In the news this week…

• Regrowing lost limbs.
• Living code… hiding data in DNA.
• Always new… Pepsi’s continuous rebranding.
• Virtual schools.
• China’s growing influence.
• Banning incandescent bulbs… Australia takes the lead.
• Robots in our future.

We also feature…

Bernard Golden ‘s book Unlock Your Creative Genius … An in-depth examination of the personal creative drive, the many roadblocks to creativity, and strategies for overcoming them. One of the most insightful books on creativity in recent years.

Advertising Lab… a blog on the future of advertising.

What is Wikinomics, an audio clip from the Kojo Nnamdi Show… Steve Singer talks with Don Tapscott about his new book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, co-authored with Anthony D. Williams.

David Forrest

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SCIENCE

Top Story: Clues from Animals May Help Regrow Fingers, Limbs – [Houston Chronicle] 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.

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TECHNOLOGY

Top Story: Storing Digital Data In Living Organisms – [Science Daily] Data encoded in an organism’s DNA, and inherited by each new generation, could be safely archived for hundreds of thousands of years, the researchers state. In contrast, CD-ROMs, flash memory and hard disk drives can easily fall victim to accidents or natural disasters.

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BUSINESS

Top Story: Pepsi’s Counterintuitive Branding Strategy – [International Herald Tribune] Under a new branding strategy, Pepsi is introducing new can and bottle designs every few weeks, planning to sell 20 or more different ones annually in every market. Pepsi has already started selling the new packages in several countries, including China, Australia, Brazil, Mexico and the United States, and they are coming soon to Europe.

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SOCIETY

Top Story: More students Across US Logging On to Online Classrooms – [Boston Globe] One million kindergarten through high school students are enrolled in virtual schooling across the nation, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, a nonprofit organization for administrators, teachers, and others involved in online schooling.

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GLOBAL POLITICS

Top Story: China Targets More than a Satellite – [Asia Times] China hit more than a weather satellite on January 11 when it launched a medium-range ballistic missile into space; it also hit alarms in Washington and elsewhere. Recent media reports highlighting China’s growing influence and successful use of "soft power" failed to anticipate this abrupt assertion of "hard power." The missile launch created the largest space-debris incident in history and gave new meaning to the phrase "peaceful rise."

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ENVIRONMENT

Top Story: Far-Out Schemes to Stop Climate Change – [New Scientist] Following the latest report of the United Nations climate change panel, there has been a flurry of renewed interest in so-called geo-engineering projects to counter the warming effects of rising CO2 levels. Some wild-sounding schemes have been proposed over the years.

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THE FUTURE

Top Story: Space Historian Sees Cyborgs in Our Future – [Space.com]Fifty years after the dawn of the space age, hundreds of people have flown into space. A dozen of those left their boot marks on the Moon’s surface, and several nations now are planning to send astronauts back to the Moon and then beyond. So you would think the expansion of humanity ever deeper into the Cosmos is a sure bet.

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FEATURED BOOK

Unlock Your Creative Genius

by Bernard Golden

Resource Page

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FEATURED LINK

Advertising Lab – A blog written by Ilya Vedrashko — a recent graduate of MIT and emerging media strategist at the Hill, Holiday agency in Boston — on the future of advertising. He also authors the blog Billboardom on creative outdoor advertising.

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AUDIO CLIP

What is Wikinomics? - [HBR IdeaCast] IdeaCast producer Steve Singer talks with Don Tapscott, co-author, with Anthony D. Williams, of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. In its latest incarnation, Tapscott says, the World Wide Web has become a communal experience — collaborators from anywhere and any walk of life now have the ability to solve problems and produce results through the use of collective wisdom.