Society & Politics archives

• 26 April 2007
  "Tread carefully, politicians -- concerned citizens are watching your every move on the web. Their tools? Custom data mashups that use public databases to draw correlations between every vote cast and every dollar spent in Washington. Take this report about the widely debated and bitterly fought California SB217, which would have banned clear-cutting in ancient forests. Generated by the nonpartisan MapLight.org website, the report clearly shows that the logging industry, which opposed the bill, gave nearly twice as much money to politicians as environmental groups did. The bill was defeated. Sites like Maplight.org, Opensecrets.org and Follow the Money, along with wiki-based political reporting resources like Congresspedia, are increasingly giving ordinary citizens the ability to easily document the flow of special-interest money and how it influences the legislature. These new tools are providing an unprecedented level of transparency, exposing patterns of influence that otherwise would have remained invisible to ordinary citizens." Learn more in Wired News.

• 25 April 2007
  "The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday is expected to begin setting rules for one of the most important wireless spectrum auctions in the foreseeable future. The new rules, which determine how to divvy up licenses and actually auction them off for the coveted 700MHz wireless band of spectrum, will likely shape the competitive communications market for decades to come, experts say. The 700MHz band of spectrum, which has been used to provide analog TV service, is considered the last piece of prime real estate left in wireless spectrum. And mobile operators, as well as companies in other industries such as cable and satellite TV, are expected to bid on licenses. The auction is likely to generate between $10 billion and $15 billion in revenue for the government. Since Congress decided in 1997 to re-auction the 700MHz spectrum used to transmit analog TV signals, communication policy makers have viewed this sliver of the airwaves as a panacea to all the nation's broadband-access problems." Learn more in News.com.

• 24 April 2007
  "HIV, Ebola, SARS — any of the world's most horrifying diseases are caused by animal viruses that made the jump to humans. Now a UCLA scientist thinks he can stop the next pandemic before it even starts. Array Sampson slings a makeshift shotgun over his shoulder and sets off down a footpath leading away from Okoroba, a remote village in Cameroon's Southwest Province. The lanky 36-year-old hunter is wearing ankle-length pants and slotted plastic shoes. He has a shaved head and a thin mustache, and his long strides carry him quickly past small stands of cacao trees and into the thick forest that blankets the surrounding hills. Expecting a half-day's hunt, he travels light: In addition to the shotgun, he carries only two shells, a small cane backpack, and a machete that hangs in a sheath from his neck. Fleetness could make the difference between a feast of monkey or antelope — bushmeat, as such forest quarry is known in central Africa — and a meager dinner for his family. Trailing behind Sampson, in slacks and an untucked polo shirt, is Efuet Simon Akem, a graduate anthropology student at the University of Yaound in Cameroon. Akem, who grew up in a village in a region south of Okoroba, is here to record how and what Sampson hunts." Learn more in Wired News.

• 23 April 2007
  "Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine, state television reported. With Hu presiding, the Communist Party Politburo -- its 24-member inner council -- discussed cleaning up the Internet, state television reported. The meeting promised to place the often unruly medium more firmly under propaganda controls. 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance,' said a summary of the meeting read on the news broadcast. 'Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values.' The meeting was far from the first time China has sought to rein in the Internet. In January, Hu made a similar call to 'purify' it, and there have been many such calls before." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 19 April 2007
  "Players of violent video games believe they are just 'exhilarating' escapism which does not desensitize them to real-life mayhem, according to a new survey of one of the entertainment industry's fastest growing sectors. However gamers do concede that people 'who are already unhinged in some way' may be pushed over the edge if they play violent games obsessively. Responding to public and political concern about video games, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) commissioned the survey, interviewing gamers, parents and industry figures about their effect. The Board, which classifies up to 300 games a year, concluded that for gamers 'The violence helps make the play exhilaratingly out of reach of ordinary life.' But it added "Gamers seem not to lose awareness that they are playing a game and do not mistake the game for real life." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 18 April 2007
  "The way web audiences are measured could be ripe for an overhaul, according to two reports out this week. Measurements based on page-views and cookies (small text files which track net use) could be affected by changing user behaviour, the studies warn. Net measurement firm comScore found cookies used to track user behaviour could be being over-counted. A separate study argues that page-view measurements are outdated due to an explosion in audio and video content. There are several methods for measuring net audiences which provide critical data for advertisers. Cookies - small text files inserted on a user's computers by a web server and unique to that computer's browser - can be used for authenticating, tracking and maintaining information on users. In comScore's study, an analysis of 400,000 home PCs in the US found that a hardcore minority of web users are clearing their cookies from their computers on a regular basis." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 17 April 2007
  "Symptoms consistent with a known software flaw in a popular electronic voting machine surfaced widely in a controversial election in Sarasota County, Florida, last November, despite county officials' claims that a bug played no role in the election results, according to documents obtained by Wired News. Activists say the flaw might have contributed to the high number of lost or uncast votes in a now-contested congressional race. Incident reports from the election reveal Sarasota County poll workers from at least 19 precincts contacted technicians and election officials to report touch-screen sensitivity problems with the I-Votronic voting machine. In those incidents, voters were forced to press the screen harder and repeatedly to register a vote. The complaints mirror the symptoms of a bug that the machine's maker, Election Systems & Software, revealed prior to the election in a warning unheeded by the county." Learn more in Wired News.

• 16 April 2007
  "The screening here on Thursday night had many elements of a classic film-world shindig. There were gift bags and television cameras, cold cocktails and hot popcorn. Ushers showed V.I.P.’s to their seats, and local politicos rubbed shoulders with the movie’s backers and flacks. In fact, according to the movie’s star, Steven F. Hayward, there was only one thing missing from what could have otherwise been a typical Hollywood opening: liberals. 'I don’t know how much of the enemy we have here tonight,' said a smiling Mr. Hayward, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, based in Washington. 'San Francisco is usually a target-rich environment.' The occasion for the festivities was the world premiere of Mr. Hayward’s filmic debut, 'An Inconvenient Truth...or Convenient Fiction?'" Learn more in the New York Times.

• 12 April 2007
  "Pulling no punches, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told Japan's parliament yesterday that the country's past military aggression remained a deeply sensitive issue that could easily derail improving relations between the two. 'Japan's invasions caused tremendous damage to the Chinese,' Mr Wen told a silent parliament in a speech broadcast live throughout the country. He urged Japan never to forget its war-time atrocities. 'No words can describe the deep scars left in the hearts of the Chinese people,' he said. Mr Wen said relations between China and Japan were at a crossroads and the past had to be confronted if the two were to build 'good, forward-looking relations towards a beautiful future'." Learn more at Australia's The Age.

• 10 April 2007
  "With President Hugo Chávez setting a May 1 deadline for an ambitious plan to wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies, a showdown is looming here over access to some of the most coveted energy resources outside the Middle East. Moving beyond empty threats to cut off all oil exports to the United States, officials have recently stepped up the pressure on the oil companies operating here, warning that they might sell American refineries meant to process Venezuelan crude oil even as they seek new outlets in China and elsewhere around the world. 'Chávez is playing a game of chicken with the largest oil companies in the world,' said Pietro Pitts, an oil analyst who publishes LatinPetroleum, an industry magazine based here. 'And for the moment he is winning.' But this confrontation could easily end up with everyone losing. The biggest energy companies could be squeezed out of the most promising oil patch in the Western Hemisphere. But Venezuela risks undermining the engine behind Mr. Chávez’s socialist-inspired revolution by hampering its ability to transform the nation’s newly valuable heavy oil into riches for years to come." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 9 April 2007
  "A parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to YouTube. Parliament plans to vote on the proposal, though a date was not announced. The proposal indicates the discomfort that many Turks feel about Western-style freedom of expression, even though Turkey has been implementing widespread reforms in its bid to join the European Union. On Thursday, lawmakers in the commission also debated whether the proposal should be widened to allow the Turkish Telecommunications Board to block access to any sites that question the principles of the Turkish secular system or the unity of the Turkish state -- a reference to Web sites with information on Kurdish rebels in Turkey. It is illegal in Turkey to talk of breaking up the state or to insult Ataturk, the revered founder of modern Turkey whose image graces every denomination of currency and whose portrait hangs in nearly all government offices." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 6 April 2007
  "The world faces increased hunger and water shortages in the poorest countries, massive floods and avalanches in Asia, and species extinction unless nations adapt to climate change and halt its progress, according to a report approved Friday by an international conference on global warming. Agreement came after an all-night session during which key sections were deleted from the draft and scientists angrily confronted government negotiators who they feared were watering down their findings. 'It has been a complex exercise,' said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Several scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators but, in the end, agreed to compromises. However, some scientists vowed never to take part in the process again. Five days of negotiations reached a climax when the delegates removed parts of a key chart highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees, and in a tussle over the level of scientific reliability attached to key statements." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 5 April 2007
  "Some members of the so-called old-media establishment may no longer be able to wag a finger at what they say is questionable ethics among bloggers. Two weeks ago, ABC News video blogger Amanda Congdon's appearance in online infomercials for chemical giant DuPont was widely criticized. Now an editor at financial news site MarketWatch, owned by The Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones, has acknowledged bending the rules for veteran columnist Bambi Francisco. Last September, Francisco was allowed by her bosses to accept a stake in Vator.tv, a start-up that intends to play matchmaker for other start-ups and venture capitalists by showcasing Web videos of those newcomers. It's unclear how large a stake Francisco received in Vator, which is backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. In an interview with CNET News.com, she wouldn't disclose the size but acknowledged that she didn't pay anything for her share of the company." Learn more at News.com.

• 4 April 2007
  "Las Vegas' hydrogen station and automotive fleet attracts so many tour requests that its director is starting an educational program to keep up with the demand. The public's excitement and interest is an unexpected side effect to the city's hydrogen initiative, according to Dan Hyde, the director of fleet and transportation services for the city of Las Vegas. Think of your city's road vehicles and you probably envision a fleet of aging utility trucks and maybe a sensible sedan for the mayor. But some state, county and city governments are on the cutting edge when it comes to hydrogen fuel. The average hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle can go about 150 miles before it needs to refuel, according to Patrick Davis, acting program manager for hydrogen fuel cells and infrastructure technologies at the U.S. Department of Energy. That makes municipalities, which generally keep their cars within short distances and return them to a common station, good testing grounds." Learn more at News.com.

• 3 April 2007
  "When music label EMI announced Monday that it would offer high-quality digital music downloads free of copy protection, Apple CEO Steve Jobs basked in the early public relations glow, thanks to his canny call a month ago for the labels to abandon digital rights management technologies." But while Apple scored a public relations coup by offering EMI's DRM-free tracks through iTunes, the company has also struck a major blow against Microsoft in a less obvious arena: music encoding standards. In an early morning press release, EMI announced the immediate availability of its 'digital repertoire' in high-quality, DRM-free AAC format. The new tracks will be encoded at 256 Kbps, EMI officials said, instead of the 128 Kbps that most iTunes tracks use. 'By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans,' said EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli in the press release." Learm more in Wired News.

• 2 April 2007
  We are past the earliest stages of the growth of a genuine global community. The growing numbers of middle class migrants should shift our discussion from fear of the poor or jealousy of the rich to a more accurate and more important discussion of the global community's growth. Yes, national laws, regulations, and politics continue to serve as obstacles to this migration, but our surveys clearly show they are no longer seen as the barriers they once were. A major shift is underway, all but unnoticed...It is not poverty that pushes the middle class to migrate, neither is it wealth. It is a choice being made millions of times by free people who, wittingly or not, no longer move to a 'foreign country', but to a different neighborhood of the global community. Because they do not engender fear or jealousy, they go ignored by the commentators and the politicians. In time, that will change and perhaps studies such as ours will be more widely noted. Read "Beyond the Migration Debate".

• 28 March 2007
  "Employers are increasingly checking out online personal information about candidates when making recruitment decisions. Net reputations built up through online activities--such as blogging, posting videos to YouTube, or using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.com--can have a significant effect when applying for a job, according to a report from business social network Viadeo. According to the research, released Wednesday, one in five employers finds information about candidates on the Internet, and 59 percent of those said it influences recruitment decisions. A fourth of human resources decision makers said they had rejected candidates based on personal information found online. Most people, however, remain unaware of the effect their Net reputation can have on their job prospects. Examples of online information that has been shown to create negative information include MySpace pages that reveal excessive drinking or disrespect for work." Learn more at News.com.

• 27 March 2007
  "Just exactly what is the bird flu virus doing? The virus, H5N1, which was first isolated in humans in 1997, has not started a pandemic in a full decade of trying, so a few flu experts think it never will. But the mainstream view is less optimistic. Viruses mutate constantly, many experts point out. And when one has already acquired the ability to jump species, occasionally spread from human to human and kill 60 percent of the people who catch it, it is far too early to dismiss it. So even though the human death toll from H5N1 is still below 200, scientists around the world are racing to study the ways in which it might mutate to spread easily among humans. The 1918 Spanish flu, they argue, was not even noticed until it had killed thousands. It might have been gathering virulence for years, hidden in the background of seasonal flu deaths. Today’s H5N1 flu is probably changing more slowly, because health officials have been vigilant about attacking clusters of cases, which presumably wipes out the most dangerous strains." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 26 March 2007
  "Some robots are destined to rove the surface of Mars. Others, like Hyperactive Bob, will work in fast-food restaurants. Pittsburgh's Hyperactive Technologies has come up with a system, based on the computer vision and artificial intelligence systems employed by robots, to manage the kitchens at so-called quick-service restaurants. The vision system in Hyperactive Bob essentially scans the parking lot for incoming cars. It then cross-references traffic patterns against data about the restaurant--the bell curve of orders, the time of day, cooking times, the current amount of food in the restaurant's warming bins--and issues cooking orders to the employees manning the grill or the deep fat fryer. There isn't a mechanical humanoid assembling chicken sandwiches behind the counter. Instead, Hyperactive Bob combines machine intelligence with human activity. By more tightly correlating the cooking line with incoming traffic, food gets cooked when it's needed, which makes customer satisfaction go up, according to Hyperactive CEO Joe Porfeli." Learn more at News.com.

• 23 March 2007
  "At an Internet cafe here, Barry Delatto toggles his computer screen from stock prices to e-mail and finds a URL for YouTube, the free website where users can post and watch video clips. 'It's [an e-mail] from my girlfriend,' he says, clicking on a clip from the "Colbert Report," a mock-news TV show on Comedy Central. 'I better watch this before the courts shut YouTube down. Either that, or make them pay so much nobody will do this anymore.' It's a scene repeated so often – 160,000 free video clips viewed at least 1.5 billion times – that Comedy Central's parent company, Viacom Inc., is asking the courts to make YouTube stop unauthorized postings of copyrighted video. The suit has been followed by news Thursday that News Corp. and NBC Universal plan to create an online video site stocked with TV shows to compete against Google by controlling how their own shows are watched online. The new idea may launch as early as summer and help News Corp. and NBC from losing advertising dollars that have been siphoned off to the Web." Learn more at the Christian Science Monitor.

• 22 March 2007
  "A federal judge has ruled that the Child Online Protection Act, which would have criminalized much of the sexual content on the Internet, violates First and Fifth Amendment rights. The 1998 U.S. law included both civil and criminal penalties for those who make sexually explicit materials freely available on the Web. U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over the trial involving several online publications and the American Civil Liberties Union, ruled that COPA is 'impermissibly vague and overbroad' to be constitutional, and that there are other less-restrictive means available for protecting children from content deemed inappropriate. In addition, Reed said, the law would undoubtedly 'chill a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech for adults.' 'As a result, I will issue a permanent injunction against the enforcement of COPA," said Reed in his ruling. Politicians enacted COPA nearly a decade ago as part of an early wave of Internet restrictions, but the courts have kept it on ice and it has never actually been enforced." Learn more at News.com.

• 21 March 2007
  "Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday that the country will pursue nuclear activities outside international regulations if the U.N. Security Council insists it stop uranium enrichment. 'Until today, what we have done has been in accordance with international regulations,' Khamenei said. 'But if they take illegal actions, we too can take illegal actions and will do so.' Khamenei did not elaborate what 'illegal actions' could be pursued by Tehran as it faces new sanctions by the U.N. body over its refusal to halt enrichment which the West fears is used for arms making. Iran's top leader also issued a stark warning to the United States, saying Iran will 'use all its capacities to strike' its enemies if his country is attacked. 'If they want to treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack,' Khamenei told the nation in an address marking the first day of Nowruz, or the Persian New Year." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 20 March 2007
  "Some of the world's largest—but hardest to reach—oil reserves could be tapped with the help of a little-known scientific field called rock physics, a Canadian scientist says. The reserves, located north of Edmonton, Alberta, are so immense that they put Canada second only to Saudi Arabia among the world's oil-rich nations. But the reserves contain only 'heavy oil,' which is extremely difficult to extract. 'Imagine taking a pile of sand, mixing it with peanut butter, and trying to get the peanut butter out,' Douglas Schmitt, a geophysicist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said earlier this month at a meeting of the American Institute of Physics. Currently the easiest way to extract the oil is to scoop up the top layers of earth in giant strip mines. 'You dig it out and put it in something like a big washing machine to separate the oil from the sand,' Schmitt said. Going deeper requires drilling, but conventional drilling techniques don't work because of the oil's thick, viscous consistency." Learn more in the National Geographic.

• 19 March 2007
  "Tracy Noah is a self-described shopaholic who stops by Bloomingdale's in Manhattan every day during lunch hour. But last Thursday she came upon something new: a prototype for an interactive mirror stationed among the embroidered cotton dresses and duster pants in the Nanette Lepore department. Displayed in a vintage-looking white wooden frame, the full-length mirror doubled as a three-part high-resolution digital screen. As Noah stood in front of the mirror, a camera relayed live video images of her to an Internet site where online participants could view her outfit. When Web viewers responded by sending her comments, their instant messages popped up on the left side of the mirror for Noah to read. They also selected items for her to try on, causing virtual images of the clothing to appear before her in the middle of the mirror, like lifesize holograms. 'I think it's very cool that you could be in a department store and have your friends online at the same time helping you shop. It's fun,' Noah said as a virtual navy blouse and white pants appeared in the mirror. She took a few steps back to line up her frame with the clothes on the screen." Learn more at News.com.

• 16 March 2007
  "Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling's Beijing duplex. She's cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He's been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it's a technical issue. This is the day he learns he's wrong. Wang picks up the phone: 'Yes?' 'Are you home?' asks the unfamiliar voice on the other end. 'Yes.' The line goes dead. Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door -- 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu's hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it's done in China. This is how the internet police grab you. Five years later, Yu, 55, sits in the dining room of a small house in Fairfax and weeps softly. 'Yahoo betrayed my husband and deprived him of freedom,' Yu says through a translator, her voice trembling. 'Yahoo must learn its lesson.'" Learn more in Wired News.

• 15 March 2007
  "Almost 40 years ago, when Irene Marsh was a young woman, she took a few months of computer science courses. But when Ms. Marsh realized that would not help her find a job in this Appalachian furniture region, she dropped out and went to work in a factory making tabletops. Then, like thousands of other furniture makers here in the last five years, she lost her job to workers overseas, after 37 years at one company. But Ms. Marsh, who recently sat with a mouse and keyboard in a basic-skills classroom at Caldwell Community College a few miles south of here, may yet have her chance at a computer job. Last month, the Internet search giant Google announced that it would take advantage of the area’s underused electric power grid, cheap land and robust water supply to build a 'server farm'— a building full of computers that will become part of the company’s worldwide network. Google says it hopes laid-off furniture workers, most of whom never graduated from high school, will be among the 250 employees at two facilities on the 215-acre site, much of which was once a lumberyard." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 14 March 2007
  "A computer model of the way opinions evolve in social networks has shown why two groups holding opposing views can quickly become reconciled or remain at odds. The key, say European researchers, is how strongly the groups communicate with each other. The work could explain how language differences persist across geographic boundaries and how political thought can quickly become polarized. To model the evolution of opinions, researchers led by physicist Renaud Lambiotte of the University of Liege in Belgium imagined two groups, initially isolated, whose members gradually begin to talk to members of the other group. They supposed for simplicity that individuals hold one of two opinions, assigned randomly at the start. People then change their views by a 'majority rule'– each person tends to adopt the opinion that is held by a majority of those with whom they are linked in the social network." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 13 March 2007
  "Viacom on Tuesday slapped YouTube and parent company Google with a lawsuit, accusing the wildly popular video-sharing site of "massive intentional copyright infringement" and seeking more than $1 billion in damages. The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York contends that nearly 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's entertainment programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times. Viacom, an entertainment giant that owns Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks and a number of cable channels, said it has also asked the court for an injunction to halt the alleged copyright infringement. In a statement, Viacom blasted what it deemed YouTube's 'clearly illegal' business model, riding on advertising sales and traffic tied to 'unlicensed content.'" Learn more at News.com.

• 12 March 2007
  "Not getting any online dates? Maybe it’s time for an online makeover. Businesses like Dating-Profile.com, ProfileHelper.com and E-Cyrano.com say they will help turn a stale personal profile for dating Web sites into eloquent and catchy advertisements, writing the words for you. They will even help clients sift through prospective dates and start an initial e-mail conversation. Depending on the company and the services used, prices may range from $39 to $2,000. Other companies, like LookBetterOnline.com and SingleShots.com, sell professional photo shoots and retouching of existing pictures for people to post online. 'As online dating has gotten more popular, the more people have to do to get attention,' said Mindy Stricke, owner of SingleShots.com, a New York business that has produced 1,000 profile portraits, at prices from $130 to $300." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 9 March 2007
  "The FBI is guilty of "serious misuse" of the power to secretly obtain private information under the Patriot Act, a government audit said Friday. The Justice Department's inspector general looked at the FBI's use of national security letters (NSLs), in which agents demand personal and business information about individuals -- such as financial, phone, and Internet records -- without court orders. Civil libertarians have slammed the practice. 'While national security letters are an important investigative tool, the FBI needs to ensure that it uses this authority in full accord with the national security letter statutes, attorney general guidelines, and FBI policies,' Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in the report. 'We concluded that many of the problems we identified constituted serious misuse of the FBI's national security letter authorities.' The review examined whether there were improper or illegal uses of NSLs, and identified '26 possible intelligence violations' between 2003 and 2005, 19 of which the FBI reported to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board, the audit says." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 8 March 2007
  "In the land of the free market, the idea of the government influencing the choice and cost of medicines is heresy. But that's exactly what's in store for the US, as it tries to rein in its healthcare costs, which threaten to cripple the economy if left unchecked. Other countries have already taken steps to deal with such problems. The UK set up the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in 1999 to decide which drugs the country's National Health Service could use. Similar organisations operate in Australia and Canada, and all claim to be working successfully, allowing governments to just say no to ineffective drugs and haggle with pharmaceutical companies when prices are too high. Now, at long last, the US is considering a similar proposal in the shape of a proposed Comparative Effectiveness Board (CEB), which would review the evidence on how well drugs work and whether they are cost-effective. If necessary, the CEB would carry out its own clinical trials. The idea is to break the pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold on drug prices and stop it peddling marginally effective medicines. The drug industry is already expressing its displeasure at the idea of a government body judging a drug's value for money. Support for such a body is growing in both the public and private healthcare arenas." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 7 March 2007
  "More than 5,000 feet under the sea, off the coast of Papua New Guinea, a small white crab flexes its claw. It has paused halfway up a rock outcropping and is approaching a tantalizing colony of snails when a flash of light illuminates the seabed. A wondrous, prickly landscape of spires appears and stretches off into the blackness. The crab taps its feet on the rock, takes a tentative step toward the snails, and is suddenly confronted by a 6-ton, 10-foot-tall, remotely operated robotic drilling machine. The contraption is fitted with a series of circular, diamond-infused pulverizers, which it lowers onto a nearby rock surface. The pulverizers begin to spin, crushing the rock into gravel. A bloom of silt rises up over the seabed, enveloping the crab in a cloud. Ten months later the crab reappears on a videoscreen in the cavernous, sub-terranean convention hall of the San Francisco Marriott hotel. It’s the annual Hard Assets Investment Conference, and the room is jammed with booths touting uranium discoveries in Canada, gold deposits in Central Africa, silver digs in China, and zinc operations in Bolivia. And though it’s nine on a Sunday morning, an odd assortment of bankers, forklift operators, and retired insurance salespeople are also here, eager to weigh the benefits of investing their money in mining." Learn more in Wired News.

• 6 March 2007
  "Prisoners subjected only to psychological torture report as much mental anguish as those who are beaten, according to new research. The study of nearly 300 survivors of torture from the former Yugoslavia found that those who experienced no physical torment later developed equally high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as those who did. The survivors also rated the distress caused at the time by the two types of torture equally highly. Researchers say the findings provide a strong argument against the use of psychological maltreatment of prisoners - referred to by some as 'torture lite'. The UN convention against torture came into force in 1987, prohibiting acts that cause severe pain or suffering in order to gain information from prisoners. Nevertheless, torture still appears widespread around the world: a 2005 report by Amnesty International found that systematic torture occurred in 104 out of 150 countries surveyed. Since the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, the nation received severe criticism for torturing suspected terrorists abroad, such as in the Abu Ghraib prison and at the Guantanamo Bay naval station." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 5 March 2007
  "This is where computers go to die a green death. Inside Hewlett-Packard Co.'s cavernous recycling plant in the Sacramento suburbs, truckloads of obsolete PCs, servers and printers collected from consumers and businesses nationwide are cracked open by goggled workers who pull out batteries, circuit boards and other potentially hazardous components. The electronic carcasses are fed into a massive machine that noisily shreds them into tiny pieces and mechanically sorts the fragments into piles of steel, aluminum, plastic and precious metals. Those scraps are sent to smelting plants, mostly in the Sacramento area, where they are melted down for reuse. The computer industry is ramping up its campaign against electronic waste, a dangerous byproduct of technology's relentless expansion. HP and Dell Inc., which together sell more than half the country's PCs, are earning praise from environmentalists for using more eco-friendly components and recycling their products when consumers discard them." Learn more in Wired News.

• 2 March 2007
  "TALLINN, Estonia -- In the plush seats of a fireplace-warmed hotel cafe here, over a steaming cup of green tea, Veljo Haamer opened up his laptop computer Wednesday and logged into this country's digital ballot box. With his online vote for parliament, the entrepreneur helped make a bit of elections history. This small Baltic country is in the midst of its first -- and the world's first -- national election featuring internet balloting open to all voters, an idea that remains deeply controversial among computer scientists. Election Day itself isn't until Sunday. But officials said on Thursday that the internet poll, which closed on Wednesday, had exceeded expectations with more than 30,000 people, or a bit more than 3.5 percent of registered voters, casting ballots online. 'The goal is to make things easier for people, to increase participation," said Arne Koitmäe, a member of the secretariat of Estonia's National Electoral Commission. "No one has managed to prove that e-voting actually raises participation, so that remains unanswered. But this gives people another possibility.'" Learn more in Wired News.

• 1 March 2007
  "Lack of sleep can affect people’s moral judgement, a new study shows. The findings could have implications for people in positions of responsibility, whose decisions often have life or death consequences, such as overworked medical professionals and sleep-deprived soldiers. William Killgore and colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, US, set up an experiment with 26 healthy adults, all of whom were active-duty military personnel. The participants were presented with a variety of hypothetical dilemmas, first when well rested and later, after staying awake for 53 hours. Situations included complex moral quandaries such as having to choosing whether or not to let one person die in order to save the lives of several others. Less weighty dilemmas without a moral component were also included, such as 'is it OK to substitute ingredients in a chocolate brownies recipe?'" Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 28 February 2007
  "Guess what? Radio frequency identification tags are insecure. But don't demonstrate the technology's problems at a security conference. If you do, HID Global, a manufacturer of access-control devices, might sue you for patent infringement. That's the threat the company leveled against Chris Paget of IOActive Monday, forcing him to pull the presentation he planned for the Black Hat DC 2007 conference taking place this week in Washington. Paget had planned to discuss and demonstrate a technique for cloning RFID proximity cards -- the kind that are used to control access to buildings and offices. He performed a similar demonstration at the RSA Conference recently, using a home-brew RFID reader/writer. I haven't seen the cease-and-desist letter, but from reports, HID Global seems to be claiming that cloning an RFID security card violates one or more of the company's patents on RFID reading technology. If true, this would make any third-party research into the security of the company's products illegal, as well as any public demonstration. I'm sure burglars, identity thieves and others who misuse insecure RFIDs for personal gain will be deterred by the years of messy patent litigation they'll face if they start hacking RFIDs. It seems to have scared legitimate researchers pretty well." Learn more in Wired News.

• 27 February 2007
  "Iran's mantralike insistence that its pursuit of nuclear technology is an internationally guaranteed right that it will never curtail has countries as diverse as the United States and China worried it is seeking a nuclear weapon. But the huge increases in energy demand anticipated across the developing world over the next two decades, coupled with a growing urgency about global warming, have nuclear nonproliferation experts focused on Iran's case for broader and even more unsettling reasons. If a sense of entitlement to nuclear power and the fuel that makes it possible is allowed to take root, they say, the world soon could find itself with dozens of nuclear countries with the means to switch from peaceful energy production to building a nuclear arsenal virtually overnight. Many of those countries would be in such hot spots as the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where a mounting temptation to keep up with worrisome neighbors could be too much to resist." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 26 February 2007
  "A House Appropriations subcommittee and congressional investigators are renewing criticism of the US-VISIT program, a Department of Homeland Security initiative to collect and share biometric-fingerprint and facial data from all foreign visitors to the United States. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, released a report this month revealing that, even as development costs settle, US-VISIT's overall price tag is spiraling up 'without any accompanying explanation of the reasons,' the report said. In an interview with Wired News, Randy Hite, the author of the GAO report, described US-VISIT as a plane flying aimlessly. 'We're asking for a pilot to program in a destination,' Hite said. 'Instead, we have it on autopilot with no destination.' US-VISIT collects a digital photo and two digital fingerprints from incoming visitors to the United States, and checks each traveler against scores of government watchlists stored in a hodgepodge of backend databases. The program was launched in January 2004 in an effort to secure the border from terrorists." Learn more in Wired News.

• 23 February 2007
  "The latest phase of internet - web 2.0 - has been attacked by a leading author and digital pioneer for its "mob" mentality, describing it as 'digital Maoism'. Jaron Lanier, who popularised the virtual reality concept in the early 1980s, said that in rush to forge a new age of collectivism, we risk losing individual identities and dumbing down our understanding of the world. He told BBC World Service's Culture Shock that his main problem is that in places like the blogosphere or the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, people no longer treat or respect each other as individuals. 'We have these designs on the internet where a whole bunch of people work together anonymously - a mob, in my opinion - in order to do something,' he said. 'They actually take on the emotional quality of a mob - they become mean, they tend to insult each other a lot more than they would if they knew who each other were. In my opinion, this is an example of a design that isn't so great.' Lanier is among a small group leading a backlash against web 2.0 - the term coined to describe the latest internet era, in which collective ideas and participation take over from individual authorship." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 22 February 2007
  "For more than a year now, whenever someone has accused Google of targeting Microsoft's sweet spot - its Microsoft Office productivity software - CEO Eric Schmidt has had a ready answer. That's missing the point, he likes to say, suggesting that Google is up to something so completely different from Microsoft that it's simplistic and downright silly to suggest that the two compete. Google's Web-based calendar and e-mail services are nothing like Microsoft's software, he'll say; he continued to make the point after Google bought a small Web-based word-processing product, now called Google Docs, and after the company unveiled an Excel-like spreadsheet program, now Google Spreadsheets. But on Thursday the facade may come down altogether: Google will launch a paid version of its documents, spreadsheets, calendar and email programs - a package that has all the elements of Microsoft Office for a fraction of the price." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 21 February 2007
  "Ryan Patrick Halligan was bullied for months online. Classmates sent the 13-year-old boy instant messages calling him gay. He was threatened, taunted and insulted incessantly by so-called cyberbullies. In 2003, Ryan killed himself. 'He just went into a deep spiral in eighth grade. He couldn't shake this rumor,' said Ryan's father, John Halligan, who became a key proponent of a state law that forced Vermont schools to put anti-bullying rules in place. He is now pushing for a broader law to punish cyberbullying -- often done at home after school -- and wants every other state to enact laws expressly prohibiting it. States from Oregon to Rhode Island are considering crackdowns to curb or outlaw the behavior in which kids taunt or insult peers on social Web sites like MySpace or via instant messages. Still, there is some disagreement over how effective crackdowns will be and how to do it. 'The kids are forcing our hands to do something legislatively,' said Rhode Island state Sen. John Tassoni, who introduced a bill to study cyberbullying and hopes to pass a cyberbullying law by late 2007. But others argue that legislation would be ineffective. George McDonough, an education coordinator with Rhode Island's Department of Education, concedes that the Internet has become an 'instant slam book' but questions whether laws can stem bad behavior." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 20 February 2007
  "In a remote patch of the Anbar desert just 20 miles from the Syrian border, a single blue pillar of flanges and valves sits atop an enormous deposit of oil and natural gas that would be routine in this petroleum-rich country except for one fact: this is Sunni territory. Huge petroleum deposits have long been known in Iraq’s Kurdish north and Shiite south. But now, Iraq has substantially increased its estimates of the amount of oil and natural gas in deposits on Sunni lands after quietly paying foreign oil companies tens of millions of dollars over the past two years to re-examine old seismic data across the country and retrain Iraqi petroleum engineers. The development is likely to have significant political effects: the lack of natural resources in the central and western regions where Sunnis hold sway has fed their disenchantment with the nation they once ruled. And it has driven their insistence on a strong central government, one that would collect oil revenues and spread them equitably among the country’s factions, rather than any division of the country along sectarian regional boundaries." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 16 February 2007
  "After years of failed attempts at revamping what the high-tech industry decries as a broken U.S. patent system, a key House of Representatives panel is gearing up for yet another try. At an afternoon hearing here, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the new chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee that writes intellectual property laws, did not attempt to mask his intentions. Not only did the panel title the event 'American Innovation at Risk: The Case for Patent Reform,' but its lineup of four outside speakers consisted exclusively of attorneys and academics who have publicly recommended various fundamental changes to the way patents are granted and contested. 'This is not intended as a hearing to get all the different interested parties (to speak),' Berman said in his opening remarks. Rather, he said he was more inclined to bring in people who, in his view, could make the case 'to make patent reform a high priority on my agenda.'" Learn more at News.com.

• 15 February 2007
  "The biggest general science conference in the world is shaping up to be unusually political this year, with an emphasis on global warming and sustainability. There's even a workshop on how scientists can fight anti-evolutionists on local school boards. 'It's a smorgasbord of all research in every field,' said Ginger Pinholster, spokeswoman for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, which begins its annual meeting Thursday in San Francisco. 'It helps to foster dialogue between scientists and the public and with policy makers.' Much of the research presented will look at the effects of global warming on glaciers, Antarctica and the ocean. In one speech, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who studies decision-making and public policy is expected to talk about how science can 'induce urgent action' regarding climate change. 'The purpose of science is to tell us about the nature of the world whether we like the answer or not,' said Alan I. Leshner, CEO of the AAAS." Learn more in Wired News.

• 14 February 2007
  "The Chinese government is preparing to adopt its first programme to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming. Although some reports suggest the plan will not include quantitative reduction targets, a senior official said on Tuesday that the country would seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 'by 10% over the next five years'. Several recent government reports, however, have underlined China's poor performance in meeting its own environmental targets. The government's climate plan, expected to seek final state approval by the end of February, will set out its intentions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop green technologies. Lu Xuedu, deputy director of the Office of Global Environment Affairs at the Chinese ministry of science, told SciDev.Net that setting quantitative emissions reduction targets was 'hard and unrealistic'. Yet Zhang Guobao, vice-chairman of the energy-policy-setting National Development and Reform Commission, told an energy conference in Australia on 13 February that over the next five years, 'assuming an average economic growth of 7.5% per year, China's carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 10%.' Zhang did not specify whether the 10% goal would be per unit of national economic output or an absolute reduction compared to current emissions." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 13 February 2007
  "A vicious Mexican drug gang war has moved onto Internet video-sharing site YouTube, where rivals taunt each other with blood-soaked slideshows and film of their murder victims. One popular video on the site shows a man being shot in the head. A stomach-churning series of photos shows another execution victim, his missing face a mangled mess of flesh. More than 2,000 people died last year in a war between the Gulf Cartel from northeastern Mexico and traffickers based in the western state of Sinaloa. President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to several chaotic states to take on the drug gangs, who have decapitated police and killed soldiers. The gangs, or their supporters, are now slugging it out online. One chilling video on YouTube called "The Hit Men" shows a handcuffed man, apparently a Gulf Cartel henchman caught and beaten by police. He is curled on the ground and pleading with his captors. 'They're going to kill me,' he says. Beneath the images, YouTube members boast in Spanish about the powers of rival capos Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, head of the Sinaloa-based gang, and arch-foe Osiel Cardenas, the Gulf Cartel's leader, recently extradited to the United States." Learn more at News.com.

• 12 February 2007
  "Detroit is going on a green offensive with electric plug-in models that can run emissions-free for up to 40 miles -- at about a quarter the cost of gas -- on batteries that draw their juice directly from the grid. GM's Chevrolet Volt and Ford's HySeries Drive, unveiled as concept prototypes for the first time last month, leapfrog current hybrid designs and could put pressure on Toyota's popular Prius by offering consumers better value. Although these cars are not scheduled for production until the end of the decade or later, many experts now believe plug-ins offer the best tradeoffs combination yet in terms of energy efficiency, emissions and practicality. "Once plug-in hybrids appear, I don't know why 'mere' hybrids would be appealing," said Philip Reed, the Fuel Economy Guide editor for Edmunds. 'Plug-in hybrids do everything that hybrids can do but at a lower cost to consumers.' Detroit's troubles run far deeper than next year's or even next decade's models: GM and Ford are struggling with massive pension liabilities and deep-seated labor problems at a time when Japanese rivals are making deep inroads with fuel-efficient models, including hybrids." Learn more in Wired News.

• 9 February 2007
  "In October 2004, all but one member of the U.S. House of Representatives voted for a bill that was supposed to curtail the threat of malicious PC-disrupting spyware. But the Senate ignored it. So the House once again approved spyware regulations in May 2005, which yielded precisely the same lack of a result. Hoping that the third time proves the charm, House leaders on Thursday introduced a bill that would once again try to impose 31 pages of regulations on the software industry in an effort to define what types of activities are permissible and which ones aren't. Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called the announcement 'a serious down payment on resolving the scourge of identity theft and related abuse.' He promised that legislation would be sent to the House floor 'expeditiously.' Dingell was referring not only to the spyware measure but also to three other proposals announced at the same time: a bill to regulate telephone pretexting, one to curb the sale of Social Security numbers, and one to impose many additional security requirements including data breach notifications on private companies (though not federal agencies)." Learn more at News.com.

• 8 February 2007
  "Police raids here last month that led to the arrests of at least three alleged dealers in human kidneys has thrown a spotlight on lapses by local medical regulators and recharged the global debate over legalized organ sales. More than 500 people across the state of Tamil Nadu say they've sold their kidneys to organ brokers, in violation of a ban enacted in 1994. Since then, however, the agency responsible for enforcing the ban has frequently turned a blind eye. 'We do everything in accordance with the letter of the law on paper, but we know that almost all of the documents we see are false,' said one member of Tamil Nadu's Transplant Authorization Committee, who spoke to Wired News on condition of anonymity. 'It is an open secret. It is either, approve a transplant with forged documents, or a patient is going to die.' Humanitarian arguments excusing black market organ sales may seem a stretch given the stark danger of exploitation that led to ban in the first place. Given the failure of India's official system, however, some global medical policy experts say some form of legalization may be the best solution." Learn more in Wired News.

• 7 February 2007
  "A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate lays the groundwork for a national database of illegal images that Internet service providers would use to automatically flag and report suspicious content to police. The proposal, which Sen. John McCain is planning to introduce on Wednesday, also would require ISPs and perhaps some Web sites to alert the government of any illegal images of real or "cartoon" minors. Failure to do would be punished by criminal penalties including fines of up to $300,000. The Arizona Republican claims that his proposal, a draft of which was obtained by CNET News.com, will aid in investigations of child pornographers. It will 'enhance the current system for Internet service providers to report online child pornography on their systems, making the failure to report child pornography a federal crime,' a statement from his office said. To announce his proposal, McCain has scheduled an afternoon press conference on Capitol Hill with Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat; John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted; and Lauren Nelson, who holds the title of Miss America 2007. Civil libertarians worry that the proposed legislation goes too far and could impose unreasonable burdens on anyone subject to the new regulations." Learn more at News.com.

• 6 February 2007
  "Insurance companies are helping to popularise a new "truth-telling" industry in the US which uses brain scans to determine whether or not people are lying. But experts are already questioning the ethics and validity of such tests. The trouble began in 2003 when a fire gutted Harvey Nathan’s deli in Charleston, South Carolina. In the aftermath, Nathan fought off police charges of arson, but his insurers’ lingering doubts over his innocence have since tied up a payout that could exceed $200,000. Which is why, last December (2006), Nathan travelled across the US and paid $1500 to have his brain scanned. 'We provide a service for people who need to prove they are telling the truth,' says Joel Huizenga, a biologist turned entrepreneur and CEO of No Lie MRI of Tarzana, California. In what amounted to the world’s first commercial lie-detection test using function magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), technicians at No Lie mapped blood flow within Nathan’s brain while he answered a battery of questions about the deli fire and compared the results to control tests during which Nathan was asked to lie. The differences in the way his brain responded to these tasks appear to confirm his innocence. Huizenga says No Lie is now working with a second client and he expects many more. Another group is planning to launch a similar service in Massachusetts." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 5 February 2007
  "The UK's first big outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in poultry raises serious questions about the surveillance techniques used to monitor its spread in wild birds. The H5N1 virus that caused bird flu in poultry at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk in eastern England (see H5N1 bird flu outbreak confirmed on English farm), was probably carried to the area by wild ducks. But the British laboratory responsible for monitoring wild birds for avian flu detected almost none of the virus in samples taken from wild waterfowl in Britain in December 2006 and January 2007. This could be because its sampling technique has not changed since April 2006, when New Scientist revealed the methods used could be causing many samples to degrade before they could be tested. It could also be because the surveillance is targeting the wrong birds. Bird flu viruses are normally carried by wildfowl, especially dabbling ducks. The highly pathogenic H5N1 evolved in East Asian poultry, and has so far killed 165 people. The strain migrated to Europe in 2006 in wild birds, and has caused several poultry outbreaks, most recently in January 2007, in farmed geese in Hungary. On Monday, UK authorities said the English outbreak was caused by a virus similar to the one in Hungary." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 2 February 2007
  "The federal crackdown on online gambling has tied up the funds of thousands of U.S. patrons of two of the largest services. The crackdown on BetOnSports, which no longer takes sports wagers from the USA, and Neteller — an Internet payment service popular among gamblers — is intended to put a dent in the $10.6 billion industry. And it has: Following federal charges against executives from both companies, dozens of the more than 2,300 websites that service online gambling have stopped taking U.S. wagers. Still, the actions against BetOnSports and Neteller have left the online accounts of their U.S. customers frozen until legal issues are resolved. 'The truth is that the money is in limbo and the companies are not required to refund any money until a successful prosecution or settlement takes place,' says Michael Tew, principal of gaming consultant CapitalHQ. "This could take years." Funds from other gambling sites are not tied up, Tew and others say. Most U.S. customers of BetOnSports have been waiting to cash out money in their accounts since July, when a federal grand jury issued a 22-count indictment charging CEO David Carruthers with racketeering, conspiracy and fraud." Learn more in USA Today.

• 1 February 2007
  "This winter, a sparkling diamond landed in front of a technician at the Gemological Institute of America in New York City. He ran tests, noted the stone was man-made, and graded it as he would any diamond. It was the gem industry’s strongest acknowledgment yet that lab-grown diamonds are just as real as natural ones. For years, De Beers, the world’s largest purveyor of natural diamonds, argued against the acceptance and GIA grading of lab-grown stones. But since 2003, synthetic diamond production has taken off, driven by consumer demand for merchandise that’s environmentally friendly (no open-pit mines), sociopolitically neutral (no blood diamonds), and monopoly-free (not controlled by De Beers). As a result, Gemesis, the leading manufacturer of gem-quality diamonds, has expanded operations rapidly. Three years ago, the company had 24 diamond-producing machines; now it has hundreds - matching the cash-value output of a small mine - and is turning on a new one every other day. 'At this point, we operate like any other mine,' says Clark McEwen, COO of Gemesis." Learn more at Wired News.

• 31 January 2007
  "The Democratic chairman of a House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly 'to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming.' Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said he and the top Republican on his oversight committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, have sought documents from the administration on climate policy, but repeatedly been rebuffed. 'The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security,' said Waxman, opening the hearing. 'We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists. We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger,' Waxman said. Administration officials were not scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In the past the White House has said it has only sought to inject balance into reports on climate change." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 30 January 2007
  "Sixty ago years, a group of physicists concerned about nuclear weapons created the Doomsday Clock and set its hands at seven minutes to midnight. Now, the clock’s keepers, alarmed by new dangers like climate change, have moved the hands up to 11:55 p.m. My first reaction was a sigh of relief. After all, the 1947 doomsday prediction marked the start of a golden age. Never have so many humans lived so long — and maybe never so peacefully — as during the past 60 years. But there’s one novel twist that gives me pause. When the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced two weeks ago in Washington that it was adjusting the clock, it was joined in a trans-Atlantic press conference by scientists at the Royal Society in London. One of them was the society’s president, Martin Rees, a new breed of doomsayer. Dr. Rees, a cosmologist at Cambridge and Britain’s astronomer royal, doesn’t just issue gloomy predictions. No, Dr. Rees is braver. He gives odds on doomsday and offers to bet on disaster." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 29 January 2007
  "The Food and Drug Administration’s recent declaration that food from cloned animals is safe was a fresh reminder of how poorly the biotech industry and its regulators have managed the field’s portfolio of innovation over the years. A recent survey found that Americans overwhelmingly distrust government and industry to provide truthful information about biotech’s risks and safety. Yet equally important as risk — and more often overlooked — are the public’s equally real and unaddressed concerns about who is looking out for its interests as the genes of plants, animals and microbes, as well as entire organisms, become privatized through the patenting system. Stephen Hilgartner of Cornell University said he believed that the economic and political challenges surrounding these so-called life patents would come to rival those of biotech risk, and he has come up with a sensible framework for starting a new conversation about them." Learn more in Wired News.

• 26 January 2007
  "The modern wired family is seeing a few mainstays going the way of the dinosaur: landlines, printed dictionaries, maps, newspapers and, of course, the need to remember phone numbers or learn to spell. That's according to a broad new national study, called 'The Digital Family,' released this week by the No. 1 cable network Nickelodeon. The findings are among the first examinations of technology usage in the home, and they're part of a wider effort among U.S. researchers to understand how rapidly advancing technology is changing the family structure, as well as the way kids communicate and are educated and entertained. Nickelodeon, which is owned by MTV Networks, said it conducted extensive research from September 2006 to December 2006, questioning parents of children from infants to 14-year-olds, as well as kids ages 6 to 14 about their usage of television, digital video recorders, video on demand, the Net, cell phones, video games and MP3 players." Learn more at News.com.

• 25 January 2007
  "Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has vowed to "purify" the Internet, state media reported Wednesday, describing a top-level meeting that discussed ways to master the country's sprawling, unruly online population. Hu made the comments as the ruling party's Politburo--its 24-member leading council--was studying China's Internet, which claimed 137 million registered users at the end of 2006. Hu, a strait-laced communist with little sympathy for cultural relaxation, did not directly mention censorship. But he made it clear that the Communist Party was looking to ensure it keeps control of China's Internet users, often more interested in salacious pictures, bloodthirsty games and political scandal than Marxist lessons. The party had to 'strengthen administration and development of our country's Internet culture,' Hu told the meeting on Tuesday, according to the Xinhua news agency." Learn more at News.com.

• 24 January 2007
  "A lot of technology exists to curb energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The problem is we lack the willpower to embrace it. 'This country only gets excited about energy when oil prices get high,' said Dan Arvisu, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) during a presentation at the Clean Tech Investor Summit taking place here. 'We do have a problem with how serious we are about our energy challenges.' Arvisu, who advises the White House on energy policy, underscored the point by displaying pie charts detailing the U.S. (and global) energy consumption at the present and the projected consumption in 2030. In 2004, oil accounted for 40 percent of the U.S. oil budget, while coal took up 26 percent. Natural gas accounted for 21 percent and nuclear power accounted for 6 percent. Renewable energy accounted for 7 percent. Flash forward to 2030. Oil is 40 percent, coal is 23 percent, natural gas is 23 percent and renewable is 6 percent." Learn more at News.com.

• 23 January 2007
  "South Africa should forcibly detain patients with a deadly strain of TB in order to stop it spreading throughout the continent, health experts and ethicists agree. The epicentre of South Africa’s HIV epidemic, KwaZulu-Natal, has another crisis on its hands. This time it is a deadly strain of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, called XDR-TB. The strain, which kills 98% of those infected within about two weeks, has already killed at least 74 people in the past few months. The threat to public health is so great that this concern should override the human rights of an infected individual, believes Jerome Singh, a lawyer at the Centre for AIDS Programme of Research in Durham, South Africa. Singh says South Africa’s existing strategies are inadequate. Cases have been reported all over the country but there are no infection control centres for XDR-TB, except at King George V Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal which is treating only 11 patients." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 22 January 2007
  "The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least four Wall Street investment banks as part of a widening investigation into the multibillion-dollar online gambling industry, according to people briefed on the investigation. The subpoenas were issued to firms that had underwritten the initial public offerings of some of the most popular online gambling sites that operate abroad. The banks involved in the inquiry include HSBC, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort, these people said. While online gaming sites like PartyGaming and 888 Holdings operate from Gibraltar and their initial public offerings were held on the London Stock Exchange, companies that do business with them and have large bases in United States have come under scrutiny by regulators in Washington. None of the biggest United States banks like Goldman Sachs or Citigroup underwrote the initial public offerings in London, in part because of the legal ambiguity of the sites; they are illegal in the United States, but still accessible to residents." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 19 January 2007
  "Banks and ATM machines are an unfamilar sight in the rural countryside here, but the government hopes to change that with new technology that could ease the transition from cash to computers. A pilot program will put 15 biometric ATMs at village kiosks in five districts across southern India. The machines are expected to serve about 100,000 workers who will use fingerprint scanners, rather than ATM cards and PINs, to obtain their funds. Biometric ATMs are already in use in Colombia and a few locations in Japan, but haven't caught on in much of the rest of the world. As a result, biometrics companies are watching the experiment closely as a potential watershed for the industry. Nagaraj Mylandla, managing director of Financial Software and Systems, which helped design security protocol for the new system, said there are 35,000 non-biometric ATMs in India today. In three years the number of machines is expected to triple to more than 100,000, leaving a window of opportunity for suppliers to make the new technology standard issue for all new machines." Learn more in Wired News.

• 18 January 2007
  "President Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to pass long-stalled legislation to safeguard genetic privacy, a measure experts say would encourage millions of Americans to undergo testing that could lead to prevention and treatment of cancer and other diseases. 'If a person is willing to share his or her genetic information, it is important that that information not be exploited in improper ways,' Mr. Bush said at the National Institutes of Health. 'And Congress can pass good legislation to prevent that from happening.' He added, 'We want medical research to go forward without an individual fearing personal discrimination.' For years, scientists and patients’ advocates have pushed for legislation barring employers and insurance companies from discriminating based on the results of genetic tests. A so-called genetic discrimination bill passed the Senate unanimously in 2003, but died in the House. The bill was reintroduced in the House this week. With Congress now under Democratic control, the bill’s backers are optimistic." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 17 January 2007
  "My laptop computer was purchased by Stanford, but my whole life is stored on it. I have e-mail dating back several years, my address book with the names of everyone I know, notes and musings for various work and personal projects, financial records, passwords to my blog, my web mail, project and information management data for various organizations I belong to, photos of my niece and nephew and my pets. In short, my computer is my most private possession. I have other things that are more dear, but no one item could tell you more about me than this machine. Yet, a rash of recent court decisions says the Constitution may not be enough to protect my laptop from arbitrary, suspicionless and warrantless examination by the police. At issue is the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents. As a primary safeguard against arbitrary and capricious searches, property seizures and arrests, the founding fathers required the government to first seek a warrant from a judge or magistrate." Learn more in Wired News.

• 16 January 2007
  "It is not easy working inside Martek Biosciences, which has been trying for years to persuade food makers to add an omega-3 fat found in algae to everything from cheese puffs to cornflakes. 'There have been a lot of days where we ask ourselves if we’re crazy,' said Steve Dubin, the company’s chief executive. 'You look at yourself in the mirror and have to ask, "Is the rest of the world not getting it, or are we the ones out of touch with reality?"' Of course, Martek has concluded that the rest of the world doesn’t get it. The company, which is based here, between Baltimore and Washington, says it has made that most magical of food discoveries: an essential nutrient that can be added invisibly to the diet without any appreciable impact on taste or eating habits. Martek has had considerable success adding an omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, to infant formula. And, on paper at least, DHA also sounds like the perfect supplement for Americans, who seem to grow more obsessed with healthy eating the more poorly they eat." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 12 January 2007
  "As the 110th Congress settles into the Capitol building this month, one congressman won't be able to get too comfortable in his chair, with a controversy over the electronic voting machines that put him in office boiling down to a battle over the source code. Republican Vern Buchanan claimed Florida's 13th Congressional District seat last November by fewer than 400 votes, while some 18,000 ballots cast in Sarasota County mysteriously contained no vote either for Buchanan or his Democratic opponent Christine Jennings -- an anomaly that prompted Jennings to challenge the election results in a lawsuit against state election officials, Buchanan and the company that makes the machines. The case brings to a head a long-running tug of war over how to handle the software code that increasingly runs U.S. elections. Advocates for transparent elections, including voting activists and some candidates, have sought to examine the source code for election software to ensure that machines are accurately presenting the ballots, recording and counting every vote. On the other side, voting machine companies like Election Systems & Software and Diebold Election Systems have consistently claimed their source code is a trade secret." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 11 January 2007
  "Wednesday morning, India launched a satellite that makes clear its intentions to join what is emerging as a second space race. After at least 12 days in orbit, it will attempt something that no Indian satellite has ever before attempted: to return to Earth, splashing down in the Bay of Bengal. If successful, India would join an exclusive group - only the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union have mastered the technology necessary to recover a capsule and its cargo safely. As India considers setting up its own manned space program, this mission represents an indispensable first step. Yet it is also part of Asia's increasing spaceward gaze, as economic maturity and a desire for international prestige - as well as China's entry into the space sweepstakes - prompt countries into action. 'You see this in East Asia in general,' says Jeff Foust, editor of The Space Review, an online journal. 'Japan feels it has fallen behind China, South Korea is developing its own launch vehicle, and India slots in very close to China. It is a rising power.'" Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 10 January 2007
  "The European Commission has urged its members to sign up to an unprecedented common energy policy, unveiling a plan to diversify the bloc's energy sources. Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said it was time for a "post-industrial revolution" which would see Europe slash greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020. But political as well as environmental concerns should spur change, he noted. EU vulnerability as an oil importer was thrown into sharp relief this week when Russia's row with Belarus hit supplies. In addition to the 20% of all EU energy that should come from renewable power by 2020, 10% of vehicle fuel should come from biofuels, said EU energy chief Andris Piebalgs. The EU wants to make these targets to be binding for the first time, he said. It also wants to make sure all new power stations are carbon neutral in 13 years - they should be built in such a way that carbon can be captured and buried - as well as ensuring there is a big increase in renewable power like wind and wave energy." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 9 January 2007
  "Few people would regard judges as high-priests of hi-tech but they do seem to have recognised something that Daniela Cicarelli and Brazilian banker Renato Malzoni have yet to appreciate. And that is the near impossibility of trying to stop illicitly taken photos or video circulating online. As Ms Cicarelli and Mr Malzoni have learnt to their cost, every attempt to get material removed - in this case a grainy video of the two enjoying each other's company on a Spanish beach - only alerts a new audience to the existence of the footage. Many judges in the UK and US do not issue injunctions to stop material being distributed because they know it is futile, says Nick Lockett, a senior partner at London firm DLL Legal and an expert on technology law. 'Instead,' he said, 'they will deal with it by claims for damages. That's the only recourse they are going to have,' said Mr Lockett." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 5 January 2007
  "The discovery of versatile stem cells in the amniotic fluid surrounding babies in the womb could make it possible for all mothers to save the cells as “spares” for baby. If the child suffers tissue or organ damage later in life, the cells could be retrieved and grown into the perfect graft, with no problems of tissue rejection by the immune system. Alternatively, the cells could be stored en masse from many babies in a public tissue bank, so that 'off-the-peg' tissues would be available matching that of almost any patient. Doctors could extract the cells either from amniotic fluid withdrawn from the womb for prenatal testing, or directly from the placenta once the women had given birth. The cells could then be stored in liquid nitrogen, preserving them for rest of the babies' life. At least that is the theory, now that new research has demonstrated for the first time that amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells can be extracted and turned into many tissue types." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 4 January 2007
  "A laboratory that has tested most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests. The company, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colo., has also come under fire from analysts hired by New York State over its plans to test new voting machines for the state. New York could eventually spend $200 million to replace its aging lever devices. Experts on voting systems say the Ciber problems underscore longstanding worries about lax inspections in the secretive world of voting-machine testing. The action by the federal Election Assistance Commission seems certain to fan growing concerns about the reliability and security of the devices. The commission acted last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then. Officials at the commission and Ciber confirmed the action in recent interviews." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 3 January 2007
  "Have you ever made a profit from a catering business or dog walking? Do you prefer to work alone or in groups? Have you ever set a world record in anything? The right answers could help get you a job at Google. Google has always wanted to hire people with straight-A report cards and double 800s on their SATs. Now, like an Ivy League school, it is starting to look for more well-rounded candidates, like those who have published books or started their own clubs. Desperate to hire more engineers and sales representatives to staff its rapidly growing search and advertising business, Google — in typical eccentric fashion — has created an automated way to search for talent among the more than 100,000 job applications it receives each month. It is starting to ask job applicants to fill out an elaborate online survey that explores their attitudes, behavior, personality and biographical details going back to high school." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 2 January 2007
  "Standing before a row of enlarged photographic slides of deadly viruses like Ebola and Hantavirus that decorate the new lunchroom at his office, Dr. Sherif Zaki professed himself to be uplifted. 'I can’t tell you how much this has done for our morale,' Dr. Zaki said. As a leader of an 11-year-old program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here that tries to ferret out the cause of 700 or so unexplained deaths across the United States each year, Dr. Zaki spends his days on matters that could test the morale of any scientist: a boy in Mississippi who died 17 days after developing a fever and headache; a football player at the University of Missouri who died hours after collapsing on the field; a skateboarder who scraped her knee and died a few days later. These are among the mysteries for which Dr. Zaki and his colleagues at the Unexplained Deaths Project, or UNEX, serve as the medical detectives of last resort." Learn more in the New York Times.
  

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