In the news this week…

capturing energy from plants… training the brain… a new microchip that runs faster on 30 times less energy… self-adjusting eyeglasses for the world’s poor… intelligent urbanization… a new wiki for investment advice… technology undermines democracy… women outnumber men in the U.S. workforce… countries buy land overseas for food production… 75 nation states create a new multinational clean energy agency… oil companies ready to tackle global warming… China declares highest-level drought emergency… U.S. national intelligence director says economic instability is the greatest threat… Ray Kurzweil founds Singularity University…

We also feature…

a book on public relations in a web 2.0 world… a website on information warfare… an audio clip on the American stimulus package and prospects for green collar jobs…

David Forrest

———————————————————————-

SCIENCE

Top Stories:

Plugging in Molecular Wires – [PhysOrg] Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) are masters of everything to do with solar energy because they are able to almost completely transform captured sunlight into chemical energy. Japanese researchers have now developed a new process to capture light energy with nearly equal efficiency.

Improving Brain Processing Speed Helps Memory – [PhysOrg] Mayo Clinic researchers found that healthy, older adults who participated in a computer-based training program to improve the speed and accuracy of brain processing showed twice the improvement in certain aspects of memory, compared to a control group.

———————————————————————-

TECHNOLOGY

Top Stories:

Scientists Develop Revolutionary Microchip that Uses 30 Times Less Energy – [PhysOrg] Leaving your mobile phone charger at home when you go for a two week long vacation may just be the norm one day as scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Rice University, United States, have successfully created a microchip that uses 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today’s best technology.

Physicist’s Vision for Helping World’s Poor: Self-Adjusting Eyeglasses – [PhysOrg] Joshua Silver, a lifelong tinkerer, was fiddling around one day with a cheap, water-filled lens he’d built as an optics experiment when he noticed something interesting. By adding or removing water he could not only change the power of the lens, he found, but he also could use it to very accurately correct his own nearsightedness when he looked through it.

———————————————————————-

BUSINESS

Top Stories:

Cisco Says It’s Building a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry – [WebPro News] Cisco has launched an initiative to help cities use technology to cultivate sustainable, intelligent industries as well as citizen services and overall economic growth. The initiative is called "Intelligent Urbanization."

Investment Advice, Wikipedia-Style – [International Herald Tribune] Would you trust a Web site created by anonymous individuals to give you better advice on stocks than professional advisers? Wikinvest hopes so. Following the model of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wikinvest is building a database of user-generated investment information on popular stocks.

———————————————————————-

SOCIETY

Top Stories:

Technology Pits Democracy Against Itself – [International Herald Tribune] Eightmaps.com is the latest, most striking example of how information collected through disclosure laws intended to increase the transparency of the political process, magnified by the powerful lens of the Web, may be undermining the same democratic values the regulations were to promote.

U.S. Women Set to Surpass Men in Labor Force – [International Herald Tribune] With the U.S. recession on the brink of becoming the longest in the postwar era, a milestone may be at hand: Women are poised to surpass men on U.S. payrolls, taking the majority for the first time in history. The reason has less to do with gender equality than with where the ax is falling.

———————————————————————-

GLOBAL POLITICS

Top Stories:

The Pending Scramble for Water – [BBC] In 2008, Saudi Arabia ceased to be self sufficient in wheat production. It is looking to access land overseas to grow crops, possibly in Pakistan or the Horn of Africa. China is acquiring agricultural land in Southern Africa for similar purposes. And Daewoo Logistic is looking to lease land in Madagascar, to grow food for South Korea. Other countries in South Asia and the Gulf are considering similar moves.

75 Countries Launch Clean Energy Agency – [Yahoo! News] Seventy-five nations including Germany, India, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates launched last week the world’s first multinational organization dedicated solely to promoting renewable energy worldwide.

———————————————————————-

ENVIRONMENT

Top Stories:

Oil Industry Ready to Work on Global Warming – [International Herald Tribune] Confronted with a sharp change of priorities in Washington, international oil executives are expressing an eagerness to work with President Barack Obama to fashion new policies to tackle global warming.

China Ups Drought Alert to Highest Level: State Media – [Agence France Presse] China has raised its drought emergency to the highest level for the first time as a dry spell spreads, leaving millions with little or no water and threatening wheat supplies, state media said.

———————————————————————-

THE FUTURE

Top Stories:

Intelligence Director Says Global Crisis is Top Threat to U.S. – [International Herald Tribune] he new director of national intelligence told Congress that global economic turmoil and the instability it could ignite had outpaced terrorism as the most urgent threat facing the United States.

Kurzweil to found ‘Singularity Uni’ in Silicon Valley – [The Register] Renowned futurologist Ray Kurzweil has teamed up with space promoter Peter Diamandis and Google to set up annual techno/zeitgeist workshops at the famous NASA Ames research centre in Silicon Valley. The discussions will be known as "Singularity University", and will offer courses of varying length to paying customers.

———————————————————————-

FEATURED BOOK

PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences

by Deirdre Breakenridge

Resource Page

———————————————————————-

FEATURED LINK

Information Warfare Monitor – The Information Warfare Monitor is a joint project of the Advanced Network Research Group, part of the Cambridge Security Programme, The SecDev Group and the Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

———————————————————————-

AUDIO CLIP

Always On – RealAudio – WindowsMedia – [Diane Rehm] The first of a series on the environment: What the proposed stimulus package could mean for the creation of green collar jobs and efforts to build a low-carbon economy.