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Future Pages: The bookmark collection... frequently updated links to other websites on trends, innovation and the future.
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Signs of the Future: The news archive... past postings of items from world media on emerging trends.
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SCIENCE
Top Stories:
How Do You Like Your Genes? Biofabs Take Orders - [New York Times] Industrial age foundries made cast-metal parts. Information age foundries, or “fabs,” produce computer chips. Now come foundries for the biotechnology age, churning out the stuff of life itself. Such “biofabs” produce made-to-order genes, the stretches of DNA that contain the instructions for living creatures. The foundries take orders over the Internet from pharmaceutical companies or academic scientists and ship back the finished genes in as little as a week or two. The genes can be used to genetically engineer bacteria or other cells to make proteins, or in various types of biological research.
Brain Network Related to Intelligence Identified - [PhysOrg] In a review of 37 imaging studies related to intelligence, including their own, Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine and Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico have uncovered evidence of a distinct neurobiology of human intelligence. Their Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT) identifies a brain network related to intelligence, one that primarily involves areas in the frontal and the parietal lobes.
TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:
Online Worlds to be AI Incubators - [BBC] Online worlds such as Second Life will soon become training grounds for artificial intelligences. Researchers at US firm Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds.
Nanoscale Inkjet Printing - [Technology Review] A new type of inkjet printer has been developed that can precisely print dots of various materials just 250 nanometers in diameter. The inkjet printer could make it possible to rapidly synthesize complex nanoscale structures out of various materials.
BUSINESS
Top Stories:
Deloitte to Use Employee-Created Short Films to Recruit Gen Y Talent - [Consultant-News.com]
Deloitte & Touche USA recently launched the first-ever Deloitte Film Festival - hoping it will turn into a new and innovative approach to use employee-generated content to bolster Gen Y recruiting activities and drive workforce engagement.
Counting the Carbon at the Counter - [International Herald Tribune] Timberland is among a growing number of companies seeking to capitalize on consumers' growing concern about climate change by developing "carbon labels" for everything from shoes to shampoo. Though mostly in use in Britain, the labels are gaining ground in the United States. Timberland is the first in the United States to place the tags on store shelves, and major corporations like PepsiCo and Wal-Mart Stores are conducting inventories of how much carbon is emitted in making their products and are considering labeling merchandise.
SOCIETY
Top Stories:
Go into Real and Virtual Debt With Second Life's MetaCard - [Epicenter]
Just what Second Life needed. After the collapse of virtual bank Ginko Financial last month, a Singapore company has come along and is readying the first "virtual credit card" for Second Life. Compliments of FirstMeta, the so-called MetaCard works just like its real-life counterparts.
'Wiki City Rome' to Provide Real-Time Crowd Information, Mapping for Fest - [EETimes] Wiki City Rome will present a futuristic urban map, drawn with dynamic data received anonymously from cell phones, GPS devices on buses and taxis, and other wireless mobile devices. Data are made anonymous and aggregated to provide more layers of information than most maps provide.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:
Can China Change Latin America? - [OECD Observer]
China's economic boom has been like a tectonic shift that has sent near-shock waves through Latin America. China is on everyone's lips.
China's Influence Spreads Around World - [Associated Press] For nearly three decades, Chinese peasants have left their villages for crowded dormitories and sweaty assembly lines, churning out goods for world markets. Now, China is turning the tables.
ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:
Climate Change Puts Sea at Risk - [PhysOrg] Climate change is affecting Europe faster than the rest of the world and rising temperatures could transform the Mediterranean into a salty and stagnant sea, Italian experts said Wednesday.
Livestock Breeds Face 'Meltdown' - [BBC] Many of the world's rare species of livestock face extinction unless conservation measures are taken now, a group of researchers has warned. They said modern agricultural methods had overlooked the benefits of genetic traits that have evolved in breeds found in developing countries.
THE FUTURE
Top Stories:
Extremism, Climate, Proliferation Main Security Threats - [Space War] The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in its annual review of world affairs that governments need to do more to tackle a resurgent Al-Qaeda as well as limit the damage from global warming. Its 400-page "Strategic Survey" report assessed that global events from May 2006 to June 2007 had been "discouraging" and the world was approaching "key turning points" in a number of international crises.
Nissan Concept Car Aims at Video Generation - [Boston Globe] The Nissan concept car Mixim turned heads at the Frankfurt International Motor Show -- a futuristic three-seater that looks more like a video game centre than a car and was designed with the help of teenagers who hate cars from around the world. "This is something that would distinguish them from their parents," said Francois Bancon, general manager of Nissan Motor Co.'s Exploratory and Advance Planning Dept. "Our ultimate objective was this is something their parents would hate."
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