Check it out: We've added a tag cloud to Innovation Watch, with links to a growing collection of resources on trends, innovation and the future.
Signs of the Future... recent articles
SCIENCE
Top Stories:
Two Bacteria Better than One in Cellulose-Fed Fuel Cell - [Science Daily] No currently known bacteria that allow termites and cows to digest cellulose, can power a microbial fuel cell and those bacteria that can produce electrical current cannot eat cellulose. But careful pairing of bacteria can create a fuel cell that consumes cellulose and produces electricity, according to a team of Penn State researchers.
Electrical Pulses 'Rouse' Patient - [BBC] Deep brain stimulation with electrical pulses may offer hope for patients trapped in a minimally conscious state. Treatment of a 38-year-old man with a severe brain injury enabled him to use words and gestures, chew and swallow and drink from a cup, say US doctors.
TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:
People-Powered 'Crowd Farm?' Plan would Harvest Energy of Human Movement - [Science Daily] Two graduate students at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning want to harvest the energy of human movement in urban settings, like commuters in a train station or fans at a concert.
Sensors May Monitor Aircraft For Defects Continuously - [Science Daily] Networks of sensors mounted on commercial aircraft might one day check continuously for the formation of structural defects, possibly reducing or eliminating scheduled aircraft inspections.
BUSINESS
Top Stories:
Virtually There: Small Businesses Look Far Away for Help - [ABC News] The explosion of high-speed Internet set the stage for VAs. Though no one tracks virtual assistants, the International Virtual Assistant Association, a trade group, has seen its membership grow nearly 40 percent since 2004.
One-on-One Off-Shoring - [Business Week] Up until now, most off-shore tech services are being delivered to large organizations by large organizations. Say, IBM working for American Express. This is industrial-strength outsourcing. Left out of the equation are individuals as programmers and small businesses as clients. But one Silicon Valley startup is out to rectify the situation. oDesk, of Menlo Park, has taken the eBay idea and applied it to tech services. At last, industrial-strength off-shoring from the little guy to the little guy.
SOCIETY
Top Stories:
Burning the Virtual Shoe Leather - [Columbia Journalism Review]
Journalism has defined the four-year-old land of Second Life as it has few places that exist on real soil.
China's Me Generation - [TIME]
There are roughly 300 million adults in China under age 30, a demographic cohort that serves as a bridge between the closed, xenophobic China of the Mao years and the globalized economic powerhouse that it is becoming. Young Chinese are the drivers and chief beneficiaries of the country's current boom: according to a recent survey by Credit Suisse First Boston, the incomes of 20- to 29-year-olds grew 34% in the past three years, by far the biggest of any age group. And because of their self-interested, apolitical pragmatism, they could turn out to be the salvation of the ruling Communist Party -- so long as it keeps delivering the economic goods.
GLOBAL POLITICS
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India's Space Ambitions Soar - [Technology Review] As China's star has risen, there's been speculation about whether its expanding space program will trigger a space race with the United States. Meanwhile, attracting far less attention and operating on a far smaller budget, that other rising Asian giant, India, has also been ramping up its space program -- and it is developing some novel, promising approaches.
Russia Plants Flag Under North Pole - [BBC] Russian explorers have planted their country's flag on the seabed 4,200m (14,000ft) below the North Pole to further Moscow's claims to the Arctic. The rust-proof titanium metal flag was brought by explorers travelling in two mini-submarines, in what is believed to be the first expedition of its kind.
ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:
Focus on Carbon 'Missing the Point' - [BBC] Is it not time to recognise that climate change is yet another symptom of our unsustainable lifestyles, which must now become the focus our efforts? Yet governments, and those organisations who have now assumed the role of combating climate change, subscribe to the notion that climate change is our central problem and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is the cause of this problem.
Could Climate Change Herald Mass Migration? - [Toronto Star] As the Southwest and parts of the Southeast grapple with historic drought, water supply depletion – earlier this year, Lake Okeechobee in Florida, a primary water source for the Everglades, caught fire – and the creeping sense that, with climate change, things can only get worse, a new reality is dawning: that logic, finally, will have a larger role to play in human migratory dynamics, continent-wide. With it come not just doomsday scenarios, but for certain urban centres left for dead in the post-industrial quagmire, a chance at new life.
THE FUTURE
Top Stories:
Americans Getting Heavier And Heavier - [Medical News Today] Obesity, already at record levels in the USA, is set to be the norm for 41% of adults within the next eight years - three-quarters of Americans will be overweight by 2015, according to a new study carried out by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They also predict that by 2015 almost 24% of children and adolescents in the USA will be obese/overweight.
The Future of Medicine: Insert Chip, Cure Disease? - [Science Daily] It may sound like science fiction, but University of Florida researchers are developing devices that can interpret signals in the brain and stimulate neurons to perform correctly, advances that might someday make it possible for a tiny computer to fix diseases or even allow a paralyzed person to control a prosthetic device with his thoughts.
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