Volume 9, Number 5
04/03/2006
Edited by John L. Petersen
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org

See past issues in the Archives

In This Issue:

Future Facts - from Think Links
Think Links - The Future in the News…Today
A Final Quote

At The Arlington Institute, we believe that to understand the future, you need to have an open mind and cast a very wide net. To that end, FUTUREdition explores a cross-disciplinary palette of issues, from the frontiers of science and technology to major developments in mass media, geopolitics, the environment, and social perspectives.

FUTURE FACTS - FROM THINK LINKS
DID YOU KNOW THAT...

• Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the interior of our Sun.
• A computer controlled by the power of thought alone has been created that could provide a way for paralyzed patients to operate computers.
• A flexible polymer infused with billions of carbon nanotubes could be used to make highly flexible electronic displays and other novel electronic devices.
• Changes to Earth's biodiversity have occurred more rapidly in the past 50 years than at any time in human history, creating a species loss greater than anything since a major asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs.

THINK LINKS – THE FUTURE IN THE NEWS...TODAY

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse of Internet Censorship
Profits Set to Soar in Outer Space

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse of Internet Censorship -- (Prison Planet -- March 16, 2006)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/160306myspace.htm
MySpace represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship. Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book.

Profits Set to Soar in Outer Space -- (CNN -- February 27, 2006)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/27/technology/business2_guidetospaceintro/index.htm
Worldwide government spending on space is soaring to $50 billion a year, a 25% jump over 2000. NASA represents only $16 billion of that total, but during the next 20 years, the U.S. space agency is likely to sign contracts totaling as much as $400 billion to launch a human mission to Mars. We are also well into the commercial space age. In 1998, private-sector spending on space applications began to exceed government.

NEW REALITIES

Cosmic 'DNA': Double Helix Spotted in Space
Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth
The Biggest Carnivore: Dinosaur History Rewritten
The Part-Time Pulsar
Fastest View of Molecular Motion
Texas State Research Sheds New Light on Panspermia
Surprising Cocoons Found Enveloping Giant Stars
New State of Matter
Moon Water: A Trickle of Data and a Flood of Questions

Cosmic 'DNA': Double Helix Spotted in Space -- (Space -- March 15, 2006)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060315_dna_nebula.html
Magnetic forces at the center of the galaxy have twisted a nebula into the shape of DNA, a new study reveals. The double helix shape is commonly seen inside living organisms, but this is the first time it has been observed in the cosmos.

Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth -- (Live Science -- March 8, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html
Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say. They don't know how they did it.

The Biggest Carnivore: Dinosaur History Rewritten -- (Live Science -- March 1, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060301_big_carnivores.html
The Age of Dinosaurs ended millions of years ago but paleontologists are still attempting to get a handle on the immense diversity and diverse immensity of these creatures. Spinosaurus is now officially the biggest carnivorous dinosaur known to science. This two-legged beast actually strode onto the fossil scene in 1915 when a specimen was described by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer.

The Part-Time Pulsar -- (Universe Today -- March 7, 2006)
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/part_time_cosmic_clocks.html?732006
Astronomers have discovered a very unusual pulsar that seems to switch off from time to time. It looks like a normal pulsar for about a week, blasting out radio waves, and then goes silent for about a month. This pulsar is slowing down its rate of rotation, but this deceleration increases when it's active. This braking mechanism is related to the powerful radio emissions. During its active phase, a wind of particles is spewed off, stealing some of its rotational energy.

Fastest View of Molecular Motion -- (BBC -- March 4, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4766842.stm
Scientists have made the fastest ever observations of motion in a molecule. They "watched" parts of a molecule moving on an attosecond timescale - where one attosecond equals one billion-billionth of a second. The researchers say the study gives a new in-depth understanding of chemical processes and could be used in future technologies such as quantum computing.

Texas State Research Sheds New Light on Panspermia -- (Astrobiology -- February 24, 2006)
http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=19104
Panspermia is the idea that life--hitchhiking on rocks ejected from meteorite impacts on one world--could travel through space and seed other worlds with life under favorable conditions. When the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry Feb. 1, 2003, more than 80 on-board science experiments were lost in the fiery descent. Recent research has salvaged some unexpected science from the wreckage. A strain of slow-growing bacteria survived the crash, a discovery which may have significant implications for the concept of panspermia.

Surprising Cocoons Found Enveloping Giant Stars -- (Space -- March 13, 2006)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060313_mystery_monday.html
Scientists looking at three rare and radiant pulsating stars have found they each are surrounded by a fairly bright layer of matter, a "cocoon," that has never before been detected around stars of this kind. The astronomers think the cocoons form as the stars shed huge amounts of mass at a tremendously faster rate than normal stars like the Sun.

New State of Matter -- (EurekAlert -- March 15, 2006)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/uoc-ain031506.php
An international team of physicists has converted three normal atoms into a special new state of matter whose existence was proposed by Russian scientist Vitaly Efimov in 1970. In this new state of matter, any two of the three atoms--in this case cesium atoms-- repel one another in close proximity. But when you put three of them together, it turns out that they attract and form a new state.

Moon Water: A Trickle of Data and a Flood of Questions -- (Space -- March 6, 2006)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060306_lunar_ice.html
NASA is in the process of scripting how best to plant new boot prints on the Moon and take advantage of lunar resources that could prolong human stays on that barren ball of rock. While the Moon is one desolate world, it could turn out to be a faraway faucet of sorts. Robotic spacecraft - both the Pentagon's Clementine (1994) and NASA's Lunar Prospector (1998-1999) missions - point to the promise that the Moon is a literal watering hole for crews.

GENTICS/HEALTH TECHNOLOGY

Family May Provide Evolution Clue
Scientists One Step Closer to Cancer Vaccine

Family May Provide Evolution Clue -- (BBC -- March 7, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4782492.stm
Five siblings from Turkey who walk on all fours could provide science with an insight into human evolution, researchers have said. The four sisters and one brother could yield clues to why our ancestors made the transition from four-legged to two-legged animals, says a UK expert.

Scientists One Step Closer to Cancer Vaccine -- (Karolinska Institute -- March 21, 2006)
http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2637&a=11059&l=en&newsdep=2637
Scientists at Karolinska Institute in Sweden have helped to identify a molecule that can be used as a vaccination agent against growing cancer tumors. Although the results are so far based on animal experiments, they point to new methods of treating metastases.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

'Nano-Skin' Could Create Super-Bendy Screens
Nanotech Discovers the Americas
DNA Art: Origami Goes Nano

'Nano-Skin' Could Create Super-Bendy Screens -- (New Scientist -- March 3, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8801.html
A flexible polymer infused with billions of carbon nanotubes could be used to make incredibly bendy displays and other novel electronic devices, researchers say. Nanotubes are excellent electrical conductors and group member Swastik Kar says the material may well be used to build highly efficient electronic parts for highly flexible electronic displays.

Nanotech Discovers the Americas -- (BBC -- March 15, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4811310.stm
It is without question the smallest map that has ever been made. US scientists have coaxed strands of DNA, the molecule that holds the "code of life", to take up a shape that resembles the Americas. The mini-map measures just a few hundred nanometers (billionths of a meter) across, smaller even than some bacteria - a scale of 1:200 trillion.

DNA Art: Origami Goes Nano -- (Live Science -- March 15, 2006)
http://livescience.com/othernews/060315_dna_origami.html
The software of life has now been woven into smiley faces, snowflakes and stars. Caltech researcher Paul Rothemund calls his new technique "DNA origami," and he can weave any two-dimensional shape or pattern using DNA molecules. The technology could one day be used to construct tiny chemical factories or molecular electronics by attaching proteins and inorganic components to DNA circuit boards.

GLOBAL EPIDEMIC

Infected Planet
Studies Spot Obstacle to Human Transmission of Bird Flu

Infected Planet -- (AlterNet -- March 21, 2006)
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33703/
Modern human plagues like bird flu aren't the result of mysterious forces. Whether we mean to or not, we bring them on ourselves. When people crowd into high-density cities, sprawling slums and hospitals; consume insufficient or bad food and polluted water; travel widely and often; or ship vast quantities of products worldwide, pathogens have a much bigger field of play.

Studies Spot Obstacle to Human Transmission of Bird Flu -- (Forbes -- March 22, 2006)
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/03/22/hscout531699.html
Two new studies help explain why human-to-human transmission of the bird flu virus has so far not happened - and might not happen in the future. Both reports found the H5N1 virus prefers to settle in cells deep within the lungs, rather than in the upper respiratory tract, as happens with human flu strains.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The Silent Speaker
RFID Worm Created in the Lab
RFID: Sign of the (End) Times?
Mental Typewriter Controlled by Thought Alone
Chemists Work on Plastic Promise

The Silent Speaker -- (Forbes -- March 10, 2006)
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2006/0410/084.html?partner=yahoomag
Researchers have begun using an uncanny technology called subvocal speech recognition. Attaching a set of electrodes to the skin of your throat and, without opening your mouth or uttering a sound, your words are recognized and begin appearing on a computer screen. Researchers have already used subvocal commands to drive a car around a virtual city in a computer simulation and to Google the Web using nothing but unuttered search terms and commands.

RFID Worm Created in the Lab -- (New Scientist -- March 15, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8854-rfid-worm-created-in-the-lab.html
Researchers have discovered a way to infect Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags with a computer worm, raising the disturbing prospect that products, ID cards, and even pets could be used to spread malicious code. RFID tags provides a simple and efficient method of short-range identification and are increasingly being used to track products, make automatic payments and control access to buildings and public transport.

RFID: Sign of the (End) Times? -- (Wired -- March 2, 2006)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70308-0.html?tw=wn_index_1
One consumer advocate has written a new book warning her fellow Christians that radio frequency identification may evolve to become the "mark of the beast" -- meaning the technology is a sign that the end-times are drawing near. She has been a leading opponent of RFID, which is fast becoming a part of passports and payment cards, and is widely expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods. RFID chips contain unique identification codes, and can be read at varying distances with special reader devices.

Mental Typewriter Controlled by Thought Alone -- (New Scientist -- March 9, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/dn8826.html
A computer controlled by the power of thought alone has been demonstrated at a major trade fair in Germany. The device could provide a way for paralyzed patients to operate computers, or for amputees to operate electronically controlled artificial limbs. But it also has non-medical applications, such as in the computer games and entertainment industries

Chemists Work on Plastic Promise -- (BBC -- March 20, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4825388.stm
A new plastic that could rival silicon as the material of choice for some electronic devices has been developed. The invention could eventually slash the cost of flat panel screens and bring electronic paper into common use. The new material can also be laid down using simple printing techniques rather than the expensive and elaborate methods used to process silicon.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Humans Fuel Worst Extinction Since End of Dinosaurs
Antarctica Losing Ice to Oceans
New Theory to Explain Global Warming?
View of Easter Island Disaster All Wrong
Himalayan Melting Risk Surveyed
Solar Storm Warning
Hot Topic Gets Warm Support
Water, Water Everywhere
UN: 2004 Sets Record for Greenhouse Gases

Humans Fuel Worst Extinction Since End of Dinosaurs -- (Yahoo -- March 20, 2006)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060320/sc_space/humansfuelworstextinctionsinceendofdinosaurs
Changes to Earth's biodiversity have occurred more rapidly in the past 50 years than at any time in human history, creating a species loss greater than anything since a major asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs. "In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of the Earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago," the new report states.

Antarctica Losing Ice to Oceans -- (BBC -- March 2, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4767296.stm
A new space-based study of Antarctica shows its ice sheet is shrinking. Researchers used satellites to plot changes in the Earth's gravity in the Antarctic during the period 2002-2005. Writing in the journal Science, they conclude that the continent is losing 152 cubic km of ice each year, with most loss in the west.

New Theory to Explain Global Warming? -- (Science Daily -- March 14, 2006)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060314170208.htm
A new theory hypothesizes that global warming has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. It says the apparent rise in average global temperature recorded by scientists over the last hundred years or so could be due to atmospheric changes that are not connected to human emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of natural gas and oil.

View of Easter Island Disaster All Wrong -- (Live Science -- March 22, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/history/060309_easter_island.html
The first settlers on Easter Island didn't arrive until 1200 AD, up to 800 years later than previously thought, a new study suggests. The revised estimate is based on new radiocarbon dating of soil samples collected from one of oldest known sites on the island, which is in the South Pacific west of Chile. The finding challenges the widely held notion that Easter Island's civilization experienced a sudden collapse after centuries of slow growth.

Himalayan Melting Risk Surveyed -- (BBC -- March 5, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4762576.stm
A new weather station is expected to show the extent of warming in the Himalayas, one of the world's biggest deposits of ice and a key source of fresh water. It has been installed on the longest Himalayan glacier, in the Everest region of Nepal. There have been numerous reports of glacial retreats in the Himalayas over the years, but this weather station will be able to quantify changes to the local climate.

Solar Storm Warning -- (NASA -- March 10, 2006)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm?list29945
Researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.

Hot Topic Gets Warm Support -- (Christian Science Monitor -- March 23, 2006)
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2006/0323/p14s01-stgn.html
Global warming is getting hotter both politically and climatically. Key skeptics of global warming among American evangelical Christians have made a 180-degree turn. They now call for immediate action to curb emissions of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas that drives climate warming. Last month, 86 evangelical leaders issued a statement that frames the climate-change debate as a moral issue.

Water, Water Everywhere -- (Ode -- March 16, 2006)
http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=4280&l=en
A mere 0.3 percent of the world's water is available for drinking, and much of that is becoming polluted. It seems there's only one way for humanity to preserve itself: tapping that other 97.5 percent-in other words, desalinizing water from the sea. Techniques for doing so do exist, but up to now they've been quite expensive and use a lot of energy. But there is hope. Researchers have developed a purification system that turns both wastewater and sea water into clean drinking water using very little energy.

UN: 2004 Sets Record for Greenhouse Gases -- (CNN -- March 14, 2006)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/14/greenhouse.gasses.ap/index.html
Greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached record highs in 2004 and are still climbing, according to the World Meteorological Organization According to NASA, 2005 had the highest annual average surface temperature worldwide since instrument recordings began in the late 1800s

TERRORISM AND THE FUTURE OF WARFARE

Sticky Foam Gets Serious
Saved by 'Sand' Poured into the Wounds
Shock and Awe
Cost of Iraq War Could Surpass $1 Trillion

Sticky Foam Gets Serious -- (Defense Tech -- March 7, 2006)
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002220.html
Sticky foam is the custard pie of the non-lethal world, often seen more as a practical joke than a weapon. After some initial enthusiasm for the idea during the Marine deployment to Somalia in 1995, the idea faded and has been in limbo ever since. Now sticky foam is back, defending nuclear weapon stockpiles. Some facilities storing uranium and plutonium now boast steel doors with containers of hydrocarbon solution built into them. Breach the door, and the liquid comes foaming out under high pressure, expanding in bulk by a factor of forty and sealing the breach with an impassable obstacle.

Saved by 'Sand' Poured into the Wounds -- (New Scientist -- March 16, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925435.800-saved-by-sand-poured-into-the-wounds.html
QuikClot, which is issued routinely to police officers in Hillsborough county, Florida, was developed for the US military to cut down the number of soldiers who bleed to death on the battlefield. More than 85 per cent of soldiers killed in action die within an hour of being wounded. Improved hemorrhage control "could probably save 20 per cent of the soldiers who are killed in action" says one trauma surgeon.

Shock and Awe -- (ScienCentral News -- March 23, 2006)
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392756
They're loud, sometimes deadly, and invisible. But now scientists are making the shockwaves from explosions visible, and their work could help thwart the efforts of terrorists. With new reconstructions researchers are able to see exactly what happened and also to predict the effects of future explosions. In theory, shockwaves could even be traced backwards to detect sniper locations.

Cost of Iraq War Could Surpass $1 Trillion -- (MSNBC -- March 22, 2006)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/
One thing is certain about the Iraq war: It has cost a lot more than advertised. In fact, the tab grows by at least $200 million each and every day. In the months leading up to the launch of the war three years ago, few Bush administration officials were willing to comment publicly on the potential costs to the United States. After all, no cost would have been too high if the United States faced an imminent threat from an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction, the war's stated justification.

CONTACT

Research Warps into Hyperdrive

Research Warps into Hyperdrive -- (Space -- March 8, 2006)
http://space.com/businesstechnology/060308_exotic_drive.html
So you're looking for the latest in faster-than-light interstellar travel via traversable wormholes? That's one theme among many discussed at Space Technology & Applications International Forum (STAIF), a meeting that brought together more than 600 experts to thrash out a range of space exploration issues. Along with the run-of-the-mill space debates of the day, STAIF has also become a respected venue for researchers that dabble in the exotic, the thought-provoking novel, or the downright wierd anomaly.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Pupils Write With Both Hands Simultaneously
Survival Dance: How Humans Waltzed Through the Ice Age

Pupils Write With Both Hands Simultaneously -- (Ananova -- March 20, 2006)
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1753515.html
A school in India is reportedly teaching its students to use both their hands to write on different subjects simultaneously. All 72 pupils of the Veena Vadini School at Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh use both their hands "with equal ease," reports Asian News International. The school set up in 1999, for children aged between four and eight, holds its classes outdoors.

Survival Dance: How Humans Waltzed Through the Ice Age -- (Live Science -- March 10, 2006)
http://livescience.com/humanbiology/060310_born_dance.html
According to new research, the ability to dance may have been a factor in survival for our prehistoric ancestors, who used their moves to bond and communicate with each other when times were tough. The study suggests that, as a result, today's creative dancers actually share two specific genes. Both genes are associated with a predisposition for being good social communicators. Scientists believe this gave early humans who were well coordinated and rhythmic a distinct evolutionary advantage.

A FINAL QUOTE...

So often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events. And in today already walks tomorrow. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A special thanks to Bernard Calil, Neil Freer, Humera Khan, KurzweilAI, Sher Patterson-Black, Diane Peterson, John C. Peterson, the Schwartzreport, Joel Snell, Ken Dabkowski, Hanna Adeyema, Jin Zhu, Dr. Rick Lippin, and Richard May, our contributors to this issue. If you see something we should know about, do send it along - thanks.
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org