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FE Archive Volume 10, Number 16
Wed, 10/10/2007 - 3:24pm — Paul Alois
Volume 10, Number 16
08/28/2007
Edited by John L. Petersen
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org
See past issues in the Archives
In This Issue:
TAI Presents: Dr. Dennis Bushnell on September 11, 2007
The Singularity Summit – September 8 & 9, 2007
The Buckminsterfuller Challenge – entries accepted September 4 through October 30, 2007
Future Facts - From Think Links
Think Links - The Future in the News…Today
A Final Quote
|
Air Force Association Building, 4th Floor Dr. Dennis Bushnell is the Chief Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center. With over 43 years experience as Research Scientist, Section Head, Branch Head, Associate Division Chief and Chief Scientist, his specialties include Flow Modeling and Control across the Speed Range, Advanced Configuration Aeronautics, Aeronautical Facilities and Hypersonic Airbreathing Propulsion. In fact, he is a Renaissance thinker who speaks from a unique – and uniquely informed – perspective. Join us on September 11, 2007 at 5:00pm to hear Dr. Bushnell describe the future he sees us rapidly approaching. Free and open to the public. Seating is limited; please RSVP. |
The Singularity Summit – Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity
The Singularity Summit 2007 will be held on September 8th-9th at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco. Tickets for the two-day event can be purchased online for the extremely low price of $50, which even includes two lunches, a Saturday night reception, and extensive audience participation. The theme is "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity." Some of the fascinating questions to be explored include: "What are the major challenges to achieving advanced AI? What are the benefits and dangers? How far are we from self-improving AI? How should we prepare for this potentially powerful innovation?"
"Advanced AI has the potential to impact every aspect of human life. We are in a crucial window of opportunity where we have temporary but powerful leverage to influence the outcome," said Tyler Emerson, chair of the summit and executive director of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. "Only a small group of scientists are aware of the central issues. It is essential to expand discussion of this critical 21st century issue, which is why I have created the summit."
Peter Thiel, PayPal Cofounder, Clarium Capital President, and Facebook's initial investor, will MC the summit and also present his new ideas on financial markets and the Singularity. "It's clear that the term 'AI' means a lot of different things," said Thiel. "It's one of these terms that has been bandied about a great deal, and has been misused a lot. It has been predicted for a long time that AI is right around the corner, and it's taking longer than many people thought it would, with many disappointments along the way. However, it's clear that there's a massive set of issues happening, and people who don't think that there's something important going on are living in a delusional fantasy, and need to wake up."
For further information, please see: http://www.singinst.org/summit2007/
Note from John Petersen: This promises to be a rather extraordinary event that parallels the interests of many FUTUREdition readers. The program line-up is superb, the subject is important, San Francisco is nice . . . and it’s certainly affordable. I, for one, will definitely be attending.
The Buckminsterfuller Challenge - http://challenge.bfi.org/
Each year a distinguished jury will award a single $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a solution that has the potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth’s ecological integrity. The Buckminsterfuller Challenge sponsored by the Institute bearing his name seeks submissions of design science solutions within a broad range of human endeavor that will exemplify the “trimtab principle”. Trimtabs demonstrate how small amounts of energy and resources precisely applied at the right time and place can produce maximum advantageous change. Entries accepted from September 4 – October 30, 2007. For further details, please contact the Buckminsterfuller Institute at challeng@bji.org or by telephone at 718-290-9283.
FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS
DID YOU KNOW THAT...
- A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light.
- A controversial biologist at Harvard claims he can extend life span and treat diseases of aging.
- A fantasy plague that accidentally ran amok in the Internet's most popular game world may help scientists predict the impact of genuine epidemics.
- Astronomers have spotted a star streaking through space trailing a comet-like tail 13 light-years long.
INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People – (New York Times – August 12, 2007)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/business/worldbusiness/12security.html?ex=1188532800&en=
09f8aa49c390745d&ei=5070
Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by American-financed company will be issued to most citizens. Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.
NEW REALITIES
We Have Broken the Speed of Light
Back to the Future, Via a Donut-shaped Vacuum?
His Heart Whirs Anew
Life, But Not as We Know It
Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years
Our Lives, Controlled from Some Guy’s Couch
We Have Broken the Speed of Light – (Telegraph – August 16, 2007)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time. According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second. However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
Back to the Future, Via a Donut-shaped Vacuum? – (Jerusalem Post – August 2, 2007)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186066367757&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
In a paper published in the journal, Physical Review, Prof. Amos Ori offers a theoretical model, based on mathematical equations describing conditions that, if established, could help lead to the development of a time machine of sorts. But rather than building an actual device, Ori explains that "the machine is space-time itself." While the possibility of time travel has never been ruled out, scientists have identified a number of physical challenges, including a perceived need for some form of exotic matter to create the necessary warp and get the wheels of time to turn back. Such matter is predicted by the quantum field theory to exist, although only in quantities too small for the construction of an actual time machine. But Ori puts forth a different approach eliminating the need for exotic matter.
His Heart Whirs Anew – (Washington Post – August 11, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081101390.html?
hpid=features1&hpv=local
Peter Houghton is a cyborg; he is the first permanent lifetime recipient of a Jarvik 2000 left ventricular assist device – a titanium turbine about the size of a C battery embedded in his dysfunctional left ventricle, the heart's main pumping chamber. It has only one moving part -- the impeller that moves his blood. The batteries to power it are compact enough that he carries them in a small camera bag. But if you want to get that power to the heart, you need to stretch the wire to a plug on your body that leads from the inside to the outside. The skull is a simple, safe site, though it has its price. But the real price of his tin heart, he says, was the shift in his spirit.
Life, But Not as We Know It – (Australian – August 13, 2007)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22232138-30417,00.html
Scientists have discovered that inorganic material can take on the characteristics of living organisms in space, a development that could transform views of alien life. An international panel from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of Sydney found that galactic dust could form spontaneously into helixes and double helixes and that the inorganic creations had memory and the power to reproduce themselves.
Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years – (Associated Press – August 19, 2007)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/08/19/artificial_life_likely_in_
3_to_10_years/?p1=MEWell_Pos1
Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life." Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race said, "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways - in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict." Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life and one of them may already be closed to being overcome.
Our Lives, Controlled from Some Guy’s Couch – (New York Times – August 17, 2007)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ex=1188532800&en=258c7f406ca83387&ei=5070
If you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems. Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century
GENTICS/HEALTH TECHNOLOGY
More Concerns Over Bisphenol A
Top 4 New Breakthrough Medical Devices
Two Molecular Pharmacologists Create Drugs the Natural Way
The Enthusiast
More Concerns Over Bisphenol A – (Chemical & Engineering News – August 6, 2007)
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i32/8532notw2.html
The suspected link between low levels of human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), a monomer widely used to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, and adverse health affects was bolstered recently with the publication of four toxicology studies that investigated the link. The most significant paper concluded that human exposure to BPA, primarily from food containers, is within the range shown to be biologically active in animal studies. In rodents, low BPA exposures in the womb cause increases in the rates of prostate and breast cancer, reproductive abnormalities, lowered sperm counts, early onset of puberty in females, and obesity and insulin-resistant diabetes.
Top 4 New Breakthrough Medical Devices – (Popular Mechanics – August 10, 2007)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4220228.html
By their vary nature, DARPA-funded medical tend to focus on keeping troops alive until they can be evacuated, which also gives such programs a dose of heroism. These are gadgets that run the entire spectrum of treatment, from keeping patients breathing and staunching gushing wounds to helping amputees lead a more normal life. They include the Trauma Pod (goal: stabilize the patient as quickly as possible), Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation (high-intensity focused ultrasound, triggering coagulation in injured blood vessels within 30 seconds), Simplified Automated Ventilator, and the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.
Two Molecular Pharmacologists Create Drugs the Natural Way – (Wired – August 12, 2007)
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/making-drugs-th.html
Mother nature can make drugs and other complicated molecules without using any toxic chemicals. Two research groups have figured out how to do it too. Rather than using the somewhat barbaric methods of organic chemistry, they stripped down the natural process for producing complicated chemicals, identified each molecule that living cells use to make sophisticated compounds, and then used them to produce the products they wanted.
The Enthusiast – Technology Review – September, 2007)
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=19172
A controversial biologist at Harvard claims he can extend life span and treat diseases of aging. He may be right. David Sinclair's basic claim is simple, if seemingly improbable: he has found an elixir of youth. The 38-year-old professor of pathology discovered that resveratrol, a chemical found in red wine, extends life span in mice by up to 24% and in other animals, including flies and worms, by as much as 59%
DISCOVERIES ENABLED BY NEW TECHNOLOGY
Scientists Hail Frozen Smoke as Material That Will Change World
Diamonds Unlock Secrets of Early Earth
A Minnesota Mystery: The Kensington Runestone
The Biggest Thing in Physics
Scientists Hail Frozen Smoke as Material That Will Change World – (Timesonline – August 19, 2007)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2284349.ece
A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars. Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C. Nicknamed “frozen smoke”, it is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with a gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.
Diamonds Unlock Secrets of Early Earth – (CNN – August 27, 2007)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/08/23/earth.diamonds.reut/index.html
Diamonds more than 4 billion years old -- nearly as old as the Earth itself - have been discovered in Western Australia, giving scientists vital clues about the early history of our planet. Found trapped in zircon crystals in the Jack Hills region, the small gems are the oldest identified fragments of the Earth's crust and their existence suggests the Earth may have cooled faster than previously thought.
A Minnesota Mystery: The Kensington Runestone – (WCCO – August 18, 2007)
http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_231002032.html
The Kensington Runestone is a rock found near Alexandria, MN in 1898. It's inscription tells of Norwegians here in 1362. And it begs the question: Were Vikings exploring North America more than 100 years before Columbus? Or is it just an elaborate hoax? New research shows that the stone is genuine.
The Biggest Thing in Physics – (Discover Magazine – August 13, 2007)
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/the-biggest-thing-in-physics
Near the west end of Lake Geneva, buried under the river plain of the Rhône, workers are fitting together the final pieces of the machine that hopes to unlock one of the biggest mysteries of the universe. It has taken over 20 years, $8 billion, and the combined efforts of more than 60 countries to create this extraordinary particle smasher, the Large Hadron Collider. The collider’s underground tunnel carves a circle 17 miles in circumference, traversing the border between Switzerland and France. At four locations it passes through caverns crammed with detectors the size of buildings. In a deliberately constructed rivalry, two of these detectors—along with their armies of scientists, engineers, and technicians—will vie with each other to discover the obscure but wildly important particle known as the Higgs boson.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Hitachi's Deskstar
Celestial Add-on Points Google Earth at the Stars
CIA and Vatican Edit Wikipedia Entries
Teenager Unlocks iPhone's Secret
Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 Hard Drive – (Tech Report – August 13, 2007)
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2007q3/hitachi-deskstar-7k1000/index.x?pg=1
One thousand thousand thousand thousand bytes: a terabyte, if you will. Hitachi has reached a milestone in storage capacity that hard drive manufacturers have been chasing for years. This gives the company the ability to offer single-drive storage capacity roughly 33% greater than that of its competitors.
Celestial Add-on Points Google Earth at the Stars – (New Scientist – August 27, 2007)
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn12523-celestial-addon-points-google-earth-at-the-stars.html
Amateur stargazers have a new way to explore the heavens - with an update to Google's free global mapping application Google Earth. The new feature, called Sky, adds a wealth of astronomical data to Google Earth, including images of more than 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies. At the press of a button, a user sees their perspective shift upwards, revealing the correct constellation of stars for their selected position on Earth. They can then pick out particular stars or planets manually, or using the search field, and zoom upwards to see more detailed images and additional information. Some 20,000 celestial objects can be searched for by name using the Sky feature.
CIA and Vatican Edit Wikipedia Entries – (Sidney Morning Herald – August 18, 2007)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/CIA-and-Vatican-edit-Wikipedia-entries/2007/08/18/
1186857828993.html
A program to pinpoint the origins of Wikipedia edits indicates that alterations to the popular online encyclopedia have come from the CIA and the Vatican. Virgil Griffith's "Wikiscanner" points to Central Intelligence Agency computers as the sources of nearly 300 edits to subjects including Iran's president, the Argentine navy, and China's nuclear arsenal. Griffith, a university graduate student and self-described hacker, says his software matches unique "IP" addresses of computers with Wikipedia records regarding which machines are used to make online edits. "I came up with the idea when I heard about Congressmen getting caught for whitewashing their Wikipedia pages," Griffith explains on his website.
Teenager Unlocks iPhone's Secret – (Associated Press – August 25, 2007)
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/08/25/teenager_unlocks_iphones_secret/
Along with a secretive group of online collaborators, George Hotz, a slight, curly-haired teenager in Glen Rock, N.J., broke the restrictions that make Apple Inc.'s iPhone, arguably the hottest gadget of the year, work only on AT&T Inc.'s cellular network. The feat took him 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's June 29 launch. The equipment used included a soldering iron and a large supply of Red Bull energy drinks. Technology blog Engadget has reported successfully unlocking an iPhone using a different method that required no tinkering with the hardware and the iPhone has already been made to work on overseas networks using a third method, which involves copying information from the Subscriber Identity Module, a small card with a chip that identifies a subscriber to the cellphone network
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Eight-million-year-old Bug is Alive and Growing
Not-So-Elementary Bee Mystery
Indian Ocean Haze Adds to Global Warming
Islands Emerge as Arctic Ice Shrinks to Record Low
Monster Jellyfish Invade Gulf of Mexico
"Volcano Cure" for Warming? Not So Fast
Natural Disasters More Destructive than Wars
Global Warming to Decimate China's Harvests
Eight-million-year-old Bug is Alive and Growing – (New Scientist – Augsut 7, 2007)
http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12433&feedId=online-news_rss20
An 8-million-year-old bacterium that was extracted from the oldest known ice on Earth is now growing in a laboratory, claim researchers. If confirmed, this means ancient bacteria and viruses will come back to life as ice melts due to global warming. This is nothing to worry about, say experts, because the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease.
Not-So-Elementary Bee Mystery – (Science News – July 28, 2007)
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070728/bob9.asp
This is an excellent review of most of the theories (and their shortcomings) concerning “colony collapse disorder”, the disappearance of bees from their hives. Many possible explanations have been put forth; rigorous research has disproven most of them, but on-going work on bees’ genetic sequences may yield some answers in the near future.
Indian Ocean Haze Adds to Global Warming – (Guardian Unlimited – August 2, 2007)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6823312,00.html
Huge haze clouds over the Indian Ocean contribute as much to atmospheric warming in Asia as greenhouse gases and play a significant role in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers. Researchers concluded that the pollution - mostly caused by the burning of wood and plant matter for cooking in India and other South Asian countries - enhanced heating of the atmosphere by around 50 percent and contributed to about half of the temperature increases blamed in recent decades for the glacial retreat.
Islands Emerge as Arctic Ice Shrinks to Record Low – (Yahoo News – August 20,2 007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070820/ts_nm/climate_ice_dc
Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said that Arctic sea ice had "fallen below the 2005 record low absolute minimum and is still melting." Arctic sea ice reaches an annual minimum in September before freezing again. The U.S. records are based on satellite data back to the 1970s.
Monster Jellyfish Invade Gulf of Mexico – (Live Science – August 18, 2007)
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070818_gulf_jellyfish.html
Australian jellyfish that invaded the Gulf of Mexico seven years ago have made a "vigorous reappearance" this summer and threaten to devour native fish. And in the Gulf, with plenty to eat, they grow up to about 25 pounds. Jellyfish can be carried around the globe when they attach to ships. Another study finds jellyfish are opportunists, moving in and taking over regions of the sea that humans have overfished.
"Volcano Cure" for Warming? Not So Fast – (National Geographic News – August 17, 2007)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070817-volcano-warming.html
A controversial theory proposes mimicking volcanoes to fight global warming. But throwing sulfur particles into the sky may do more harm than good, a new study says.
The temporary solution would pump particles of sulfur high into the atmosphere—simulating the effect of a massive volcano by blocking out some of the sun's rays. This intervention, advocates argue, would buy a little time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But as well as cooling the planet, the sulfur particles would reduce rainfall and cause serious global drought, a new study says.
Natural Disasters More Destructive than Wars – (Yahoo News – August 28, 2007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070828/sc_afp/environmentclimate
"Already seven times more livelihoods are devastated by natural disasters than by war worldwide, at the moment, and this is going to be much worse, the way the climate is developing," said Jan Egeland, the United Nations head of humanitarian affairs from 2003-2006. "Climate change, it's happening. It's not a threat. It's happening today and those who suffer the most are the poorest in Africa. Where there was already drought, the droughts are getting worse. Where there was already flooding the floodings are getting worse, as we speak."
Global Warming to Decimate China's Harvests – (Yahoo News – August 23, 2007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070823/sc_afp/chinawarmingfarm
Global warming is set to cut China's annual grain harvest by up to 10% by 2030, placing extra burden on its shrinking farmland, the Chinese state press reported. The year 2030 is a key date because that is when the nation's population is expected to peak at 1.5 billion people, up from just over 1.3 billion today, requiring an extra 100 million tons of food to feed them
AUGMENTED/ARTICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Unmanned "Surge": 3000 More Robots for War – (Wired – August 13, 2007)
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/3000-more-bomb-.html
U.S. military robots ran 30,000 missions in 2006 -- hunting for, and getting rid of, improvised explosives. Now, the military has launched a crash project to radically increase its unmanned ground forces. 1000 machines are supposed to be enlisted by the end of the year, with two thousand more in five years. Word of the robot recruitment comes just weeks after the military revealed it had deployed armed robots to Iraq
ENERGY DEVELOPMENTS
$6 Gas? One Nasty Hurricane Could Do It
Segway Inventor Focusing on Green Cars
Water + Sunlight = Solar Hydrogen
$6 Gas? One Nasty Hurricane Could Do It – (Kiplinger – July 2007)
http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/recommend/archive/2007/Gas_AMBest.html
The insurance company rating firm A.M. Best recently issued its forecast for the 2007 hurricane season and included an assessment of such a Category 5 storm moving on the Houston area. “It would dwarf energy industry disruptions seen from Katrina and Rita,” says the report, relying on scientific modeling done by two catastrophe-modeling firms. "Forty percent of U.S. refinery production could be shut, as well as nearly all offshore production facilities."
Segway Inventor Focusing on Green Cars – (EcoGeek – August 11, 2007)
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/872/
Dean Kamen has spent over $40 million in the last decade developing stirling engines which convert heat directly into mechanical energy by use of an expanding and contracting gas inside a cylinder. His stirling engines are already being used in developing countries. There are a couple in India that can power an entire village by burning cow patties. But Kamen started to realize that stirling engines would never be economical until they were mass produced. Which is when he met the CEO of the electric car company, THiNK, and decided that he'd found his method of mass production.
Water + Sunlight = Solar Hydrogen – (Tree Hugger – August 17, 2007)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/water_sunlight.php
Craig Grimes, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State University, has just announced that he and his team are close – in their words, "only a couple of problems away" – to developing a cheap, viable photoelectrolytic technology, that is one that would split water into hydrogen and oxygen by using sunlight. Most current hydrogen production processes split hydrogen from natural gas, an inefficient technique that consumes energy and produces greenhouse gases. But Grimes' method plans to rely on thin films of titanium iron oxide nanotube arrays that could split water under natural light.
GLOBAL EPIDEMIC
Online Gamers Rehearse Real-world Epidemics
West Nile Virus Continues Deadly March in US and Canada
Health Experts Continue to Investigate Mystery Bug Bites
Online Gamers Rehearse Real-world Epidemics – (PhysOrg – August 20, 2007)
http://www.physorg.com/news106858521.html
A fantasy plague that accidentally ran amok in the Internet's most popular game world, populated by nine million flesh-and-blood players, may help scientists predict the impact of genuine epidemics. World of Warcraft, launched in 2004, could soon become testing grounds for the all-too-real battle against bird flu, malaria or some as yet unknown killer virus. The unlikely path to a collaboration between hard science and hard-core gaming began in late 2005, when Blizzard programmers introduced a highly contagious disease -- dubbed "Corrupted Blood" -- into a newly created zone of the game's Byzantine environment.
West Nile Virus Continues Deadly March in US and Canada – (News Locale – August 25, 2007)
http://www.newslocale.org/health/hnews/west_nile_virus_continues_deadly_march
_in_us_and_canada_20070825414.html
According to the CDC, West Nile virus infection is established as a seasonal epidemic in North America that flares up in the summer and continues into the fall. This year is predicted to be the worst season in the United States. Around 27 states have reported human cases of the disease so far this year. They include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. Birds, animals and mosquitoes infected with WNV have been indentified in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Health Experts Continue to Investigate Mystery Bug Bites – (ABC News – August 14, 2007)
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=5569594
Health experts are still trying to identify what's behind a bug invasion that's left hundreds of people in the Chicago area with itchy, red welts. It's usually just a nuisance, but the bites can be serious. The symptoms sound similar to West Nile: fever, nausea, fatigue, vomiting. But the cause apparently is not mosquito bites; the pimple-like bumps, with a 2-to-3 inch red rash around them, may be from the oak leaf itch mite. While the itch mite first appeared in Kansas and Nebraska in 2004, health officials think it may be showing up in the Chicago area now.
NANOTECHNOLOGY
Scientists Train Nano 'Building Blocks' to Take on New Shapes – (Science Daily – August 7, 2007)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070803125134.htm
Researchers have figured out how to train synthetic polymer molecules to “self-assemble” into long, multicompartment cylinders 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, with potential uses in radiology, signal communication and the delivery of therapeutic drugs in the human body. The focus of the research was block copolymers, which are synthetic molecules that contain two or more chemically different segments bonded together. Block copolymers are used to make a variety of materials such as plastics, rubber soles for shoes, and more recently, portable memory sticks (“flash drives”) for computers
TERRORISM, SECURITY AND THE FUTURE OF WARFARE
Feds Consider 'Light Saber' Weapon
Psycho Paintballs & Drug Drones
So High, So Fast
Feds Consider 'Light Saber' Weapon – (USA Today – August 8, 2007)
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/feds-consider-light-saber-weapon/20070808084809990001?
ncid=NWS00010000000001
The Homeland Security Department is considering arming federal agents with a light-saber -type weapon that emits a dazzling strobe capable of subduing criminals, terrorists and even unruly airline passengers. The government is testing the LED Incapacitator. It's the latest government effort to develop a non-lethal weapon - in this case, a powerful beam of light that temporarily blinds anyone who looks into it.
Psycho Paintballs & Drug Drones – (Wired – August 23, 2007)
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/psycho-paintbal.html
Paintballs laced with mind-altering drugs and drug-spraying robots sound like something for The Joker rather than the Marine Corps. But these are two of the more promising new methods for administering nonlethal chemical weapons (sorry, calmatives) being developed by the Pentagon. For larger targets such as a crowd, there are a number of new projectiles under development for carrying chemical agents including 81mm mortar and 155mm howitzer rounds.
So High, So Fast – (ABC News – August 17, 2007)
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3490523&page=1
At virtually any moment — day or night — you can look up and know that somewhere over Earth there's a U-2 pilot at the edge of outer space, watching and listening. Developed in secret for the CIA more than 50 years ago, the U-2 first detected the movement of Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the U-2 is not just a piece of Cold War history. Since this spring it is flying more missions and longer missions than ever before — nearly 70 missions a month over Iraq and Afghanistan, an operational tempo that is unequaled in history. The pilots fly for 11 hours at a time, sometimes more than 11 hours up there alone. By flying so high, the U-2 can look off to the side, peering 300 miles or more inside a country without actually flying over it. It can "see" in the dark and through clouds. It can also "hear," intercepting conversations 14 miles below.
CONTACT AND THE EXPLORATION OF SPACE
Vibrations on the Sun May Shake the Earth
Rare Dead Star Found Near Earth
White Dwarf Harbors Signs of Earth-like Planets
A Star with a Comet's Tail
Fiery Rock Will Test Whether Life Came from Space
Vibrations on the Sun May Shake the Earth – (New Scientist – August 21, 2007)
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12520-vibrations-on-the-sun-may-shake-the-earth.html
What do dropped mobile phone calls, mysterious signals in undersea communications cables, and tiny tremors on the Earth have in common? They are all caused by vibrations on the Sun, according to one team of scientists. But other researchers question the claim, arguing that the pulsations may never escape the Sun's surface in the first place.
Rare Dead Star Found Near Earth – (BBC News – August 20, 2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6955769.stm
Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's neighborhood - a dead star with some unusual characteristics.
The object, known as a neutron star is located in the constellation Ursa Minor. But it seems to lack some key characteristics found in other neutron stars. If confirmed, it would be only the eighth known "isolated neutron star" - meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations.
White Dwarf Harbors Signs of Earth-like Planets – (Reuters – August 17, 2007)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/17/white.dwarf.reut/index.html
Chemical elements observed around a burned-out star known as a white dwarf offer evidence Earth-like planets once orbited it, suggesting that worlds like our own may not be rare in the cosmos. Astronomers at the University of California, Los Angeles and University of Kiel in Germany studied a white dwarf called GD 362 located 150 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy. They figured out the chemical composition of a large asteroid that was ripped apart by gravitational forces as it approached GD 362, finding it was similar to the Earth's crust. It was rich in iron and calcium and low in carbon, much like a strong rock, they said. In April, European astronomers said they detected the most Earth-like planet yet outside the solar system orbiting a star 20.5 light-years from here, with temperatures that could harbor water and perhaps life.
A Star with a Comet's Tail – (Science NASA – August 15, 2007)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/15aug_mira.htm?list213022
The star, named Mira after the Latin word for "wonderful," has been a favorite of astronomers for about 400 years, yet this is the first time the tail has been seen. When it was scanned during its ongoing survey of the entire sky in ultraviolet light, astronomers noticed what looked like a comet with a gargantuan tail. In fact, material blowing off Mira is forming a wake 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the sun. Nothing like this has ever been seen before around a star.
Fiery Rock Will Test Whether Life Came from Space – (New Scientist – August 13, 2007)
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12469-fiery-rock-will-test-whether-life-came-from-space.html
A rock will be hurled into space on a rocket and subjected to the fiery heat of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere to test whether life could have hitched a ride from one planet to another in debris from an asteroid strike. The rock is one of 35 experiments to fly on a European Space Agency mission called Foton M3, which is set to launch on 14 September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
DEMOGRAPHICS
One in Four Read No Books Last Year
Eat American: Food Aid Made in the U.S.A
Fish Farms Help Families in Africa Hit by AIDS
One in Four Read No Books Last Year – (Washington Post – August 21, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082101045.
html?hpid=sec-education
One in four adult Americans read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number of books read was seven. It is unclear whether people’s answers including having “read” audio-books or not.
Eat American: Food Aid Made in the U.S.A. – (Mother Jones – August 16, 2007)
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2007/08/eat_american.html
The U.S. gives more than half of the world's nearly $4 billion of annual food aid. Yet by law, the federal agencies can't simply write checks to feed the hungry. Instead, they must buy American-grown food from American conglomerates and 75% of it must be shipped on American-flagged vessels. It's a great deal for domestic businesses, but not for the needy: The Government Accountability Office recently found that 65% of federal food aid expenditures are not spent on food. In fact, due to rising transportation and business costs, the amount of actual food delivered by U.S. aid programs has declined by more than 50% over the past five years.
Fish Farms Help Families in Africa Hit by AIDS – (Reuters – August 19, 2007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070819/wl_nm/aids_environment_dc
Tiny fish farms have helped 1,200 poor families hit by AIDS in Malawi to raise their incomes and improve their diets in a scheme being expanded to other African nations. About $90 can enable construction of a small rain-fed pond that can be stocked with juvenile fish costing $10. Once the fish grow and reproduce, the ponds produce food with far less back-breaking work than subsistence farming. About one in five adults in Malawi, among the world's poorest nations, are infected with HIV/AID
TRENDS OF GOVERNMENT
Warrantless Wiretaps Expanded
How We Can Take the Constitution Back from the Brink
Military Contractors See a World of Business Opportunities
Warrantless Wiretaps Expanded – (Christian Science Monitor – August 7, 2007)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p99s04-duts.html
The US government now has greater authority to eavesdrop without warrants on American citizens' telephone calls and e-mails after President Bush signed new surveillance legislation into law on Sunday, August 5th. Authored largely by the White House, the new law, officials say, provides a legal framework for warrantless monitoring that was already being conducted by the National Security Agency outside of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law will expire in six months and changes the oversight and regulation process for government monitoring. The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court.
How We Can Take the Constitution Back from the Brink – (AlterNet – August 9, 2007)
http://www.alternet.org/rights/59112/
In the past month, the Bush administration has ordered employees to ignore congressional subpoenas, asserted broad new parameters for executive privilege and issued an executive order that could permit seizing assets of Americans deemed at its discretion to be hurting the war effort in Iraq. Meanwhile, the administration continues to spy on its own citizens, including widespread data mining of telephone records and emails. The American Freedom Campaign is working to build bipartisan grassroots support "to reverse the abuse of executive power and restore our system of checks and balances." The Campaign is designed to be an online hub for Americans concerned about the country's democratic system and who are ready to act to protect the Constitution.
Military Contractors See a World of Business Opportunities – (AlterNet – August 13, 2007)
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/59571/
There are now almost 200,000 private "contractors" deployed in Iraq by the United States government. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored. In essence, the Bush administration has created a shadow army that can be used to wage wars unpopular with the American public but extremely profitable for a few unaccountable private companies. "I think it's extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force and the use of violence in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives," says veteran U.S. Diplomat Joe Wilson, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War.
JUST FOR FUN
Artist Sets Sail in Life-size Paper Boat
Shadow Lamps to Connect Friends
Artist Sets Sail in Life-size Paper Boat – (Daily Mail – August 25, 2007)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id
=477786&in_page_id=1811&ito=newsnow
Artist Frank Boelter floated out of a shipyard in Lauenburg, Germany in a paper boat constructed 'Tetrapack' and fearlessly sailed it up the Elbe, despite the fact the light material is more commonly used for packaging milk. The 37-year-old artist came up with the idea one breakfast time, while he was sitting at his kitchen table fiddling with an empty milk carton, which he cut up and made into a scaled-down model. The £110 boat is 30 feet long, weighs 55 pounds, uses a 170-square-metre piece of Tetrapack paper, and took only two hours to construct.
Shadow Lamps to Connect Friends – (BBC News – August 8, 2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6936627.stm
Shadows are being used by Japanese researchers as an non-intrusive way for friends to stay in touch. Called Teleshadow the system pipes video of what people are doing at home via the net to their friends' houses. But instead of showing images in full motion and color, Teleshadow turns them into shadow outlines projected on the inside of a small decorative lamp.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein
A special thanks to: Paul Alois, Allan Balliett, James Black, Ken Dabkowski, Neil Freer, Ursula Freer, KurzweilAI, Sebastian McCallister, Sher Patterson-Black, Diane C. Petersen, Kyle Pickford, the Schwartzreport, and Joel Snell, our contributors to this issue.
If you see something we should know about, do send it along - thanks.
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org
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Publication Date:
08/28/2007