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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:
A Fountain of Youth in Mitochondria? - [Technology Review] Cranking up an enzyme in a cell's powerhouse -- the mitochondria -- makes the cell resilient to stress and death, according to a study published today in the journal Cell. The findings could provide a new set of targets for drugs to treat the diseases related to aging, including Alzheimer's and diabetes. Scientists say that the research might also point to the long-sought source of caloric restriction's life-extending benefits.
Using Spam Blockers To Target HIV, Too - [Business Week] Early this decade, Heckerman was leading a spam-blocking team at Microsoft Research. To build their tool, team members meticulously mapped out thousands of signals that a message might be junk. The parallel between spam and biology resonated for Heckerman, a physician as well as a PhD in computer science. It didn't take him long to realize that his spam-blocking tool could extend far beyond junk e-mail, into the realm of life science. In 2003, he surprised colleagues by refocusing the spam-blocking technology on one of the world's deadliest, fastest- mutating conundrums: HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.
TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:
Tech Wonders on Homeland Security Horizon - [Boston Globe] Americans are facing a brave new world of post-September 11 technology marvels that could soon find their way into billions of dollars of projected homeland security spending. Gee-whiz know-how -- from swarms of tiny airborne sensors to ever-sharper satellite imagery -- is being developed by companies chasing potentially lucrative federal, state and local deals to address 21st-century security threats.
Town Tries Out Cybercar Concept - [BBC] A driverless car which is controlled by computer and uses lasers to avoid obstacles is being demonstrated in a Northamptonshire town.
Daventry is investigating ways to increase the use of public transport and reduce reliance on cars.
The town council believes the Cybercars, which are called by pressing a button on the route and go direct to their destination, could be the answer.
BUSINESS
Top Stories:
Microsoft Case Could Make EU 'Litigation Capital of the World' - [International Herald Tribune]
The crushing legal victory over Microsoft on Monday may embolden the top European regulator, but critics warned that the ruling from the European Court of First Instance would spur a glut of additional cases, transforming Europe into a legal battleground for the global technology sector.
Virtual Solidarity: IBM Workers to Launch Strike in Second Life - [WRAL] Frustrated IBM workers in Italy joined by others from around the world are planning what is being called the first virtual "strike" in the 3D online world of Second Life starting Tuesday. By targeting IBM in Second Life, the union is already generating press coverage around the world. IBM has been among the largest and best known supporters of Second Life, having invested in virtual real estate since December of 2006 and establishing hundreds of "properties," or sites.
SOCIETY
Top Stories:
The Forbes One Billion - [Forbes]
The Forbes ranking of the superrich is a valuable and entertaining public service. But it's missing something. We need a Forbes One Billion for the other end of the scale -- the superpoor. If journalists spent as much time studying the lives of the poor as they do gazing at the rich, it would help us all keep our heads on straight. We would marvel at a world economy strange enough to sustain such gaps. We'd learn not to blame the rich for the poverty of the poor, but we'd also learn not to blame the poor themselves. Blame is a primitive response. Entrepreneurship is a much better one. The Forbes 400 could do an amazing job to help The Forbes One Billion into the world economy.
Australia Top "Hot Spot" for Vanishing Languages - [Reuters] Linguists alarmed at the inceasing extinction of many indigenous languages identified five global "hot spots" where the problem is worst, led by northern Australia and a region of South America. The linguists are part of the Enduring Voices project that seeks to document and revitalize languages slipping toward oblivion. David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, the project's co-director, said there are 6,992 recognized distinct languages worldwide. He said on average one language vanishes every two weeks, often as its last elderly speakers perish.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:
India Tries Outsourcing its Outsourcing - [International Herald Tribune]
From across India, thousands of recruits report to the Infosys Technologies campus in India's deep south. Amid the manicured lawns and modern buildings, they learn the finer points of software programming. But lately, packs of foreigners have been strolling the campus.
China's Rising Leaders - [Business Week] When officials from across China converge on Oct. 15 for the Party's 17th Congress, it won't just be a ceremonial exercise. True, the faces at the very top won't change -- President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao will almost certainly rule for another five years. But below them, a new generation of leaders will likely be promoted into key positions. Most important for foreign business and China's trading partners, this will be a new leadership that largely knows and appreciates the rules of the road for a market-based economy.
ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:
Gaia Guru Urges Ocean Pipes to Fix Earth's Climate - [Reuters] A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth's damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday. James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that planet Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried -- even if they ultimately fail. In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 meters long and 10 meters wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilizes algae on the surface.
Swiss Re Launches Climate Program - [Insurance Journal]
Swiss Re announced the launch of its "Climate Adaptation Development Program" at the Clinton Global Initiative 2007 meeting, which took place in New York on Sept. 26-28. The Program is "designed to develop a financial risk transfer market for the effects of adverse weather in emerging countries," said the bulletin. "In a first phase, it will aim at providing financial protection against drought conditions for up to 400 000 people in Africa."
THE FUTURE
Top Stories:
Space Based Solar Power Fuels Vision of Global Energy Security - [Space.com] The deployment of space platforms that capture sunlight for beaming down electrical power to Earth is under review by the Pentagon, as a way to offer global energy and security benefits -- including the prospect of short-circuiting future resource wars between increasingly energy-starved nations. A proposal is being vetted by U.S. military space strategists that 10 percent of the U.S. baseload of energy by 2050, perhaps sooner, could be produced by space based solar power.
Arctic Vault Takes Shape for World Food Crops - [Reuters] In a cavern under a remote Arctic mountain, Norway will soon begin squirreling away the world's crop seeds in case of disaster. Dynamited out of a mountainside on Spitsbergen island around 1,000 km (600 miles) from the North Pole, the store has been called a doomsday vault or a Noah's Ark of the plant kingdom. It is the brainchild of a soft-spoken academic from Tennessee who is passionate about securing food for the masses, and will back up seed stores around the world that are vulnerable to loss through war or disaster.
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