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Science & Technology
archives: November-December 2004
- 30 December 2004
"The devastating earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on 26 December was so powerful that it has accelerated the Earth's rotation, geophysicists have declared. They estimate that the shockwave shortened the period of our planet's rotation by some three microseconds. The change was caused by a shift of mass towards the planet's centre, as the Indian Ocean's heavy tectonic plate lurched underneath Indonesia's one, say researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This caused the globe to rotate faster, in the same way that a spinning figure-skater accelerates by tucking in her arms. The blast literally rocked the world on its axis, add Richard Gross and his NASA colleagues. They estimate that Earth now tilts by an extra 2.5 centimetres in the wake of the jolt." Literally, an "earth-shaking" tragedy. Read more at Britain's Nature.com.
- 29 December 2004
"The sophistication of the human brain is not simply the result of steady evolution, according to new research. Instead, humans are truly privileged animals with brains that have developed in a type of extraordinarily fast evolution that is unique to the species. 'Simply put, evolution has been working very hard to produce us humans,' said Bruce Lahn, an assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 'Our study offers the first genetic evidence that humans occupy a unique position in the tree of life.' Professor Lahn's research, published this week in the journal Cell, suggests that humans evolved their cognitive abilities not owing to a few sporadic and accidental genetic mutations - as is the usual way with traits in living things - but rather from an enormous number of mutations in a short period of time, acquired though an intense selection process favouring complex cognitive abilities." Evolution may be working hard, but it wouldn't hurt if it worked a little harder. Read more on the brain at Britain's Guardian.
- 28 December 2004
"When Martin Tomasko, a UA astronomer, started designing the instrument that will serve as the eyes of the Huygens probe, he first fashioned a weighted block of metal to be used in a practice flight. Called 'bricks,' the weights are often used as placeholders during the development of instruments destined for space flight. Ideally, the scientist finishes the test model in time for the practice run, and swaps it out for the hunk of metal. 'My son and I used to joke about that,' Tomasko says, mimicking his son: 'Dad, you've got to finish that instrument. Don't let them fly the brick.' His son never got to know whether his dad had to fly the brick. It's still a mystery why 23-year-old Daniel died in 1995 while playing basketball - and Tomasko still swallows emotion when he talks about that part of his life. But he says his son's death, along with every other turn his life has taken since the early 1990s, is wrapped up in the Huygens probe." A fascinating story of a scientific quest at RedNova News.
- 27 December 2004
"A team of US physicists has proved a theorem that explains how our objective, common reality emerges from the subtle and sensitive quantum world. If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find? Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. Information about these states proliferates and gets imprinted on the environment. So observers coming along and looking at the environment in order to get a picture of the world tend to see the same 'preferred' states. If it wasn't for quantum darwinism, the researchers suggest in Physical Review Letters, the world would be very unpredictable: different people might see very different versions of it." The word "quantum" pops up all the time these days. Read the latest at Nature.com.
- 24 December 2004
"The official treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions hasn't gone into effect yet and already three countries are planning to build nearly 850 new coal-fired plants, which would pump up to five times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce. The magnitude of that imbalance is staggering. Environmentalists have long called the treaty a symbolic rather than practical victory in the fight against global warming. But even many of them do not appear aware of the coming tidal wave of greenhouse-gas emissions by nations not under Kyoto restrictions...The findings suggest that critics of the treaty, including the Bush administration, may be correct when they claim the treaty is hopelessly flawed because it doesn't limit emissions from the developing world. But they also suggest that the world is on the cusp of creating a huge new infrastructure that will pump out enormous amounts of CO2 for the next six decades." Is the symbolism of the Kyoto Protocol of 1999 enough to justify its support now? Mark Clayton tackles this controversy at Boston's Christian Science Monitor.
- 23 December 2004
"A reproductive research team in Chicago could have an answer to the ethical and scientific conundrums presented by the pursuit of stem-cell treatments. That's no small task considering it's a question the top minds in science and bioethics have been racking their brains to solve. Scientists at the Reproductive Genetics Institute, or RGI, believe they can derive high-quality embryonic stem cells from an early embryo without killing it. The approach would involve removing one cell from a very early embryo that has developed to about eight cells (called a morula), and deriving stem cells from that single cell. The embryo would still have the potential to develop into a human if implanted into a womb. The only thing preventing the scientists from trying the process is money, said Dr. Yury Verlinsky, director of RGI. 'No problem,' Verlinsky said of the technical challenge. 'I need funding. If you give me funding, I will be doing this.'" Ah yes, a common quest of the researcher. Read more on this possible breakthrough at Wired News.
- 22 December 2004
"More than 100,000 people who donated to a California blood bank may have parted with more than plasma. Delta Blood Bank sent a letter Friday to donors, warning them a computer that held their personal information had been stolen and advising them to take steps against identity theft and credit card fraud. 'On Dec. 10, 2004, a thief or thieves stole one of two computers available for donor registration at a mobile blood drive being conducted that day,' Delta CEO Benjamin Spindler wrote in the letter. 'This computer contained confidential information about you, including your name, address, date of birth and your Social Security number. We deeply regret that this has happened.' Identity theft has emerged one of the thorniest problems of the Internet age, and the threat has turned some missing laptops into potentially catastrophic security breaches." If it isn't one thing, it's another. Read more on this issue at News.com.
- 21 December 2004
"Air pollutants like ozone are fundamentally changing the way clouds form, by destroying organic compounds that usually coat airborne particles and slow droplet formation. This newly discovered mechanism could be having "large climate effects", according to the researchers who discovered it. The trouble is nobody knows whether the effect will speed up global warming or slow it down. The Earth is shaded by clouds, which help to moderate global warming. The new findings will add to concerns over how little we know about the processes by which they form, and how they are influenced by human activity. Clouds are already the biggest uncertainty in forecasting the pace of climate change." Recognizing that global warming is a serious problem is one thing, finding a solution is another. Read more on this issue at Britain's New Scientist.
- 20 December 2004
"Every now and again, some new technology comes along that’s applied to something so mundane, that the innovation itself almost gets lost. The same might be said about some sectors of nanotechnology -- textiles in particular. Now, nanotechnology is literally shaping the fabric of our lives by helping to create not just clothes that may never wear out, but smart shirts that track all kinds of physiological data -- everything from new military uniforms to the ultimate in home-health-care pajamas. Now, high fashion is meeting high tech -- in this case, at Nano-Tex in Emeryville, Calif. which has developed a new fabric that is showing up in Brooks Brothers shirts, Nordstrom ties, and travelsmith sports jackets." Learn more about these "smart textiles" at MSNBC.com.
- 17 December 2004
"The new American military is supposed to be light and fast on its feet, able to zip in and out of trouble spots without major sacrifices of troops or resources. Historians will ultimately decide whether this approach worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there's one definite bright spot: With a big boost from tiny technology, surgeons are dramatically reducing death rates by moving closer to the battlefield than ever before. In the old days, injured soldiers had to wait for all but the most basic care until they got to stand-alone surgical hospitals. Now, troops can quickly set up mini hospitals, complete with intensive-care units and operating 'rooms,' in a flash." Wired News examines the ways that new technologies are allowing battlefield medics to save unprecedented numbers of wounded soldiers.
- 16 December 2004
"Turkey leftovers will take on a whole new use after a Minnesota company finishes construction of a power plant fired by the birds' droppings. It may not be the total answer to relieving the United States' addiction to foreign oil, but the plant will burn 90 percent turkey dung and create clean power for 55,000 homes. Three poultry litter plants have already been built in England, but the Benson, Minnesota-based facility will be the first large-scale plant of its type in the U.S. and the largest in the world, according to operator Fibrominn, a subsidiary of power plant builder Homeland Renewable Energy, LLC of Boston. Turkey dung is prized over pig excrement and cow chips." Learn more in Yahoo News.
- 15 December 2004
"A group of scientists has built a $10 million device that mimics the magnetic fields surrounding the Earth and other planets. The scientists hope to use the device to understand how the Earth's protective magnetosphere works -- and possibly gain insights into how to make fusion a feasible energy source. This experiment is the first time a high-temperature magnetosphere has been constructed in a lab, said professor Michael Mauel, co-head of the experiment and chair of Columbia University's Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. The LDX is essentially a miniature magnetosphere -- the magnetic field surrounding the Earth that shields the planet from a steady bombardment of plasma (high-energy, ionized atoms) streaming from the sun." Learn more in Wired News.
- 14 December 2004
"We may never prevent oil spills, but advances in biotechnology are limiting the damage they inflict as scientists supercharge bacteria to rapidly devour petroleum. After an oil spill starts to spread, as occurred on Dec. 8 off the coast of Alaska the first actions to protect the environment are attempts to physically remove the oil and to block the slick from moving into sensitive areas...'It's a relatively low-tech area,' said Albert Venosa, senior research microbiologist for the Environmental Protection Agency. However, scientists including Venosa have been advancing the technology of bioremedial agents often used in the second wave of oil spill response. These bioengineered agents enhance the efficiency of naturally occurring bacteria that consume hydrocarbons such as petroleum and spit out carbon dioxide and water." Learn more about these "oil eating" bacteria in Wired News.
- 13 December 2004
"A new breed of wearable robotic vehicles that envelop drivers are being developed by Japanese car giant Toyota. The company's vision for the single passenger in the 21st Century involves the driver cruising by in a four-wheeled leaf-like device or strolling along encased in an egg-shaped cocoon that walks upright on two feet. Both these prototypes will be demonstrated, along with other concept vehicles and helper robots, at the Toyota stand at the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, in March 2005. The models are being positioned as so-called personal mobility devices, which have few limits." New personal "pod" vehicles were recently unveiled in Japan. Although the vehicles may never catch on, they could potentially change the nature of personal transport. Learn more in the BBC.com.
- 10 December 2004
"Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in 'weight'. Music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras laptops and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), a Toshiba study found. It found that more than 60% kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their devices, making the UK 'digitally fat'. 'Virtual weight' measurements are based on research by California Institute of Technology professor Roy Williams. He calculated physical comparisons for digital data in the mid-1990s. He worked out that one gigabyte (1,073,741,824 bytes) was the equivalent of a pick-up truck filled with paper. The amount of data people are squirreling away on their gadgets is clearly a sign that people are finding more things to do with their shiny things." Learn why one researcher worries that we are becoming "digitally obese", in the BBC.com.
- 9 December 2004
"Some Colombian drug growers are using genetically modified coca 'trees' to boost cocaine production dramatically, government officials say. Anti-drug operatives say they found new strains with yields eight times higher than normal coca plants. Higher yields could help explain why cocaine prices have stayed low despite US and Colombian air attacks on farms. Although official Colombian figures claim that the area under coca cultivation has halved since 2000, evidence suggests that coca planters have managed to maintain a net level of cultivation. German Manga, an assistant to the Colombian vice-president, told the BBC that planters were using new and sophisticated technology to maintain their levels of production." Some experts believe that Columbian drug growers are genetically modifying their crops in order to increase their coca yield. Learn more at the BBC.com.
- 8 December 2004
"Satellites are boosting humanitarian efforts in the conflict-torn Darfur region of Sudan. The European Space Agency (ESA) released observations representing the largest-scale use of satellites by Respond - a new consortium of European aid agencies - on Tuesday. Internal conflict with Arab militia called the Janjaweed - accused of attacking African tribes in Darfur - has forced an estimated 1.5 million people to flee their homes and take refuge in camps scattered throughout a region the size of France. Coordinating aid efforts between the camps can be extremely difficult, particularly during the rainy season, which began in August...The Respond project provides that crucial information by combining data from nine separate spacecraft, including ESA's Envisat, the largest Earth-observation spacecraft ever built." Learn more in the New Scientist.
- 7 December 2004
"The good news is that we may have figured out how to solve the moral problem that's been holding up stem-cell research. The bad news is that the solution will introduce a whole new kind of horror. That's the implication of this year's final two presentations to the President's Council on Bioethics. The first, by Drs. Donald Landry and Howard Zucker of Columbia University, proposes that we take stem cells from embryos at the same point at which we take organs from children and adults: right after they die...The second proposal, presented by council member William Hurlbut, is exactly the opposite. Hurlbut, an earnest young member of the council's conservative wing, has been working for two years on a scheme to end-run the problem of killing embryos. Instead of whining about the church's insistence on the continuity of personhood from embryo to adult, Hurlbut has seized on the point of discontinuity: the non-personhood of anything before or less than an embryo. If it isn't an embryo, it's fair game." Learn more in Slate.com.
- 6 December 2004
"For all the schools and parents who have together invested billions to give children a learning edge through the latest computer technology, a mammoth new study by German researchers brings some sobering news: Too much exposure to computers might spell trouble for the developing mind.From a sample of 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries, researchers at the University of Munich announced in November that performance in math and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well." Although they are hailed as teaching tools, a study warns that computers may actually hinder a child's learning. Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.
- 3 December 2004
"In a new review of cold fusion - the claim that energy can be generated by running electrical current through water - the Department of Energy released a report yesterday that says the evidence remains inconclusive, echoing a similar report 15 years ago. Over the past several months, 18 scientists reviewed research in cold fusion, and two-thirds of them did not find the evidence for nuclear reactions in the experiments convincing. Almost all of them, however, said that aspects of cold fusion merited consideration for further research. Cold fusion briefly appeared to promise an unlimited energy source in 1989 when Drs. B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah announced that they had generated fusion - the same process that powers the sun - in a tabletop experiment using a jar of water containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen." Learn more in the New York Times.
- 2 December 2004
"By some counts, the Internet turned 35 years old this fall. But far from entering middle age, it seems to be growing into a rebellious teenager who has no idea what he will be when he grows up.
It could become a safer, more secure medium running 1,000 times as fast as today. Or it could turn into a delinquent's paradise, where spam, scams, viruses, and pornography drive legitimate users away. The Internet, some observers say, could collapse in the next few years under the strain. Even if it survives, the soul of the Internet is up for grabs, other experts say. Growing concerns about security and commerce threaten its traditional openness." An article in the Christian Science Monitor explores the future of the internet.
- 1 December 2004
"Global thirst for crude oil keeps growing, despite the current high prices. Just how much oil does the world have left, and what will happen when demand begins to outstrip supply? Last month the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) released its World Energy Outlook 2004, a report detailing energy projections to 2030. The outlook's central message was optimistic. 'The Earth contains more than enough energy resources to meet demand for many decades to come,' Claude Mandil, IEA's executive director, told assembled press. 'The world is not running out of oil just yet.' However, Mandil also called for urgent policy responses to meet rising energy demand around the world and continued reliance on fossil fuels—issues he labeled 'deeply troubling.' Some experts express even greater concern than Mandil and caution that oil may run short much sooner than the IEA forecasts." Learn more in the National Geographic.
- 30 November 2004
"A government laboratory and a private company announced a $2.6 million project Monday to develop hydrogen in a nuclear reactor using a process with the potential to one day trim the country's reliance on fossil fuels. High temperature electrolysis could become economically feasible by using the next generation of nuclear reactors to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, said officials with Ceramatec Inc. and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. ' We have been able to show that we can produce hydrogen at commercially attractive rates in a very small unit and at conditions that are typical of a high temperature, helium-cooled reactor,' said laboratory researcher Steve Herring." A recent breakthrough and government funding has the potential to create low-cost hydrogen fuel. Learn more in Yahoo News.
- 29 November 2004
"Arctic people aim to team up with tropical islanders in a campaign against global warming, arguing that polar bears and palm-fringed beaches stand to suffer the most. The proposed alliance between some of the hottest and coldest parts of the globe will lobby against industrial nations like the US, which had refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases. 'We are two of the world's most vulnerable areas,' Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), said of the low-lying islands, at risk from rising sea levels, and the Arctic, where the ice is melting." Read about this unusual coalition at India's Economic Times.
- 26 November 2004
"Stanford bioethicist William Hurlbut's proposal for growing the equivalent of embryonic stem cells without creating a human embryo is not the only possible way to avoid the moral controversy that has surrounded the cells. In Worcester, Advanced Cell Technology is reviving work on a technique called parthenogenesis, in which an egg cell is stimulated to begin developing without being fertilized by sperm. Though this method of reproduction occurs commonly in insects, it does not occur naturally in mammals. But ACT scientists succeeded in getting an egg from a monkey to grow to the point where scientists could harvest embryonic stem cells. Because such a parthenote, as it is called, typically does not survive more than a few days, some scientists hope that it will not be seen as a potential life meriting ethical protection." The old saying, "necessity is the mother of invention", appears to remain valid today. It's a short article, but one to note, at the Boston Globe.
- 25 November 2004
"A double blow is coming for the opponents of genetically modified (GM) foods, from two of the world's big farming nations. China, where many farmers already grow GM cotton, is likely soon to authorise commercial growing of GM rice. And Brazil is close to setting up a mechanism that could legalise all GM crops. Brazil's farmers already plant lots of GM soya, especially in the far south where seed is easily smuggled in from Argentina. In theory this is illegal. But last month, well after planting had begun, it was authorised by presidential decree, as happened last year. The government knows it cannot enforce current law, and would face trouble if it tried." Read more at Britain's Economist.
- 24 November 2004
"A man-made flood is roaring through the Grand Canyon in a bold experiment to restore the sandbanks of the Colorado river and to save fish and plants that have been disappearing over the past 40 years. The water is being channelled into the river and down the canyon through four giant steel pipes, carrying badly needed natural sediment with it. The $3.7m (£2m) venture, supported by more than a dozen US government agencies and groups, ends tomorrow, but how well it works will not be known for months. About 50 scientists have already begun rafting down the river to study the immediate effects of the experiment and will continue to monitor it for the next 18 months." Learn more at the UK's Independent.
- 23 November 2004
"In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These are not outcasts from 'The Island of Dr. Moreau,' the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research. Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to developing animal fetuses. But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers above the work: How human must a chimera be before more stringent research rules should kick in?" Learn more at MSNBC.com.
- 22 November 2004
"For some people, writing a novel is a satisfying exercise in self-expression. For me, it's a hideous blend of psychoanalysis and cannibalism that is barely potent enough to overcome a series of towering avoidance mechanisms - including my own computer. Writers and computers nowadays are locked in such an enduringly dysfunctional embrace that it can be hard to tell us apart... Occasionally you hear of a Luddite novelist who shuns computers, but the truth is that most of us would be lost without them. If I rail and curse at mine, it is partly out of resentment at our miserable co-dependence. Imagine, then, the blow to my scribbler's vanity when I discovered a while back that computers might get along just fine without writers. This is not science fiction. With little fanfare and (so far) no appearances at Barnes & Noble, computers have started writing without us scribes." Learn more in the New York Times.
- 19 November 2004
"U.N. diplomats abandoned contentious efforts to draft a treaty that would outlaw human cloning and will likely settle for a weaker declaration that won't seek a comprehensive ban, officials said. The last-minute agreement on Thursday appeared to be a major blow to President Bush, who had called for a total ban on cloning when he spoke before the U.N. General Assembly in August. While there is near universal support among the United Nations' 191 members to ban reproductive cloning — the cloning of babies — countries have wrestled over whether to allow cloning for stem cell and other research. For more than a year, the General Assembly's legal committee has been wrestling with rival cloning resolutions. One, offered by Costa Rica, calls for the drafting of a treaty banning all forms of cloning. The other, from Belgium, would allow some cloning for science." Learn more in Yahoo News.
- 18 November 2004
"Anyone with a computer can now contribute to tackling some of the world's biggest humanitarian problems simply by leaving their machine logged on when not in use. This week saw the launch in New York of the World Community Grid, an initiative which aims to take advantage of the under-used power of business and home computers by recruiting them to analyze data for medical, social and environmental research. By accelerating the pace of that work, organizers say the World Community Grid could aid our understanding of the genetic codes that underlie diseases such as HIV and AIDS, Alzheimer's and cancer. The project is based on grid computing technology, which joins together individual computers via the Internet to create a large system with computational power far in excess of the world's most powerful supercomputers." Learn more at CNN.com.
- 17 November 2004
"Space scientists and entrepreneurs are envisioning much more than tourists taking pictures, and planting flags and footprints, as they plan humanity's off-world future. They also want to mine the solar system for its abundant natural resources to make space travel self-sustaining, and to generate profits for corporations back on Earth. The Cold War between the United States and the USSR drove engineers to work around the clock during the glory days of NASA's Apollo missions. 'But now the spark is global competition,' said Paul Spudis, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. 'We could draw on unlimited materials and energy for sustainable space exploration,' said Spudis. 'We will find new worlds, new markets and new growth.'" Learn more about the possible future of space exploration in Wired News.
- 16 November 2004
"Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University and a man who has wired up his nervous system to a computer and put an RFID chip in his arm, is looking forward to becoming a cyborg once again - but warned the day will come when computer viruses can infect humans as well as PCs. Speaking this week at Consult Hyperion's fifth Digital Identity Forum, Warwick said the time would come when those who weren't cyborgs would be considered the odd ones out. 'For those of you that want to stay human... you'll be a subspecies in the future,' he said. Warwick says the security problems that dog modern computing won't be much different from those that could plague the cyborgs of the future." A computer specialist believes that humans will soon connect their bodies to computers and, by extension, suffer from computer viruses. Learn more at Silicon.com.
- 15 November 2004
"Shock waves have been used for the first time to destroy a host of common food bacteria. If the technique can be perfected, it could one day be used instead of pasteurisation to sterilise baby foods, dairy products and fruit juices without spoiling their taste. The process is being developed by Achim Loske and colleagues at the Autonomous University of Mexico’s Centre for Applied Physics and Advanced Technology in Querétaro. Loske subjected vials of bacteria to shock waves in a device called an electrohydraulic generator, which generates shocks with pressures of up to 1000 atmospheres, accompanied by intense flashes of visible and ultraviolet light." Learn more about this new sterilization method in the New Scientist.
- 12 November 2004
"Whether they will venture south of the Thames in London after dark is unclear, but the makers of a British designed 'Jetpod' taxi, which they hope to introduce to British cities within five years, insist it will take you to your destination by the shortest route, at 350mph. The developer, Avcen, believes it can offer a flying taxi service which cruises at up to 750ft at little more than the cost of a black cab fare. Due to undergo 'proof of concept' test flights in the next 18 months, the £500,000 Jetpod would be able to travel the 24 miles from London to Woking in four minutes. The new aircraft would travel significantly faster than a helicopter and Avcen believes it could offer a flight from Heathrow to central London for less than £50." Learn more about these flying taxis in an article in the Independent, contributed by Future Brief reader, "Carda".
- 11 November 2004
"Scientists have determined that the ice in Greenland and the Arctic is melting so rapidly that much of it could be gone by the end of the century. The results could be catastrophic for polar people and animals, while low-lying lands as far away as Florida could be inundated by rising sea levels. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was released yesterday. It will be discussed by the Arctic Council at a meeting in Iceland today. The four-year study of the Arctic climate involved an international team of more than 300 scientists. They used a number of climate models and made a 'moderate estimate' of future emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are widely believed to be contributing to the recent warming trend of the Earth's climate." Learn more in the National Geographic.
- 10 November 2004
"The nation's 115 million home computers are brimming over with personal treasures - millions of photographs, music of every genre, college papers, the great American novel and, of course, mountains of e-mail messages. Yet no one has figured out how to preserve these electronic materials for the next decade, much less for the ages. Like junk e-mail, the problem of digital archiving, which seems straightforward, confounds even the experts. So dire and complex is the challenge of digital preservation in general that the Library of Congress has spent the last several years forming committees and issuing reports on the state of the nation's preparedness for digital preservation." Learn more about the challenges surrounding the preservation of digital material in the New York Times.
- 9 November 2004
"Dr. Keiji Fukuda is, by nature, composed. His voice is soft and measured. He rarely employs exclamations, never swears. At 49, Fukuda, the top influenza epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looks distinguished in a scruffy, academic way and reassuring. His face is unlined. His gray hair is close-cropped around his ears, making the top of his head rise like a pale dome above the timberline. He smiles often and gently. So when Keiji Fukuda admits to being as concerned as 'I have ever been,' people who know him start really worrying. In the past year, Fukuda has watched from his office in Atlanta as events overseas have seemed poised to spiral out of control. Between January and the end of October, 32 people have died from avian influenza in Vietnam and Thailand. Tens of millions of chickens have succumbed. Millions of others have been slaughtered." Learn more about the scientists who track this potentially deadly flu in an in-depth story in the New York Times Magazine.
- 8 November 2004
"The culture and customs of work are under scrutiny by a pair of anthropologists at Pitney Bowes trying to improve product designs by watching customers on the job. Jill Lawrence and Alexandra Mack work at the Advanced Concepts and Technology division, Pitney Bowes's research and design unit in Shelton. They observe how users of Pitney Bowes products do their jobs, then help develop products that improve the work done by the company's customers. 'It's understanding the work people are actually doing, not what they're saying they do,' Mack said. There's a difference between the two, as the anthropologists tell it. They discovered, for example, a group of lawyers who use e-mail to compile lists of projects as much as they use it to communicate electronically, Lawrence said." Learn more about this fascinating project, at USA Today.
- 5 November 2004
"It's an article of faith among most 21st-century humans that life is getting longer. In the last three decades, the average life span at birth has increased from about 60 years to 67 years worldwide, a remarkable achievement. But in two dozen countries, human life spans are shortening for one of the few times since the bubonic plague swept through Europe and elsewhere in the 14th century. One expert calls the situation a 'shortgevity' crisis. The greatest setback has been in sub-Saharan Africa, swept by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In all, 10 African countries have seen projections for their average life span fall below 40 years of age. The good news is that in Russia and in some of its close neighbors, the decline seems to have been reversed. Such trends are key to future prosperity." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.
- 3 November 2004
"Nanotechnology's bag of tricks for inventing new molecules and manipulating those available naturally could be dazzling in its potential to improve health care. Evidence is accumulating that nanotechnology may enable better early warning systems for cancer and heart disease, cures for progressive diseases like cystic fibrosis, techniques for making implants like artificial hips more successful, and even artificial kidneys. But there is no reliable timeline for the home-run projects, according to specialists like Dr. Peter R. Cavanagh, chairman of the department of biomedical engineering at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, one of the nation's largest hospital and health research centers. Nanotechnology involves industrial products and processes in the realm of nanometers, or billionths of a meter. That is also the scale on which all living cells - and the things that nourish or kill them - operate." Learn more about the ways in which nanotechnology could be used for madical purposes in the New York Times.
- 2 November 2004
"The World Health Organization has called an unprecedented summit meeting next week of flu vaccine makers and nations to expand plans for dealing with the growing threat of a flu pandemic. Sixteen vaccine companies and health officials from the United States and other large countries already have agreed to attend the summit in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 11, said Klaus Stohr, influenza chief of the United Nations' health agency. With increasing signs that bird flu is becoming established in Asia and several worrisome human cases that can't be linked directly to exposure to infected poultry, it's only a matter of time until such a virus adapts itself to spread more easily from person to person and cause a severe worldwide outbreak, he said." Learn more in Wired News.
- 1 November 2004
"The stem cell lines available for federally-funded research in the US have characteristics which mean they may never be used for medical treatments in humans, a new study suggests. Fred Gage at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California and Ajit Varki at the University of California, San Diego, US, have shown that human embryonic stem cells (hESC) cultivated on a scaffolding of mouse 'feeder' cells take on the properties of the rodent cells. Consequently, if implanted in a human they would provoke an immune response that would kill the hESCs, they say. The finding reinforces calls by US stem cell researchers for their government to free up federal money to research fresh lines of human ESCs, grown on non-biological scaffolds." Learn more in the New Scientist.
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