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The barcode of life...
The Consortium for the Barcode of Life plans
to 'barcode' all birds and fish in the next five years,
using a segment of a mitochondrial gene that appears to
distinguish between species. The test can be run quickly
in the field, speeding up the identification of new species.
If this can be done reliably, the benefits would be significant.
Only ten percent of the world's species have now been formally
identified. The initiative is controversial, however. Taxonomists
say it will create confusion, and that it is less reliable
than traditional techniques, which differentiate between
species based on a wide range of characteristics.
Life support on Mars...
Space.com reports that scientists are developing
microsystems that could produce oxygen or rocket fuel from
carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. NASA intends to
use the technology in a manned mission to the Red Planet
by 2030. Studies have shown that relying on local resources
could reduce the cost of the mission by 40 percent. The
technology may also be used on the space station, and in
lunar missions.
The end of insanely great...
Howard Anderson -- distinguished lecturer
at MIT's Sloan School of Management and a successful venture
capitalist -- says has given up raising money for venture
funds. Demand for new technologies is moribund, he says.
"The hype machine is broken," and markets have
now become more rational. Venture capitalists earn their
living in irrational markets. Anderson says these changes
are structural, and there's just no place today to spend
all of the money that has been raised.
Do-it-yourself genes...
Everything one needs for 'garage biology'
is available on the web, Rob Carlson writes in a recent
Wired article. While extensive skills and knowledge
are required to put it all together -- and it's still out
of reach of the home hobbyist -- that may eventually change.
"The Discovery DNA Explorer kit for kids 10 and older...
is surprisingly functional at $80," Carlson says. Can
made-at-home genomes be far away?
Competing for energy...
Michael T. Klare, author of Blood and
Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency
on Imported Oil, writes on the growing global competition
for energy resources in an article for Mother Jones.
The US Department of Energy expects that global energy consumption
will increase by more than 50% in the first quarter of this
century. China's oil consumption is forecast to increase
by 156% and India's by 152% in that period. Klare says it
is unlikely that supply will be sufficient to meet this
growth in demand, and describes recent foreign policy decisions
and mounting tensions as countries scramble to secure energy
reserves. He says energy security "has been elevated
into the realm of national security, on an equal plane with
efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and international
terrorism."
Global brightening...
The Christian Science Monitor says
that while researchers had previously reported a drop in
the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface, that
has changed significantly since 1990. Global brightening
-- an increase in incoming radiation since that time --
has been confirmed by a number of scientists. The cause
and consequences are still unknown.
The world ten years from now...
In an excerpt from his book World Out
of Balance, published in The Globalist, Paul
Laudicina describes three scenarios for the world in 2015.
"Castles and Moats" describes a world of conflict,
terrorism, and erosion of global confidence in the United
States -- a future of suspicion, xenophobia, protectionism
and citizen surveillance. "Patchwork World" envisages
a time of muddling through, where countries and companies
lack leadership and vision. Poverty and violence are localized,
as the developing world is left to fend for itself. "Open
Borders, Lingering Fears" describes a future where
the United States and China dominate, with highly integrated
markets. Business activity and technological innovation
are intense, and standards of living increase in countries
that are engaged in the global economy.
David Forrest
we welcome your comments and feedback at mail@innovationwatch.com
SCIENCE
CT
Scans Show What King Tut Looked Like - [Live Science]
The first ever facial reconstructions based on CT scans
of King Tutankhamun's mummy have produced images strikingly
similar to the boy pharaoh's ancient portraits, Egypt's
top archaeologist said. Three teams of forensic artists
and scientists -- from France, the United States and Egypt
-- built models of the boy pharaoh's face based on some
1,700 high-resolution photos from CT scans of his mummy
to reveal what he looked like the day he died nearly 3,300
years ago.
10
Years of Planet Hunting: Amazing Variety Out There -
[Space.com] Astronomers met last week to celebrate the tenth
anniversary of the first planet discovered around a normal
star other than the Sun. Although more than 130 other such
planets have been found since then, the field still feels
like it is just getting started. And the places they see
are getting stranger every year.
Bending
to Bar Codes - [Scientific American] In a February meeting
in London, the Consortium for the Barcode of Life announced
plans to bar-code all birds and fish within the next five
years, as well as identify all flowering plants in Costa
Rica. The initiatives are stepping-stones on the way to
their much grander goal: a gene tag for every living thing
and a catalogue of the earth's biodiversity (only about
one tenth of the world's species are formally known).
Lost
Limb? Worm May Hold Answers - [Wired] Scientists have
for the first time completed a survey of gene function in
a highly regenerative species of worm that could offer important
insights into cell regrowth in humans. Putting the abilities
of Wolverine in the movie X-Men to shame, a small piece
of a planarian worm can regenerate an entire new body. The
worm's ability to regenerate is so powerful that a tissue
fragment only 1/279 of the worm's length can grow into a
new animal.
Vitamin
A's Paradoxical Role in Influencing Symmetry During Embryonic
Development Revealed - [EurekAlert] Scientists at the
Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have
solved one of the "holy grail" puzzles of developmental
biology: the existence of a mechanism that insures that
the exterior of our bodies is symmetrical while inner organs
are arranged asymmetrically.
Is
Basic Law of Physics Changing? - [Red Nova] scientists
are debating clues that suggest the laws of physics change
over time, threatening to shake up our basic notions of
reality. At stake is one of the fundamental values in physics:
the arcane- sounding "fine structure constant,"
which measures how subatomic particles interact with light
and with each other.
Indonesia
Finds Bird Flu in Pigs - [ABC News] Indonesian researchers
have found a strain of bird flu in pigs on the densely populated
island of Java, raising fears the virus could more easily
spread to humans, the government and scientists said. The
scientist who made the discovery identified the strain found
in the pigs as H5N1, the same version of the virus that
has jumped from chickens to humans elsewhere in Southeast
Asia.
TECHNOLOGY
New
Robots Clone Themselves - [Live Science] Mimicking reproduction
in living organisms, researchers have built a simple self-replicating
robot out of automated blocks. Machines that can copy themselves
have been built before, but the earlier experiments were
limited to two dimensions or confined to a track. Hod Lipson
and his collaborators at Cornell University have designed
modular cubes, called molecubes, that can assume a range
of three-dimensional shapes.
Micromachines
to Produce Propellant and Air on Mars - [Space.com]
Two teams of researchers are hoping their tiny devices will
mean big leaps for future Mars-bound humans, allowing them
to carry powerful computers and generate life support materials
from the planet’s atmosphere.
Motorola
Debuts First Ever Nano Emissive Flat Screen Display Prototype
- [PhysOrg] Motorola Labs unveiled a working 5-inch color
video display prototype based on proprietary Carbon Nanotube
(CNT) technology -- a breakthrough technique that could
create large, flat panel displays with superior quality,
longer lifetimes and lower costs than current offerings.
Students
Use Clickers to Help Guide College Lectures - [ABC News]
Educators across the country are buying into a new technology
that finally allows professors to answer questions that
sometimes drive them up the wall. With class sizes getting
ever bigger, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, it's hard
to keep in touch with the students. Thus the old haunting
questions: Is anybody out there listening? Is any of this
sinking in? Is anybody awake?
Vaults:
From Biological Mystery to Nanotech Workhorse? - [National
Science Foundation] Naturally occurring nano-capsules, known
as "vaults," could provide a whole new class of
delivery vehicles for therapeutic drugs and DNA, according
to recent research. Indeed, vaults could be used for a wide
range of applications in nanotechnology -- even though no
one can figure out how nature itself uses them.
Devices
Detect Caches of Cash - [CNN] Drug traffickers who ship
profits abroad in suitcases are not apt to be thrilled with
some inventions developed by federal scientists at the Idaho
National Laboratory.
Group
Studies RFID to Stop Digital Piracy - [RFID Journal]
A group of researchers at UCLA is working on a new RFID
application that would provide consumers a means of watching
DVDs of movies as soon as they hit the theaters. It could
also be used to address one of Hollywood's biggest concerns:
piracy of digital content.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
EU
Parliament OKs 48-Hour Maximum Workweek - [ABC News]
Amid concern that worker fatigue leads to accidents on the
job, the European Union parliament voted Wednesday to abolish
loopholes that give member states especially Britain a way
around the bloc's 48-hour maximum workweek.
Rising
Fuel Prices Hit Farmers With a 'Three-Way Whammy' -
[Boston Globe] The farmers who grow many of the fresh fruit
and vegetables for the nation's dinner tables say the rising
cost of oil is making this one of their toughest planting
seasons yet -- and might shove some of them out of business.
Good-Bye
to Venture Capital - [Technology Review] Good-bye! We
venture capitalists like to think of ourselves as giants
striding across the technology landscape, showering money
on terrific young entrepreneurs, adding value, creating
jobs, nurturing real companies. We are financial samurai.
But I am giving it up. Why?
Game
Skills Pay Off in Real Life - [SiliconValley.com] At
the Charles Schwab company's call-center headquarters in
Phoenix, human resources vice president Chip Luman has learned
a secret about financial services technology and the employees
who operate it: Video-game players often display exceptional
business skills.
White
House Re-Imposes Quotas on China - [ABC News] The Bush
administration announced that it has decided to re-impose
quotas on three categories of clothing imports from China,
responding to pleas from domestic producers that a surge
of Chinese imports was threatening thousands of U.S. jobs.
Culture
Wars Hit Corporate America - [Business Week] Increasingly,
business must weigh in on hot social issues -- and suffer
interest groups' slings and arrows.
Google
Snaps Up Mobile Social-Networking Startup - [eWeek]
Building onto its mobile and social-networking technologies,
Google has bought the two-person startup company Dodgeball.com.
SOCIETY
Ottawa
Warned Over US Plans to Import Drugs - [Globe and Mail]
Pharmacists and doctors warn that a US plan to legalize
the bulk importation of pharmaceuticals from Canada will
cause drug shortages, increase the cost of medicine and
reduce the number of professionals available to fill prescriptions.
America's
Eroding Knowledge Edge - [Business Week] The US is engaged
in a fierce contest with other large countries to secure
the lion's share of the world's knowledge work. Will America
come out on top? The answer is no longer an automatic yes.
Type
2 Diabetes Increasing Dramatically Among Kids - [CBC]
The number of children getting Type 2 diabetes has jumped
15-fold since 1990 due to obesity, poor nutrition and lack
of exercise.
Earthly
Empires - [Business Week] Pastor Joel is one of a new
generation of evangelical entrepreneurs transforming their
branch of Protestantism into one of the fastest-growing
and most influential religious groups in America. Their
runaway success is modeled unabashedly on business. They
borrow tools ranging from niche marketing to MBA hiring
to lift their share of US churchgoers. Like Osteen, many
evangelical pastors focus intently on a huge potential market
-- the millions of Americans who have drifted away from
mainline Protestant denominations or simply never joined
a church in the first place.
Stations
of the Cross - [Columbia Journalism Review] Blogging,
CBN, or Christian Broadcasting Network, is just one star
in a vast and growing Christian media universe, which has
sprung up largely under the mainstream’s radar. Conservative
evangelicals control at least six national television networks,
each reaching tens of millions of homes, and virtually all
of the nation’s more than 2,000 religious radio stations.
Thanks to Christian radio’s rapid growth, religious
stations now outnumber every other format except country
music and news-talk.
Splice
It Yourself - [Wired] The era of garage biology is upon
us. Want to participate? Take a moment to buy yourself a
molecular biology lab on eBay. A mere $1,000 will get you
a set of precision pipettors for handling liquids and an
electrophoresis rig for analyzing DNA.
The
Face of Human Rights - [The Globalist] Ignorance is
blinding and the discrimination that results from it reflects
how far we have come as a civilization. And yet, despite
grand achievements like building skyscrapers and mapping
the genetic code, we still have very far to go.
GLOBAL POLITICS
The
Global Struggle for Energy - [Mother Jones] From Washington
to New Delhi, Caracas to Moscow and Beijing, national leaders
and corporate executives are stepping up their efforts to
gain control over major sources of oil and natural gas as
the global struggle for energy intensifies. Never has the
competitive pursuit of untapped oil and gas reserves been
so acute, and never has so much money as well as diplomatic
and military muscle been deployed in the contest to win
control over major foreign stockpiles of energy.
The
Ethics of Exit - [Foreign Policy] Iraq’s first
democratic elections in decades have passed, and a new Iraqi
government is getting on its feet. Is it time for the United
States and its allies to leave? What is the US obligation
and when is it discharged? In this FP Roundtable, five leading
experts argue over what it will take for the United States
to bid Iraq a proper farewell.
Death
by a Thousand Cuts - [Yale Global] The United States
has long been the major power influencing Latin American
politics and business, encouraging currency ties, controlling
natural resources, and at times even helping to depose governments
it no longer supports. But recently several small "cuts,"
as Imanuel Wallerstein writes, have undermined US control
in the region.
Is
Democracy in the Middle East a Pipedream? - [Yale Global]
The winds of democratic change are sweeping the Middle East,
but there is still much mistrust to overcome. According
to Middle East scholar Fawaz Gerges, the current stirrings
against autocratic rulers, from Beirut to Cairo to Jerusalem,
herald a more assertive civil society and a true longing
for political emancipation among Arabs. Still, history has
left deep scars for Muslims in the region, many of whom
equate liberal democracy with Western political hegemony
and domination.
Return
of the Axis of Evil - [The Economist] In the coming
days or weeks, the world may face a double nuclear challenge
from the axis of evil's surviving members. From North Korea,
which quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in
2003, have come reports that the regime is preparing its
first nuclear test. And Iran has just informed Britain,
France and Germany that after six months during which it
had suspended these activities, it will shortly resume converting
yellowcake into the uranium-hexafluoride gas that can be
enriched for a nuclear bomb.
Worldwide
Implications of the Orange Revolution - [Harvard International
Review] successful imitation of peaceful regime change strategies
already tested in Georgia and the former Yugoslavia while
others maintain that the massive manifestations of Ukrainian
people were true democracy in action. In any case, Ukraine
was transformed into a true battlefield of power where Russia,
the European Union and the United States struggled to exert
influence in this strategically-located Eastern European
country.
Europe
Threatens US on Kyoto - [World Peace Herald] The European
Parliament has called for trade sanctions against the United
States and other countries emitting high levels of carbon
dioxide. The Parliament voted in a non-binding resolution
to try to stop the United States from "profiting from
its license to pollute." They seek to compensate for
any competitive advantage enjoyed by countries that do not
control carbon emissions.
ENVIRONMENT
Swiss
Wrap Glacier to Slow Ice Melt - [CNN] Alarmed by the
retreat of its Alpine glacier, a Swiss ski resort on Tuesday
wrapped part of the shrinking ice-cap in a giant blanket
in a bid to reduce the summer melt.
Changes
in Gulf Stream Could Chill Europe - [CNN] Scientists
now have evidence that changes are occurring in the Gulf
Stream, the warm and powerful ocean current that tempers
the western European climate.
Nuclear
Power May Be the Only Way, Says Chief Scientist - [Independent]
Britain may need one more generation of nuclear power stations
in the fight against climate change, Sir David King, the
Government's chief scientific adviser, says.
America's
Unheralded Water Cleanup - [Christian Science Monitor]
With little fanfare, counties, states, and the federal government
have collectively spent an estimated $14 billion or more
-- at least $1 billion a year since 1990 -- to restore rivers
and streams to their natural condition, not including dollars
spent on Goliath restoration projects like the Everglades.
Ironically, the move to clean up America's unheralded rivers
comes at a time when the condition of the nation's waterways
overall is starting to deteriorate.
Global
Warming Drives Fish Species Out of North Sea - [Yorkshire
Post] Large numbers of fish are being driven out of the
North Sea by global warming, scientists warned. The British
researchers think that some species may be lost to the region
completely by 2050. Among the fish on the move are commercially
important varieties such as Atlantic cod, sole and whiting.
Can
Earth Take the Heat of 'Global Brightening'? - [Christian
Science Monitor] The amount of sunlight reaching Earth's
surface appears to be growing. The phenomenon, which some
dub "global brightening," presents scientists
with a puzzle. If the trend is real and global, how long
will it last and what are the consequences for climate change,
the planet's water cycle, and other processes that draw
energy from sunlight?
Gigawatts
from Gusts - [IEEE Spectrum] In a 514-page study released
this February, the Berlin-based German Energy Agency concludes
that by 2015 -- when Germany hopes to have shut down 7300
megawatts' worth of nuclear power -- the country can more
than double its wind capacity to 36 000 MW, from 16 600
MW in 2004.
THE FUTURE
World
Out of Balance - Three Scenarios for 2015 - [The Globalist]
What is the world going to look like in ten years? In today's
volatile global environment, nobody knows for sure which
way the global economy and security structure will turn.
Will this period bring relative harmony or usher in an era
of deeper isolation? A.T. Kearney's Paul Laudicina offers
three scenarios to depict possible visions of the future.
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