SCIENCE
Top Story: Altered Cottonseed Could Feed Millions - [Reuters] Scientists have found a way to use the cotton plant, long a source of fiber for clothing but inedible by humans, to feed potentially half a billion people a year.
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TECHNOLOGY
Top Story: Morphing Materials Take On New Shapes - [Technology Review] The researchers who developed self-tying sutures that change shape when exposed to light have now made morphing structures that can take on three consecutive shapes in response to changes in temperature. The shape-changing polymers could eventually be employed as removable stents and self-closing fasteners used in assembling complex parts.
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BUSINESS
Top Story: Want fresh ideas? Try 'Crowdcasting' - [CNN] For a couple of days this month, executives from American Express, General Electric Money, Mars, and Whirlpool chucked their high-priced consultants and brainiac research and development teams and turned to 3,000 MBA students to solve their strategic dilemmas. Why? The students were competing to come up with products and services by tackling the companies' real-world problems.
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SOCIETY
Top Story: Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young - [New York Times] Baby boomers are retiring and the number of young adults is declining. By 2012, the work force will be losing more than two workers for every one it gains. Cities have long competed over job growth, struggling to revive their downtowns and improve their image. But the latest population trends have forced them to fight for college-educated 25- to 34-year-olds, a demographic group increasingly viewed as the key to an economic future.
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GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Story: A Shift in Clout as China Emerges - [International Herald Tribune] Thanks to the growing appetites of several developing nations, China in particular, that need oil to sustain the furious expansion of their economies, last year Angola, which otherwise has almost no economy, had more than $10 billion to play with. And it has used that money to pay more advanced countries to rebuild its infrastructure. This vision - call it "Development by China" - looks like a catastrophic mistake to the Western experts and institutions that have scrutinized, invested in and at times despaired of Angola.
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ENVIRONMENT
Top Story: Now Hot in Brazil: 'Carbon Credits' to Fight Global Warming - [AFP] Programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are blossoming in Brazil, with the "carbon credit" system winning interest from companies in industrialized countries. Brazil ranks second among developing countries, behind India and ahead of Mexico and China, in the number of these investments, though under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change it is not required to cut emissions of its greenhouse gases.
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THE FUTURE
Top Story: The Extreme Future: The Trends That Will Shape the World for the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years - [The Ledger] In addition to energy breakthroughs, James Canton focuses on numerous innovations that could help meet the needs of a growing global population in such areas as health and medicine, manufacturing, communications, transportation, security, entertainment, media and education. Canton's list of the top nine jobs in the 2015 work force suggests how dramatically life is changing. Those include neuro-medical techs, personal security techs, organ cloners, biofuture therapists and quantum scientists.
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