Society & Politics archives

• 30 December 2005
  "Gordon Bell doesn't need to remember, but has no chance of forgetting. At the age of 71, he is recording as much of his life as modern technology will allow, storing it all on a vast database: a digital facsimile of a life lived. If he goes for a walk, a miniature camera that dangles from his neck snaps pictures every minute or so, immediately committing the scene to a memory built not of neurons but ones and noughts. If he wanders into a cafe, sensors note the change in light, the shift of temperature and squirrel the information away. Conversations are recorded and steps logged thanks to a GPS receiver carried with him. Dr Bell has now stored so much of his life on computer that he is in danger of forgetting how to remember...He agreed to become a guinea pig in his own life's experiment, to push the boundaries of information computers can handle." Learn more in the Guardian.

• 29 December 2005
  "When the Austrian government passed a law this year allowing police to install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, the Austrian civil liberties group Quintessenz vowed to watch the watchers. Members of the organization worked out a way to intercept the camera images with an inexpensive, 1-GHz satellite receiver. The signal could then be descrambled using hardware designed to enhance copy-protected video as it's transferred from DVD to VHS tape. The Quintessenz activists then began figuring out how to blind the cameras with balloons, lasers and infrared devices. And, just for fun, the group created an anonymous surveillance system that uses face-recognition software to place a black stripe over the eyes of people whose images are recorded." Learn more in Wired News.

• 28 December 2005
  "New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has begun investigating digital-music pricing as record companies turn to the Web to make up for declining sales of compact discs. A 'preliminary inquiry is under way,' spokesman Darren Dopp said Tuesday. He wouldn't say whether Spitzer's office sent subpoenas to music companies, but Warner Music Group, the fourth-largest record company, said last week it received a subpoena in the probe Dec. 20. Warner Music said Spitzer's subpoena was part of an industrywide antitrust investigation into digital-music prices. Warner Music is cooperating with the inquiry, it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission." Learn more in the Seattle Times.

• 27 December 2005
  "When seeking the source of a mysterious malaise, few people would think to blame ions trapped in their mattress coils or cyclotronic resonance from the electrical system. But if they did, they'd find products already on the market to allay their symptoms. Targeting Americans concerned about exposure to mobile phone and electrical infrastructure, online retailers are selling a growing selection of protective gear. Listings include radiation-blocking boxers, radio curtain shields and pendants for removing electromagnetic frequencies...While some scientists believe the ailment's roots are more psychological than biological, retailers are finding a lucrative niche." Humans do find interesting ways to spend their money. Read more at Wired News.

• 26 December 2005
  "The 50 Matara Express came to a halt just before 9.30am, outside the village of Peraliya on Sri Lanka's southern coast. The chief engineer had been told to expect a signal change. It never came. A year later, the train's last three rusty carriages have only just been taken away, and Peraliya is once again the focal point for the nation's grief. For Sri Lankans, Peraliya means the train, and the train means the tsunami. Until last week the carriages stood like tombstones in the centre of the village, torn clothing in them serving as a reminder of the desperation of the last minutes of those on board. Outside, there were always people. Standing. Looking." One year later, the societies stricken by the tsunami are still struggling with the damage, physical and psychological, reports London's Independent.

• 23 December 2005
  "The torrent of unwanted email (spam) received by users may be subsiding as a result of new laws and improved filtering technologies, according to a US government report released on Tuesday. The Federal Trade Commission study suggests that most consumers receive less spam than two years ago, although unwanted email remains a major nuisance for many. The FTC gathered statistics from internet users, companies and ISPs, and analysed email filtering systems. A survey conducted by the e-mail filtering firm MX Logic, and cited in the report, found that spam accounted for 67% of emails passing through its system during the first eight months of 2005, a 9% decrease compared to a year earlier. The US internet service provider (ISP) America Online also told the FTC that its members received 75% less spam in 2004 than in 2003." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 22 December 2005
  "The Environmental Protection Agency plans to decide on Tuesday how much pollution in the nation's air is too much, one of its most far-reaching actions in years. The EPA faces a legal deadline of midnight Tuesday night to propose the highest level of soot in the air that is safe for public health. Once the proposal is finalized, states must ensure their soot levels are lower than the EPA's new standards — a requirement that could spell tighter regulations on everything from factories to fast-food restaurants. The stakes are high. A cleanup effort to meet stricter air-quality goals could cost billions of dollars a year. But breathing soot-filled air can aggravate heart and lung diseases, resulting in 10,000 to 20,000 American deaths each year, says EPA spokesman John Millett." Learn more in USA Today.

• 21 December 2005
  "As millions of New Yorkers contend with a crippling transit strike, the web is taking center stage as a place to cope, from blowing off steam to lining up rides to and from the city. Since members of Local 100 of The Transport Workers Union walked away from their buses and subway trains early Tuesday morning, craigslist new york city has become a virtual hub for stranded commuters. Hundreds of help postings have cropped up on the site by people offering and looking for rides. Others are renting space in their apartments as strike crash pads. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said he wasn't surprised at the number of postings or content on the site related to the strike, but that he and his team are trying to find a way for the site to more effectively hook up people needing help with those offering rides to work. As for those asking money for a sleeping spot, he said, it just 'seems like people are helping other people out by offering reasonable deals. This is a real crisis, and people are helping out and that's good.'" Learn more in Wired News.

• 20 December 2005
  "On December 15, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) inaugurated an oil pipeline running from Kazakhstan to northwest China. The pipeline will undercut the geopolitical significance of the Washington-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC)oil pipeline which opened this past summer amid big fanfare and support from Washington. The geopolitical chess game for the control of the energy flows of Central Asia and overall of Eurasia from the Atlantic to the China Sea is sharply evident in the latest developments. Making the Kazakh-China oil pipeline link even more politically interesting, from the standpoint of an emerging Eurasian move towards some form of greater energy independence from Washington, is the fact that China is reportedly considering asking Russian companies to help it fill the pipeline with oil, until Kazakh supply is sufficient." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 19 December 2005
  "In the year 2009, on the 25th of April, a man named Greg is supposed to get an e-mail. The e-mail will remind Greg that he is his best friend and worst enemy, that he once dated a woman named Michelle, and that he planned to major in computer science. 'More importantly,' the e-mail says, 'are you wearing women's clothing?' The e-mail was sent by none other than Greg himself -- through a website called FutureMe. The site is one of a handful that let people send e-mails to themselves and others years in the future. They are technology's answer to time capsules, trading on people's sense of curiosity, accountability and nostalgia. 'Messages into the future is something that people have always sought to do," said Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future. 'In a way, it's a statement of optimism.'" Learn more in Wired News.

• 16 December 2005
  "The cereal aisle at your local supermarket may soon resemble the Las Vegas strip. Electronics maker Siemens is readying a paper-thin electronic-display technology so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable packaging, from milk cartons to boxes of Cheerios. In less than two years, Siemens says, the technology could transform consumer-goods packaging from the fixed, ink-printed images of today to a digital medium of flashing graphics and text that displays prices, special offers or alluring photos, all blinking on miniature flat screens. 'When kids see flashing pictures on cereal boxes we don't expect them to just ask for the product, but to say, "I want it,"' said Axel Gerlt, an engineer at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement the technology." Learn more in Wired News.

• 15 December 2005
  "In the stress-management classes Debbie Mandel teaches, parents often tell her about their struggles to combine work and home. Ranking high on their list of challenges is the cellphone. 'Most of the complaints are about how it intrudes on their home life,' says Ms. Mandel, of Lawrence, N.Y. 'They get called in the middle of the night. The phone is always ringing about minute issues. They ask me, "How do we deal with that?"' It's a question on many people's minds these days. A study in the December issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family finds that cellphones and pagers interfere with family life by bringing job worries and problems home. Interviews with working couples revealed that cellphone use tends to decrease family satisfaction and increase distress. 'People felt they couldn't turn them off,' says Noelle Chesley, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 14 December 2005
  "It was a startling feat of medicine, the world's first partial face transplant. But in the weeks since the groundbreaking surgery last month, the operation has taken a back seat to a very public argument over the ethics of the operation and the psychological health of the 38-year-old recipient. The debate has pitted one doctor against another and sent tabloids in Britain into a frenzy. At least one member of the regulatory agency that approved the procedure, Dr. Emmanuel Hirsch, has called for an investigation into whether the surgeons rushed to be first, cutting corners to avoid having to address ethical concerns. Meanwhile, doctors say that the carnival atmosphere is complicating the recovery of the woman, identified as Isabelle Dinoire, who received the new face." Learn more at the New York Times.

• 13 December 2005
  "Melting glaciers, the shrinking ice cap, warming oceans and rising sea levels -- all are urgent concerns around the world, and cause for frustration among many nations that believe the United States has set a glacial pace toward reversing the onset of global warming. Critics said the Bush administration's isolation at the United Nations-brokered international climate talks that ended last week in Montreal doesn't make much sense. The White House acknowledged Sunday that it holds 'a different view' from most other nations, but said it is nonetheless providing global leadership on heat-trapping 'greenhouse' gases...More than 150 nations, including nearly every industrialized country except the United States, agreed Saturday to negotiate a second phase of mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 12 December 2005
  "Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai has called on the United States to work with China to make a bigger "cake of trade" for win-win results. 'We should continue expanding two-way trade from a long-term perspective on the road of win-win cooperation,' he said at a dinner of the American Chamber of Commerce in China on December 9. Citing the framework agreement for China's purchase of 70 Boeing 737 planes signed during President George W Bush's successful visit to China late last month, Bo said China was expected to need 500 more planes by the year 2010 and more than 2,000 in the year 2020. Hailing the signing of the agreement between China and the US on textile exports, which the minister described as a win-win deal, Bo said if the two countries could face trade friction in the spirit of mutual respect and keep their composure, China and the US would surely get along well in bilateral trade." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 9 December 2005
  "One of China's newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse. Posters of World of Warcraft and Magic Land hang above a corps of young people glued to their computer screens, pounding away at their keyboards in the latest hustle for money. The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash. That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 8 December 2005
  "As a stock-futures trader, George Pruitt used to spend the day hovering over his computer screen. Now, he just stays within earshot. When his computer identifies an attractive time to buy or sell, it emits a horn blast. It does this often, including once last week while Pruitt was on the phone discussing his approach to automated trading. The e-mini, a futures contract that tracks the S&P 500 Index, is one of several securities the company monitors almost exclusively online. While successful trading strategies still usually involve some subjective human analysis, traders are entrusting a growing share of the work to their PCs. Most of the time, individual investors authorize each trade before it goes through. In some cases, however, even solo investors are cobbling together systems that are 100 percent automated." Learn more in Wired News.

• 7 December 2005
  "Newspapers vying for a Pulitzer Prize, the top honor in American print journalism, can now include material published online as part of their entries, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced Wednesday. The new rules come as newspapers increasingly rely on their Web sites to disseminate, support and enhance their work, even as print circulation declines. The new guidelines will apply to the 2006 awards, which cover work in 2005. 'It's a very significant change,' said Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzers. 'This reflects the growing importance of online content, but, at the same time, print remains very important, and I think the Pulitzer competition now reflects a blend of print and online, which is what most newspapers are seeking to achieve these days.'" Learn more at ABC News.

• 6 December 2005
  "Leading forecasters of advertising spending have turned cautious in their predictions for most media, except - not surprisingly - the Internet. In a series of presentations yesterday, at the opening sessions of the 33rd annual UBS Global Media Conference in Midtown Manhattan, several analysts trimmed or stood pat on their growth estimates for this year and next. Even some forecasters who were not presenting at the conference used it as a springboard to release predictions in which they also took another look at their previous growth forecasts. Advertising spending is considered a gauge of the health of the economy, so the widespread predictions of cutbacks may augur some softness ahead. That may be tempered, however, by the unanimously robust estimates for growth in ad spending online." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 5 December 2005
  "For Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, last week was a tough one. And he's going to change the ground rules for the popular anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia because of it. First, in a Nov. 29 op-ed piece in USA Today, a former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy lambasted the free online reference work for an article that suggested he may have been involved in the assassinations of both Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. Then, on Dec. 1, a new flurry of attention came when former MTV VJ and podcasting pioneer Adam Curry was accused of anonymously editing out references to other people's seminal podcasting work in an article about the hot new digital medium. To critics of Wikipedia--which, in a spin on the open-source model, lets anyone create and edit entries--the news was further proof that the service has no accountability and no place in the world of serious information gathering." Learn more at News.com.

• 2 December 2005
  "Early one morning a few weeks ago, Kara Borden, a 14-year-old from Lititz, Pa., logged onto MySpace. The young, bubbly, blond-haired, brown-eyed homeschooled high school freshman had a profile on the popular networking site. Her page was brightly colored with pink-lined black boxes listing her friends and hobbies, a rainbow striped white background and a picture of her in a pink top, smiling with lips closed to hide her braces. She listed her interests as soccer, talking on the phone, the beach and partying. A few hours later she allegedly stood by as her boyfriend, David Ludwig, 18, shot and killed her parents. David was on MySpace, too. Kara's parents were killed on Nov. 13. Just after noon the next day, police tracked the two teens down in Indiana, capturing them after a high speed chase. But before that, as the story of the double murder and the two missing teens hit the news, hundreds of curious, savvy Web surfers found Kara and David's MySpace profiles and Xanga blogs." Learn more at MSNBC.com.

• 1 December 2005
  "Ajit Jogi, a member of the Indian parliament and a former chief minister of an Indian state, almost lost his life in a motor vehicle accident while traveling at night during an election in April 2004. He survived due to prompt medical attention, but was left paralyzed to the extent even breathing was an ordeal. But Delhi-based Dr Geeta Shroff's 'revolutionary stem cell therapy' caught the attention of his family. He has been conducting embryonic stem cell-based treatment and research since 2000. Jogi, 59, called the treatment 'remarkable' to the point he was thinking of returning to politics and joining Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government. Though ethical and governmental barriers impede stem cell research in Western countries (where Christianity is dominant) - particularly involving embryonic stem cells - experts say such barriers are a boon for countries such as India, which have a large pool of scientific talent and do not face such opposition." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 30 November 2005
  "Iran's space agency is trying to snap up technology from abroad as fast as possible for its satellite program, fearing the West will seek to impose restrictions like those put on the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has major ambitions in space, looking to show off its technological abilities, monitor its neighborhood -- where the United States has hundreds of thousands of troops -- and establish itself as a regional superpower. Others are concerned about the program's military applications, particularly Israel, whose existence is opposed by the hard-line Islamic regime in Iran. Iran's Shahab-3 missile, with a range of 1,240 miles, already can reach Israel as well as U.S. forces across the Middle East. Iran says it only wants to be able to put its own satellites in space to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation and improve its telecommunications." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 29 November 2005
  "As controversy rages around the use of human eggs in cloning and stem-cell research, a little-noticed backlash has begun against a procedure that produced equally intense ethical debates decades ago, but has since gone mainstream: making test-tube babies. At stake are growing concerns over in vitro fertilization, or IVF, specifically regarding the collection of human eggs and the storage of embryos that prospective parents may donate to research, set aside for future use or even give up for adoption. Renewed interest in IVF procedures could put one of the first significant brakes on a practice that has flourished outside strict regulatory control for more than a quarter of a century. New rules have already taken effect in Italy requiring that embryos created during fertility treatments be implanted, not stored." Learn more in Wired News.

• 28 November 2005
  "Mexico probably will surpass the U.S. in obesity rates for the first time next year as the Latin American nation adopts the fast food and sedentary lifestyles of its neighbor to the north. The brewing health crisis prompted Mexico's congress this month to move toward making school exercise mandatory. Mexico City has called in a Texas doctor to wean kids off pizza and fries, while Health Ministry ads warn fat can lead to diabetes and heart disease. 'Obese and overweight adults went from nowhere in 1990 to 62 percent in 2000,' said Barry Popkin, an economist and nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, citing a Mexican government study. 'You are talking about an astronomical increase coming at a very fast rate and it's continuing.'" Attitudes and personal preferences can easily join products and services as exports, as suggested by this report from Bloomberg.

• 25 November 2005
  "Linda Kelly of Quincy, Mass., and her family will get some help with their heating bills this winter, courtesy of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, who evidently can feel a US chill way down in Caracas. This week's announcement that Venezuela will sell 12 million gallons of heating oil - at a discount - to help Massachusetts' neediest citizens is part political theater to tweak the Bush administration, part PR campaign for Mr. Chávez, and, some allow, part gesture of help. 'Our objective is simple: to help people of limited means through the winter,' said Felix Rodriguez, chief executive officer of Citgo, the US-based refining subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 24 November 2005
  "In separate legal actions yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an influential digital rights advocacy group in California, and the Texas attorney general filed lawsuits against the music publisher Sony BMG, contending that the company violated consumers' rights and traded in malicious software. They are the latest in a series of blows to the company after technology bloggers disclosed this month that in its efforts to curb music piracy, Sony BMG had embedded millions of its music CD's with software designed to take aggressive steps to limit copying, but which also exposed users' computers to potential security risks." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 23 November 2005
  "Since May 2004, the EU has given U.S. authorities 34 categories of information on passengers flying to the United States, including name, address, all forms of payment and contact phone numbers. The agreement to do that sprang from one of the antiterrorism laws passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The European Union's executive, the European Commission, decided in May last year that the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection would adequately protect the private information. A few days later, the EU Council, comprising all member states, approved the deal. But Advocate General Philippe Leger said on Tuesday the European Commission wrongly used a law covering only civil matters to deal with public security and criminal issues." Learn more at News.com.

• 22 November 2005
  "HP Labs director Dick Lampman won't quickly forget the warm thank-you he received from England's Cambridge University. Because so many foreign students failed to receive study visas for the United States, they were instead matriculating in the U.K. colleges, and Cambridge's vice chancellor was absolutely buoyant about the quality of their educational credentials. 'It was not the high point of my day,' Lampman said. Does it really matter that a few thousand teenagers from the Third World can't study here because of post-Sept. 11 restrictions? Many argue that it does not. After all, the technology business is booming, share prices are climbing, and a few companies even are partying like its 1999. What's past is necessarily prologue. But traveling around Silicon Valley of late, I haven't found many serious thinkers brimming with Panglossian optimism when they assess the state of the technology industry. " Learn more at News.com.

• 21 November 2005
  "Progress has been made in tackling HIV infection in key African countries, but a record five million people were infected worldwide in 2005 to take the estimated total beyond 40 million for the first time, according to a United Nations report released on Monday. The five million cases recorded in 2005 was "the highest number of people newly infected in a year since the beginning of the epidemic", said Peter Piot, executive director of the UNAIDS programme. The AIDS epidemic claimed 3.1 million lives during the year, more than half a million of them children, the report said. 'The total number of people living with HIV reached its highest level, an estimated 40.3 million,' up from 37.5 million in 2003, said the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 report, released in New Delhi, India. The report notes that 'the overall number of people living with HIV continued to increase in all regions of the world, except the Caribbean.'" Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 18 November 2005
  "This 30-mile-long volcanic island appears on a map like stray bit of tropical spackling flung out in the Pacific. Honolulu is eight hours east, Tokyo four hours north, Hong Kong and Jakarta four hours west and south. The rest is ocean. Guam has been a sleepy supply depot for decades. But it is now becoming known as the 'tip of the spear' of US Pacific forces. This US territorial outpost no longer means just 'fuel and ammo' but 'subs and bombers' as well. Some officers say Guam's new priority is a result of diverse missions in the Pacific, like tsunami relief. But most agree it has its source in the 'unknowns' in East Asia - code language for Pentagon concerns about the rise of China - with its claims on Taiwan and rivalry with Japan - and a region with friction over oil rights, North Korea. '[Guam] hasn't had a continuous bomber presence since Vietnam,' says Lt. Col. Hans Lageschulte, a flight operations officer here. 'But things changed two years ago.'" Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 17 November 2005
  "U.S. President George W. Bush has maintained his hard line on North Korea, saying there will be no assistance to Pyongyang until it gives up its nuclear weapons and programs. Speaking at a joint news conference in Gyeongju, South Korea, the U.S. leader said a sought-after 'light water nuclear reactor' would not be delivered until the 'appropriate time.' And that time was 'after they (North Korea) have verifiably given up their nuclear weapons and programs.' President Bush was speaking after a meeting Thursday with South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun, during which the two men had extensive discussions on how to deal with the North's nuclear capabilities. President Roh told the media that the U.S. and South Korea 'agreed on the fundamental issues' involved and that the current six-party talks being held in China were the best means of resolving the situation." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 16 November 2005
  "Dipichi, South Africa -- It is hard to believe that 19 shiny flat screen computers can cure the ills of this tiny community in South Africa's arid north where people battle every day against poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and hunger. Yet U.S. computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. and South African President Thabo Mbeki are promoting Dipichi's smart new IT lab as a blueprint for how technology can trigger growth and tackle poverty across the world's poorest continent. Bridging the so-called digital divide in Africa became a popular mantra among aid workers and government officials during the tech boom that started in the late 1990s but it fell from favor as countless ill-conceived rural IT centers went unused. Skeptics asked what use a computer was when people were hungry, dying of AIDS and too poor to send their kids to school? But as multinationals start to invest in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent, they are touting technology as a panacea for development." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 15 November 2005
  "Historically, the European Union has not bothered with funding much basic scientific research. Such activities have mainly remained the preserve of national governments, not least because giving scientists free rein can lead to discoveries that not only make money but ultimately enhance military might. That attitude is now changing. The European Commission proposes to establish a European Research Council (ERC) that would spend a maximum of €12 billion ($14 billion) over seven years on 'blue skies' research. While the plans are being generally welcomed by Europe's member states, their details are problematic. The proposed ERC is intended to make Europe more competitive. Europe has some first-class universities, scientific institutions and research organisations. But, the ERC's proponents argue, their activities are fragmented, so they are not reaching their full potential." Learn more in the Economist.

• 14 November 2005
  "The cost of fast net access and linking up to the net's global infrastructure hits poorer nations much harder than developed countries, says a UN body. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said this meant that nations lacked in e-commerce. It also pointed to cybercrime threats which could dent potential advantages the web could offer developing nations. The report was released ahead of next week's Tunis summit of world leaders and experts to discuss key net issues. The World Summit on the Information Society is taking place between 16-18 November. The Unctad report found that there are big differences between businesses in developing and developed nations when it came to how much it costs to link up to international networks. This means they may not be able to take full advantage of the economic benefits the net has. In the European Union, 89% of businesses were online, but the figure was far lower for less developed countries." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 11 November 2005
  "Most of the current controversies associated with science revolve around the vastly different reactions people both within the scientific community and outside it have, not to the strange features of the universe that we can observe for ourselves, but rather to those features we cannot observe. In my own field of physics, theorists hotly debate the possible existence of an underlying mathematical beauty associated with a host of new dimensions that may or may not exist in nature. School boards, legislatures and evangelists hotly debate the possible existence of an underlying purpose to nature that similarly may or may not exist. It seems that humans are hard-wired to yearn for new realms well beyond the reach of our senses into which we can escape, if only with our minds." Read this interesting piece by Lawrence Krauss in the New York Times.

• 10 November 2005
  "French prosecutors shut down several blogs this week and arrested bloggers suspected of inciting violence, as officials moved to squelch riots that have rocked France for more than 10 days. A prosecuting attorney from Le Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told Wired News that three bloggers and forum visitors allegedly posted messages that violated French criminal statutes governing violent speech. Two of the bloggers, who were arrested earlier this week, could be arraigned under violent speech statutes, the prosecutor said. The blogs in question, he said, were hosted on a French site called Skyblog, which is owned by Skyrock. One of the blogs, called Hardcore, allegedly published violent, racially tainted hate speech that, according to the prosecutor, incited violence with a post called 'Destroy France.'" Learn more in Wired News.

• 9 November 2005
  "The state Board of Education approved curriculum standards Tuesday that question evolution and redefine science to include concepts other than natural explanations. The board, in a 6-4 vote, recommended that schools teach the 'considerable scientific and public controversy' surrounding the origin of life — a dispute most scientists contend exists only among creationists. National science groups opposed the measure, and critics contended it was an effort to inject religion into the classroom. But its advocates said they were interested only in improving science. 'This is a great day for Kansas,' board President Steve E. Abrams said. 'This absolutely raises science standards.' The dissenters noted that some board members who backed the standards have been outspoken about their faith and have criticized evolution for being offensive to Christianity." Learn more in the Los Angeles Times.

• 8 November 2005
  "The plan for human space exploration has a familiar ring: Launch probes to scope out the moon, build rockets powerful enough to get people and supplies there, then send the first lunar expedition - all before 2020. These goals form the centerpiece of the US manned spaceflight program. They now form the centerpiece of China's, too. As lawmakers in Washington fret over how to pay for key elements of President Bush's blueprint for space exploration, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon in 2018, China is making a bid to place the first bootprints on the moon this century - perhaps in 2017.On one level, China's goals - plus those of other space-faring countries - are raising concerns among some analysts that the US space program may be on the verge of losing its preeminence in space exploration." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 7 November 2005
  "Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, often intimidates its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry. 'We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart,' said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board. In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby. Wal-Mart is scarcely alone in its concern." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 4 November 2005
  "Entrepreneurship turned eBay founder Pierre Omidyar into one of the world's richest men. Now, he's betting it can ease one of the world's most daunting problems: poverty. Omidyar, who started eBay 10 years ago, will announce Friday that he is donating $100 million for a new Tufts University program to generate millions of tiny loans, some as small as $40, to finance entrepreneurs trying to escape poverty in India, Bangladesh and other poor countries. The gift is a big endorsement of social entrepreneurship — a field of growing interest for the new generation of technology entrepreneurs. The shift could recast traditional philanthropy dominated by non-profits such as the Ford Foundation built on Old Economy wealth." Learn more in USA Today.

• 3 November 2005
  "Late last year, a 15-year-old boy rubbed a swab along the inside of his cheek, popped it into a vial and sent it off to an online genealogy DNA-testing service. But unlike most people who contact the service, he was not interested in sketching the far reaches of his family tree. His mother had conceived using donor sperm and he wanted to track down his genetic father. That the boy succeeded using only the DNA test, genealogical records and some internet searches has huge implications for the hundreds of thousands of people who were conceived using donor sperm. With the explosion of information about genetic inheritance, any man who has donated sperm could potentially be found by his biological offspring. Absent and unknown fathers will also become easier to trace. The teenager tracked down his father from his Y chromosome. The Y is passed from father to son virtually unchanged, like a surname." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 2 November 2005
  "The homeless should be given broadband internet access, John Prescott's office has said in a new report. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister believes digital technology could be a lifeline for people on the streets. It says many homeless people already use the internet and mobile phones to look for work and accommodation. And it wants to build on this by encouraging homeless hostels and community centres in deprived areas to install broadband access. The idea is set out in a report by the ODPM's social exclusion unit, which wants to encourage hostel managers to spend more cash on providing internet access. An ODPM spokesman said having an e-mail address could be the first step to finding a permanent place to live, by enabling people to receive information about long-term living places while moving between hostels." Learn more about his plan to provide the homeless in Britain with broadband access at the BBC.com.

• 1 November 2005
  "A team of Chinese scientists shocked the data security world this year by announcing a flaw in a widely used technique used to create and verify digital signatures in e-mail and on the Web. Now the U.S. government is trying to figure out what to do about it. The decade-old algorithm, called the Secure Hashing Algorithm, or SHA-1, is an official federal standard and is embedded in every modern Web browser and operating system. Any change will be expensive and time-consuming--and a poor choice by the government would mean that the successor standard may not survive another 10 years." Learn more at News.com.

• 31 October 2005
  "An increasingly globalized world became even smaller on Thursday when Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists unveiled technology that makes it possible to speak one language, yet be understood in another. Although this speech translation system is probably a decade away from commercial availability, it has the potential to topple the Tower of Babel by bridging the language divide between countries and cultures, said CMU computer science professor Alex Waibel, who directs the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies, or interACT. CMU computer science graduate student Stan Jou, 34, of Shadyside, stood before the audience yesterday morning with 11 tiny electrodes affixed to the muscles of his cheeks, neck and throat." Learn more in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

• 28 October 2005
  "Federal law enforcement attempts to use cell phones as tracking devices were rebuked twice this month by lower court judges, who say the government cannot get real time tracking information on citizens without showing probable cause. This summer, Department of Justice officials separately asked judges from Texas and Long Island, New York to sign off on orders to cellular phone service providers compelling them to turn over phone records and location information -- in real time -- on two different individuals. Both judges rejected the location tracking portion of the request in harshly worded opinions, concluding investigators cannot turn cell phones into tracking devices by simply telling a judge the information is likely 'relevant' to an investigation." Learn more in Wired News.

• 27 October 2005
  "It sounds like an open-and-shut case: a clear DNA match is made between semen from a serious sexual assault and a blood sample from a known criminal. Yet in a recent case from Alaska, the criminal in question was in jail when the assault took place. And forensic scientists had already matched the crime sample to the DNA profile of another person who was their prime suspect. It was only after careful detective work that the mystery was solved: the jailed man had received bone marrow from the suspect many years earlier. This week, at a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Salt Lake City, Utah, Abirami Chidambaram of the Alaska State Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory in Anchorage described the case to highlight the danger of miscarriages of justice." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 26 October 2005
  "How do we regulate speech in a democracy? When do words make you a criminal, conspirator, aider and abetter, and when do they make you a journalist, reporter, whistle-blower, free citizen? Soon we will know whether Karl Rove, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby or any other White House figure will face charges for revealing the name of a CIA operative as part of a campaign to silence her husband, a vocal critic of the war in Iraq. But as many major scandals do, the 'Plamegate' affair has sprouted hydra-heads of side scandals -- and none so interesting as the question of the role journalists have played in outing Valerie Plame...The treatment of journalists connected to Plamegate should send a cold chill through internet publishers of any stripe, and worry those of us intent on fully transporting democratic principles to the online world...Congress isn't likely to extend the narrow legal protections that mainstream journalists want to bloggers, message-board posters and mailing-list participants." Learn more in Wired News.

• 25 October 2005
  "Not surprisingly, an unbalanced global economy is struggling under the weight of the energy shock of 2005. This has not been lost on world financial markets. Stock markets have sagged on the fear of demand risk and bond markets have backed up as central banks sound the alarm over incipient inflation. This underscores the inherent risks of the fabled four-engine global airplane. This gigantic 747 is now flying on just two engines, fueled by the American consumer on the demand side and the Chinese producer on the supply side. If the demand engine sputters, added thrust from the supply engine may be destabilizing. That's a legitimate concern in late 2005. If US consumption falters in the face of ongoing vigor from Chinese production, it may be difficult for an already wobbly plane to maintain its altitude." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 24 October 2005
  "Robert Mason (not his real name) would love to spend a few minutes during lunch catching up on blog posts from around the web, but his company doesn't allow it. The financial institution where Mason works as a vice president has security filters set up to block access to -- among other things -- any website that contains the phrase 'blog' in the URL. What's more, says Mason, such practices are becoming prevalent in corporate America, particularly in financial services. Mason sits on a roundtable privacy group of 20 of the country's largest banks. 'My best understanding is that my company's anti-blog stance is the industry norm,' he says. Filtering out every blog isn't a completely feasible project (and, in fact, Mason says his company's filter doesn't catch everything), but the technology to censor the lion's share of blogs is fairly commonplace. From installing simple URL filters and content scanners to blacklisting ranges of IP addresses, myriad methods for shutting out blog content are available." Learn more in Wired News.

• 21 October 2005
  "The places immigrants settle and how they disperse across the U.S. has more to do with family relationships than it does with economics, say Dartmouth researchers. In a study that compared the geography of immigration based on households rather than on individuals, professors Mark Ellis and Richard Wright found that, among other things, generational status, not income, has the most effect on immigrant dispersion. The team's findings, reported in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences not only challenge current demographic analyses that track heads of households but reveal some of the social, political, and economic implications of doing so. Unlike previous researchers who have generated settlement patterns of individual immigrants using such markers as time and age, Ellis and Wright are part of a growing group of demographers who consider social and economic variables." Learn more in the Scientific American.

• 20 October 2005
  "While businesses see Bangalore as a technology hub, environmentalists claim India is the world's dumping ground for old computers. And this is threatening the health of some of the country's most vulnerable people. Most of our discarded computers will end up in a huge pile. But India's pile of past-it PCs is larger than most. This year the country will import more than 4.5 million new computers, plus many second-hand ones with shorter lifespans. It is known as electronic or e-waste. The trickle down from the computer hardware boom has reached those surviving on less than a dollar a day, with potentially disastrous consequences. In the cities, India's poor scrape a living by breaking down PCs and monitors. They boil, crush or burn parts in order to extract valuable materials like gold or platinum. But what they do not realise is that the toxic chemicals inside like cadmium and lead can pose serious health risks." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 19 October 2005
  "The greatest getting-and-spending spree in the history of the world is about to end. The 200-year boom that gave citizens of the industrial world levels of wealth, health and longevity beyond anything previously known to humanity is threatened on every side. Oil is running out; the climate is changing at a potentially catastrophic rate; wars over scarce resources are brewing; finally, most shocking of all, we don't seem to be having enough ideas about how to fix any of these things. It's been said before, of course: people are always saying the world will end and it never does. Maybe it won't this time, either. But, frankly, it's not looking good. Almost daily, new evidence is emerging that progress can no longer be taken for granted, that a new Dark Age is lying in wait for ourselves and our children. To understand how this could happen, it is necessary to grasp just how extraordinary, how utterly unprecedented are the privileges we in the developed world enjoy now." Learn more in the Times Online.

• 18 October 2005
  "What good is vaccination? Obviously it is good for the person receiving the vaccine, if he is thus prevented from suffering from a nasty disease. More subtly, it can be good for an entire population since, if enough of its members are vaccinated, even those who are not will receive a measure of protection. That is because, with only a few susceptible individuals, the transmission of the infection cannot be maintained and the disease spread. But in the case of many vaccines, there are non-medical benefits, too, in the form of costs avoided and the generation of income that would otherwise have been lost. These goods are economic. Quantifying these more general benefits is hard. But a pair of researchers from Harvard University has just tried." Learn more in the Economist.

• 17 October 2005
  "There are two significant energy trends underlying the competition between China and Japan for Russia's far east oil pipeline project: the need to seek additional energy supplies and pursue greater energy diversification. And for both China and Japan, Russian energy both offers a significant supply source and would contribute to greater import diversity. But these trends in energy interests are matched by an equally dynamic and intense geopolitical rivalry, defined by a complex and contradictory set of converging and diverging national interests. Within this context, the competition between China and Japan, as well as the Russian role in exploiting this rivalry, is driven by the distinct energy interests of each country." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 14 October 2005
  "With oil prices hitting record levels of US$70 per barrel in recent weeks, major energy consuming countries are engaging in an increasingly heated competition for energy resources on the world stage. Nowhere is this more evident than between the United States and China, the world's first and second largest energy-consuming countries respectively. In the contest for energy resources, numerous 'stages' of competition are emerging, including the Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America, and the East and South China Seas. Africa is fast emerging as one of the most volatile of these stages, given its vast reserves of energy resources and concentration of internal security crises. Africa owns about 8% of the world's known oil reserves, with Nigeria, Libya and Equatorial Guinea as the region's leading oil producers. 70% of Africa's oil production is concentrated in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, which stretches from the Ivory Coast to Angola. The low sulphur content of West African crude makes it of further strategic importance." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 13 October 2005
  "There will be as many as 50 million environmental refugees in the world in five years' time. That is the conclusion of experts at the United Nations University, who say that a new definition of 'environmental refugee' is urgently needed. They believe that already environmental degradation forces as many people away from their homes as political and social unrest. The UNU issued its statement to mark UN Day for Disaster Reduction. 'There are many different environmental issues involved and there can be interactions between them,' said Janos Bogardi, director of the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn, Germany. 'In poorer rural areas especially, one of the biggest sources of refugees is land degradation and desertification, which may be caused by unsustainable land use interacting with climate change, amplified by population growth,' he told the BBC News website." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 12 October 2005
  "Eating fish at least once a week may keep you brainy in old age, new research suggests. A study of about 4000 senior citizens of Chicago in the US showed that all of them lost some cognitive sharpness – such as memory and speed of thinking – as the years passed. However, among those who ate fish once a week, the rate of cognitive decline was about 10% slower. And it was 13% slower among those who consumed at least two fish meals a week. The difference is the equivalent of being three to four years younger, say the researchers. 'I had grown up being told to eat more fish because it was brain food,' says Martha Clare Morris, an epidemiologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, who led the study. The results show this 'makes perfect sense'..." With a rapidly growing elderly population in Europe, North America, and Japan, research this has broader societal implications. Learn more at New Scientist.

• 11 October 2005
  "People are leaving shattered Muzaffarabad and other towns in mountainous northern Pakistan, mostly by foot, because the government isn't providing enough aid after the area's biggest earthquake in 100 years, survivors said. 'Many people are fleeing the city because not enough relief goods are coming three days after the earthquake and dead bodies are lying everywhere,' Aziz Ahmed, 55, who lived six kilometers (four miles) outside Muzaffarabad, said by phone. 'We don't see enough rescue workers and machinery to lift the debris and we feared we won't get food and other things for a long time.' " Learn more at Bloomberg.

• 10 October 2005
  "Since early Wednesday, Phil Bradham, the network engineer at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, has been cut off from the parts of the Internet he needs the most. He can't reach his Web hosting company to update his site. Critical e-mails aren't going through, and some aren't reaching him. He can't get to some important sites on the Net, such as the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia. The source of Bradham's difficulties is a feud between two big backbone Internet companies--the long-haul networks that most consumers and even most businesses ordinarily have little to do with. One of these companies, Level 3 Communications, has cut off direct communications with rival Cogent Communications, causing many of each company's customers to lose access to potentially significant swatches of the Net. In theory, this kind of blackout is precisely the kind of problem the Internet was designed to withstand. The complicated, interlocking nature of networks means that data traffic is supposed to be able to find an alternate route to its destination, even if a critical link is broken." Learn more at News.com.

• 7 October 2005
  "'Devastating' early drafts of a controversial book recommended as reading at a US high school reveal how the word 'creationism' had been later swapped for 'intelligent design', a landmark US trial scrutinising the teaching of ID heard on Wednesday. The early drafts of the book Of Pandas and People, were used as evidence to link the book to creationism, which it is illegal to teach in government-funded US schools. 'ID proponents have said for years that they are not creationists,' says Nick Matzke of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California, which is advising 11 parents who are suing the school board of Dover High School in Pennsylvania for incorporating ID into the science curriculum. 'This proves beyond a doubt that this is simply a new name for creationism.' The early versions of the book were displayed to the court by expert witness for the plaintiffs and creationist historian Barbara Forrest." Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 6 October 2005
  "As offshore outsourcing boomed in recent years, the protracted controversy over the embattled H-1B immigrant labor program finally seemed to subside as U.S. jobs were exported overseas and theoretically lessened the need for foreign workers. Yet nearly 15 years after its inception under the Immigration Act of 1990, the program remains in full force and headed for new battles. Just last month, the Indian government made a proposal to the World Trade Organization, demanding that the annual cap for H-1B visas be raised from 65,000 to 195,000. The pivotal question: If jobs are leaving U.S. shores, is the program still needed? The H-1B program was created to keep U.S. companies competitive in the global economy by allowing them to hire professionals from other countries. Industry leaders argue that the program serves as a brake on offshoring by easing shortages in skilled labor within U.S. borders." Learn more at News.com.

• 5 October 2005
  "On October 3, European Union member states reached agreement regarding Turkey's accession to the Union, thus overcoming Austria's opposition and entering a delicate phase of negotiations. Vienna had called for a 'privileged partnership' to be awarded to Ankara rather than full E.U. membership. The 25 E.U. states finally ended last week's deadlock thanks to a new draft in which Ankara's and Zagreb's future full membership is taken into consideration...Of all of the issues relating to the E.U.'s further enlargement, those that relate to Turkey have always been the thorniest ones. The question of Ankara's full membership involves all of the possible geopolitical aspects one can expect, from demography to cultural identity, from geostrategy to economics, and from the internal European political balance to the E.U.'s relations with both the U.S. and the Middle East." Federico Bordonaro discusses this contentious socio-political issue at the Power and Interest News Report.

• 4 October 2005
  "Geri Agalia doesn't appear to leave less of a data trail than most Americans. She has a phone in her name, a bank account, utility bills, a mortgage and a credit card. But the stay-at-home mom and part-time student is among a select and ever-shrinking group of the digitally privileged -- her name does not appear on Google. 'I just value my privacy,' says Agalia, who lives in San Diego. 'And I think that the government and corporations already know too much about people for the benefit of marketing.' As the internet makes greater inroads into everyday life, more people are finding they're leaving an accidental trail of digital bread crumbs on the web -- where Google's merciless crawlers vacuum them up and regurgitate them for anyone who cares to type in a name. Our growing Googleability has already changed the face of dating and hiring, and has become a real concern to spousal-abuse victims and others with life-and-death privacy needs." Learn more in Wired News.

• 3 October 2005
  "For the first time in its history, the Internet is running a real risk of fracturing into multiple and perhaps even incompatible networks. At a meeting in Geneva last week, the Bush administration objected to the idea of the United Nations running the top-level servers that direct traffic to the master databases of all domain names. That's not new, of course--the administration has been humming this tune since June. What's changed in the last few months is the response from the rest of the world. Instead of acquiescing to the Bush administration's position, the European Union cried foul last week and embraced greater U.N. control. A spokesman said that the EU is 'very firm on this position.' Other nations were equally irked. Russia, Brazil and Iran each chimed in with statements saying that no 'single government' should have a 'pre-eminent role' in terms of Internet governance." Learn more at News.com.

• 30 September 2005
  

  "After a hot summer of heated debate in Washington about China, US policy toward China has settled into one of dissuasion and persuasion. US officials in the Pentagon aim to dissuade China from seeking to become a regional military power, while other parts of the government, the State Department in Foggy Bottom for example, aim to persuade China to adopt civil society and democratic institutions. Both faces of US policy recognize that the central question is political: what if China becomes rich and powerful, but not democratic? Unlike the Soviet Union, China does not seek to destroy the US and the international system it created. By contrast, China is playing by American-made rules, although it may be playing a different game, taking advantage of its lack of democratic constraints. The US therefore must hedge against a number of possible futures for China - strong, weak, cooperative, or aggressive." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 29 September 2005
  

  "A California senator has suggested that because file-sharing networks continue to house illegal files, they should be shut down. Intellectual property protection "can't function in a country where the high-tech services become such that you can't protect copyright," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said Wednesday at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The session centered on the landmark Supreme Court decision on MGM v. Grokster, which ruled that file-sharing services can be liable for their users' infringing behavior. Pointing to what she called a 'rise in peer to peers' since the Grokster decision, Feinstein said current law is not effective enough to deter illegal file swapping and the government must enact stronger enforcement measures." Learn more at News.com.

• 28 September 2005
  

  "In a closely watched case governing Internet privacy, a federal appeals court has reinstated a criminal case against an e-mail provider accused of violating wiretap laws. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 5-2 vote, ruled on Thursday that an e-mail provider who allegedly read correspondence meant for his customers could be tried on federal criminal charges. That decision reverses a 2-1 vote by a three-judge panel last year that raised alarms among civil libertarians and even sparked a flurry of efforts in Congress to rewrite wiretapping law in response. Privacy advocates had warned that if last year's ruling by the 1st Circuit was left untouched, it could usher in more e-mail eavesdropping by the government." Learn more at News.com.

• 27 September 2005
  

  "Through the darkest days of the Cold War, the world's largest uranium reserves stayed mostly untouched in their underground deposits, in a silent warning of the dangers of nuclear proliferation. But a different kind of fright factor has dredged up a new debate over what to do with thousands of tons of Australian uranium. If the deposits are now opened to all-comers, the biggest slice could go to countries that were on the other side during the ideological standoff - especially China. Canberra wants to lift decades-old restrictions on the mining of uranium to counter the threat of global warming, which is raising the political heat on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil. And it has found an unlikely ally in the trade union movement." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 26 September 2005
  

  "China is imposing new regulations to control content on its news websites, the government said Sunday, another step in its ongoing effort to police a rapidly expanding Internet population. The rules, issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Council, China's cabinet, will 'standardize the management of news and information' in the country, the official Xinhua News Agency said. They take effect immediately, it said. The report did not give any details on the regulations but said sites should only post news on current events and politics. It did not define what would be acceptable under those categories. Only 'healthy and civilized news and information that is beneficial to the improvement of the quality of the nation, beneficial to its economic development and conducive to social progress' will be allowed, Xinhua said. It added: 'The sites are prohibited from spreading news and information that goes against state security and public interest.'" Learn more in USA Today.

• 23 September 2005
  

  "Efforts to secure the integrity of electronic-voting machines seemed to get a boost this week, but the debate over the best way to guard against election tampering remained at a fever pitch. After five months of hearings and deliberations, a high-level election-reform commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker recommended that Congress require electronic-voting machines to produce a voter-verifiable paper audit trail by 2008. But even while the Commission on Federal Election Reform expressed support for paper trails, it acknowledged that they might not be the best solution to address security concerns with e-voting machines. The commission urged researchers to develop new technologies that could resolve the issues more effectively. The voter-verifiable paper audit trail, or VVPAT, is a printout of the machine's electronic ballot that voters can examine after they make their selections on the machine." Learn more in Wired News.

• 22 September 2005
  

  "At John Roberts' confirmation hearings last week, there weren't enough discussions about science fiction. Technologies that are science fiction today will become constitutional questions before Roberts retires from the bench. The same goes for technologies that cannot even be conceived of now. And many of these questions involve privacy. According to Roberts, there is a 'right to privacy' in the Constitution. At least, that's what he said during his Senate hearings last week. It's a politically charged question, because the two decisions that established the right to contraceptives and abortion -- Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973) -- are based in part on a right to privacy...But constitutional questions on privacy have far more extensive reach. Recent advances in technology have already had profound privacy implications, and there's every reason to believe that this trend will continue into the foreseeable future." Learn more in Wired News.

• 21 September 2005
  

  "Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution. They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply. That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 20 September 2005
  

  "It's been almost three years since a crisis erupted over North Korea's nuclear ambitions but Monday Pyongyang finally agreed to give up its nuclear weapons programs and return to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The question now is whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is serious or stalling for time. North Korea can be unpredictable at best, while at worst it is known for breaking commitments. 'All six parties emphasized that to realize the inspectable non-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the target of the six-party talks,' a joint statement said. 'The Democratic People's Republic of Korea promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs and to get back to the nonproliferation treaty as soon as possible and to accept inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.'" Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 19 September 2005
  

  "It's a question older than the Parthenon: Do new innovations and technologies make us more intelligent? A few thousand years ago, a Greek philosopher, as he snacked on dates on a bench in downtown Athens, may have wondered if the written language folks were starting to use was allowing them to avoid thinking for themselves. Today, terabytes of easily accessed data, always-on Internet connectivity, and lightning-fast search engines are profoundly changing the way people gather information. But the age-old question remains: Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be? 'Our environment, because of technology, is changing, and therefore the abilities we need in order to navigate these highly information-laden environments and succeed are changing,' said Susana Urbina, a professor of psychology at the University of North Florida who has studied the roots of intelligence." Learn more at News.com.

• 16 September 2005
  

  "Wide-ranging international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol may not be the best ways to battle global warming, according to three California scientists. Arguing that global treaties are only as effective as their least willing signatories, the team says that climate change is better fought from the bottom up. Countries, regional partnerships, U.S. states, and even individual private firms, the scientists believe, can establish various controls to limit climate-changing activities—and many already have. There are hundreds of independent policies at work now contributing to the effort to limit carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of climate change...The authors of the new article, which will be published tomorrow in the journal Science, point out that international treaties tend toward the mildest binding measures, since such measures are always the easiest for everyone to agree upon. The more countries that sign on to a treaty, the less stringent the terms become." Learn more in the National Geographic.

• 15 September 2005
  

  "Malaysia's science minister plans to make the country's space programme a truly interactive experience. Members of the public will be able to choose the country's first astronaut from a shortlist and vote by text message, said Jamaluddin Jarjis. Malaysia is due to take part in a Russian-led mission in 2007. Having seen the enthusiasm with which people vote in TV talent competitions, the government is to apply the principle to the space programme. Once its 11,000 would-be astronauts have been whittled down to a handful, their details and updates on their progress will be posted on the internet. Then, the public will be able to make their choice by telephone text message and Malaysia's space bosses will factor the votes into their final decision." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 14 September 2005
  

  "Increasingly, parents are using high-tech methods to track everything from where their children are and how far they are driving to what they buy, what they eat and whether they've shown up for class. Often, the gadget involved is a simple cell phone that transmits location data. The details get delivered by e-mail, cell phone text message or the Web. Other times, the tech tool is a debit-like card used at a school lunch counter, or a device that lets parents know not only how far and fast the car is going, but also whether their child has been braking too hard or making jackrabbit starts. Ted Schmidt, a father in suburban Burr Ridge, Illinois, uses the cell phone method to track his four children, including two in college. 'Here's the story,' Schmidt told them when he decided to begin tracking them about a year ago. '24/7, I can tell where your phone is, what speed it's going.... So (even) days later, I can look and see that "Oh my gosh, you were going 80 miles an hour on the Interstate at 2 o'clock in the morning."' Learn more at CNN.com.

• 13 September 2005
  

  "When Gordon Gould was a graduate student at Columbia University in 1957, he sketched out the concept of a concentrated beam of light amplified in a gas-filled chamber and coined the term 'laser' to describe it. But Gould waited to seek a patent on his discovery, believing incorrectly that a working prototype was necessary. Eventually, two other researchers were awarded the basic patents instead. After a decades-long legal tussle, Gould finally reveled in victory when a federal court ruled that the patent application it had approved did not anticipate the common uses of lasers. The legal standard that was applied awards patents to the person who invented a concept first, and it has long been a unique feature of the U.S. patent system. This year, however, Congress is about to consider a controversial proposal from Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, that would grant a patent to the first person to submit the paperwork." Learn more at News.com.

• 12 September 2005
  

  "Yahoo, in its first big move into original online video programming, is betting that war and conflict will lure new viewers. Lloyd Braun, the former chairman of ABC's entertainment group who now oversees Yahoo's expanded media group in Santa Monica, has hired Kevin Sites, a veteran television correspondent, to produce a multimedia Web site that will report on wars around the world. Mr. Sites, who has worked as a producer and correspondent for NBC and CNN, is probably most notable for a videotape he shot for NBC of a marine shooting and killing, in a mosque in Falluja last year, an Iraqi prisoner who appeared to be unarmed. That video generated a storm of outrage in the Arab world, and spawned both a military investigation into the incident and controversy about Mr. Sites." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 9 September 2005
  

  "95.3 "Evacuation Radio Services", a low-power FM station for Hurricane Katrina evacuees housed at the Astrodome, is still stuck in limbo. Although the group trying to organize the station has wrangled three 90-day licenses from the FCC, as of Thursday, they were being stymied by a handful of temporary administrators content to maintain radio silence. While basic needs -- food, water, clothing, shelter -- have been met with remarkable hospitality, the survivors of the hurricane inside the Astrodome complex say they continue to suffer from a lack of information...Inspired by the crisis, volunteers gathered Sunday in Tish Stringer's small apartment in the Museum District of midtown Houston, planning to broadcast hourly updated information evacuees would need to move forward with their lives." Learn more in Wired News.

• 8 September 2005
  

  "The arrest of two men suspected of being behind the Zotob virus has give a rare insight into the lifestyle and motivations of criminal hackers. On 25 August Farid Essebar was arrested in Morocco and Atilla Ekici was detained by police in Turkey following an international investigation into the Zotob outbreak earlier in the month. More than 100 companies, including the Financial Times, ABCNews and CNN, were hit by the Zotob Windows 2000 worm. For many one of the oddities of the case was the fact that one of the alleged virus writers was based in Morocco. Although Turkey has long been a hotspot for virus writers that specialise in making malicious programs that take over PCs and turn them into so-called zombie machines, Morocco is a real surprise." Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 7 September 2005
  

  "A French media watchdog group claimed on Tuesday that Yahoo provided information that helped Chinese officials convict a journalist accused of leaking state secrets. Shi Tao, a 37-year-old writer for the Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News), was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. He was convicted of sending to foreign Web sites a 'top secret' government message that had been sent to his newspaper. The international watchdog organization said recently translated court papers revealed that Yahoo Holdings in Hong Kong provided Chinese investigators with detailed information that helped them link Shi's personal e-mail account and a specific message containing the 'state secret' to the IP address of his computer. The state secret was a message to Shi's newspaper warning journalists of the dangers associated with dissidents returning to mark the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to the group." Learn more at News.com.

• 6 September 2005
  

  "On Friday afternoon, Leonard Sprague, a general contractor in Gainesville, Fla., saw the electronic plea. 'I hope someone can help,' someone using the name ZuluOne wrote to an online bulletin board. 'I am trying to get a current overlay for the area around 2203 Curcor Court in Gulfport, Miss.' Mr. Sprague knew that 'current overlay' meant a bird's-eye view. And an altruistic impulse combined with an urge to play with a new technology propelled him into action. Using his PC, he superimposed a freshly available posthurricane aerial photograph over a prehurricane image of the same neighborhood. After 15 minutes, he had an answer. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of displaced residents and their relatives have turned to the Internet for information about a home feared damaged or destroyed. Many are using Google Earth, a program available at the Google Web site that lets users zoom in on any address for an aerial view drawn from a database of satellite photos." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 5 September 2005
  

  "At a meeting 11 days ago in Chicago, representatives from 900 unions worldwide coalesced around a common idea: Turn up the pressure on Wal-Mart globally to boost pay and benefits. The move, by the federation known as Union Network International, encapsulates an anxiety shared by millions of workers, especially in advanced and middle-income nations. As corporations mine an expanding global labor market for the maximum efficiencies, will many workers be left behind? If we live in an increasingly 'flat' world where commerce and jobs can flow easily from Berlin to Beijing and New York to New Delhi, the world remains far from flat in income terms. As Americans celebrate Labor Day this weekend, enormous rich-poor income gaps continue to strain relations and resources. Indeed, one lesson may be that globalization isn't the great leveler of poverty that some hope." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 2 September 2005
  

  "Drug smugglers call it the golden route: from Afghanistan into Pakistan and then into eastern Iran, it's the trail that takes Afghanistan's abundant opium, and its derivative, heroin, to Western markets. And all along the way there is strong political compromise in which officials turn a blind eye to the players visibly plying the notorious route, and at each stage the commissions get bigger. The route provides a funding lifeline for the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan, and also enriches not only the United States-friendly Afghan warlords but also elements of the Northern Alliance, the US's key ally in the country. Afghanistan is estimated to produce 87% of the world's supply of opium (4,519 tons this season, down 2% from 2004 ), with nearly half of the country's US$4.5 billion economy coming from opium cultivation and trafficking." Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 1 September 2005
  

  "Along with the usual books, office products and kitchen supplies, two of the biggest online retailers are now offering the perfect gift for the self-obsessed: mail-order genetic testing. Amazon.com and Target.com both sell a British company's $30 DNA kits, which come with a cheek swab and a storage tin. For an extra $110, users can send for an identifying code extracted from their DNA profile and an analysis of how their genes stack up to those of the world's various races. Sales of the Catgee DNA Storage and Profile Kits -- the company name stands for cytosine, adenine, thymine and guanine, the four DNA molecules -- have jumped by 40 percent since the online merchants began offering them in earnest earlier this year, said David Nicholson, managing director of London-based DNA Products. Now the company is even packaging 'baby' DNA kits in pink and blue colors, hoping to tap into the baby-shower gift market." Learn more in Wired News.

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