in turn is
angry that Japan and America have identified Taiwan as a
joint security concern.
ENVIRONMENT
India
May Be Under Pressure to Cut Emissions Post-Kyoto -
[Planet Ark] As fuel imports grow and demand for cars surges,
analysts say India is likely to face pressure to join rich
nations in their efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions
as part of the Kyoto climate change protocol.
Sweden
for Talks to Replace Kyoto Treaty - [NDTV] Sweden's
Prime Minister today called for new talks on countering
global warming once the Kyoto treaty expires in 2012 and
predicted that the United States, Australia and other countries
now outside the pact would join the next agreement.
How
Did Humans First Alter Global Climate? - [Scientific
American] A bold new hypothesis suggests that our ancestors'
farming practices kicked off global warming thousands of
years before we started burning coal and driving cars.
Hydroelectric
Power's Dirty Secret Revealed - [New Scientist] Contrary
to popular belief, hydroelectric power can seriously damage
the climate. Proposed changes to the way countries' climate
budgets are calculated aim to take greenhouse gas emissions
from hydropower reservoirs into account, but some experts
worry that they will not go far enough.
A
Race to Fix a 30-Year-Old 'Solution' -
[Christian Science Monitor] In a scene repeated in more
than a dozen countries from Hungary to Chile to the United
States, tens of millions of people are drinking from arsenic-tainted
wells. Ironically, these wells were dug from the 1970s to
the present to provide clean water. Some have called it
the largest mass poisoning in history.
Tsunami
Threat to Water Supplies - [BBC] Fresh water supplies
in countries hit by the Asian tsunami are under serious
threat, according to a UN report. Drinking water sources
have been contaminated by salt water and sewage, and every
well in Sri Lanka may have been affected, the study says.
How
Many Earths? - [Our Planet] Jacqueline McGlade describes
how Europe’s standard of living is rooted in the overuse
of resources from other parts of the world, and calls for
an eco-efficiency revolution.
THE FUTURE
SWR
TV Documentary on Dr. Patrick Dixon, Futurist - What
does a Futurist actually do? Patrick Dixon is contacted
by TV, radio and press journalists around 200 times a year
(up to 70 times in a single day) for comment on major issues
and trends.
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