‘The technological explosion is even bigger than the mobile phone explosion that preceded it. And, as with mobiles, it is being followed by fears about its effect on health – particularly the health of children. Recent research, which suggests that the worst fears about mobiles are proving to be justified, only heightens concern about the electronic soup in which we are increasingly spending our lives.
Now, as we report today, Sir William Stewart (pictured below right), the man who has issued the most authoritative British warnings about the hazards of mobiles, is becoming worried about the spread of Wi-Fi. The chairman of the Health Protection Agency – and a former chief scientific adviser to the Government – is privately pressing for an official investigation of the risks it may pose.’
‘Russia plans to build the world’s longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia.
The project, which Russia is coordinating with the U.S. and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete, Viktor Razbegin, deputy head of industrial research at the Russian Economy Ministry, told reporters in Moscow today. State organizations and private companies in partnership would build and control the route, known as TKM-World Link, he said.
A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the U.S. will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the U.S.’
‘Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government’s blessing want to scrap all that and start over.
The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate” approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.
The Internet “works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions,” said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. “It’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”‘
‘The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality – in the shadow of the author’s former London home. [..]
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras – one for every 14 people in the country – and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell’s fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.
On the wall outside his former residence – flat number 27B – where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.’
‘Though the Yellowstone system is active and expected to eventually blow its top, scientists don’t think it will erupt any time soon.
What’s in Store
Yet significant activity continues beneath the surface. And the activity has been increasing lately, scientists have discovered. In addition, the nearby Teton Range, in a total surprise, is getting shorter.
The findings, reported this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research—Solid Earth, suggest that a slow and gradual movement of a volcano over time can shape a landscape more than a violent eruption.’
‘”Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.
“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report. [..]
The hardest-hit continents are likely to be Africa and Asia, with major harm also coming to small islands and some aspects of ecosystems near the poles. North America, Europe and Australia are predicted to suffer the fewest of the harmful effects.’
‘UK scientists have identified a way of using light to rapidly detect the presence of bacteria. [..]
The team have spent five years designing special large molecules, or polymers, which can bind to cells.
Once bound the polymer changes shape and emits a light signal.
This can either be a coloured light, such as a red glow, or a light that is naked to the visible eye but can be detected under a fluorescent lamp, depending on the type of polymer that is used.’
’10> As he was led to die in an arcane alien ritual, Tank McPhoton tried one last time to apologize. How was he to know that what he took to be an extended hand of friendship which he gripped firmly and shook vigorously was actually the Supreme Ruler’s private parts? [..]
7> I lived on the land, she lived in the water. It gave shore leave a whole new meaning. Or the same old meaning, except with bigger crabs. [..]
6> As one, the Spacemarines stood up, raised their spacerifles in salute, then marched out the spacedoors to the spacedock, where their spaceship was waiting to boldly take them where they’d all been before: Space!
5> You could tell it was a real UFO because there weren’t any wires holding it up and it smelled like outer space. [..]’
‘I met god the other day.
I know what you’re thinking. How the hell did you know it was god?
Well, I’ll explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Every question I flung at him he batted back with a plausible and satisfactory answer. In the end, it was easier to accept that he was god than otherwise.
Which is odd, because I’m still an atheist and we even agree on that!
It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. Got myself a nice window seat, no screaming brats or drunken hooligans within earshot. Not even a mobile phone in sight. Sat down, reading the paper and in he walks.’
‘Boffins at Britain’s University of Manchester have created a transistor out of an atom-thick sheet of carbon. The high-speed device is so small only one electron can pass through at once. Crucially, the transistor operates at room temperature making it potentially viable for future microprocessors.
Details of the breakthrough were announced in the science journal Nature this week. The team, led by Professor Andre Geim of the Manchester Centre for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology, built the transistor from graphene, an allotrope of carbon that essentially fits all its constituent carbon atoms into a single plane. Discovered only three years ago, graphene is highly conductive.’
‘Nearly 20 years ago, the World Health Organization and its partners launched an ambitious program to eradicate polio by the end of the millennium. That deadline passed and another was missed in 2005 and polio still strikes about 2,000 people a year, mostly children.
At a WHO meeting this week, some leading experts asked a grim question: Is it time to abandon the goal of eradication and focus instead on containing the disease? The answer, for most, was no even though many had doubts.
“Many people wonder why we are spending all this time and effort on polio when there are much bigger problems,” said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who headed WHO’s smallpox eradication program in the 1970s. Smallpox is the only disease ever to have been eradicated.’
‘Team Hubris is installing a deep brain stimulator, essentially a neurological pacemaker, in my head. This involves threading two sets of stiff wires in through my scalp, through my cerebrum — most of my brain — and into my subthalamic nucleus, a target the size of a lima bean, located near the brain stem. Each wire is a little thinner than a small, unfolded paper clip, with four electrodes at one end. The electrodes will eventually deliver small shocks to my STN. How did I get into this mess? Well, I have Parkinson’s disease. If the surgery works, these wires will continually stimulate my brain in an attempt to relieve my symptoms.’
Some pretty interesting facts about technology and the future.
(6.0meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘Footage from a birthday party gone bad. Alcohol plus testosterone plus lightsabers equals disaster.’
(4.6meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘An Australian company has announced ambitious plans to prove that potentially planet-saving hot rocks are not just a load of hot air.
Geodynamics Limited says it has secured a $32 million drilling rig from Texas and is on track to spud Australia’s first commercial-scale hot rock well by the middle of this year.
The well, to be sunk four kilometres underground in South Australia’s Cooper Basin, could be in commercial production by 2010 if all goes according to plan, the company says.’
‘Researchers are trying to find ways to regrow fingers – and someday, even limbs – with tricks that sound like magic spells from a Harry Potter novel.
There’s the guy who sliced off a fingertip but grew it back, after he treated the wound with an extract of pig bladder. And the scientists who grow extra arms on salamanders. And the laboratory mice with the eerie ability to heal themselves.
This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the the lessons to humans.’
‘In a speech Friday night to the Annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, Google co-founder Larry Page let slip with a truth we all suspected:
“We have some people at Google [who] are really trying to build artificial intelligence (AI) and to do it on a large scale…It’s not as far off as people think.”
Yep, you read that right, Google is trying to build real AI. The worlds most dominant online company, with the largest conglomeration of computing power the world has ever seen, is trying to build artificial intelligence, and according to Page it isn’t that far away either. The term Googlebot is about to take on a whole new meaning, and in the not to distant future as well.’
‘Six blind patients have had their sight partially restored by a “bionic eye” surgically implanted on to their retina. Although it restores only very rudimentary vision, the device has proved so successful that its developers are about to begin a study of a more sophisticated version with between 50 and 75 patients.
If this trial goes to plan the device could be available to patients in two years, and one day it could be used to digitally enhance human sight. The bionic eye works by converting images from a tiny camera mounted on a pair of glasses into a grid of 16 electrical signals that transmit directly to the nerve endings in the retina.’
‘The United Nations has been urged to launch a space mission designed to take out an asteroid threatening to smash into the Earth in 2036.
In scenes straight out of Hollywood action movie Armageddon, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists say they are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a one in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036. [..]
“It’s not just Apophis we’re looking at. Every country is at risk. We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue,” Mr Schweickart, a member of the Apollo 9 crew that orbited the moon in March 1969, told an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.’
Followup to NASA looks for solutions to asteroid problem.
‘It sounds as if someone just dropped a tricycle into a meat grinder. I’m sitting inside a narrow conference room at a research facility in Bristol, Connecticut, chatting with Joseph Longo, the founder and CEO of Startech Environmental Corporation. As we munch on takeout Subway sandwiches, a plate-glass window is the only thing separating us from the adjacent lab, which contains a glowing caldera of “plasma” three times as hot as the surface of the sun. Every few minutes there’s a horrific clanking noise—grinding followed by a thunderous voomp, like the sound a gas barbecue makes when it first ignites.
“Is it supposed to do that?” I ask Longo nervously. “Yup,” he says. “That’s normal.”’
‘The British start-up Quietrevolution developed a vertical axis wind turbine which is not only more aesthetic but is also better at gathering wind near and around buildings, which frequently vary in direction. The Helical wind turbine is also quieter because the blade tip speed is lower. [..]
According to quietrevolution the QR5 will generate around 10,000 kWh per year in a site with an average wind of 5.9m/s. This is equivalent to about five low-energy houses’ electricity demand, or the electrical needs of a twenty man office. Unlike other turbines which are usually noisy the unique shape of the quietrevolution turbine allows it to operate in near silent which is ideal for operating close to residential areas. [..]’
‘US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.
The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office. [..]
But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources’ assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. “Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place.”
He added: “We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous.”‘
‘Twenty years before most scientists expected it, a commercial company has announceda quantum computer that promises to massively speed up searches and optimisation calculations.
D-Wave of British Columbia has promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next Tuesday, that can carry out 64,000 calculations simultaneously (in parallel “universes”), thanks to a new technique which rethinks the already-uncanny world of quantum computing. But the academic world is taking a wait-and-see approach.’
‘Immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will not halt the continuing damage to Australia’s environment, a Federal Government researcher warns.
The CSIRO expects Sydney’s maximum temperatures to rise 1.6 degrees by 2030 and 4.8 degrees by 2070.
Average rainfall will decrease by 40 per cent and water evaporation rates will jump 24 per cent by 2040 under the scorching conditions.
By 2050, annual heat-related deaths of people over 65 will increase almost eight times from 176 to 1312.’
.. and the real reason for his quick exit.
(22.9 and 1.6meg Flash videos)
see it here »
`Normally, new weaponry tends to make defense more expensive. But the Navy likes to say its new railgun delivers the punch of a missile at bullet prices.
A demonstration of the futuristic and comparatively inexpensive weapon yesterday at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren had Navy brass smiling.
The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King George County base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder.
The technology could increase the striking range of U.S. Navy ships more than tenfold by the year 2020.’
`If piped music and bleeping scanners get on your nerves at the supermarket, things could be about to get a whole lot worse.
Tins of food could soon be calling out to you from the shelves.
Scientists working on silicon chip technology have developed a tiny plastic screen which could be wrapped around tins, flashing up special offers as shoppers walk past.
If combined with a speaker and mini processor, tins could even call out recipe suggestions.’
This page has a lot of pictures of power generating wind turbines.
These things are huge. The shot of the fan blade on the back of a truck gives you a good idea of scale.
`Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday a horrific terrorist act on the United States that will result in “mass killing” late in 2007.
“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”
Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
“I put these things out with humility,” he said.’
God told me that Pat Robertson is a fuckwit. I say this, of course, with the utmost humility.
Update: video of this here – Pat Robertson’s Predictions for 2007
