In the news this week... The human brain -- a Neanderthal gift? Genetically engineered machines. A new Internet bubble. News from the avatar world. The global food market -- who will feed China? Decline of the oceans. Revisiting the future.

SCIENCE

Top Story: Could Our Big Brains Come from Neanderthals? - [Reuters] Neanderthals may have given the modern humans who replaced them a priceless gift -- a gene that helped them develop superior brains, U.S. researchers reported. And the only way they could have provided that gift would have been by interbreeding, the team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Chicago said.

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TECHNOLOGY

Top Story: Genetically Engineered Machines Competition - [Slashdot] Schools from around the world gathered at MIT for the international genetically engineered machine competition. Teams consisting of mostly undergraduates had designed, built, tested, and characterized biological parts, devices, and systems over the course of the summer and came together to present their work. The competition is helping push the field of synthetic biology and opening access to the tools to engineer biological systems by providing standard biological components.

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BUSINESS

Top Story: Gates Warns of Return to Internet Bubble Era - [International Herald Tribune] Bill Gates, the co- founder of Microsoft, warned against the rush to new Web-based software services, likening the frenzy to the days of the 1990s Internet bubble.

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SOCIETY

Top Story: Second Life Gets its First Tabloid - [Guardian Unlimited] The weird and wonderful parallel cyber-community that is Second Life is to get its first tabloid. Axel Springer, the publisher of Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper, is poised to launch a weekly paper designed to sate the virtual population's appetite for news and gossip.

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GLOBAL POLITICS

Top Story: In China, a Trickle Down Effect? - [International Herald Tribune] A sustained drop in grain production on the North China Plain would not only be a major blow to China's goal of remaining self-sufficient in producing food. It also could shake global markets. Some experts said they believed that smaller harvests would force China to become a major grain importer in the decades ahead. Just as China's sudden emergence as a leading oil importer has sent crude prices soaring, demand for grain from the world's most populous country could lead to spiraling food costs around the world.

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ENVIRONMENT

Top Story: 'Only 50 Years Left' for Sea Fish - [BBC] There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study. Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

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THE FUTURE

Top Story: Futurologists of the Past - [The Independent] How did the futurologists of the past envisage everyday life in 2006? Hamish McRae introduces a bold attempt from 1950 to imagine the 21st-century.

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Featured Book: The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon Resource Page

Featured Link: Foundation for the Future - The Foundation seeks to increase and diffuse knowledge on the long-term future of humanity by bringing together leading thinkers from multiple disciplines to discuss the important issues – then publishing transcripts of those conversations.

Video Clip: Ray Kurzweil - [Book TV] - A three-hour in-depth interview with Ray Kurzweil -- author of The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, and The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.