 |
|
In the news this week...
- The link between brain development
and IQ.
- Growing artificial
organs.
- Globalization-resistant careers.
- Botnets and crime.
- Anti-Americanism in
Latin America.
- Decimation of the Amazon rainforest.
- The colonization of space.
We also highlight...
Simon Young's
book, Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist Manifesto...
Young explores the emerging philosophy of transhumanism:
the use of science and technology to enhance human
biology -- extending lifespans, and evolving our species
far beyond the current limitations of body and mind.
A philosophy that Francis Fukuyama, for one, has called
"The world's most dangerous idea."
The website for We the Media...
A site that provides the full text of the landmark
book on the grassroots Internet, where the reader
has become the journalist, and the web is a continuous,
collective, global conversation.
An audio clip... Christopher Lydon
talks to Sherry Turkle and others about the meaning
of Second Life, a 3D virtual world opened in 2003
and now home to 100,000 residents.
David Forrest
|
SCIENCE
Top
Story: Why
Some Kids Are Smarter - [Technology Review] The brains
of more intelligent children appear to develop in a characteristic
way, growing quickly over an extended period between the
ages of 5 and 12. These findings -- some of the most detailed
research on brain development and IQ -- resulted from a
15-year study done by the National Institutes of Mental
Health.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
TECHNOLOGY
Top
Story: Nanotechnology
May Create New Organs - [New Scientist] Scientists have
built a minute, functioning vascular system -- the branching
network of blood vessels which supply nutrients and oxygen
to tissues -- in a significant step towards building whole
organs. Conventional tissue engineering methods have successfully
grown structural tissues such as skin and cartilage in the
lab. But not being able to create the supporting vascular
system has proved a major stumbling block preventing scientists
from creating large functioning organs such as liver or
kidneys.
Web
watch...
most
recent articles
BUSINESS
Top
Story: Globalization-Resistant
Careers - [Jewish World Review] Many Americans delude
themselves into thinking that, somehow, America will always
be #1: "Yeah, China can replicate, but they can't innovate."
"Our system of higher education is the best in the
world." "Despite the hand wringing about offshoring,
our employment rate is less than 5%." Those people
are fooling themselves.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
SOCIETY
Top
Story: Brazen
Botnets Steal From E-Shopping Carts - [InternetWeek]
Two large botnets that control 150,000 compromised computers
are hacking into users' online shopping carts to steal credit
card numbers, bank account details, and log-on passwords,
a security company said Friday. The
botnets, said Foster City, Calif.-based FaceTime, were discovered,
probed, and disclosed to authorities with the help of an
insider who tipped off the company's security researchers
and showed them the inner workings of the bot underground.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
GLOBAL
POLITICS
Top
Story: How
the US 'Lost' Latin America - [BBC] There is trouble
ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble. It
is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories
of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
ENVIRONMENT
Top
Story: Amazon
Forest Nearly Halved by 2050? - [MSNBC] Computer models
show that about 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest will
be lost by 2050 unless more is done to prevent what could
become one of the world’s worst environmental crises,
scientists said.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
THE
FUTURE
Top
Story: Space
Settlement: The Call of the High Frontier - [Space.com]
If the ideas for space settlement have engineering validity,
they deserve to be kept ready so they can be considered
as an option when the times become right. The English Channel
Tunnel was an idea gathering dust on shelves since the days
of Napoleon, long predicted never to happen, but suddenly
the work was done and now the tunnel is taken for granted,
as if it always existed. It’s time for a new generation
to be made aware of the possibilities of space settlement.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
 |
Featured Book:
Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist
Manifesto
by Simon Young
Resource
Page
|
 |
Audio Clip: Living
in Game Space - [Open Source) Christopher
Lydon explores Second Life -- a virtual world with
150,000 avatars, controlled by people sitting at computers
in the real world. (March 28, 2006)
|
|
