May 2004 through the Present - Predictions
April 7, 2008 -
Mobile phones will overtake asbestos and smoking as a leading public health danger, a top
neurosurgeon says. Research by Canberra Hospital’s Vini Khurana found that in the next four
years, the full impact of brain tumours caused by mobile phones would be revealed.
"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos
and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation."
In the paper they said that industry and governments needed to take immediate steps to reduce
the impact of mobile phone radiation. “There is a significant and increasing body of evidence
– to date at least eight comprehensive clinical studies internationally and one long-term
meta-analysis – for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours.”
The addition use of accessories, such as some hands-free kits, could have a bigger impact
than just having a mobile phone.
“Bluetooth devices and unshielded headsets can convert the user's head into an effective,
potentially self-harming antenna.”
Visitors from the future due this year - Two Russian mathematicians have caused a stir in
the normally staid world of theoretical physics.
They have not only proposed a mechanism for time travel, but they have given it a timetable
as well. The pair has been speculating on what might happen when the Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) is switched on.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is expected to commission the LHC in
May 2008. It will smash protons together at speeds previously unobtainable. Each proton will
have the same kinetic energy as a flying mosquito, but that energy will be concentrated into
one a trillionth of a mosquito's volume.
Collisions like this can do very strange things to the fabric of the universe known as
space-time. Space-time can bend and distort into loops that physicists call "closed time-like
curves," known to sci-fi fans as "wormholes in space-time" or just "wormholes."
In the same way as two points on opposite ends of a piece of paper can be brought together by
folding the paper in half, so a wormhole can provide shortcuts between distant points in
space-time. It is these wormholes that Aref'eva and Volovich suggest may be produced by the
LHC.
If, and it is a big "if," such wormholes are created, we are still a long way from building a
time machine. Firstly, these mini-wormholes will only be big enough to allow sub-atomic
particles through. Secondly, they will have the tendency to close up. Thirdly, we have no way
to manipulate the mouths of the wormhole to act like a time machine.
But that does not mean that a future civilization will not have the technology to do these
things from their end. Hence, if these wormholes are created by the LHC later this year, it
could present our distant decedents the earliest opportunity to come and say hello.
But many physicists are unimpressed with the idea of time travel. It appears to break the law
of causality. This law states that cause must precede effect.
There are paradoxes inherent in time travel. The classic example is the question of what
would happen if you went back in time and murdered your grandfather before one of your
parents was conceived, so preventing your own birth, so you did not travel back in time, so
your grandfather lives …
Professor Stephen Hawking is a noted time travel skeptic. In 1992 he suggested that the laws
of physics would conspire against time travel. His "chronology protection conjecture" says
that creating wormholes that allow time travel will give rise to physical phenomena that act
to block the wormholes.
The Russian scientists' work is highly speculative. We simply do not know enough about the
fine structure of space-time to predict with any certain what will happen when the LHC is
switched on. But with experiments planned to look at some of the most fundamental questions
in physics, the next few years will be very interesting, wormholes or not.
Scientists have created part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the
United Kingdom.
The embryos survived for up to three days.
The Catholic Church describes it as "monstrous". But medical bodies and patient groups say
such research is vital for our understanding of disease.
They argue that the work could pave the way for new treatments for conditions such as
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Seeds of some genetically modified crops can endure in soil for at least 10 years,
scientists have discovered.
Researchers in Sweden examined a field planted with experimental oilseed rape a decade ago,
and found transgenic specimens were still growing there.
This was despite intensive efforts in the intervening years to remove seeds.
No GM crop has been found to endure so long; and critics say it shows that genetically
modified organisms cannot be contained once released. After the trial of herbicide-resistant
GM rape, the Swedish Board of Agriculture sprayed the field intensively with chemicals that
should have killed all the remaining plants.
And for two years, inspectors looked specifically for volunteer plants and killed them.
This is much more effort than would usually be deployed on a normal farmer's field.
But even so, 15 plants had sprung up 10 years later carrying the genes that scientists had
originally inserted into their experimental rape variety to make them resistant to the
herbicide glufosinate.
Non-GM varieties were used in the 10-year-old study as well, and some of these had also
survived.
Rapeseed - often known by its Canadian name canola - is the fourth most commonly grown GM
crop in the world, after soya beans, maize and cotton.
"We should assume that GM organisms cannot be confined, and ask instead what will become of
them when they escape."
March 2008 -
Plants and animals that depend on each other are more likely to survive
when a threat to their collective existence is present, a recent study
has concluded.
A dolphin guided two stranded whales to safety after human attempts to keep the animals
off a beach failed, a conservation official has said.
"I've never heard of anything like this before, it was amazing." The dolphin, named Moko,
and known for playing with people in the water at Mahia beach on the east coast of the North
Island, appeared and guided the whales to safety after apparently communicating with them. "I
was not aware dolphins could communicate with pygmy sperm whales, but something happened that
allowed Moko to guide those two whales to safety."
The stuff of science-fiction movies is just around the bend, according
to General Motors, with fully automated, self-driving cars expected to
be on the road within the next 10 years.
Dead hearts beat again -
In experiments that would make Dr Frankenstein jealous, US scientists have coaxed recycled
hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating in the laboratory after reseeding them with
live cells.
A saliva test that can identify specific markers of breast cancer is in
development in the U.S. and could provide an easy and early diagnosis
of the disease, researchers say.
Cloned animals may often be born deformed and die young but scientists, who have looked at
every aspect of their biology to try to explain why, can find no evidence that it would be
dangerous to eat them.
None of the more than 700 studies reviewed in detail showed any evidence to suggest that milk
or organ or muscle tissue from cloned animals could harm someone who ate it, the US Food and
Drug Administration said in its final report on the subject.
UK regulators have given scientists the green light to create human-animal embryos for
research.
A US team say it has created embryos that are clones of two men - a step towards
patient-specific stem cells.
A type of algae found in oceans, lakes and wet soil could be used to create a new, faster
generation of computer chips.
Marine diatoms, a unicellular algae, build their hard, patterned cell walls with microscopic
lines of silica — a compound related to silicon, which is a key material for constructing
computer chips and semiconductors.
"If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the
nanofabrication used to make computer chips."
Diatoms could vastly increase chip speed because they are capable of producing lines
much smaller than what is capable with current technology.
Synthetic Life - Scientists have built the first synthetic genome by stringing together
147 pages of letters representing the building blocks of DNA.
The researchers used yeast to stitch together four long strands of DNA into the genome of a
bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium. The first synthetic life could be just
months away - if it hasn't been created already.
With the new ability to sequence a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design organisms,
essentially creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can
use. Biofuels like ethanol, for example.
Synthetic biologists' ambitious goal is to arrange
those letters to create never-before-seen organisms that will do their bidding.
"Once this becomes routine, it allows us to build whatever genome we want. You
can design a genome to incorporate a particular chemical process to change what the cells are
eating and what the cells are making. You can make robotic cells."
Synthetic biologists are also planning to scale up from the simplest organisms to the most
complex: human beings. The first bacterial genome was sequenced in 1995 and was followed by
the landmark sequencing of the human genome in 2001. Based on that trajectory, a synthetic human genome - which could be used in human cloning research - could be created by 2014.
But before researchers can do that level of synthetic biology, scientists will need to
automate their methods.
Self-healing rubber - A material that is able to self-repair even when it is sliced in
two has been invented by French researchers.
The as-yet-unnamed material - a form of artificial rubber - is made from vegetable oil and a
component of urine.
The substance produces surfaces when cut that retain a strong chemical attraction to each
other.
Pieces of the material join together again as if never parted without the need for glue or a
special treatment.
This remarkable property comes from careful engineering of the molecules in the material. One
obvious use is for self-healing seals.
Puncture a seal in a compression joint with a nail, and the hole would automatically repair
itself.
Killer robots 'a threat to humanity'-
Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the
hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial
intelligence says.
Multiple reports of UFO-like sightings in Texas in January -
Residents of a Texas farming community were buzzing over reported
sightings of what many believe is a UFO.
Games are becoming increasingly important in education and could be useful for teaching a
range of skills. Organisations such as the US armed forces already use online gaming as a recruitment
tool.
America's Army introduces players to the "seven Army Core Values" and now claims
to be one of "the most popular computer games in the world".
The US space agency is exploring the possibility of developing a massively multiplayer online
game.
The virtual world would be aimed at students and would "simulate real Nasa engineering and
science missions".
Nasa believes the game would help find the next generation of scientists and engineers needed
to fulfil its "vision for space exploration".
The coming "Very Great U.S. Depression"? - International experts foresee collapse of
U.S. economy - We are entering a period for which there is no historic precedent. Any
comparisons with previous situations in our modern economy are invalid.
We are not experiencing a "remake" of the 1929 crisis nor a repetition of the 1970s oil
crises or 1987 stock market crisis.
What we will have, instead, is truly a global momentous threat - a true turning point
affecting the entire planet and questioning the very foundations of the international system
upon which the world was organized in the last decades.
A European report emphasizes that it is, first and foremost, in the United States where this
historic happening is taking an unprecedented shape.
Although this crucial event is global, it will be the beginning of an economic 'decoupling'
between the U.S. and the rest of the world. However, non 'decoupled' economies will be
dragged down the U.S. negative spiral.
Three reports from three different sources, all well regarded, all point to a disastrous
fall-out from our monetary moves.
"The end of the third quarter of 2008 (thus late September, a mere six months from now)
will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis...The
collapse of U.S. real economy means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery:
private and public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public services closing
down."
February 2008 -
Self-powered fabrics - Scientists in the US have developed novel brush-like fibres that
generate electrical energy from movement.
Weaving them into a material could allow designers to create "smart" clothes which harness
body movement to power portable electronic gadgets.
The materials could be used in tents or other structures to harness wind energy. The
technology could also find a use in healthcare.
Energy generating knee brace -
US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from
human movements.
The adapted knee brace can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from
one minute of walking.
The first people to benefit could be amputees who are being fitted with increasingly
sophisticated prosthetics.
Using a series of gears, the knee brace assists the hamstring in slowing the body just before
the foot hits the ground, whilst simultaneously generating electricity.
Tests of the 1.6kg device produced an average of 5 watts of electricity from a slow walk.
The knee brace is the latest development in a field known as "energy harvesting".
The field seeks to develop devices and mechanisms to recover otherwise-wasted energy and
convert it into useful electrical energy.
"We're pretty effective batteries. In our fat we store the equivalent of about a 1,000kg
battery."
A light weight, slim-line version of the knee brace is "about 18 months away, so it's not
science fiction far in the future stuff."
5-seat car that runs on air - An engineer has promised that within a year he will start
selling a car that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all.
It will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks built into the chassis.
The tanks can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes - much quicker than
a battery car.
The designers say on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120mpg. Tata is the only
big firm they'll license to sell the car - and they are limited to India. For the rest of the
world they hope to persuade hundreds of investors to set up their own factories, making the
car from 80% locally-sourced materials.
Underwater car - a Swiss company says it has created the world's first truly submersible
car - and it's a convertible.
It will be unveiled at next month's Geneva Auto Show.
"sQuba'' can fly underwater at a depth of 10 metres.
"We always want to do cars that are outrageous, which nobody has done before. So we thought,
let's make a car dive. For safety reasons we have built the vehicle as an open car so that
the occupants can get out quickly in an emergency."
(photo)
Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor
has predicted.
Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains
to make them more intelligent. Machines and humans will eventually merge through devices
implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.
"We're already a human machine civilisation, we use our technology to expand our physical
and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that."
Nanobots will "make us smarter, remember things better and automatically go into full
emergent virtual reality environments through the nervous system".
Blue
roses - The Japanese company that created the world's first genetically modified blue
roses will start selling them next year in Japan.
"As its price may be a bit high, we are targeting demand for luxurious cut flowers, such as
for gifts."
The exact price and commercial name for the blue rose have not been decided.
The company is growing the rose experimentally in Australia and the United States to get
approval for sales, but no timing has been set for commercial launches there.
It created the flowers by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of the blue pigment
Delphinidin in pansies. The pigment does not exist naturally in roses.
Pacific floating rubbish dump 'bigger than U.S.' - the world's largest rubbish dump, or
the Pacific plastic soup, is starting to alarm scientists with its ever-growing size and
possible impact on human health.
It is a vast area of plastic debris and other flotsam drifting in the northern Pacific Ocean,
held there by swirling ocean currents.
The "patch" is in fact two massive, linked areas of circulating rubbish.
The waste forms in what are called tropical gyres - areas where the oceans slowly circulate
due to extreme high pressure systems and where there is little wind.
Although the boundaries change, it stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the coast of
California, across the northern Pacific to near the coast of Japan.
"It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."
There are about 100 million tonnes of plastic circulating in the northern Pacific - or about
2.5% of all plastic items made since 1950.
About 20% of the junk is thought to come from marine craft, while the rest originates from
countries around the Pacific like Mexico and China.
January 2008 -
January 2008 -
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,
have withdrawn from treaties with the US.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the
five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights
activist Russell Means said.
A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said
they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of
the US, some of them more than 150 years old.
Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota,
Montana and Wyoming.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would
be tax-free - provided residents renounce their US citizenship.
Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp
slowdown in business investment and a "perfect storm" for consumers as the housing slump
spreads.
The credit crunch has started to inflict serious damage on US companies.
"Slipping sales and tightening credit are pushing companies into liquidation mode,
especially in motor vehicles." The foreclosure rate on residential mortgages has reached a
19-year high of 5.59% in the third quarter, while the glut of unsold properties will lead
to a 40% crash in housing construction.
Like Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers, the bank no longer believes Asia and Europe will
be able to come to the rescue as America slows. US demand is likely to contract by 1pc each
quarter for the first nine months of 2008, but the picture could be far worse if the
Federal Reserve fails to slash rates fast enough. Morgan Stanley is the first major Wall
Street bank to warn that it is may now be too late to stop a recession, though most have
shifted to an ultra-cautious stance in recent weeks. The collapse of the US commercial
paper market has now continued for seventeen weeks, suggesting a "fundamental deleveraging
of the banking system."
A forecast made by Denmark-based Saxo Bank - chaos will take a grip on the world in
2008. Oil prices will skyrocket to 175 dollars per barrel, the Chinese market will collapse
by 40 percent, whereas the U.S. will suffer a 25-percent setback. All this will happen
because of the mortgage crisis in the USA which already slows down the U.S. economy. The
bank has its forecast on the new U.S. president too. The bank predicts that Ron Paul, the
Texan Republican, will take the office in 2008.
With more and more species threatened with extinction by the flood that is today’s
global economic juggernaut, we may be the first generation in human history that literally
must act like Noah — to save the last pairs of a wide range of species.
Unlike Noah, though, we’re also the ones causing The Flood, as more and more forests,
fisheries, rivers and fertile soils are gobbled up for development.
The world is rightly focused on climate change. But if we don’t have a strategy for
reducing global carbon emissions and preserving biodiversity, we could end up in a very bad
place, like in a crazy rush into corn ethanol, and palm oil for biodiesel, without enough
regard for their effect on the natural world.
“If we don’t plan well, we could find ourselves with a healthy climate on a dead planet.”
For so many years, we have been taught that life is a trade-off: healthy people with lots
of jobs or healthy forests with lots of gibbons — you can’t have both.
But the truth is you have to have both. If you don’t, you’ll eventually end up with
neither, and then it will be too late even for Noah.
Nature already feeling climate impact - "A hell of a lot of species are in big
trouble."
Wild salmon extinct in a decade - Parasitic sea lice found in salmon farms are driving
nearby populations
of wild salmon toward local extinction.
Artifical blood vessels -
Scientists are nearer the creation of tiny artificial blood vessels after growing miniscule
tubes out of stem cells.
Cocaine vaccine - Two U.S. researchers are working on a cocaine vaccine they
hope will become the first-ever medication to treat people hooked on
the drug.
Russian Railways want tiny robots to replace humans in difficult maintenance work, and
they want Russian-made androids that can dance and talk.
They have bought eight Russian robots for testing. Seven are 35-centimetres high, and the
eighth is 1.4 metres tall and weighs 70 kilograms.
The plan is to "build special robot models that can replace humans in particularly
difficult work for railways."
The robots can inspect parts of trains that are difficult for humans to access.
Futuristic jet packs could be sold to the masses as early as next year, with a company
already taking orders for "personal flying machines".
Jet Pack International in the US is planning to release a $226,060 jet pack next year which
could travel 16km without refuelling.
“We are developing a consumer model… our dream is to make this affordable to the average
person. Everyone wants things to evolve to the point of The Jetsons, and I think it could.
I could see (consumers) flying from work to home, within a certain limit.”
Human evolution is speeding up - Contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds that
human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, research analysis
suggested that the process of natural selection has sped up.
The world's residents are increasingly genetically diverse thanks to the rapidly
accelerating pace of human evolution. The huge explosion in our numbers in the past 40,000
years, since Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa to other continents, has resulted in a
much faster pace of evolution compared to the previous six million years.
The pace of change has increased 100-fold in modern times compared to our distant past, and
most notably since the Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, and has led to increasing diversification
between the races.
"We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were
different from Neanderthals."
"The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations,
as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease." "Human races
are evolving away from each other. Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but
almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not
merging into a single, mixed humanity."
November 26, 2007 -
Astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the Universe by simply looking at
it, according to a theory reported in the latest edition of New Scientist.
The novel idea is being aired by two US physicists, who attack the notion that the
universe, believed to have been created in the "Big Bang'' some 13.7 billion years ago,
will go on, well, forever.
In fact, the poor old cosmos is in a rather delicate state, they say.
Until recently, a common idea was that the energy unleashed in the Big Bang happened when a
"false vacuum'' - a bubble of high energy with repulsive gravity - broke down into a safe,
zero-energy "ordinary'' vacuum.
But recent evidence has emerged that places a cosmic question-mark over this cosy thought.
For one thing, cosmologists have discovered that the Universe is still expanding.
And, they believe, a strange, yet-to-be-detected form of energy called dark energy pervades
the universe, which would explain why the sum of all the visible sources of energy fall way
short of what should be out there.
Dark energy, goes the thinking, is a result of the Big Bang and is accelerating the
universe's expansion.
If so, the universe is not in a nice, stable zero-vacuum state but simply another "false
vacuum'' state that may abruptly decay again - and with cataclysmic consequences.
The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the universe, "wiping the slate
clean".
The good news is: the longer the universe survives, the better the chance that it will
mature into a stable state. We are just beyond the crucial switching point.
The bad news is: the quantum effect, a truly weird aspect of physics that says whenever we
observe or measure something, we reset its clock.
Measurements of light from supernovae in 1998 that provided the first evidence of dark
energy may have reset the decay clock of the "false vacuum'' back to zero, back before the
switching point and to a time when the risk of catastrophic decay was greater than now.
"Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life
expectancy of the universe. We may have snatched away the possibility of long-term survival
for our universe and made it more likely it will decay."
The claim is contested by other astrophysicists: "The fact that we are still here means
this can't have happened yet."
Babies watching social interaction reach out approvingly to individuals who help others
but shun bullies who obstruct someone trying to complete a task.
The ability to size people up quickly based on the way they treat each other is an
essential skill for adults.
But this is the first study to conclude that pre-verbal infants are able to make similar
judgements and act on them.
The experiments at Yale University, involving tots aged six and 10 months, also suggest
that this capacity is a survival skill acquired through evolution and may serve as the
foundation for moral thought and action.
The Federal Reserve expects economic growth to slow sharply next year, and policy
makers there are worried that even this forecast may prove too optimistic.
The chances of a global "growth recession", where world growth dips to below 2 per
cent, are about one in three next year, according to economists at Germany's biggest bank
Deutsche Bank.
Human skin cells have been reprogrammed by two groups of scientists to mimic embryonic
stem cells with the potential to become any tissue in the body.
The breakthrough promises a plentiful new source of cells for use in research into new
treatments for many diseases.
Until now only cells taken from embryos were thought to have an unlimited capacity to
become any of the 220 types of cell in the human body.
Crucially, it could mean that such research is no longer dependent on using cells from
human embryos, which has proved highly controversial. "It is relatively easy to grow an
entire plant from a small cutting, something that seems inconceivable in humans.
Yet this study brings us tantalisingly close to using skin cells to grow many different
types of human tissues."
The Internet is nearing capacity - Increasing internet access and new
capacity-intensive uses like
streaming, interactive videos and shared music files are pushing the
system toward gridlock, a U.S. study warns.
Climatologists may have the explanation for Typhoon “Mina” (Mitag) swinging away from
the Bicol Region of the Philippines last weekend, but to Bicolanos, the answer was simple
enough: Mina veered because of the power of prayer.
For more than 48 hours, as Mina threatened the region with its center winds of 175
kilometers per hour, radio stations in Sorsogon City were swamped with text messages urging
people to pray hard so that the howler would spare their province and the region.
The typhoon was hardly moving last Friday but late that night, “surprisingly, it changed
direction.” Bicolanos then began praying the typhoon would not cause too much damage in the
provinces of Aurora and Isabela, which were next to face Mina’s fury. Sorsogon's Governor
said prayers had long been proven to be a powerful tool in warding off evil and calamities.
November 19, 2007 -
Plants genetically engineered to make fish oils offer a new approach to improving diet,
say UK scientists.
Experiments have proved that crops containing genes from marine organisms are able to
produce omega 3 fatty acids normally found in oily fish.
Adding the oil to animal feed would create omega 3-rich meat, milk and eggs. Concerns over
dwindling fish stocks and marine pollution led researchers to seek an alternative source of
long chain omega 3 fatty acids.
Scientists say they may be on the brink of translating the thoughts of a man who can no
longer speak into words after a pioneering experiment.
Electrodes have been implanted in the brain of a man who has been "locked in" - conscious
but paralysed - since a car crash eight years ago.
Now, New Scientist magazine reports, they are to use the signals he generates to create
speech software. "There is a huge difference between a technique like this, which is able
to pick up signals the subject wants to be picked up, and being able to delve deep into the
mind. It's very exciting that we are starting to be able to translate some basic thoughts,
but we are lot further away from a universal mind reading machine than some people hoped -
or feared - we may be five years ago."
At least 30 members of a Russian doomsday cult have barricaded themselves in a remote
cave to await the end of the world and are threatening to commit suicide if police
intervene. They are thought to have taken food and fuel supplies in with them and Russian
television pictures from the scene showed smoke or steam coming out of a hole in the
snow-covered ravine where it was built.
They say: "The church is doing a bad job, the end of the world is coming soon and we are
all saving ourselves".
Media reports said the cult members believed the world would end sometime in May next year.
Police expected them to emerge when their supplies ran out.
After decades of state-enforced atheism under Soviet rule, many Russians and other
ex-Soviet nationals have come under the influence of homegrown and foreign sects.
Many Russians have refused new passports and taxpayers' personal identification numbers,
saying the figures contained “satanic” combinations of numbers.
Lexacat's Guide to the Doom - "And crawling on the planet's face, Some insects called
the human race.... Lost in time and lost in space and meaning."
The Smartest Futurist On Earth -
If legendary inventor Ray Kurzweil is right, the future will be a lot
brighter - and weirder - than you think.
In a couple of decades
we'll have cell-sized, brain-enhancing robots circulating through our
bloodstream and we'll be able to upload a person's consciousness into a
computer.
Kurzweil invented the flatbed
scanner, the first true electric piano, and large-vocabulary
speech-recognition software.
The magic
that has enabled all his innovations has been the science of pattern
recognition.
After half a lifetime studying trends in technological change, he believes
he's found a pattern that allows him to see into the future with a high
degree of accuracy. The secret is something he calls the Law of Accelerating
Returns, and the basic idea is that the power of technology is expanding at
an exponential rate. Mankind is on the cusp of a radically accelerating era
of change unlike anything we have ever seen, he says, and almost more
extreme than we can imagine.
And if you're a Baby Boomer with the right fitness plan (for Kurzweil that
involves over 200 supplement pills a day plus intravenous treatments once a
week), you may just live long enough to live forever.
By the time a child born today graduates from college, Kurzweil believes,
poverty, disease, and reliance on fossil fuels should be a thing of the
past. Most of us (even most
of his fellow scientists) fail to see the world changing exponentially
because we are "stuck in the intuitive linear view."
By
2027, he predicts, computers will surpass humans in intelligence; by 2045 or
so, we will reach the Singularity, a moment when technology is advancing so
rapidly that "strictly biological" humans will be unable to comprehend it.
"We are the species that goes beyond our potential," he
says. "Merging with our technology is the next stage in our evolution."
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November 12, 2007 -
Banks worldwide may lose as much as $400 billion from subprime mortgages, as at least
one in four of the risky home loans go into default.
The chip industry's unrelenting quest to build smaller, faster microchips has taken
another step forward.
Chip-maker Intel has launched a range of processors, known as Penryn, which will power the
next generation of PCs.
The tiny chips contain a novel material and have features just 45 nanometres (billionths of
a metre) wide.
The PC processor in the line-up of 16 chips packs 820 million of the tiny switches into an
area little bigger than a postage stamp.
"Had we used the same transistors that we used in our chips 15 to 20 years ago, the chip
would be about the size of a two-storey building."
UFOs - A group of former pilots and government officials has called on the US
government to re-open an investigation into claims of UFO sightings.
Project Blue Book, run by the US Air Force, was stopped in the late 1960s.
The group, which includes former military officers from seven countries, all say they have
seen a UFO or have conducted research into the phenomenon.
The group say the apparent sightings of hovering orbs, glowing lights and high-speed
spacecraft are a national security concern and should no longer be dismissed.
Invisible Submarines - Scientists are already making progress in developing real-world
invisibility cloaks. Now, Navy-funded Duke University researchers are applying some of the
same concepts to sound. One day, perhaps, it could make a sub invisible to sonar signals -
and impossible to spot.
The key to both projects are metamaterials - composites than can be structured to let
electromagnetic waves flow around them, rather than reflecting those those waves back.
"In two dimensions, acoustic waves behave like electromagnetic waves" in a way that would
"allow someone to build an acoustic cloaking device," theoretically. But it wouldn't work
three dimensions, "so presumably such a cloak would only hide a submarine from another
submarine at the same depth, not one that was sending sonar upward or downward."
The personal computer's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome
monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like
pocket-size computers, advanced internet-connected game consoles and digital video
recorders with terabytes of memory.
Japan's PC market is already shrinking, leading analysts to wonder whether Japan will
become the first major market to see a decline in personal computer use some 25 years after
it revolutionized household electronics — and whether this could be the picture of things
to come in other countries.
Overall PC shipments in Japan have fallen for five consecutive quarters, the first ever
drawn-out decline in PC sales in a key market. The trend shows no signs of letting up.
"In Japan, kids now grow up using mobile phones, not PCs. The future of PCs isn't bright."
Though sales in the United States are slowing too, Asia is a key growth area, with
second-quarter sales jumping 21.9 per cent this year.
More than 50 per cent of Japanese send e-mail and browse the internet from their mobile
phones.
The slide has made PC manufacturers desperate to maintain their presence in Japanese homes.
Recent desktop PCs look more like audiovisual equipment — or even colourful art objects —
than computers.
Sony Corp.'s desktop computers have folded up to become clocks, and its latest version even
hangs on the wall. Laptops in a new Sony line are adorned with illustrations from hip
designers like ZAnPon.
Sony's latest PCs come with a powerful program that can take photos and video clips, and
automatically edit them into a slideshow set to music.
October 29, 2007 -
Bigfoot? - a photograph taken by a hunter in Pennsylvania has reignited debate over
the existence of Bigfoot. The hunter claims to have taken the pictures using a camera hung
from a tree with an automatic trigger. (photo)
Massive rise in Europe GM crops -
The area planted with genetically modified crops in Europe has grown by 77% since last
year.
New nerves grown from stem cells taken from a patient's fat could be available by 2011,
say researchers.
A simple blood test to predict Alzheimer's may be just two years away after a
breakthrough by Australian researchers that drastically improves disease detection.
Birth defects in Chinese infants have soared nearly 40% since 2001, a government report
said, and officials linked the rise to China's worsening environmental degradation.
Silverware and cups are being made from potatoes and corn.
Car toilet - If you're stuck in traffic when Mother Nature calls, Japan's Kaneko Sangyo
Co has developed the loo for you.
The manufacturer of plastic car accessories has a new portable toilet for cars.
“The commode will come in handy during major disasters such as earthquakes or when you are
caught in a traffic jam.”
Drivers simply assemble the cardboard toilet bowl, fit a water-absorbent sheet inside and
draw a curtain around.
The product is small enough to fit inside a suitcase.
Prospective customers will have to hang on until November 15, when the firm begins selling
the new product online.
Super-strong body armor in sight - A new type of carbon fibre, developed at the
University of Cambridge, could be woven into super-strong body armor for the military and
law enforcement.
The researchers say their material is already several times stronger, tougher and stiffer
than fibres currently used to make protective armour.
The lightweight fibre, made up of millions of tiny carbon nanotubes, is starting to reveal
exciting properties.
Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders of carbon just one atom thick.
The new material could also find applications in the area of hi-tech "smart" clothing,
bomb-proof refuse bins, flexible solar panels, and, eventually, as a replacement for copper
wire in transmitting electrical power and signals.
U.S. Air Force advanced technologies will enable them to own the weather. The
Pentagon's top meteorologists believe the United States will be ready to fight - and win -
a weather war.
A study, titled "Weather As A Force Multiplier: Owning The Weather In 2025," envisions
future generals having at their disposal an impressive weather-control arsenal for tactical
operations. These weapons would include unmanned stealth aircraft that could seed clouds
above massing troops with fine particles of heat-absorbing carbon. This next-generation
cloud-seeding technique would, in turn, produce localized flooding and create mud, which
has been the bane of all of history's armies. Airborne lasers would cause lightning to
discharge over the airframes of attack and surveillance aircraft. Other lasers would fire
at fog banks, clearing a temporary flight path to high-value targets, such as command
posts. In addition, still more powerful microwave transmitters would heat the ionosphere,
altering its reflective properties in ways that would disrupt communications among enemy
field commanders.
They estimate that by 2015 supercomputer and atmosphere-monitoring technologies will have
advanced to the point where military planners will know exactly what sort of weather to
expect over an operations area throughout the course of a campaign lasting several weeks.
The great leap forward, however, is expected to occur between 2015 and 2025, spurred on
largely by a growing global population that will put increasing pressure on the worldwide
food and drinkable water supplies. "These pressures [will] prompt governments and/or other
organizations who are able to capitalize on the technological advances of the previous 20
years to pursue a highly accurate and reasonably precise weather-modification capability."
"Our vision is that by 2025 the military could influence the weather on a mesoscale
[theater-wide] or microscale [immediate local area] to achieve operational capabilities."
(this is an article from 1997)
October 15, 2007 -
Fiery image of Pope John Paul? -
Believers say they have snapped the image of the late Pope John Paul II in a bonfire.
The fiery figure, being hailed as Pope John Paul II making an appearance beyond the grave,
was spotted during a ceremony in Poland to mark the second anniversary of his death.
The pictures were being broadcast continuously on Italian TV and also posted on religious
websites. (photo)
Humans will be marrying robots by 2050 an artificial intelligence researcher has
claimed.
Robots will become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people
will fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them.
Psychologists have identified roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, and
almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships.
"For instance, one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in
personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable. Another reason people are more
likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that's programmable
too."
A researcher said Massachusetts would be the first jurisdiction to legalise human-robot
marriage.
"Massachusetts is more liberal than most other jurisdictions in the United States and has
been at the forefront of same-sex marriage. There's also a lot of high-tech research
there."
"If you ask me if every human will want to marry a robot, my answer is probably not. But
will there be a subset of people?"
E.T. - An ambitious project to search for signs of extraterrestrial
intelligence in outer space began on Thursday with the activation of a
new radio telescope array in California.
SELF-COOLING CLOTHES may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but for one Japanese
company they are not only good business but a way to help the environment.
Shirts and jackets made by Kuchou-fuku - literally “air-conditioned clothes” - keep the
wearer comfortable even in sweltering heat while using one-50th of the energy of a small
air conditioner.
“Until now, air-conditioning implied cooling the entire room. Now, we can cool just the
body."
Two small fans sewn into the back of each garment and powered by a pocket-sized
rechargeable battery pack circulate air across the wearer's skin, evaporating perspiration
and keeping temperatures down.
Because the fans puff out the garments with air, they give wearers a deceptively portly
look.
October 8, 2007 -
Online worlds to be Artifical Intelligence incubators -
Artificial intelligences could soon be living and learning inside online worlds such as Second Life. Researchers at Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds.
Initially the AIs will be embodied in pets that will get smarter by interacting with the avatars controlled by their human owners.
Novamente said it eventually aimed to create more sophisticated avatars such as talking parrots and even babies. "Robots have a lot of disadvantages, we have not solved all the problems of getting them to move around and see the world. It's a lot more practical to control virtual robots in simulated worlds than real robots."
Robot nurses -
If you grow old in Japan, expect to be served food by a robot, ride a
voice-recognition wheelchair or even possibly hire a nurse in a robotic
suit, all examples of cutting-edge technology to care for the
country's rapidly greying population.
Drone aircraft - The U.S. is preparing to use unmanned drone airplanes for surveillance
of Manitoba, Canada's border with Minnesota and North Dakota.
New life form created - A DNA researcher "has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory
chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth."
The new species is made from an artificial chromosome constructed by a team of 20 leading
scientists.
The chromosome is transplanted into a living host cell where it then takes control of the cell,
effectively changing it into a different species. So the life form itself isn’t completely 100%
artificial, per se, but since its genetic makeup is based on an artificially created DNA
structure that controls the cell, it can be categorized as man-made since DNA is the building
block from which all life is created and maintained.
With it, bacteria could be created to soak up carbon dioxide, which could help in the fight against global
warming. Most people would agree that’s a good thing. New life-saving drugs could also be
artificially created — a good thing as well. However, artificially-created bacteria could also
be used to make things like biological weapons.
The sky’s the limit, actually, as they have created a "chassis on which you could build almost anything."
While intentions seem benevolent at this point, something that might make people a
bit nervous is that the creator has applied to patent the synthetic bacterium. The idea that something that
can be used to create just about anything else can be legally owned and controlled by a single
human being is terrifying at best.
One in seven adults is reluctant to have children and one in four puts off planning for the
future because of world troubles, according to a survey.
For 70% of people terrorism is their greatest fear.
Immigration concerns worried 58% of people, with 38% saying they had fears over climate change
and 23% fearing a natural disaster.
September 18, 2007 -
Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. In most cases, the earth itself appears to have become life's worst enemy in a previously unimagined way. And current human activities may be putting the biosphere at risk once again. Five times in the past 500 million years most of the world's life-forms have simply ceased to exist. A new type of evidence reveals that the earth itself can, and probably did, exterminate its own inhabitants. A massive extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). Today with CO2 around 385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century and conditions that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place.
So we have about 200 years before WE go extinct, unless we change our ways.
Space junk threatens lives - Human security and technologies - from cell phones to weather forecasts - are more at risk than ever from anti-satellite weapons and space junk, new research says.
An anti-satellite test by China in January, and increased US opposition to restrictions on space weapons, were cited as two main global threats.
30 nations now have the ability to shoot down satellites.
"If we don't keep space as a sanctuary...once an arms race begins in space, all those satellites become very vulnerable...You wouldn't be able to have cell phones, Blackberries, pagers, the kind of television you have now."
The number of objects in Earth orbit have increased steadily; today there are an estimated 35 million pieces of space debris. 90 percent of 13,000 orbiting objects that are large enough to damage or destroy a spacecraft are space debris.
'Non-sticky' chewing gum -
British researchers say they have cracked a sticky problem which scientists have been chewing over for years by inventing gum which is easily removable from shoes, pavements and hair.
Near- and far-sighted people and others with astigmatism or cataracts may soon be able to throw away their glasses for good thanks to a new artificial lens.
The new Acrysol Toric intraocular lens is surgically implanted, its tacky nature allowing it to adhere directly to the eye capsule.
Not only can it be used to correct minor eye problems, it also corrects more serious astigmatism, which results in distorted vision, or even cataracts.
September 10, 2007 -
A person's entire life could one day be recorded by a network of intelligent sensors, according to a senior scientist.
By 2057, there could be at least 1 million devices for every UK resident. "More aggressive" calculations suggest there could be 20 million sensors per person.
A 2002 study calculated there were around 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK, one for every 14 people.
Predicted advances in storage and cameras coupled with decreasing costs would allow this explosion.
But the amount of personal data that could be collected would lead to difficult ethical dilemmas.
"Maybe the first time you know you are pregnant is when a targeted piece of advertising comes through on your computer screen offering you some baby clothes because somehow the smart toilet, or some other aspect of your environment, leaked that information."
Already some researchers at Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and MIT have developed devices that record a person's every move.
An MIT researcher is already recording his son's life.
"We imagine by 2057 our motorways, rivers and coastal defences, farms, businesses, homes and neighbourhoods and bodies will all be highly instrumented...We have some real choices that we can make over the next few years about how much we benefit from all this information...or how much it presents some sort of dark future for us." Advances in technology and a more complete understanding of physics would lead to a new breed of devices that are "too small to see, that permeate your body, permeate the space in which we exist, record everything, know everything about you, transmit your reputation wherever you go...These kinds of things will be possible, whether we permit them, and which societies will permit them and which will not, and how this will polarise things remains completely unplottable."
Did the great flood of Noah's generation really occur thousands of years ago? A team on board the "Mediterranean Explorer" recently headed to the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey, the site where historians believe the great biblical flood occurred. They believe they have found evidence to substantiate what is written in the Bible.
"We found that indeed a flood happened around that time. From core samples, we see that a flood broke through the natural barrier separating the Mediterranean Sea and the freshwater Black Sea, bringing with it seashells that only grow in a marine environment. There was no doubt that it was a fast flood - one that covered an expanse four times the size of Israel. It might not have been Noah, as it is written in the Bible, but we believe people in that region had to build boats in order to save their animals from drowning. We think that the ones who survived were fishermen - they already had the boats."
It sounds like science fiction, but a molecular probe has been developed that can illuminate
cancer cells by setting them aglow.
Despite daunting challenges posed by global warming, water, energy, unemployment and terrorism, the world faces a brighter future with fewer wars.
"Although great human tragedies like Iraq and Darfur dominate the news, the vast majority of the world is living in peace, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade," said the 2007 State of the Future report published by a global think tank.
The number of African conflicts fell from a peak of 16 in 2002 to five in 2005 and that the number of refugees around the world is falling.
HIV/AIDS in Africa has begun to level off and could begin to actually decrease over the next few years although it continues to spread rapidly in Eastern Europe and in Central and South Asia. Among other global bright spots, the report cited higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, increased literacy and increases in gross domestic products per capita and in the number of Internet users.
But it warned that unless key trans-national challenges, including the gap between rich and poor, new or remerging diseases and organised crime, are met, "the future could be bleak, marred by lack of water and arable land, mass migrations, turbulent climates, economic chaos and other disasters".
Two percent of people own 50 percent of the world's wealth, while the poorest 50 percent own only one percent.
The income of the richest 225 people in the world equals that of the poorest 2.7 billion or 40 percent of the global population.
U.S. CEOs earn in a day what workers make in a year -
Chief executive officers of big U.S. companies earned roughly as much
each day last year as the average American production worker did in 12
months.
August 28, 2007 -
The risk of massive defaults on subprime mortgages and heavy debts now poses a bigger threat to U.S. economic prosperity than terrorism, a panel of US business economists says.
Healing a broken heart - A 15-year-old girl has become the first Canadian to have an artificial heart removed after her own heart healed itself.
Potato-powered walkman on the way - Japanese technological giant Sony, hoping to be eco-friendly, has developed a prototype battery cell that generates electricity from carbohydrates and sugar.
The test cells had achieved output of 50 milliwatts, enough to play music on a Walkman.
In a demonstration, a Sony employee poured a sugary sports drink to power a music player and speakers. Sugar batteries will biodegrade and the source material can be found in plants around the world.
A"Spider-man" suit allowing wearers to scale vertical walls could one day be a reality, according to a study. Natural technology used by spiders and geckos could help a human climb the side of a building or hang upside down from a roof. A real Spiderman suit must demonstrate three properties.
Firstly, and most obviously, it must be able to demonstrate strong adhesive properties. Secondly, the suit must be able to detach easily from a surface after it has stuck. Thirdly, the suit must, to some degree, be able to clean itself.
The latter requirement is considered important because dirt particles could get in the way, interfering with the adhesive properties of the suit.
There are many interesting applications for adhesive suits, in areas ranging from space exploration to defence. The work could also aid the design of gloves and shoes for window cleaners working on tall skyscrapers.
But people would probably suffer from muscle fatigue if they tried to stick to a wall for many hours.
August 20, 2007 -
A school uniform maker in England is considering adding satellite tracking devices to its clothing range so parents will always know where their children are.
Interactive furniture that changes colour depending on who sits on it is put on show by Japanese researchers.
On display at the Siggraph show, the Fuwapica table and chairs use sensors embedded in the table-top to work out the colour of items placed upon it.
The colour of the stools then change to match the colour of whatever has been placed on the sensitive table-top.
Sensors in the stools also work out the weight of anyone sat on them - heavier people are treated to darker shades.
The colours are also made to pulse lighter and darker at about the same tempo of human breathing in a bid to make the stools seem more life-like.
Placing many objects on the table-top makes the system mix and merge colours to match the shades seen in the collection of artefacts.
The designers suggest that people can change the colour of the chairs to match their mood.
The Fuwapica furniture draws on the country's ancient notions that gods inhabit every manmade artefact, be it chopsticks, dishes or tables.
The designers say that instead of furniture being inert and silent, it should be given a chance to interact with the people that use it.
Paper battery -
U.S. researchers say they have invented a super lightweight, flexible, biodegradable battery in the form of a piece of paper.
August 6, 2007 -
Let couples design their children, says top ethicist.
Couples should be able to design the characteristics of children - including personality traits -
during IVF treatment. Couples seeking IVF should have the right to give their future-child
“greater opportunities” through genetic manipulation.
An IVF clinic in Sydney had offered couples the choice of their future child’s sex, but that
choice is now banned in Australia.
Determining a child’s hair and eye colour through genetic manipulation is still possible.
Now that cigarette smoke no longer masks the smell of body odour and stale beer, British pubs
are beginning to pump sweeter smells into their establishments. Some pubs are testing pumping in
perfume smells of leather, freshly cut grass and ocean breeze fragrance in its premises since a
ban on smoking in enclosed public space began in England on July 1.
A nightclub chain has already started pumping scent onto dance floors, which are also covered by
the ban.
July 30, 2007 -
Possible Attack on the U.S. Within Ninety Days - A veteran Israeli Intelligence expert said in recent media interviews that his sources on terror plots directed at the United States indicate that multiple attacks on our homeland are in the final stages of preparation. "It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could happen in the next few months...What they’re going to do is hit six, seven or eight cities simultaneously to show sophistication and really hit the public. This time...it will not only be big cities. They’re going to try to hit rural America."
HUMAN TAGGING - Legislators in the Indonesian province of Papua are debating whether to approve a bill allowing microchips to be implanted in people with HIV.
The measure has been put forward as a way of preventing the spread of HIV in the Indonesian province.
But the move is facing stiff opposition from health workers.
About 2.4% of Papuans are known to be carrying the virus, and infection rates in the province are estimated to be 15 times the national average.
Microchips could provide a means of tracking people who continued to infect others.
As well as calling for the introduction of microchips, the bill also suggests mandatory testing of every resident in Papua.
Parliamentarians are reported to have discussed tattooing those found to be carrying the virus.
Papua's Aids commission has rejected the bill. It said it was not involved in the drafting process and that the proposals were illogical and inhuman.
Marking out anyone carrying the virus, it said, would contravene their human rights.
In Kenya a self-proclaimed prophet resurfaced in the country and called for national repentance to avert what he termed as a massive earthquake that is set to hit Nairobi and its environs. He claimed God had revealed to him in a dream that a massive earthquake would bring down buildings in the capital city and leave an unknown number of people dead or injured.
“I have seen buildings tumbling down, people being pulled out of rubble and helicopters hovering around in search of survivors.”
But in a quick rebuttal, the Catholic Archbishop warned Kenyans against apocalyptic messages.
And geological experts have down-played chances of recent tremors in Kenya and Tanzania leading to a major earthquake. The tremors' epicentre has been traced to volcanic activity on Mt Ol donyo Lengai.
July 23, 2007 -
Scientists have genetically modified goats to make a drug in their milk that protects against deadly nerve agents such as sarin and VX.
These poisons are known collectively as organophosphates - a group of chemicals that also includes some pesticides used in farming.
Researchers inserted DNA for making the human form of butyrylcholinesterase into a "vector" molecule. This vector is then introduced into a goat embryo.
This allows the human gene to be incorporated into the goat's DNA sequence. The resulting female animals, all healthy, produced large quantities of butyrylcholinesterase in their milk.
The high yields are partly down to "control elements" - stretches of DNA added, along with the human gene, to the vector molecule.
These control elements regulate how much of the enzyme the goat produces and ensure that most of it is produced in the milk, rather than in other tissues.
The commercial name given to the butyrylcholinesterase enzyme is Protexia.
Protexia was more effective than the combination of the drugs atropine and 2-PAM currently carried by soldiers for protection against nerve agents.
"Those (older) drugs get cleared from the blood very rapidly. Even if the soldier were to survive, they would have very severe neurological damage. With Protexia, you would survive and be able to go back on the battlefield."
The product is still several years from entering use; it needs to pass a safety trial and seek approvals from the US government.
A dead humpback whale with a tongue swollen to the size of a small car has been found on the rocky shores of Admiralty Island in southeast Alaska. Scientists believe that a collision forced air into the male humpback's tongue and caused it to swell. A ship could be responsible for the death of the 40-foot (12-meter) whale, which was found last week.
"It is certainly possible that it was a ship strike, but that's still inconclusive."
(photo)
A low-cost $100 laptop, designed for children in developing countries, has finally gone into mass production.
The remarkable adhesive abilities of geckos and mussels have been combined to create "geckel" glue.
July 16, 2007 -
GIANT BADGERS - The Iraqi port city of Basra, already prey to a nasty turf war between rival militia factions, has now been gripped by a scary rumour – giant badgers are stalking the streets by night, eating humans.
The animals were allegedly released into the area by British forces.
Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel the rumour.
Iraqi scientists have attempted to calm things down. However, the story has spread like wildfire in the streets of the city and the villages round about.
Others say the animals are not a new post-war arrival in the region.
“These animals appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known as Al-Ghirayri and locally as Al-Girta. Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific.”
Not everybody is convinced.
“I believe this animal appeared following a raid to the region by the British forces.” Locals are quick to blame the British troops for almost any calamity that befalls the area – including an apparent plague of vicious badgers with long claws and powerful jaws.
The animals are thought to be a kind of honey badger – melivora capensis – which can be fierce but are not usually dangerous to humans unless provoked.
“They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They're nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don't stalk humans and carry them back to their lair.”
Cell phone video of the badgers circulating in Basra shows a stocky skunk-like animal with long front claws. “It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey. It runs so quickly.”
The honey badger, or ratel, is known as a brave predator capable of killing a cobra. It weighs up to 14kg.
“I saw it three days ago at night attacking animals. It even ate a cow. It tore the cow up piece by piece. I tried to shoot it with my gun but it ran away into the orchards."
The US could approve cloned animals for use as food in two to three years, according to experts.
But cloned meat is unlikely to appear on supermarket shelves in Britain or elsewhere in Europe anytime soon. Following a five year study, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a draft ruling last year that meat and milk from cloned animals was safe for human consumption.
However, researchers said there needed to be more research on some of the stillbirths and abnormalities which are more common in cloned animals compared to those born naturally.
The efficiency of the cloning process remains a key issue in the viability of commercialisation. Early attempts at cloning produced very few viable clones; most of the animals died during gestation or shortly after birth.
HYDROGEN CARS - could be in production within 5 years.
A relatively quick-and-easy answer to foreign oil dependence and
automotive greenhouse gas emissions is circling the grounds every day
at Orlando International Airport in Florida, according to a top Ford
Motor Co. official.
WALLS YOU CAN WALK THROUGH -
Architects and engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
have designed a building with walls made from water.
A new project known as Galaxy Zoo is calling on members of the public to log on to its website and help classify one million galaxies.
The hope is that about 30,000 people might take part in a project that could help reveal whether our existing models of the Universe are correct.
Computers users undergo a three-minute online tutorial and are then allocated a series of images and asked to decide whether each one shows a spiral or an elliptical galaxy.
If it's a spiral galaxy, they're asked to decide which way it appears to be rotating.
"These images were taken by a robotic telescope and processed automatically, so the odds are that when you log on, that first galaxy you see will be one that no human has seen before."
"Some people have argued that galaxies are rotating all in agreement with each other, not randomly as we'd expect. We want people to classify the galaxies according to which way they're rotating and I'll be able to go and see if there's anything bizarre going on. If there are any patterns that we're not expecting, it could really turn up some surprises."
July 9, 2007 -
Science can finally prove what Buddhists have sworn by for centuries - meditation really does sharpen and clear the brain.
Tests by researchers have revealed that as people go further into a deep meditative state, their brain rhythms shift into a pattern of focus.
This supports long-standing beliefs that the practice can improve concentration levels and alertness in daily activities.
Meditation was developed more than 2500 years ago as a way to explore consciousness and a discipline to help people achieve a more beneficial state of mind.
A first-in-the-world robotic 'family' rescue system, inspired by recent terrorist acts and earthquake activity worldwide, aims to reduce the number of human casualties experienced by search and rescue teams when attempting to recover victims.
"Often rescue is delayed by many critical hours until a search team arrives."
Urban search and rescue comprises a three-tier system affectionately referred to as the "grandmother, mother and daughter" components, each with distinct responsibilities.
The multi-terrain grandmother acts as a platform to launch the mother as a base station.
The mother then releases numerous disposable daughters, armed with microphones, heat sensors, carbon dioxide detectors and motion detectors.
The daughters have the ability to burrow and crawl through narrow crevices at the disaster site.
Once the daughter detects a trapped person, it sends a "found" signal to the mother, which then uses its own GPS system, along with information of the last known position of the daughter, to give the grandmother a set of "best guesses" for the location of trapped victims.
"The daughter robots are innovative in that they are completely disposable.
No attempt will be made to recover these." (photo)
Syria threatens Israeli War over Golan Heights -
Syria has made a threat of war with Israel, demanding that the Golan Heights be handed over by August or September.
An unnamed Syrian official told the New York Sun, “Syria passed repeated messages to the U.S. that we demand the return of the Golan either through negotiations or through war. If the Golan is not in our hands by August or September, we will be poised to launch resistance, including raids and attacks against Jewish positions (in the Golan Heights).”
On Monday, the Syrian government also urged Syrians to leave Lebanon “ahead of an expected military ‘eruption’ expected to take place next week.”
The United States could deploy a system to protect an area ranging from Washington to Boston from sea-based cruise-missile attacks within 14 months at a cost of "several billion dollars," a top Lockheed Martin Corp. executive said.
The technologies needed to track, identify and destroy any such missiles launched from ships off the U.S. coastline already existed or were under development.
"It just requires a will to do it."
Subsonic cruise missiles are not difficult to destroy. But it is essential to track them quickly, as they can reach a target within 11 minutes, and to destroy them over water to avoid damage from the debris. Short-range cruise missiles are easy to hide, relatively cheap, and can carry a variety of warheads such as biological or chemical weapons, according to some experts.
Lockheed had high hopes for its $148 million High Altitude Airship program, for airships priced at just under $40 million apiece that can hover and monitor a 500-square-mile area for about two months.
But the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency cut the program's budget sharply in fiscal year 2007 and requested no funding at all for 2008. Lockheed convinced lawmakers to reinstate the 2007 funds, and there is an amendment to provide a small sum in 2008, but the program's outlook is grim at this point. Tens of thousands of cruise missiles are available globally and 20 countries can build them. Cruise missiles were first fired at U.S. troops during the war in Iraq. But the United States itself, with 12,000 miles of coastline, provides ample targets for extremist groups, especially since cruise missiles can be easily be stowed inside a standard cargo container.
The U.S. military has plans to protect troops, ships and overseas bases from cruise missile attacks, but it has no plan and no budget to protect the U.S. coastline.
Consumers will see the beginnings of a serious global oil and gas
shortage within two years, the International Energy Agency warned
Monday.
July 2, 2007 -
You are needed on Tuesday, July 17 to sit and 'Fire the Grid' - positive words of hope, love and desire for change will power this one hour "plan which will allow us to more fully connect to the earth grid and begin the healing of this planet. Together we will reset Mother Earth with a bio-electric "SURGE OF LOVE" from humanity. When we sit in meditation simultaneously and fire the Grid for one hour, we will unite the globe and connect all the regions of the earth simultaneously. In the process, we will unite our souls in love, peace, harmony and collective cooperation for a better world for our people, today and in the future."
Armed robots -
RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality this week as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled 'bots for the police and the Pentagon.
By adding Taser weapons to robots it already makes for the military, iRobot Corporation says it hopes to give soldiers and law enforcement a defensive, non-lethal tool. The system isn't entirely unprecedented. Foster-Miller Incorporated already offers a version of its track-wheeled Talon robot that can be fitted with a Taser with laser-dot aiming capability.
"It is not the first step in that direction, but I think at some point toward the end of the next decade, you're going to start seeing RoboCops, or a Terminator. We may see autonomous robots capable of inflicting lethal force."
Russia's first robot cop is now patrolling the streets of the Urals city of Perm.
The prototype of a robot built at a Moscow institute is so far the only one of its kind in the country.
With a shape somewhere between a bomb and an egg, the robot bears no resemblance to its two-legged, gun-blazing cousin in the Hollywood Robocop films.
But at 250kg, a height of 180cm and a form specially designed to make him almost impossible to manhandle, this robot is no pushover.
The machine boasts five cameras, a help button for passersby, and the ability to issue simple instructions, such as asking someone drinking alcohol on the street to take their booze indoors.
SCOTLAND - A new hospital being built at Larbert in Stirlingshire will be the first in the UK to use a fleet of robots to transport goods and equipment.
The robots will run along separate corridors and use magnetic strips or infra red to find their way around.
The technology is similar to that already used in car plants and can be found in hospitals in France and Japan.
Hospital porters will still be needed to transport patients, while the robots free them from arduous or dirty tasks. "Lots of materials require to get to the right place at the right time. Dirty materials, linens and so on require to be taken away and its a huge logistic exercise."
Work on the new hospital is expected to be completed by December 2009.
The world's fastest commercial supercomputer has been launched by computer giant IBM.
Blue Gene/P is three times more potent than the current fastest machine, also built by IBM.
The latest number cruncher is capable of operating at so called "petaflop" speeds - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
It is approximately 100,000 times more powerful than a PC. The first machine has been bought by the US government and will be installed at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois later this year.
Two further machines are planned for US laboratories and a fourth has been bought by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.
The ultra powerful machines will be used for complex simulations to study everything from particle physics to nanotechnology.
Symptoms of mental retardation and autism have been reversed for the first time in laboratory mice.
US scientists created mice that showed symptoms of Fragile X Syndrome - a leading cause of mental retardation and autism in humans.
They then reversed symptoms of the condition by inhibiting the action of an enzyme in the brain.
Analysis showed that not only were structural abnormalities in connections between brain cells righted, proper electrical communication was restored between the cells.
A massive underground facility has been built in Russia. Hidden inside Yamantau mountain in the Beloretsk area of the southern Urals, the project involved the creation of a huge complex, served by a railroad, a highway, and thousands of workers. This is a huge underground city. It is believed to be large enough to house 60,000 persons, with a special air filtration system designed to withstand a nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Enough food and water is believed to be stored at the site to sustain the entire underground population for months on end.
Even if many Russian cities are destroyed, the military and political elite sheltered inside the mountain could survive.
Is this a "doomsday" shelter?
Did the Hopi go underground to survive a catastrophe event thousands of years earlier? Should we be going underground also?"
June 25, 2007 -
The conditions which led up to the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Asian crises in the 1990s are reflected in the current environment. The risk of a 1930s-style economic slump has been heightened by "euphoric" markets tapping cheap global credit, one of the world's pre-eminent financial institutions has said.
The BIS, the central bankers' bank, pointed to a confluence of worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
China may have repeated the disastrous errors made by Japan in the 1980s when Tokyo let rip with excess liquidity. "The Chinese economy seems to be demonstrating very similar, disquieting symptoms."
It said China's growth was "unstable, unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable."
Is global warming a galactic phenomenon? - temperatures have been seen to rise on virtually all the planets in our system. This seems quite apart from any local phenomenon like greenhouse gases etc.
Here are some changes being watched by scientists:
* A growth of dark spots on Pluto.
* Reporting of auroras on Saturn.
* Reporting of Uranus and Neptune polar shifts, and the abrupt large-scale growth of Uranus' magnetosphere intensity.
* A change in light intensity and light spot dynamics on Neptune.
* The doubling of the magnetic field intensity on Jupiter (based upon 1992 data), and a series of new states and processes observed on this planet as an aftermath of a series of explosions in July 1994 [caused by "Comet" SL-9]. The appearance of large auroral anomalies and a change of the Jupiter - Io system of currents.
* A series of Martian atmosphere transformations increasing its biosphere quality. In particularly, a cloudy growth in the equator area and an unusual growth of ozone concentration.
* A first stage atmosphere generation on the Moon, where a growing natrium atmosphere is detected that reaches 9,000 km in height.
* Significant physical, chemical and optical changes observed on Venus; an inversion of dark and light spots detected for the first time, and a sharp decrease of sulfur-containing gases in its atmosphere.
June 18, 2007 -
Native American leaders are speaking out forcefully about the danger of climate change.
Members of six tribes recently gathered near the Baker River in New Hampshire's White Mountains for a sacred ceremony honoring "Earth Mother." Talking Hawk pointed to the river's tea-colored water as proof that the overwhelming amount of pollution humans have produced has caused changes around the globe. "It's August color. It's not normal. Earth Mother is fighting back - not only from the four winds but also from underneath. Scientists call it global warming. We call it Earth Mother getting angry." In California, Minnesota, New Mexico, and elsewhere, tribes have used some of their casino profits to start alternative or renewable energy projects, including biomass-fueled power plants. "American Natives have been telling us all along that this was going to happen to the earth. They were telling us hundreds of years ago that what we were doing (to the environment) would come back and haunt us. They have been proven right." Talking Hawk prayed for those who would suffer from natural disasters ahead.
"Think of the people who will die in the cleansing of Earth Mother, all around the world," he said. "Think of their spirits."
Using genetic modifications, researchers at Oregon State University have created full-grown trees no taller than a green thumb.
Working with poplar trees, the scientists created smaller versions that were from about five to 10 centimetres tall after two years of growth. Shorter trees created by traditional cross-breeding are already widely used in fruit tree orchards, as they make harvesting easier and more cost effective.
The researchers suggest that the genetically modified trees would be unlikely to spread as they would have a hard time competing for sunshine with the taller normal or wild trees.
The European Space Agency is looking for people who would like to go on a pretend trip to Mars — for about a year and a half.
The 520-day experiment involves a crew of six living in sealed modules at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow.
Weightlessness and radiation are not included, but the simulated out-of-planet experience offers isolation, confinement, crowding, lack of privacy, high workload, boredom with available food, and limited communication with family, friends and mission control.
While a monetary amount is not specified, the agency says anyone successfully completing the entire study will "receive fixed compensation that is in line with international standards for participation in clinical studies."
Applications, from serious candidates only, are being accepted until Sept. 30. The mission is expected to begin as early as May 2008.
June 11, 2007 -
Robot Teddy Bear - The US military is developing a robot with a teddy bear-style head to help
carry injured soldiers away from the battlefield.
The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot (BEAR) can scoop up even the heaviest of casualties and
transport them over long distances over rough terrain.
The "friendly appearance" of the robot is designed to put the wounded at ease. The 6ft tall Bear can
cross bumpy ground without toppling thanks to a combination of gyroscopes and computer controlled
motors to maintain balance. The Bear is controlled remotely and has cameras and microphones through
which an operator sees and hears.
It is expected to be ready for testing within five years.
(photo)
Scientists have created a material that lets damaged plastic objects repair themselves in a manner
similar to the way in which living things heal.
The material uses a web of channels akin to fine blood vessels to transport a repairing liquid beneath
the surface or skin of the object.
When the epoxy resin top layer sustains damage, the fluid oozes to the surface and reacts with
catalysts in the damaged skin to repair the cracks.
Big-foot - Authorities in India will investigate claims by terrified villagers that "bigfoot"-type
hairy giants are roaming the jungles of the remote northeast.
The creatures have apparently been spoken of, and occasionally spotted, for years, but a rise in the
number of sightings over the past month has prompted authorities to look into the matter further.
The bizarre sightings have reportedly been made in the Garo hills area of Meghalaya state, close to
the borders with Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Villagers have dubbed the mysterious creatures "Mande Burung", or Jungle Man.
One local farmer claimed he had seen an entire family of the creatures -
possibly a lowland relative of the Himalayan Yeti, or perhaps a distant cousin of the North American
bigfoot known as Sasquatch, or Australia's Yowie.
"The sight was frightening: two adults and two smaller ones, huge and bulky, furry. Their heads looked
as if they were wearing caps, and their colour was blackish-brown."
The four "monsters" were about 30 to 40m away from him as he looked for firewood in a forest area.
"The four of them quietly vanished into the undergrowth."
Such claims are treated sceptically by scientists because of lack of solid physical proof, but there
are scientists and researchers who believe they could exist.
Some of the more intrepid villagers have begun their own investigation, venturing into the forest in
the hopes of spotting the hairy creatures.
During the Middle Ages the stars, planets and celestial events exerted a strong influence over
people’s beliefs and lives.
Unusual weather patterns were often thought to be ill omens. In Constantinople, the spring of 1453 was
particularly ominous, with unseasonably heavy rains and hailstorms.
As Mehmet II laid siege to Istanbul in 1453, he had the numerical advantage, with over 80,000 troops
under his command, compared to the less than 10,000 of Constantine XI. However, the city had the
strongest fortifications found anywhere in the world at the time. After centuries of repelling attacks
from Arabs, Avars, Persians, Bulgars and Russians, only the army of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 had
ever managed to breach the walls. Even though they were vastly outnumbered, the Byzantines felt
confident that yet another assault could be repelled. What they could not have known was that half a
world away, a volcanic eruption of Kuwae in the South Pacific had upset the climate worldwide.
Scientists suspect that the fallout from the eruption caused the weather disturbances that took place
during the siege of the city.
A widely believed legend of the time stated that the city would never fall unless the moon itself gave
a sign. On May 22 the moon did give a sign as it went into an almost four-hour-long eclipse, with only
a small, crescent-shaped sliver of light shining. Surely the besieged Byzantines would have seen this
as an omen signaling their downfall, while the Ottomans would have seen it as an indicator of their
imminent victory.
Even more unusual weather occurred a few days later while the Byzantines held a religious procession
through the city, hoping for divine intervention. The procession was halted due to unseasonable
downpours and pelting hail. The next day the city was engulfed in a dense fog. Mehmet II took
advantage of the fog and had his troops light fires in front of every tent, which cast an eerie red
glow across the already frightened city. The firelight reflecting off the low-lying clouds made the
citizens fear that the city was on fire.
The climatic events of the previous days seriously eroded the morale of the city defenders. On May 29,
Mehmet II launched a series of attacks and within four hours one of the city gates was breached and
the battle for the city was in the hands of the Ottomans. Scientists theorize that the volcanic
fallout was probably responsible for the eerie weather in Constantinople that fateful spring. As the
volcanic cloud, with its high sulfur content, spread across the world, it surely would have darkened
the skies above the city. The unseasonably cold temperatures and heavy rains can also be attributed to
the cloud of dust particles from half a world away. Through a combination of the superb strategic
planning of Mehmet II and unpredictable weather patterns, the downfall of the Byzantine Empire was at
hand.
June 4, 2007 -
Low-fat milk cows - New Zealand scientists say they've achieved a world first by breeding cows
that naturally produce low-fat milk.
The herd is the offspring of a cow named Marge, who was born with a genetic quirk said to make her
milk much lower in fat than other cows. Enough cows have been bred to show the trait could be
inherited.
It is believed only Marge and two of her offspring have the trait so far. It is estimated that the
milk won't hit supermarket shelves for another five to 10 years.
Talking paper - Digital paper that can speak to you has been created by scientists.
Researchers from Mid Sweden University have constructed an interactive paper billboard that emits
recorded sound in response to a user's touch. The team envisages that the technology could be used by
advertisers, and in the future, it might even be employed for product packaging.
"One interesting idea would be to use it on cigarette packaging, so instead of having a written
message warning you of danger to your health, you would have a spoken one."
Film-thin, bendable video display -
In the race for ever-thinner displays for TVs, cellphones and other
gadgets, Sony may have developed one to beat them all - a razor-thin
display that bends like paper while showing full-colour video.
Infra-red grills for backyard barbecues -
For a quarter-century, chefs at pricey steakhouses have been searing
meat on burners that cook with infrared energy. Now affordable
high-temperature technology may be coming to a backyard barbecue near
you.
Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions
without the need to raise and slaughter animals.
“We're trying to make meat without having to kill animals."
Although it is in its early stages, the idea is to replace harvesting meat from livestock with a
process that eliminates the need for animal feed, transport, land use and the methane expelled by
animals, which all hurt the environment.
“Keeping animals just to eat them is in fact not so good for the environment. Animals need to grow, and animals produce many things that you do not eat.”
Asked whether people would be repulsed by lab-grown meat, the researchers believe there would be
enough demand, as much of what people eat today is already extensively processed, from the feed that
animals consume, to the conditions under which they are raised, and the preparation of meat after
slaughter.
“I can imagine that some people will have problems with it. People might think it is artificial.
But some people might not realise that some part of the meat they eat is artificial.”
Research is also under way in the US, including one experiment funded by NASA to see
whether meat can be grown for astronauts during long space missions.
But it will take years before meat grown in labs and eventually factories reaches supermarket shelves.
And so far, the team has managed to grow only thin layers of cells that bear no
resemblance to pork chops.
Under the process, researchers first isolate muscle stem cells, which have the ability to grow and
multiply into muscle cells.
Then they stimulate the cells to develop, give them nutrients and exercise them with electric current
to build bulk.
After perfecting that process, scientists will then need to figure out how to layer tissues to add
more bulk, since meat grown in petri dishes lacks the blood vessels needed to deliver nutrients
through thick muscle fibres.
And then there is the question of fat, to add flavour.
May 21, 2007 -
Environmental activists are building a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat - where the biblical vessel is said to have landed after the great flood - in an appeal for action on global warming.
The ark will be revealed in a ceremony on May 31, a day after Greenpeace activists climb the mountain and call on world leaders to take action to tackle climate change.
"Climate change is real, it's happening now and unless world leaders take urgent, decisive and far-reaching action, the next decades will see human misery on a scale not experienced in modern times. Those leaders have a mandate from the people ... to massively cut greenhouse gas emissions and to do it now." (photo)
A new report has reviewed controversial scientific evidence that religious or spiritual prayer can boost a believer's emotional and physical wellbeing. "Irrespective of whether scientists seek to attribute the benefits of prayer to the relaxation response, placebo or positive emotions, the most common reason people turn to prayer is their belief in a divine being that transcends the natural universe and hears and responds to prayer."
Hundreds of devotees are flocking to see a "sweating" statue of a Hindu deity in Nepal. The sweating is seen as a bad omen that usually precedes disasters or crises for the royal family.
The centuries-old statue of Bhimeshwor - the Hindu god of trade and commerce - has been perspiring since Saturday evening, drawing hundreds to a temple 70km east of Kathmandu.
The idol sweated just before a royal massacre in 2001, when an apparently drunken crown prince went on a shooting rampage that killed nine royals, including the king and queen.
Local media also said the idol broke into a sweat prior to a massive earthquake in 1934, as well as during massive street protests last year that saw the current king, Gyanendra, forced to relinquish direct rule.
Britain risks becoming 'Orwellian society' -
An increase in closed-circuit television cameras risks turning Britain into an Orwellian society.
"If it's in our villages, are we really moving towards an Orwellian situation with cameras on every street corner?" There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain – one for every 14 people. Every person is caught on camera about 300 times each day.
DNA is taken from anyone arrested even if they are not charged. Britain's DNA database is the largest in the world, with 3.6 million samples. Britain is becoming a "surveillance society" where cameras, credit card analysis and travel movements are used to track people's lives minute by minute.
Human animal hybrid embryos - United Kingdom Ministers have bowed to pressure to allow the creation of human animal hybrid embryos for research.
Hybrid embryos will only be allowed for research into serious disease and scientists will require a licence.
The draft bill allows the creation of human embryos that have been physically mixed with one or more animal cells. However, true animal-animal hybrids, made by the fusion of sperm and eggs, remain outlawed. And in all cases it would be illegal to allow embryos to grow for more than 14 days or be implanted into a womb.
Opponents questioned the ethics of using human cells in this way. "This is a highly controversial and terrifying proposal, which has little justification in science and even less in ethics.
Endorsement by the UK government will elicit horror in Europe and right across the wider world."
Iraq faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation, a highly respected UK foreign policy think tank says.
Its report says the Iraqi government is now largely powerless and irrelevant in many parts of the country.
It warns there is not one war but many local civil wars, and urges a major change in US and British strategy, such as consulting Iraq's neighbours more. The break-up of Iraq is becoming increasingly likely.
In large parts of the country, the Iraqi government is powerless, as rival factions struggle for local supremacy.
The paper accuses each of Iraq's major neighbouring states - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - of having reasons "for seeing the instability there continue, and each uses different methods to influence developments".
The American security surge is moving violence to different areas, but is not overcoming it.
Hair loss in humans might not be irreversible, suggest scientists who have helped create new hair cells on the skin of mice.
All-in-one appliance powered by sound - It sounds like a great idea: a stove, fridge and electrical source all rolled into one appliance and running on biomass fuel such as wood.
And sound waves are at the heart of the device.
Thermoacoustics is the generation of sound waves by unevenly heating gas. As the hotter, expanded gas travels to the cooler areas, pressure sound waves are generated that in turn can be used to power mechanical devices.
The process can also be reversed in refrigeration units: The sound waves can be used to power a pump to extract heat.
The technology, which has been known for centuries, has been used in such advanced technology as power sources and cooling units for spacecraft and satellites.
The aim of the consortium of universities behind the project is to mass produce the appliances within five years.
A device for predicting the onset of labour weeks in advance -
The Prediction of Labour Onset (Polo) tool uses electrical signals in the womb to determine the date of birth.
It could predict childbirth up to two weeks in advance.
Developers hope it will prevent mothers who wrongly believe they are in labour being admitted to hospital.
MAY 14, 2007 -
Scientists have developed an artificial plastic blood which could act as a substitute in emergencies.
The creation could be a huge advantage in war zones.
The artificial blood is light to carry, does not need to be kept cool and can be kept for longer.
The new blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body.
Scientists have developed a vaccine to curb high blood pressure, an advance over pills that cause side effects. They have successfully tested the vaccine on people and plan to stage further tests with an improved formula, hoping to market the product within five years.
The injection uses a protein found in limpets, a common shellfish, to attack angiotensin, a hormone produced by the liver which raises blood pressure by narrowing arteries.
The vaccine would require just three injections with a booster every six months.
Beware Nigerian money order/open a bank account/work-at-home scams - More than 75% of people told by Australian police that they were the victims of an overseas investment scam ignored the advice and kept sending money.
Queensland victims had lost at least $18 million, but worse, the majority continued losing money after being told by police they were the victims of scams. The Queensland figures were estimated to be one-fifth of the national loss to such scams.
"76% continued to send millions of dollars after we told them they were participating in a scam." "We're contacting them out of the blue, if you like, and we're taking their dreams (of great wealth) and turning them into nightmares."
Many of the victims were well-educated, including doctors, lawyers, engineers and professors. None of the victims had received any money.
Many had attempted suicide, lost their wealth, lost friends, become estranged from their family, deceived partners, suffered divorce, or committed criminal offences to obtain more money.
More than a quarter of young adults in the United States are leading a drive away from traditional wired landline telephones, cutting the cord in favour of cellphones, U.S. government research suggests.
About one in four Americans ranging in age from 18 to 24 have cellphones only, as do 29 per cent of people ages 25 through 29.
Just 2 per cent of those 65 or older only have a cellphone.
"All those wireless adults are missed" in marketing and opinion surveys that rely on randomized phone calls to households with wired phones. Government and private polling organizations are left unable to collect data including for health surveys.
April 30, 2007 -
Smart Etch-A-Sketch? - A motion-sensitive laptop which can be controlled much like a Nintendo Wii remote is under development.
The tablet PC laptop has been adapted to respond to a user when moving the machine up or down, side to side, or forwards and backwards.
It is hoped the BT Balance system can help people with disabilities or the elderly, for whom using a keyboard or mouse can be difficult.
"PCs are still very complicated. We are interested in the older user who is slightly fearful of this technology. The PC, monitor and mouse puts them off." The system can be used to read through books or documents, turning pages with a simple flip of the monitor.
(photo)
Computers with wireless internet should not be placed on children's laps, says the head of the government's committee on mobile phone safety research.
Children should keep a safe distance from the embedded antennas.
"If you put a laptop straight on your lap and are using wi-fi, you could be around two centimetres from the transmitter, and receiving comparable exposure to that from a mobile phone...Since we advise that children should be discouraged from using mobile phones, we should also discourage children from placing their laptop on their lap when they are using wi-fi. "
Scientists 'reverse' memory loss - Mental stimulation and some drugs could help people with degenerative brain diseases regain memory, a study finds.
The flip of a switch could become all it takes to get a good night's sleep, according to a study.
Researchers have found a way to stimulate the slow waves typical of deep sleep by sending a harmless magnetic signal through the skulls of sleeping volunteers.
They said it could one day be used to help treat insomnia and for power naps where people would get the benefit of a full night's of sleep in just a few hours.
Koalas are likely to be extinct in urban areas within 20 years, and humans are largely to blame. The marsupials were being killed off by cars, dogs and a dwindling habitat. "If we don't wake up to ourselves and local councils don't wake up to themselves and we stop looking at the almighty dollar and look at the animals around us, we are going to lose our animal icons in 20 years. There's no ifs, or buts, but when."
Researchers 'shocked' at Agent Orange contamination in Vietnam - The dangerous herbicide Agent Orange is still contaminating soil and fish in Vietnam at an alarming rate.
Contamination levels in the area of Da Nang, a large coastal city in central Vietnam, were found to be 300 to 400 times higher than what is considered acceptable. If these levels were present in North America, action would be taken immediately.
New toys read brain waves -
Engineers at NeuroSky Inc. have big plans for brain wave-reading toys and video games. They say a simple Darth Vader game — a relatively crude biofeedback device cloaked in gimmicky garb — portends the coming of more sophisticated devices that could revolutionize the way people play. Video games could be made more mentally stimulating and realistic. It could even enable players to control video game characters or avatars in virtual worlds with nothing but their thoughts.
Adding biofeedback to Tiger Woods PGA Tour, for instance, could mean that only those players who muster Zen-like concentration could nail a putt. Toys with the most basic brain wave-reading technology are scheduled to debut later this year.
April 24, 2007 -
ROBOTS - Scientists have expressed concern about the use of autonomous decision-making robots, particularly for military use.
Autonomous robots are able to make decisions without human intervention. At a simple level, these can include robot vacuum cleaners that "decide" for themselves when to move from room to room or to head back to a base station to recharge. As they become more common, these machines could also have negative impacts on areas such as surveillance and elderly care, the roboticists warn. Samsung has developed a robotic sentry to guard the border between North and South Korea.
It is equipped with two cameras and a machine gun.
There could be more problems when robots moved from military to civil duties. "I can imagine a future where it is much cheaper to dump old people in big hospitals where machines care for them."
Robots are already being used in countries like Japan to take simple measurements, such as heart rate, from elderly patients.
Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, including housing and even "robo-healthcare".
Tiny "smart" devices that can be borne on the wind like dust particles could be carried in space probes to explore other planets, UK engineers say.
The devices would consist of a computer chip covered by a plastic sheath that can change shape when a voltage is applied, enabling it to be steered. Computer chips of the size and sophistication required to meet the challenge already exist.
Smart dust could be packed into the nose cones of planetary probes and then released into the atmospheres of planets, where they would be carried on the wind. For a planet like Mars, smart dust particles would each have to be the size of a grain of sand.
The particles could use wireless networking to form swarms.
"We envisage that most of the particles can only talk to their nearest neighbours but a few can communicate at much longer distances.
In our simulations, we have shown that a swarm of 50 dust particles can organise themselves into a star formation, even in turbulent wind."
The ability to fly in formation would allow the processing of data to be spread, or "distributed" between all the chips, and a collective signal to be beamed back to a "mothership".
Many other applications have been proposed for smart dust. One idea is to use particles to gather information on battlefields. Another idea involves mixing the particles into concrete to internally monitor the health of buildings and bridges.
Tiny robots powered by living muscle have been created by scientists.
The devices were formed by "growing" rat cells on microscopic silicon chips - growing muscle tissue onto tiny robotic skeletons.
Less than a millimetre long, the miniscule robots can move themselves without any external source of power.
The work is a dramatic example of the marriage of biotechnology with the tiny world of nanotechnology. Under a microscope, you can see the tiny, two-footed "bio-bots" crawl around.
A surgical robot that provides magnetic resonance images of the brain has been introduced in Calgary, Canada, where researchers called it a "milestone in medical technology."
British scientists are planning to see whether a Star Trek-style deflector shield could be built to protect astronauts from radiation.
Magnetic shields could be deployed around spacecraft and on the surfaces of planets to deflect harmful energised particles.
There are a variety of risks facing future space explorers, not least of which is the cancer-causing radiation encountered when missions venture beyond the protective magnetic envelope, or magnetosphere, which shields the Earth against these energetic particles.
Several countries' space agencies have announced their intentions to resume human exploration of the Solar System.
Chameleon clothes - An international group of researchers is working on a way to mass
produce a technology that could lead to clothes that display video or
change colour by pressing a button.
Inventors have created a soap infused with caffeine which helps users wake up in the morning. The soap, called Shower Shock, supplies the caffeine equivalent of two cups of coffee per wash, with the stimulant absorbed naturally through the skin.
Beijing's female poplar trees are to receive "sex change operations" to stop them from producing flying pollen that has worsened allergy and asthma problems.
While there are 300,000 poplar trees in China's capital, only some "female" trees are being injected with a "sex change" substance. The experiment aims to change their nature so no pollen will be produced,
Hospitals in Beijing have received increasing numbers of patients who suffer from asthma or allergies after inhaling the pollen, which blankets the city in a snowfall of white fluff.
It is not China's first attempt to alter nature.
The parched country also routinely seeds clouds to create rainfall, and state media has announced that meteorologists had created artificial snow in Tibet for the first time.
The world's first cloned dog will be mated with the world's second dog clone, in an experiment to see whether they can reproduce normally.
Fat-fighting baby formula - Plans to add a hormone which suppresses hunger to baby formula and other foods is unlikely to work say experts.
University of Buckingham researchers are looking at adding leptin to formula milk to curb future over-eating.
But experts said the work was "wildly optimistic science fiction" and questioned testing leptin on babies.
Babies fed with formula grow more quickly than breast-fed babies, and they have a higher risk of obesity as adults. Scientists have already carried out a study where leptin was given to pregnant rats, leading to a lifelong impact on their offspring's propensity to obesity.
Even those fed a fat-laden diet stayed slim, while offspring from untreated rats gained weight and developed diabetes.
"The supplemented milks are simply adding something back that was originally present - breast milk contains leptin and formula feeds don't." "The concept that adding something to a food that could permanently alter brain development is exciting but at the same time so scary that it would mean a wholly new approach about how such treatments can be tested and approved for use."
Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes.
A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia.
The mineral's chemical formula is sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide. "The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite."
The mineral cannot be called kryptonite under international nomenclature rules because it has nothing to do with krypton - a real element in the Periodic Table that takes the form of a gas. Instead, it will be formally named Jadarite (Jadar is the name of the place where the Serbian mine is located).
April 9, 2007 -
The virtual elimination of large sharks from coastal waters off
the US eastern seaboard has disturbed the marine ecosystem.
The massive over-fishing of the largest predatory sharks in the coastal
waters of the Atlantic over the past 30 years has led to an explosion
in the ray, skate and small shark species that they prey on, with
devastating effects for one of the organisms at the bottom of the food
chain.
"Large sharks have been functionally eliminated from the east coast of
the US, meaning that they can no longer perform their ecosystem role as
top predators. With fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon -
like cownose rays - have increased in numbers, and in turn, hordes of
cownose rays dining on bay scallops have wiped the scallops out.''
Several of the larger shark species in the northwest Atlantic are
verging on extinction. From 1970 to 2005 the numbers of scalloped
hammerhead and tiger sharks appear to have declined by more than 97
percent, while populations of bull, dusky and smooth hammerhead sharks
could be down as much as 99 percent. The growing demand for shark fins
and shark meat, particularly in Asia, has led to the rapid escalation
in shark-fishing.
Full body regeneration could become a reality in about 50 years -
While carrying out an unrelated experiment on immunity, a research team
noticed a strain of mice that rapidly closed holes punched in their
ears without any scarring. The holes were punched to identify mice more
easily over time. The lab is now trying to identify how the healing
takes place, and identify the genes involved in the trait.
If researchers can harness the approach and apply it to humans then
full body regeneration could become a reality in about 50
years.