 |
|
In the news this week...
- Hiding in plain sight.
- Interfaces to the brain.
- A new space age.
- Clubbing online.
- Globalization and economic patriotism.
- Category 6 hurricanes.
- Harvesting sunlight on the moon.
We also highlight...
T. L. Taylor's book, Play Between
Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture... Taylor
explores the culture of massively multiplayer online
games, where thousands of players interact in a virtual
world.
The website of the Future For All
project... A layperson's guide to the future published
by John LaSage.
An audio clip... Seth Lloyd -- author
of Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer
Scientist Takes on the Cosmos -- talks about the
universe as an information processor. "When we
take an atom and store a bit on it," he says,
"we're just hitching a ride on the universe's
ability to process information at its most fundamental
level."
David Forrest
|
SCIENCE
Top
Story: Invisibility
Cloaks in Sight - [Guardian Unlimited] The development
of new materials could see items such as invisibility cloaks,
a key weapon in the trickery of Harry Potter and countless
science fiction plots, become a reality within five years.
Two research groups have published
technical blueprints for making "metamaterials"
which can change how light and other forms of radiation
bend around an object, in a way similar to water flowing
around a rock.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
TECHNOLOGY
Top
Story: This
Is Your Brain on Nanotubes - [Technology Review] University
of Texas researchers have demonstrated that mats of single-walled
carbon nanotubes can communicate electrical signals to neurons,
suggesting that the tubes could be used as an electrical
interface between neural prosthetics -- devices used to
replace damaged or missing nerves -- and the body. This
is good news for those hoping to use nanotubes to stimulate
or replace nerve cells in the eye, brain, and spinal cord.
Web
watch...
most
recent articles
BUSINESS
Top
Story: Space
- Tourism's Final Frontier - [Stuff] Notch up your frequent
flyer points, Terry Smyth writes, because suborbital tourism
is the next chapter of the space age.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
SOCIETY
Top
Story: Teens
Get a Virtual Nightclub - [Red Herring] Inside Doppelganger’s
clubs -- which are limited to 200 to 300 people -- users
dress, navigate, dance, and emote with their avatars, engaging
other users in text chats. The company partners with AOL
to incorporate its instant messaging platform, and plans
to tie in with Skype for voice chat.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
GLOBAL
POLITICS
Top
Story: Europe
Faces Globalization - [International Herald Tribune]
Wealthy nations practice globalization à la carte,
by pursuing foreign firms and protecting their own.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
ENVIRONMENT
Top
Story: Category
6 Hurricanes? They've Happened - [ABC News] here is
no official Category 6 for hurricanes, but scientists say
they're pondering whether there should be as evidence mounts
that hurricanes around the world have sharply worsened over
the past 30 years -- and all but a handful of hurricane
experts now agree this worsening bears the fingerprints
of man-made global warming.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
THE
FUTURE
Top
Story: Solar
Energy Harvested on the Moon Would Be Sent Back to Earth
- [MySA.com] David Criswell, a professor at the University
of Houston, says there is a source of power out there bountiful
enough to light every household on Earth for the next 4
billion years, end worries about greenhouse gas emissions
and set OPEC on its ear. There is a catch, though. You have
to fly to the moon to get it.
Web
watch... most
recent articles
 |
Featured Book:
Play Between Worlds: Exploring
Online Game Culture
by T. L. Taylor
Resource
Page
|
 |
Featured Link: Future
for All - Future For All is a nonprofit organization
dedicated to increasing public awareness of advancing
technologies and how they may affect society.
|
 |
Audio Clip: Quantum
Computing - [The Kojo Nnamdi Show] Seth Lloyd,
professor of quantum mechanical engineering at MIT
and author of Programming the Universe: A Quantum
Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos says the
universe is 'one giant computer we can program.' (March
21, 2006)
|
|
