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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:
Scientists Restore Walking In Mice After Spinal Cord Injury - [Science Daily] Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement.
'Stunning' Work Creates Rat Heart, Suggests Way to Grow New Organs - [San Jose Mercury News] Medicine's dream of growing new human hearts and other organs to repair or replace damaged ones received a significant boost Sunday when University of Minnesota researchers reported success in creating a beating rat heart in a laboratory.
TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:
Nanotechnology Magnets Used to Control Cells - [CBC] U.S. medical researchers are hoping that using magnetism and nanotechnology to harness a biological control system could become a noninvasive way to treat diseases. The "nanomagnetic cellular switch" enabled the researchers to control living cells through magnetic forces rather than chemicals or hormones, said lead researcher Dr. Don Ingber. "We can control it at will."
Crash Warning for Connected Cars? - [PhysOrg] European researchers have demonstrated in the lab a collision warning system for cars that could alert the driver several seconds in advance of an imminent impact. The device could save thousands of lives and usher in the first steps towards the 'connected car.'
BUSINESS
Top Stories:
Virtual World Workforce, Part 1: Promising the World - [TechNewsWorld]
It's a dream scenario: A candidate aspiring to a pivotal job in the culinary arts field enters the virtual world Second Life, having never been an online gamer before. He attends an online job fair held by recruiting company TMP Worldwide and is interviewed by major food and operations services company Sodexho. As a result, he lands a job as an executive chef with the firm.
Climate Plans Spark EU Job Fears - [BBC] Trade unions and business leaders say EU plans to cut carbon emissions could harm European jobs and industry. The European Trade Union Confederation fears up to 50,000 steelworkers' jobs could go if their industry moves to areas with lower costs for polluters.
SOCIETY
Top Stories:
As U.S. Air Traffic Controllers Retire, a Staffing 'Emergency' Arises, Union Says - [International Herald Tribune] Experienced air traffic controllers are retiring faster this year than the U.S. government projected and their union said Wednesday the remaining veterans can no longer safely handle peak volumes in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Southern California.
Pixelanthropy: Charities Tap into Second Life - [MSNBC] Second Life now has an office park called the Nonprofit Commons that is filled to capacity with 32 charities (there is a waiting list to get in), from the avant-garde Transgender Resource Center to the more traditional America's Second Harvest and CARE USA. There's also a place called Commonwealth Island, where a handful of real-world donors go sometimes to check out the action. It's pretty empty, for now -- mostly just a smattering of technology-prone activists (including real-life philanthropists Bill Gates and AOL founder Steve Case) waiting for the party.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:
Can the Global Commodities Boom Survive a U.S Recession? - [International Herald Tribune]
A global boom in the prices of commodities, the staple ingredients of a modern economy, is entering its sixth year with no end in sight. Commodities have always been subject to boom-and-bust cycles, but many economists see a fundamental shift driving the markets these days. As development rolls across once-destitute countries at a breakneck pace, lifting billions out of poverty, demand for foodstuffs, for metals and for fuel is so red-hot that suppliers are struggling to meet it.
Who's Afraid of Mideast Money? - [Business Week] Deep inside a fortress of government ministries in Kuwait City, Bader M. Al Sa'ad moves billion-dollar chunks of wealth around the world like chess pieces. Slim and stately, the head of the Kuwait Investment Authority manages $213 billion on behalf of his government. His portfolio, one of the biggest so-called sovereign wealth funds in the world, is constantly replenished with money that flows into Kuwait in exchange for the oil that flows out. As prices top $100 a barrel, Kuwait's coffers are swelling.
ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:
Efficient Biofuel Made From Genetically Modified E. coli Bacteria - [Science Daily] Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method for producing next-generation biofuels by genetically modifying Escherichia coli bacteria to be an efficient biofuel synthesizer. The method could lead to mass production of these biofuels.
Grass Biofuels 'Cut CO2 by 94%' - [BBC] Producing biofuels from a fast-growing grass delivers vast savings of carbon dioxide emissions compared with petrol, a large-scale study has suggested. A team of US researchers also found that switchgrass-derived ethanol produced 540% more energy than was required to manufacture the fuel.
THE FUTURE
Top Stories:
Demographic Crisis, Robotic Cure? - [Deccan Herald] With a surfeit of the old and a shortage of the young, Japan is on course for a population collapse unlike any in human history. What ails this prosperous nation could be treated with babies and immigrants. Yet many young women here do not want children, and the Japanese will not tolerate a lot of immigrants. So government and industry are marching into the depopulated future with the help of robots -- some with wheels, some with legs, some that you can wear like an overcoat with muscles.
The Home of the Future - [Kiplinger Business Resource Center] Technology will continue to transform life at home. Here's a preview of what home life may be like 10 to 15 years from now, based on reports from the staff of Kiplinger Business Resources.
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