In the news this week... Redesigning life. Swarming Mars with miniprobes. Downloading movies to DVD. The faltering goal of universal education. Reparations for the slave trade. Taking action on biodiversity. Home on the moon.

SCIENCE

Top Story: Engineering Biology - [Technology Review] Synthetic biology seeks to design and construct biological components that can be modeled, understood, tuned to meet specific criteria, and assembled into larger integrated systems that solve specific problems. Such capabilities could transform biology in the way that integrated-circuit design transformed computing. Researchers could redesign enzymes, genetic circuits, and cells to their specifications, or even build biological systems from scratch.

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TECHNOLOGY

Top Story: Team Envisions Exploring Mars With Mini Probes - [Science Daily] MIT engineers and scientist colleagues have a new vision for the future of Mars exploration: a swarm of probes, each the size of a baseball, spreading out across the planet in every direction. Thousands of probes, powered by fuel cells, could cover a vast area now beyond the reach of today's rovers, including exploring remote and rocky terrain that large rovers cannot navigate.

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BUSINESS

Top Story: Movie Studios Allow Download-to-DVD Burning - [Technology Review] For some time, it appeared that the only emerging business and distribution models for entertainment would be controlled by the major studios (Universal, Sony, Bertlesmann, Time Warner, EMI). However, the studios found that creating and running a web distribution business takes a lot more time and manpower than they could reasonably handle, so they changed course mid-stream and began looking instead to partner with technology companies, such as CinemaNow -- the group behind the announcement that film studios will begin allowing download-to-DVD burning for some movies.

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SOCIETY

Top Story: One in Three Students Quitting University - [Daily Mail] More than one in three students are quitting their studies at some institutions amid soaring university dropout rates, new figures show. Rising numbers are failing to finish their degrees at a cost to the taxpayer of at least £450 million a year in wasted fees and subsidized loans.

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GLOBAL POLITICS

Top Story: Expert Suggests Reparation by the West for African Slavery - [Angola Press] As the second Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora (CIAD II) opened Wednesday in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, a panelist on poverty, racism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination suggested that countries that benefited the most from the African slave trade should provide the vital resources to the New Partnership for Africa`s Development (NEPAD).

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ENVIRONMENT

Top Story: Scientists Want Global Body to Conserve Biodiversity - [Reuters] Scientists warned that the world is on the brink of a major biodiversity crisis and called for the creation of an international body to advise governments on how to protect the planet's ecosystems.

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THE FUTURE

Top Story: Lunar homes: Tiny Rooms, But They Repel Dust and Solar Storms - [Yahoo News] While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration prepares to finish building the space station, a small team of architects and engineers at the Johnson Space Center is exploring designs for living and working quarters on the moon and beyond.

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Featured Book: A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty: How Multinationals Can Help the Poor And Invigorate Their Own Legitimacy by George Lodge and Craig Wilson Resource Page

Featured Link: Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends - How new technologies are changing our way of life.

Audio Clip: Brain-Controlled Devices - [Science Friday] A paralyzed man with a tiny sensor implanted in his brain has been able to open e-mail and move a robotic hand simply by thinking about it. (July 14, 2006)