Article Archive for June 2010
Three studies looked at students who had lived abroad and those who hadn’t, testing them on different aspects of creativity. Relative to a control group, which hadn’t experienced a different culture, participants in the different …
A perfect storm is coming and we are not ready for it, an international climate change conference on the Gold Coast has been told. The ingredients are already mixing and the storm could hit communities …
Next time your brain plays tricks on you, you have an excuse: according to new research by UCL scientists published today in the journal Nature, the brain is intrinsically unreliable. … …
The creation of synthetic proteins plays an important role for economy and science. By the integration of artificial amino acids in proteins (genetic code engineering), their already existing qualities can be systematically improved, allowing new …
Supporters characterized the bond as a long-overdue measure to fund new reservoirs, water conservation projects and studies to re-engineer California’s primary water source, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. They cited the pumping restrictions from the …
Natural gas will play a leading role in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions over the next several decades, largely by replacing older, inefficient coal plants with highly efficient combined-cycle gas generation. That’s the conclusion reached by a …
When Singapore said it would not renew a water-supply pact with Malaysia the news hardly caused a ripple in a nation where technology is now flowing through the taps. In the past, the idea would …
Beyond China and India, Africa presents the economic opportunity of the future – and not just because of its resource wealth. A report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), released last week, highlights a new dynamic …
Water scarcity has widespread implications for our nation. As a recent New York Times (Global Edition) article notes, water scarcity is increasingly a major constraint for the production of electricity. But what, in particular, does …
In today’s Internet, data traveling through optical fibers as beams of light have to be converted to electrical signals for processing. By dispensing with that conversion, a new network design could increase Internet speeds 100-fold. …
Pakistan will become fourth largest nation on earth in terms of population by 2050, local media reported. Pakistan will have a total population of 210.1 million in 2020, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2009-10. …
China knows it is now a great power and demands that it be respected and listened to. But short of protecting its narrow interests, the regime still doesn’t seem sure what it wants internationally. What …
Full body scanners at airports could increase your risk of skin cancer, experts warn. The X-ray machines have been brought in at Manchester, Gatwick and Heathrow. But scientists say radiation from the scanners has been …
A swarm of flying robots soars into a blazing forest fire. With insect-like precision and agility, the machines land on tree trunks and bound over rough terrain before deploying crucial sensors and tools to track …
UC Irvine professor William Cooper follows the trail of plastic debris that’s spreading from the coast to the deep sea. … Read more
Last year, Zhao Bowen was part of a team that cracked the genetic code of the cucumber. These days, he’s probing the genetic basis for human IQ. … Read more
The “Great Silk Way” is being revived. In autumn, Kazakhstan will witness the commission of almost 400 kilometres of the “Western Europe-Western China” International Transport Corridor, reports Kazakhstan’s Khabar news agency. This segment runs through …
The joy of being able to lift off from the midst of a Bank Holiday traffic jam and then to just zip to your destination by air has for almost a century been one …
In the initial stages of sleep, energy levels increase dramatically in brain regions found to be active during waking hours, according to new research in the June 30 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. These …
As computer networks become more complex and pervasive, and their development is in a state of constant flux, leaving their design and management to human intervention is becoming increasingly unfeasible. An EU-funded project has come …
Just as bacteria and fungi are methodically breaking down the millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, microbes might help us with another uncontrolled emission due to human activity—carbon dioxide. …
It seems almost too good to be true: new wheat and rice varieties that are better suited to marginal land, that offer the hope of improving food security as well as the environment. …
This report describes the outcomes from a CSIRO global foresight project. It presents five megatrends and eight megashocks (global risks) that will redefine how the world’s people live. … Read more
Australia is rich in many resources, but poor in one critical resource: water. The world’s driest continent outside Antarctica, Australia has spent the first decade of the 21st Century coming to grips with the realisation …
Dreams of slowing global warming by storing carbon emissions from power plants could be undermined by the risk of leakage, according to a study. Rich countries have earmarked tens of billions of dollars of investment …
It’s tempting to wonder which way China will go. Will it side with demands for higher pay and let strikes broaden? Might it clamp down on this budding Solidarity-style movement to protect the all-important export …
Researchers have added nanoechnology to an off-the-shelf digital camera to help doctors distinguish healthy cells from cancerous cells in the human body. Rice University scientists said that doctors can use the souped-up camera to …
With the number of categories of illness listed by the American Psychiatric Association tripling in the past fifty years, we are now a “culture of disabilities†— with the attendant stereotypes about autism, …
The sunshine beaming down on the Fisker Karma on Thursday did more than accent the high-end hybrid’s sleek, coupe-like body: It charged the car through its continuously formed solar-panel roof. … Read more
In his latest book, The Great Reset, Richard Florida sets his foot into economics, calling the current financial woes the necessary adjustments that will eventually give rise to new epochs of inventiveness, ingenuity, economic growth, …
Europe could face a severe shortage of raw materials needed for emerging technologies such as thin-film solar photovoltaic cells and lithium-ion batteries, according to the European Commission. … Read more
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are encouraging U.S. policymakers to consider the nation’s growing supply of natural gas as a short-term substitute for aging coal-fired power plants. … Read more
According to a new study of large companies using telepresence technology, U.S. and U.K. businesses that substitute some business travel with telepresence can cut CO2 emissions by nearly 5.5 million metric tons in total — …
Deep in the Sahara desert are honeybees that have remained isolated from all other bees for at least 5,000 years. The bees arrived at Kufra in Libya when the Sahara was still a green savannah, …
Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth’s oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only …
Lithium is not much to look at. It’s a soft and light, silver-white metal known for its use in mood stabilising drugs. But the 25th most abundant element on earth could, one day, help cure …
Nicholas Carr wants us to know what we’re losing in exchange for our dynamic, interconnected, Internet-fueled world. The Shallows is a rebuttal to those who unquestioningly accept a life in which information is unlimited, easily …
After spending tens of thousands of dollars on higher education, often taking on huge debts along the way, many face a job market that doesn’t seem to need them. Not only is the American economy …
Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth’s oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only …
The genetic diversity of Africa’s indigenous livestock needs to be tapped before it is lost forever, researchers have warned. … Read more
Personalised health care based on individual DNA coding will be an affordable reality within a decade, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project has predicted. … Read more
A floating expanse of green algae floating off China’s eastern seaboard is growing and spreading further along the coast, state-run media has reported. … Read more
Seven million homes in the north west of England are being warned to limit their use of water as the region was officially declared a drought zone. … Read more
For someone with a severe, incurable lung disorder such as cystic fibrosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung transplant may be the only chance for survival. Unfortunately, it’s often not a very good chance. …
Researchers have proposed a new design for an invisibility cloak – a device that could make objects invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside the cloak. … Read more
As they map out their investment plans in the year ahead, the U.S. auto companies will likely put most of their new jobs and plant capacity in Mexico, not the U.S., auto analysts predict. …
Transposons, or “jumping genes,” make up roughly half of the human genome. Geneticists previously estimated that they replicate and insert themselves into new locations roughly one in every 20 live births. … Read …
Earth-friendly perennial grain crops, which grow with less fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, and erosion than grains planted annually, could be available in two decades, according to researchers. … Read more
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) developed a software program that can detect depression in blogs and online texts. The software is capable of identifying language that can indicate the writer’s psychological state, …
By emulating nature’s design principles, a team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has created nanodevices made of DNA that self-assemble and can be programmed to …
Rising wages spurred by a series of labor disputes at factories in China, coupled with the country’s just-announced decision to allow its currency to rise in value — making it more expensive to build things …
A massive floating expanse of green algae is heading towards China’s east coast, potentially threatening wildlife and the region’s tourist industry, state media reported. … Read more
In densely populated metro areas, any space that’s suitable for gardening is probably also very attractive to developers looking to build structures on it instead. However, some city dwellers with persevering green thumbs have looked …
Oil industry executives have sharply criticized U.S. President Barack Obama’s six-month ban on deepwater drilling, saying the world doesn’t have enough other sources of oil to compensate. … Read more
Nigeriens are likely to take years to recover from selling their weakened livestock at a fraction of its normal value due to drought in the Sahel region. The drought threatens almost 70 percent of herds, …
If bees and other pollinators were to disappear completely, the cost to the UK economy could be up to £440m per year, scientists have warned. This amounts to about 13% of the country’s income from …
The millions upon millions of gallons of oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico every day is a crude reminder of the many ways humans are fouling the planet. As forests are cleared, cities and …
China’s restrictions on the export of rare earths used in the manufacture of cell phones and radar are being targeted by the U.S. Trade Representative for a potential trade case, according to industry representatives. The …
Gu Lianhong, a senior researcher with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, said the lab’s research had shown climate change will cause China’s per capita grain output will dramatically drop after 2020, even taking …
Women are set to dominate professions that have traditionally been the reserve of men and within 20 years will be the majority among economists, lawyers, architects and doctors, a new forecast shows. Swedish women are …
Britain has doubled rig inspections. Bulgaria scrapped plans for a new oil pipeline. Chinese and French oil giants are upgrading equipment and procedures designed to prevent spills. As oil continues to gush into the Gulf …
Scientists from the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Collaborative Research Center 746 of the University of Freiburg have discovered a new mechanism which plays an essential role in the assembly and growth of …
Of all the electric power generated in the U.S., about 22 percent is used for lighting, and most of that power is wasted. The culprit is Edison’s lightbulb, which is virtually unchanged since its invention …
Borrego Springs, population 2,535, a small town on the edge of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, will soon join the suburban planned community of Irvine, population 219,793, as a launching pad of the electric grid of …
Some people may shudder at the idea of scientists creating synthetic life but not, it seems, the British. At least that’s the message from a UK government-funded “dialogue” with the public about synthetic biology. …
Your move, folks. That’s the message from China’s surprise move to allow a more flexible yuan. China, in signaling it’s okay with a rising currency, voiced a strong vote of confidence in its economic outlook. …
California’s budget crisis is a harbinger of a grim dilemma that all Americans will soon confront. The country has built an elaborate and costly government machine, tied to a regressive tax system that can’t generate …
Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Co-Founder of Singularity University, discusses the best way to predict the future, and shares his personal philosophies on innovation and the commercial space industry. Filmed at Singularity University’s Executive Program, March …
Loretta Napoleoni is first and foremost and expert on the financing of terror networks. She’s renowned as an author and journalist both in her native Italy and around the world. She regularly writes columns in …
Another China-Africa gathering has just concluded in Egypt. Beijing has promised generous loans to African nations, thus further strenghtening its already growing presence in this continent. But what is really behind this increasing role? A …
Author and Canadian icon Douglas Coupland, talks about his latest book “Generation A”, the follow-up work to his ground-breaking novel “Generation X”. He also relfects on his life and work.
MP3 … Eli Kintisch tells NPR’s Guy Raz that many scientists see geoengineering as a sort of insurance policy. “We might face emergencies in the future which driving a Prius or putting up …
Windows Media | Real Audio … The creation of the world’s first self-replicating, synthetic cell heralds a new era in biology. It also prompts moral, legal, and safety questions: Analysis of the potential …
MP3 … What microorganism can make mice attracted to cats or make humans more likely to have car accidents or even develop a mental illness like schizophrenia? Host Guy Raz talks with infectious disease researcher …
Surfdaddy Orca – “In Japan, a short cryptic statement in the Nikkei, Japan’s largest business newspaper, made a startling announcement about a somewhat different vision of the future — a goal to make available commercial …
Robert W. Lucky – “Through the years I have gradually come to appreciate that the really important predictions are about the present. What is happening right now, and what is its significance? The Internet’s progression …
Surfdaddy Orca – “Regardless of your views on the possibility of extraterrestrials traveling through space, the case that any possible extraterrestrials would be “post-biological†robotics in space is fairly compelling. ” … …
Venessa Miemis – “As I’ve been exploring how to build relationships online and create an environment where trust can be built, I naturally started introducing people from different communities to each other in hopes they …
Jason Louv – “NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories has upgraded the Opportunity rover (already stationed on Mars) with artificial intelligence firmware, code-named AEGIS. Short for Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, AEGIS allows the …
Justin was developed at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, part of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in Wessling, Germany. The robot has different configurations, including one with wheels. The space version has a …
It’s hard to convince people that drinking recycled wastewater is a good idea. But for the bustling city-state of Singapore, it’s better than the alternatives. Singapore’s leaders and researchers have worked hard to educate the …
The new polls showed a nine per cent dip in the favourable rating enjoyed by China in India as an earlier survey conducted by Chinese firm Horizan research consultancy group between 2000 and 2009 showed …
The old economic approach that has sustained Malaysia through the end of the 20th century and into the new millennium can no longer do so. The introduction of the New Economic Model (NEM) is timely …
The Times, the newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., is offering free tickets to “Toy Story 3″ or a weekend at the Grosvenor Hotel in Dorset, England, in an effort to persuade readers to …
It’s no secret a poor environment can have a fatal impact on the air we breathe and the water we drink, but University of Adelaide research has linked environmental degradation and human health on a …
Around the country and throughout the world, politicians and education activists have sought to eliminate the “digital divide” by guaranteeing universal access to home computers, and in some cases to high-speed Internet service. However, according …
A generation after communism’s collapse, state-owned wealth, investments, and corporations have made a stunning comeback. Governments dominate key domestic economic sectors. The oil companies they own now control three quarters of the …
Two decades after the first Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, a group of privacy advocates, computer scientists, lawyers and others wrapped up a conference in San Jose on Friday with what they hope will …
When the 44th President opted for the Oval Office this week to brief Americans on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the expectation was that he would use America’s worst environmental disaster as leverage for …
China is hunting for bargains in some unlikely corners of the world. Earlier this week, it opened its checkbook to make 14 commercial investments inside Greece, which is struggling to avoid defaulting on its mounting …
In an interview with Nayan Chanda, Editor of YaleGlobal Online, Daniel Yergin, one of the world’s leading experts on energy, discusses the future of dependence on oil and a push towards efficiency. He also talks …
According to the UN, some 150 million people will become climate refugees by 2050. The journalists of Collectif Agros spent four years meeting with the first of these refugees to get a firsthand …
President Obama will be given the power to shut down the Internet with a ‘kill switch’ in a new law being proposed in the US. He would be able to order popular search engines such …
For decades, oceanographers have embraced the idea that Earth’s ocean currents operate like a giant conveyor belt, overturning to continuously transport deep, cold polar waters toward the equator and warm equatorial surface waters back toward …
As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction. And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human …
Public spending as a percentage of GDP will rise to more than 63% of national income by 2030, a thinktank says, to meet the rising costs of ageing, an unexpected fertility boom, climate change and …
African leaders are meeting in Chad to push the idea of planting a tree belt across Africa from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. The Great Green Wall project is backed by …
A cataclysmic “Great Event” is approaching which will occur in or around the year 2014 and determine the course of the rest of the 21st century, according to a startling new thesis published this week. …
Patients blinded in one or both eyes by chemical burns regained their vision after healthy stem cells were extracted from their eyes and reimplanted, according to a report by Italian researchers at a scientific meeting. …
The rise in AIDS death rates in sub-Saharan Africa has led to a burgeoning new category of neglected individuals — nearly a million orphaned elderly, or older adults living alone without the benefit of any …
Chinese national oil companies have embarked on a “mega-spree†of fossil energy foreign acquisitions, accounting in fact for almost 20% of the world’s global deal value in the first quarter of 2010. … Read …
MP3 … In one day, hundreds of IEEE members tackled the future of water and energy in one big brainstorming game, cosponsored by IEEE Spectrum and Institute for the Future. Together, they came up …
Despite the economic crisis and the struggle to save the euro, the European dream is not dead yet: what Europe needs is an “economic vision and game plan that would create a seamless, distributive energy …
Russia may add the Australian and Canadian dollars to its international reserves for the first time after fluctuations in the U.S. dollar and euro. … Read more
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government said it will raise the retirement age to 62 and increase taxes on capital, seeking to stem losses in the pension system and safeguard the nation’s top credit rating. …
Adverse climatic conditions and weather-related disasters are damaging crops in El Salvador and neighbouring countries in Central America, aggravating the food vulnerability that the region already faces. … Read more
Japan’s new Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged a fiscal policy overhaul to reduce the country’s massive public debt mountain, warning of a Greece-style meltdown. … Read more
A nation’s economy plays a surprisingly large role in the success or failure of microfinance – the practice of making small loans to farmers or business owners too poor to provide collateral, according to a …
The world is failing to meet goals to develop carbon capture technology, the energy watchdog to industrialised economies said on Monday as it reported back to G8 countries on their past promises. … Read more
Drivers around the world use the global positioning system (GPS) to figure out how to get from point A to point B. But a young Hebrew University of Jerusalem researcher has shown that GPS can …
Making video calls from a mobile phone to TV sets or computers will be the next frontier for information technology, the head of Internet telephony pioneer Skype said. … Read more
A new magnetic recording medium made up of tiny nanospheres has been devised by European researchers. The technology may lead to hard disks able to store more than a thousand billion bits of information in …
Scientists have grown a liver in a laboratory, offering fresh hope to hundreds of thousands of patients with diseased and damaged organs. It raises the prospect of those in need of transplants one day being …
Infrastructure Australia is expected to release a landmark report on urban water as early as this week, outlining reforms aimed at tapping billions of dollars’ worth of investment needed to upgrade water infrastructure to cope …
While South Africa comes under the world’s spotlight for the World Cup, it is being scrutinised by a University of Leicester researcher because of an innovative policy initiative. … Read more
Don Tapscott – “The good news, graduates, is that you are finishing school in a country with a strong economy, consistently rated one of the best in the world to live in. But the bad …
One of the cool things about electric cars is that they neatly sync with the technology that we carry around in our pockets. I remember thinking it inconceivable that such a thing as a cell …
The nation has a booming economy, a powerful military, and increasing clout in the Middle East … Read more
Risks of black swans, previously perceived to be small by corporations, investors, politicians and regulators, are now being reassessed, owing to (among other issues) globalization, tighter correlations, advancements in technology, the growing/excessive complexities of interlocking …
Electricity is all around us. It lifts elevators, pumps gas, lights rooms, cooks food, and even powers a growing fleet of cars. We generally take the vast electric grid for granted until it turns off. …
With futurists planning for the so-called Singularity, the question is no longer what it will be, but how we will keep it from destroying the very nature of humanity. … Read more
Oil companies are drilling further out to sea and deeper than ever before to reach the last remaining pockets of oil. Deepwater drilling used to be prohibitively expensive, but high oil prices in 2007 and …
It seems like Chinese workers want a bigger piece of the economic pie. The recent strike at a Honda transmission factory ended with workers getting 24 percent wage hikes. But don’t expect U.S. auto workers …
Producing energy and recovering copper from waste water at the same time: this is what Wageningen University environmental technologists are doing with their new microbial fuel cell. … Read more
Hungary and Ukraine are among the nations seeing investment from pharmaceutical companies as they reduce costs and find experts in drug discovery activities, according to healthcare market research publisher Kalorama Information. According to its report, …
Jon Stokes – “A new Pew Internet survey of 900 Internet experts leads with a headline finding that will surprise few: the experts largely agree that, by 2020, we’ll all be computing in the cloud. …
As the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to wreak havoc, renewable energy may never have looked better. A new Stanford University poll out of found that most Americans percent favor breaks …
Japan says its kite-shaped ‘space yacht’, designed to float through space using only the power of the sun, has successfully set sail. A Japanese rocket last month launched the experimental ‘Ikaros’ – Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated …
Scientists at the University of Kent and University College Cork have manipulated simple bacteria into constructing internal compartments where biofuels and vaccines can be produced. These micro-compartments eventually occupy almost 70 percent of the available …
Think of North Korea, and repression, starvation and military provocation are probably the first things that come to mind. But beyond the geopolitical posturing, North Korea has also been quietly building up its IT industry. …
The Deepwater Horizon spill could become a global oil “game changer†by spurring a deep and potentially costly rethink of the rules needed to keep offshore drilling safe. … Read more
Nearly 60 million people living around the Himalayas will suffer food shortages in the coming decades as glaciers shrink and the water sources for crops dry up, a study said. … Read more
A revolutionary pair of men’s briefs are not just comfortable to wear but may also save lives as well. An electronic biosensor is printed on the waistband and measures blood pressure, heart rate and other …
Future oil extraction could create new environmental, social and technological challenges, says the UK’s former chief scientist. … Read more
The livelihood of thousands of Tibetans living on China’s highest plateau is under threat as global warming and environmental degradation dry up water sources for three mighty Asian rivers, experts say. … Read …
China is becoming “a hotbed of tech innovation of global impact and also a magnet to attract top tier entrepreneurs coming from all over the world in the same fashion as the Silicon Valley,” said …
Many citizens in the U.S., Europe and Japan are unaware of the great emphasis China is placing on the African continent and its undeveloped market of 900 million people. Over the past two decades …
Some European nations may experience a second economic slowdown if the region fails to manage its debt crisis, threatening countries from Central Asia to Latin America, the World Bank said. … Read more
People with autism may have differences in their genes that are unique to each person, a new international study shows. The study, published in the journal Nature, shows the roots of autism may be found …
In this sweeping new interpretation of the history of civilization, bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin looks at the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our journey — and will likely determine …
In marketing, it may not matter how many advertisements or tweets you crank out. It may not even matter how great your product is. Because the truth is that when customers …
Computer companies are betting that the future is not only bright but in three dimensions, as a string of manufacturers are set to bring 3D laptops and desktops on to the market. … Read …
French oil firm Total and Spain’s Abengoa Solar will partner with Abu Dhabi’s alternative energy company Masdar to build “the world’s largest” concentrated solar power plant. … Read more
From the shattered, war-torn nation of the mid-twentieth century to the global economic powerhouse it is today, South Korea is an exemplar of meticulously planned growth and sheer communal effort — a dynamic …
Global warming is once again becoming a hot topic for Americans, new data suggests. … Read more
Researchers in Switzerland are developing miniature vehicles that can self-assemble and then take off vertically and fly as a stable array. … Read more
Find out why the South Korean government will invest $200 billion into its video games industry over the next 4 years and how games are used to train the US Military, …
By now you’ve probably heard of the “Black Swan.” The provocative catchphrase comes from a best-selling book by author and investor Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A black swan is essentially an unpredictable outlier event that has …
Nice Teams Finish Last reveals how you can pave the way for bold results by using open and honest communication to transform the way your team interacts. Filled with powerful exercises—as well as revealing self-assessments …
Snakes may be declining across the world, according to a global study. Researchers examined records for 17 snake populations covering eight species over the last few decades, and found most had declined markedly. …
MPs from major fishing nations and fisheries experts are holding talks in London on how to prevent the collapse of global fish stocks. … Read more
The world’s largest rice exporter, Thailand, is facing major losses to its next crop of rice and a worsening water crisis because of the worst drought in nearly two decades. Chanchai Rakthananon, president of the …
Helen Wang – “Many people in the U. S. believe that China is already a superpower, or will quickly become a superpower. Yes, China is on its way to becoming the second-largest economy in the …
Australia has become the third country to investigate Google over its Street View website camera cars collecting private data from householder’s unprotected wi-fi connections. German and Canadian regulators have already begun official inquiries. The internet …
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, preparing voters for the deepest spending cuts in a generation, said the previous Labour government left the public finances in a weaker state than he anticipated. … Read more
When will the familiar label “Made in China” switch to something more challenging: “Invented in China”? Not for another decade at least, according to investors and technology entrepreneurs who gathered recently at an event in …
A pilot study of teens and their use of Web 2.0 technologies confirms what most parents probably already know: Teens are really good at it. … Read more
Germans are getting fatter, official figures showed, with 51 percent of adults in Europe’s most populous country now classed as overweight. … Read more
In the first major test of opinion in the City since the election, 25 leading economists said the eurozone in its current form would not survive beyond the end of the British coalition parliament in …
It used to be that the only time you’d notice a bar code was at a store, maybe when a cashier scanned your groceries. But lately bar codes are showing up in more places around …
A couple of years ago American technologist Nicholas Carr wrote a provocative article in The Atlantic magazine entitled: ‘Is Google Making us Stupid?’ Carr’s thesis, which has now been expanded into an equally provocative book, …
A cure for rheumatoid arthritis is a step nearer after scientists found an antibody which treats the cause of the pain rather than just the symptoms. In a finding which offers hope to millions in …
MP3 … For insight on the future of books, Future Tense speaks with author Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief), publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin, and Bob Stein, the founder and co-director of the Institute for the …
James Kent – “As human neural networks and electronic digital networks converge there is some debate over how to best move data from neural to digital formats. Since the human brain is equipped with high-resolution …
Tiny, slimy East Coast algae could eventually be a viable form of fuel for everything from jets to diesel generators and power a new Canadian industry, research scientists said. Federal scientists and their private-sector partners …
Hungary’s economy is in a “very grave situation,†a government official said, adding to concern about Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, weakening the euro and pushing the forint to a 12-month low. … …
With climate legislation stalled in the U.S. Senate and international climate control negotiations facing equally daunting obstacles, there is one thing that the key players largely agree on: Something must be done to help communities …
Water will turn out to be the world’s most precious resource soon. Half of the world’s population will face acute water shortage by 2030. In the next two decades, all the major Indian cities will …
The top US cyberwarrior said that Pentagon networks are probed over six million times a day and expressed concern about a rise in “remote sabotage” attacks on computer systems. … Read more
The oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from that massive BP spill could be along the Atlantic coast and into the open ocean within weeks, according to computer simulations carried out by the U.S. …
President Barack Obama aims to get a million electric cars and plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads by 2015 to ease U.S. reliance on imported oil and cut carbon emissions. The first two mass-market electrics, Nissan’s …
Cutting carbon is becoming de rigueur for multinationals. More than 80 percent of the world’s 500 biggest companies now report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change strategies to the London-based Carbon Disclosure Project, which …
As our 3D planet becomes a 2D circle, MBAs will have a unique ability to leverage their skills across the globe. … Read more
They are coming from cities across China, including Beijing and Shanghai: Students are leaving mainland China for the opportunity to study in Hong Kong instead. … Read more
Strategic Learning presents Pietersen’s unique “insight to action†model. Using this cycle of four linked steps — Learn, Focus, Align, and Execute — your organization will continuously learn from its environment and …
Will it be one day become possible to boost human intelligence using brain implants, or create an artificial intelligence smarter than Einstein? In a 1993 paper presented to NASA, science fiction author and mathematician Vernor …
Instead of having to endure complex knee replacement operations, surgeon Ashvin Pimpalnerkar operates on just ten patients a year, first scraping healthy cartilage cells from the knee before sending them to Germany to be regrown …
The Patent Office said yesterday that it has signed a two-year deal with Google to provide bulk downloads of patent and copyright data to the public. Google will provide the service at no charge to …
The Shimizu Corporation, a Japanese construction firm, has recently proposed a plan to harness solar energy on a larger scale than almost any previously proposed concept. Their ambitious plan involves building a belt of solar …
A report by a United Nations panel suggests the world’s population should shift away from a meat-based diet and cut fossil fuel consumption in order to make more sustainable use of the world’s natural resources. …
Superfast quantum computing, one of the holy grails of science, could be a step closer following the invention of a new device capable of producing so-called entangled light on demand. Scientists at Toshiba Corp’s research …
They may appear to be marvels of modern science. But organ transplants, satellite navigation and cosmetic surgery can actually be traced back – in idea form at least – to a 17th century scientist with …
In The Design of Business, Roger Martin unveils a new way of thinking that balances the exploration of new knowledge (innovation) with the exploitation of current knowledge (efficiency) to regularly generate breakthroughs …
A sheen of oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is nearing the white sand beaches of north-west Florida, officials say. … Read more
California’s controller said the state has enough cash to pay bills through August, a reserve that may avert the need for new IOUs this summer as lawmakers seek to close a $19 billion budget deficit. …
A fridge freezer that automatically switches on and off to save on power as Europe’s first residential trial of the technology starts. The new ‘smart fridges’ respond to signals from the national grid and shut …
Police in Finland have raided five homes searching for virtual furniture stolen from an online hotel. Detectives said around 400 items – including virtual beds, tables, chairs and ‘several flat-screen televisions’ – were taken from …
Greece plans to sell stakes in railway and water companies and the postal service to raise 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) and help reduce a budget deficit that sparked the debt crisis across southern Europe. …
Today more than ever, creative minds have the opportunity to solve problems and even change the world — but only if they can overcome the common obstacles that plague the creative psyche, such …
The workplace of the future is being shaped today by Web 2.0—a collection of breakthrough social media technologies—and by the Millennial Generation, people born between 1977 and 1997. The …
The way light hits a tropical butterfly’s wings could make your bank card safer, according to a new U.K. study. That’s because scientists are now able to mimic the cell structure of butterfly scales to …
According to a report in Japanese publication NODE, JAXA, Japan’s space program, is looking to pour $2.2B USD into plans to put an army of robots (peaceful robots, of course) on the Moon. … …
A pilot study of teens and their use of Web 2.0 technologies confirms what most parents probably already know: Teens are really good at it. But what surprised the researcher doing the study is how …
Iron Butterflies weaves together the stories of over fifty successful women from all walks of life and throughout the world. Author Birute Regine spent several years in eight countries, interviewing dynamic female …
Energy from river water supplies about one-fifth of the world’s electricity—with 850 to 900 gigawatts of installed capacity worldwide. More than 60 countries get over half their electricity from hydropower. But figuring out how much …
The battle over health care reform has reached a turning point. We can try to fashion new policies based on old ideas—or we can acknowledge today’s demographic and economic realities. In …
A squat, circular robot scurries along the floor of a laboratory, moving left, then right, then left again, before coming to a stop. A Northeastern University student researcher commands the gadget through a brain-computer interface …
We are living beyond our means, running up debts both economic and ecological, consuming the planet’s resources at rates not remotely sustainable. But it’s hard to imagine a different way. How …
The NYC UniCab Taxi of Tomorrow has been designed to change the way people think about catching a taxi – and there’s an Australian connection. … Read more
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