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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:
Making Memories - [Technology Review] A new strain of genetically engineered mice has allowed researchers to pinpoint, for the first time, the precise cellular connections that form as a memory is created.
Specialised Tumor-Killing Virus Paves Way for Novel Brain Cancer Treatment - [New Kerala] Researchers conducting a study on mice have discovered a specialised virus with the ability to reproduce its tumour-killing genes that selectively targets and eradicates cancers in the brain, leaving healthy brain-tissue virtually untouched.
TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:
Plants that Twitter When They Need to be Watered - [CNET] If you thought it was bad enough that all your friends, and even your mother, want you to keep up with them via their Twitter pages, your plants could now do the same.
Japanese Firm Harnesses the Power of Human Touch - [PhysOrg] Telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. is planning a commercial launch of a system to enter rooms that frees users from the trouble of rummaging in their pockets or handbags for ID cards or keys. It uses technology to turn the surface of the human body itself into a means of data transmission.
BUSINESS
Top Stories:
Google to Invest in Undersea Cable to Asia - [International Herald Tribune] Google will help build a $300 million undersea cable system with five other companies, becoming the only online search operator with its own network, Singapore Telecommunications said Tuesday. The 10,000 kilometer, or 6,200 mile, network would link Chikura, in Japan, to Los Angeles, according to a statement from Singapore Telecom, one of the five companies.
Stock Exchange for 'Grid' Computing? - [PhysOrg] You might soon be selling your spare computer power over the internet, or perhaps buying in extra resources to solve a tricky problem. In either case, network administration used to be a stumbling block – until European researchers developed a successful free-market approach to grid computing.
SOCIETY
Top Stories:
Mumbai's Slum Life Poses World Problem - [BBC] This year, for the first time in human history, there will be more people living in towns and cities than in the countryside. That is the conclusion of a new study from the Population Division of the United Nations. And the steady migration of people from rural areas to cities brings huge problems in its wake.
Merchants in Britain Give Young Loiterers an Earful - [Washington Post] Jordan Webb can predict the exact time of day his head will start aching. If the 10-year-old lingers outside the Reynolds grocery store past 5 p.m., a small black device latched onto the storefront and operated on a timer will emit a high-pitched sound that makes the boy's skull feel like it's popping.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:
Publishing BPO Booms in India - [USA Today] Chennai has emerged as a global hub for publishing BPO services and the Indian publishing BPO services industry has grown phenomenally over the years. Several global publishers are offshoring their publishing services to India, making the country a publishing BPO services hub of the world.
Now You can Outsource Your Life - [Sydney Morning Herald] In the latest twist on globalisation, it is now possible to hire a personal assistant in India to take care of just about anything you don't have time to do and that can be accomplished via phone or the internet.
ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:
Tool for Deciding on Food vs Fuel - [Reuters] As more countries weigh the pros and cons of biofuel production, a new decision-support tool has been developed to ensure they do not compromise their food production and security.
China's Genetically Altered Food Boom - [TIME] Faced with feeding every fifth person on the planet with less than one-tenth of the world's farmland, Beijing has been pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into transgenic crop research and development, hoping the plants, whose DNA is combined with genetic material that programs them with traits like pest and weed resistance, will help farmers yield more food and commodities at a lower cost — especially as farmland is being lost to development and drought.
THE FUTURE
Top Stories:
Robots Set to Overhaul Service Industry, Jobs - [Christian Science Monitor] As a growing number of robots become capable of working alongside humans, the service industry may face a pattern all too familiar in the manufacturing sector: robots replacing humans in jobs.
Suburbia’s March to Oblivion - [New York Times] The mortgage crisis has put “for sale” signs in front of houses across the country — including so-called McMansions — the large, expensive, often tasteless homes that have taken up so much suburban space over the last couple of decades. But frantic selling is just the beginning, according to Christopher B. Leinberger, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. “Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading” through cul-de-sac suburbia, he writes in the March issue of The Atlantic.
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