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With this issue of the newsletter,
we're introducing a new format to provide more articles
and broader coverage, while improving readability.
Items in each news category can be accessed through
a single link, so you can zero in on specific areas
that interest you.
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We've highlighted the category links with
a Web Watch 
icon that points to the most recent articles, and you can
read past articles too. We have also featured a Top Story
in every category.
We'll highlight a Featured Book, Featured Link
and Multimedia Clip in every issue. Later this year,
we'll offer a Podcast of interviews with people who
are thinking about the future and emerging trends.
David Forrest
SCIENCE
Top
Story: Finding
Bipolar Disorder with MRI - [Technology Review] The
ultimate aim of brain imaging research is to help explain
how the billions of neurons and connections in the brain
give rise to thought. But researchers are also applying
the new MRI techniques to a more practical, immediate goal:
improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses
and learning disorders. The hope is that MRI imaging will
provide far more accurate diagnosis of psychiatric diseases
whose symptoms can resemble each other, preventing years
of suffering for patients put on the wrong medications.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
TECHNOLOGY
Top
Story: Mix
'n' Match Textbooks: Lower Prices, High Utility - [San
Jose Mercury News] High prices and rapidly evolving fields
of study are driving many college professors to abandon
traditional textbooks -- and design their own. With the
support of the publishing industry, they are tapping into
a vast electronic database to mix and match material from
thousands of different books, journals and newspaper articles
-- selecting the best and ignoring the rest -- much the
way many music lovers download individual songs rather than
buy CDs.
Web
watch...
most
recent articles
BUSINESS
Top
Story: The
Valley: Networking - [Red Herring] Silicon Valley is
full of people like Drew Lanza. A Stanford University graduate,
engineer, serial entrepreneur, and now venture capitalist,
the 59-year-old Palo Alto native seems to know everybody
in the hollow of land between the eastern foothills of the
Santa Cruz mountains and the San Francisco Bay.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
SOCIETY
Top
Story: Parents
Now Can Be Supersnoopers - [South Bend Tribune] Anxious
parents are resorting to increasingly sophisticated technology
to keep a virtual eye on the kids 24/7. But some experts
wonder whether constant monitoring, sometimes without the
child's knowledge, represents necessary vigilance, or the
oppressive rule of Big Mother or Father. Global-positioning
system (GPS) satellite technology, now in cell phones as
well as cars, is the latest advance for parental snooping
-- pinpointing, 007-style, the exact location of users.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
GLOBAL
POLITICS
Top
Story: Parts
of British Government to Work from India? - [Hindustan
Times] After scores of British corporates moved operations
to India, the British government is now considering switching
thousands of civil servants' jobs in a move that is already
dubbed as 'reverse Raj'. In what is billed as the biggest
exercise to downsize the government, ministers are reported
to be secretly planning to move several government tasks
such as social security and pensions to India or eastern
Europe where costs are much lower.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
ENVIRONMENT
Top
Story: Energy
Gap: Crisis for Humanity? - [BBC] Underlying the growing
concern is the relentless pursuit of economic growth, which
historically has been tied to energy consumption as closely
as a horse is tethered to its cart. It is a vehicle which
cannot continue to speed up indefinitely; it must at some
point hit a barrier, of finite supply, unfeasibly high prices
or abrupt climate change. The immediate question is whether
the crash comes soon, or whether humanity has time to plan
a comfortable way out.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
THE
FUTURE
Top
Story: Towards
Knowledge Societies - [The Manila Times] Are we on the
threshold of a new age -- that of knowledge societies? The
scientific upheavals of the 20th century have brought about
a third industrial revolution, that of the new technologies,
which are essentially intellectual technologies. This revolution,
which has been accompanied by a further advance of globalization,
has laid down the bases of a knowledge economy, placing
knowledge at the heart of human activity, development and
social change.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
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Featured Book:
Illegal Beings: Human Clones
and the Law
by Kerry Lynn Macintosh
Resource
Page
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Featured Link: Reith
Lectures - [BBC] Sir John (later Lord) Reith,
the BBC's first director-general, maintained that
broadcasting should be a public service which enriches
the intellectual and cultural life of the nation.
Each year the BBC invites a leading figure to deliver
a series of lectures on radio.
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Audio Clip: Google
Under Fire - [The Brian Lehrer Show] Google's
problems at home and in China. (January 27, 2006)
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