The Arms Trade is Big Business — Global Issues

The Arms Trade is Big Business — Global Issues: "Global Arms Sales By Supplier Nations
The 5 UN Security Council permanent members are generally the largest arms dealers:"

GLOBALIZATION: KEY CONCEPTS

GLOBALIZATION: KEY CONCEPTS: "Globalization is a process that has been going on for the past 5000 years, but it has significantly accelerated since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.1 Elements of globalization include transborder capital, labor, management, news, images, and data flows.2The main engines of globalization are the transnational corporations (TNCs), transnational media organizations (TMCs), intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and alternative government organizations (AGOs). From a humanist perspective, globalization entails both positive and negative consequences: it is both narrowing and widening the income gaps among and within nations, intensifying and diminishing political domination, and homogenizing and pluralizing cultural identities.3"

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this fall, for the first time in U.S. history, women have surpassed men and now make up more than 50 percent of the nation's workforce. In 1967, by comparison, they accounted for just one-third of all workers.

Woe, Superman?

Woe, Superman?: "Susan Greenfield, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford, has just published a book, ID: the Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century, on the challenges technology poses to human identity. Pharmacological enhancements alarm Professor Greenfield more than neurological interventions which, being more elaborate procedures, are more considered. She stresses the role of whole brain interaction: 'A better brain is not simply one armed with a better memory. You shouldn't just be trying to be a better computer. There is a danger that enhancement will become a competitive endeavour. But it is not a linear arms race. We should be encouraging people to become better individuals all round.'"

Welcome to 2025

Welcome to 2025: "Many of the broad, down-the-road predictions made in Global Trends 2025 have, in fact, already come to pass. Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- collectively known as the BRIC countries -- are already playing far more assertive roles in global economic affairs, as the report predicted would happen in perhaps a decade or so. At the same time, the dominant global role once monopolized by the United States with a helping hand from the major Western industrial powers -- collectively known as the Group of 7 (G-7) -- has already faded away at a remarkable pace. Countries that once looked to the United States for guidance on major international issues are ignoring Washington's counsel and instead creating their own autonomous policy networks. The United States is becoming less inclined to deploy its military forces abroad as rival powers increase their own capabilities and non-state actors rely on 'asymmetrical' means of attack to overcome the U.S. advantage in conventional firepower."

Welcome to 2025

Welcome to 2025: "In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council published a report predicting that the US would no longer be the world's sole superpower by 2025. But recent events and the global recession suggest that US global preeminence may end earlier than forecast. The dollar's role in the global economy seems to be in danger, and the G7 has relinquished responsibility of the world economy to the larger G20.� The US will remain a strong economic and military power for some time to come, but the single player mode is already a fading reality."

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution": "Meanwhile, Hawking observes, our human brains 'with which we process this information have evolved only on the Darwinian time scale, of hundreds of thousands of years. This is beginning to cause problems. In the 18th century, there was said to be a man who had read every book written. But nowadays, if you read one book a day, it would take you about 15,000 years to read through the books in a national Library. By which time, many more books would have been written.'
But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls 'self designed evolution,' in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. 'At first,' he continues 'these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression.'
If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets. But this will be done, Hawking believes, with intelligent machines based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than macromolecules, which could eventually replace DNA based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life."

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution": "This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. 'At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information.'
But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred.
'I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race,' Hawking said."

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution": "Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.
'By contrast,' Hawking says, 'there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA.'"

First, we need to improve surveillance and early warning. We have reasonable global surveillance systems on climate, energy markets, agricultural output and food markets, but when you get down to ground level, coverage is a lot more patchy. We're not sure how climate change will impact specific places. We don't really have a real time sense of where the most water scarce places are. Where we do have scientific data like this, it's not well integrated with data about conflict risk, or human vulnerability, or political economy dynamics. The new Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert system that the G20 commissioned from the SG in April could prove to be an extremely important first step here - but only a first step.

Second, because of the ways scarcity issues are linked to each other through feedback loops - which creates a major risk of unintended consequences when we try to tackle one scarcity issue, without taking the others into account. Like when the US invests in biofuels to improve energy security - and in the process accidentally helps create a food security crisis. Or when Gulf states use desalinization technology to improve their water security - but at a fearful cost in terms of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Or when South Asia achieves incredible crop yield growth by increasing irrigation during the Green Revolution - but 40 years later, faces a crisis of depleted water tables and aquifers.

First, because they share common drivers. Whether you're looking at energy, food, water, land or 'atmospheric space' for our emissions, demand is skyrocketing - both because of the growing size and affluence of a 'global middle class', and because of a rapidly growing world population. As we've heard, global demand for energy is set to rise 45% by 2030; for food, 50% by 2030 (before biofuels are taken into account); for water, 25% by 2025. And at the same time, as we've been discussing, there are serious reasons for doubting that the supply of any of these resources can rise indefinitely.

Well, we are living in a time of unprecedented, exponential change. There is no question about this in terms of population growth, species depletion, science discoveries, natural resource usage, technological invention, and information and knowledge growth (among many other metrics). The size and metabolism of the system in which we live is getting far larger and more complex at such extraordinary rates that it is now beyond human ability to understand it. (In the financial arena alone, the honest experts will tell you that at a fundamental level they don't know exactly what they are doing in their manipulations of the national and global system because it is too complex to understand.)

“Energy, food and water crises, climate disruption, declining fisheries, ocean acidification, emerging diseases and increasing antibiotic resistance are examples of serious, intertwined global-scale challenges spawned by the accelerating scale of human activity,” say the researchers, who come from Australia, Sweden, the United States, India, Greece and The Netherlands.

New technologies are never created from nothing. They are constructed—put together—from components
that previously exist; and in turn these new technologies offer themselves as possible components—building
blocks—for the construction of further new technologies.1 In this sense, technology (the collection of
mechanical devices and methods available to a culture) builds itself out of itself. 2 Thus in 1912 the amplifier
circuit was constructed from the already existing triode vacuum tube in combination with other existing
circuit components. The amplifier in turn made possible the oscillator (which could generate pure sine
waves); and these with other components made possible the heterodyne mixer (which could shift signals’
frequencies). These two components in combination with other standard ones went on to make possible
continuous-wave radio transmitters and receivers. And these in conjunction with still other elements made
possible radio broadcasting.

Blindspot shows brain rewiring in an instant - health - 14 July 2009 - New Scientist

Blindspot shows brain rewiring in an instant - health - 14 July 2009 - New Scientist: "Our brains can rewire themselves in just seconds to compensate for a break in incoming data, suggesting they are even more flexible than previously thought.

We already knew that the brain is constantly adapting throughout our lives, for example by generating new neurons well into adulthood. But just how quickly can it adapt – and does it always involve creating new circuits?"

When Will Computers Be Smarter Than Us? - Forbes.com

When Will Computers Be Smarter Than Us? - Forbes.com: "ntelligence is a big deal. Humanity owes its dominant position on Earth not to any special strength of our muscles, nor any unusual sharpness of our teeth, but to the unique ingenuity of our brains. It is our brains that are responsible for the complex social organization and the accumulation of technical, economic and scientific advances that, for better and worse, undergird modern civilization."

All our technological inventions, philosophical ideas and scientific theories have gone through the birth canal of the human intellect. Arguably, human brain power is the chief limiting factor in the development of human civilization.

Futurist pinpoints world's top ten long-term challenges | Emerging Technology Trends | ZDNet.com

Futurist pinpoints world's top ten long-term challenges | Emerging Technology Trends
| ZDNet.com: "Below are the top challenges Schwartz outlined, as distilled by The World Future Society, a nonprofit nonpartisan scientific and educational association that publishes The Futurist.

1. Creating long-term solutions to meet our energy demands sustainably.

2. Launching a bio-industrial revolution with sustainable manufacturing.

3. Understanding and enhancing the human brain to avert age-related impairments.

4. Improving agriculture to reduce costs and increase its energy and water efficiency.

5. Building sustainable cities through better urban planning and “smart architecture.”

6. Stimulating job growth and economic development.

7. Fusing the technological with the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of human culture.

8. Advancing technological instruments to drive scientific discovery forward.

9. Harnessing biological tools to advance human evolution.

10. Discovering new ways to lower the costs and environmental impact of space flight and development."

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Document: "9.7 Human activities significantly alter the biosphere. Earth is experiencing a worldwide decline in biodiversity—a modern mass extinction—due to loss of habitat area and high rates of environmental change caused by human activities. The rates of extinctions are now comparable to the rates of mass extinctions in the geologic past."

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Document: "9.5 Human activities alter the natural land surface. Humans use more than one-third of the land’s surface not covered with ice to raise or grow their food. Large areas of land, including delicate ecosystems such as wetlands, are transformed by human land development. These land surface changes impact many Earth processes such as groundwater replenishment and weather patterns.

9.6 Human activities accelerate land erosion. At present, the rate of global land erosion caused by human activities exceeds all natural processes by a factor of ten. These activities include urban paving, removal of vegetation, surface mining, stream diversions, and increased rain acidity."

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Document: "9.3 Humans cause global climate change through fossil fuel combustion, land-use changes, agricultural practices, and industrial processes. Consequences of global climate change include melting glaciers and permafrost, rising sea levels, shifting precipitation patterns, increased forest fires, more extreme weather, and the disruption of global ecosystems.

9.4 Humans affect the quality, availability, and distribution of Earth’s water through the modification of streams, lakes, and groundwater. Engineered structures such as canals, dams, and levees significantly alter water and sediment distribution. Pollution from sewage runoff, agricultural practices, and industrial processes reduce water quality. Overuse of water for electric power generation and agriculture reduces water availability for drinking."

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Document: "Human activities significantly change the rates of many of Earth’s surface processes. Humankind has become a geological agent that must be taken into account equally with natural processes in any attempt to understand the workings of Earth’s systems. As human populations and per capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do our impacts on Earth’s systems."

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Document: "Humans significantly alter the Earth."

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Document: "Natural hazards pose risks to humans."

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Document: "Earth scientists help society move toward greater sustainability. Renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal, are being developed. They will replace fossil fuels as those become scarcer, more expensive to retrieve from Earth, and undesirable due to environmental damage. Earth scientists foster global cooperation and science-informed stewardship that can help to ensure the availability of resources for future generations."

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Document: "Geology affects the distribution and development of human populations. Human populations have historically concentrated at sites that are geologically advantageous to commerce, food production, and other aspects of civilization.

7.3 Natural resources are limited. Earth’s natural resources provide the foundation for all of human society’s physical needs. Most are nonrenewable on human time scales, and many will run critically low in the near future."

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Document: "Humans depend on Earth for resources."

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Document: "Mass extinctions occur when global conditions change faster than species in large numbers can adapt. Mass extinctions are often followed by the origination of many new species over millions of years as surviving species evolve and fill vacated niches.

6.7 The particular life forms that exist today, including humans, are a unique result of the history of Earth’s systems. Had this history been even slightly different, modern life forms might be entirely different and humans might never have evolved."

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Document: "More complex life forms and ecosystems have arisen over the course of Earth’s history. This complexity has emerged in association with adaptations to new and constantly changing habitats. But not all evolution causes greater complexity; organisms adapting to changing local environments may also become simpler.

6.5 Microorganisms dominated Earth’s early biosphere and continue today to be the most widespread, abundant, and diverse group of organisms on the planet. Microbes change the chemistry of Earth’s surface and play a critical role in nutrient cycling within most ecosystems."

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Document: "Evolution, including the origination and extinction of species, is a natural and ongoing process. Changes to Earth and its ecosystems determine which individuals, populations, and species survive. As an outcome of dynamic Earth processes, life has adapted through evolution to new, diverse, and ever-changing niches."

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Document: "Big Idea 6. Life evolves on a dynamic Earth and continuously modifies Earth."

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Document: "5.8 Fresh water is less than 3% of the water at Earth’s surface. Most of this fresh water is stored as glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland. Less than 1% of Earth’s near-surface water is drinkable liquid fresh water, and about 99% of this water is in the form of groundwater in the pores and fractures within soil, sediment, and rock."

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Document: "5.2 Water is essential for life on Earth. Earth is unique in our Solar System in that water has coexisted at Earth’s surface in three phases (solid, liquid, and gas) for billions of years, allowing the development and continuous evolution of life.

5.3 Water’s unique combination of physical and chemical properties are essential to the dynamics of all of Earth’s systems. These properties include the manner in which water absorbs and releases heat, reflects sunlight, expands upon freezing, and dissolves other materials."

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Document: "4.1 Earth’s geosphere changes through geological, hydrological, physical, chemical, and biological processes that are explained by universal laws. These changes can be small or large, continuous or sporadic, and gradual or catastrophic."

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Document: "3.7 Changes in part of one system can cause new changes to that system or to other systems, often in surprising and complex ways. These new changes may take the form of “feedbacks” that can increase or decrease the original changes and can be unpredictable and/or irreversible. A deep knowledge of how most feedbacks work within and between Earth’s systems is still lacking.

3.8 Earth’s climate is an example of how complex interactions among systems can result in relatively sudden and significant changes. The geologic record shows that interactions among tectonic events, solar inputs, planetary orbits, ocean circulation, volcanic activity, glaciers, vegetation, and human activities can cause appreciable, and in some cases rapid, changes to global and regional patterns of temperature and precipitation."

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Document: "3.5 Regions where organisms actively interact with each other and their environment are called ecosystems. Ecosystems provide the goods (food, fuel, oxygen, and nutrients) and services (climate regulation, water cycling and purification, and soil development and maintenance) necessary to sustain the biosphere. Ecosystems are considered the planet’s essential life-support units.

3.6 Earth’s systems are dynamic; they continually react to changing influences. Components of Earth’s systems may appear stable, change slowly over long periods of time, or change abruptly with significant consequences for living organisms."

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Document: "Big Idea 3. Earth is a complex system of interacting rock, water, air, and life.

3.1 The four major systems of Earth are the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. The geosphere includes a metallic core, solid and molten rock, soil, and sediments. The atmosphere is the envelope of gas surrounding Earth. The hydrosphere includes the ice, water vapor, and liquid water in the atmosphere, the ocean, lakes, streams, soils, and groundwater. The biosphere includes Earth’s life, which can be found in many parts of the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. Humans are part of the biosphere, and human activities have important impacts on all four spheres.

3.2 All Earth processes are the result of energy flowing and mass cycling within and between Earth’s systems. This energy is derived from the sun and Earth’s interior. The flowing energy and cycling matter cause chemical and physical changes in Earth’s materials and living organisms. For example, large amounts of carbon continually cycle among systems of rock, water, air, organisms, and fossil fuels such as coal and oil."

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Document: "Life on Earth began more than 3.5 billion years ago. Fossils indicate that life began with single-celled organisms, which were the only life forms for billions of years. Humans (Homo sapiens) have existed for only a very small fraction (about 0.004%) of Earth’s history.

2.7 Over Earth’s vast history, both gradual and catastrophic processes have produced enormous changes. Super-continents formed and broke apart, the compositions of the atmosphere and ocean changed, sea level rose and fell, living species evolved and went extinct, ice sheets advanced and melted away, meteorites slammed into Earth, and mountains formed and eroded away."

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Document: "2.3 Earth formed from the accumulation of dust and gas, and multiple collisions of smaller planetary bodies. Driven by gravity, Earth’s metallic core formed as iron sank to the center. Rock surrounding the core was mostly molten early in Earth’s history, and slowly cooled to form Earth’s mantle and crust. The atoms of different elements combined to make minerals, which combined to make rocks. Earth’s ocean and atmosphere began to form more than 4 billion years ago from the rise of lighter materials out of the mantle.

2.4 Earth’s crust has two distinct types: continental and oceanic. Continental crust persists at Earth’s surface and can be billions of years old. Oceanic crust continuously forms and recycles back into the mantle; in the ocean, it is nowhere older than about 200 million years."

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Document: "Our Solar System formed from a vast cloud of gas and dust 4.6 billion years ago. Some of this gas and dust was the remains of the supernova explosion of a previous star; our bodies are therefore made of “stardust.” This age of 4.6 billion years is well established from the decay rates of radioactive elements found in meteorites and rocks from the Moon."

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Document: "Earth’s rocks and other materials provide a record of its history. Earth scientists use the structure, sequence, and properties of rocks, sediments, and fossils to reconstruct events in Earth’s history. Decay rates of radioactive elements are the primary means of obtaining numerical ages of rocks and organic remains. Understanding geologic processes active in the modern world is crucial to interpreting Earth’s past."

Futurum - Abstract Database of Futures Studies

Futurum - Abstract Database of Futures Studies: "Futurum is the first and only abstract database in the field of foresight and futures studies. Futurum makes latest research results and methodological development, published in leading journals of futures studies, easily accessible. The database does not contain full text articles, but the user gets full availability information of all the journals in the database."

Earth is 4.6 billion years old

Quick guide to the Motion Chart Gadget - Gapminder.org

Quick guide to the Motion Chart Gadget - Gapminder.org: "QUICK GUIDE TO THE MOTION CHART GADGET

Motion Chart is a free gadget in Google Spreadsheet (an online spreadsheet similar to excel). In motion chart you can convert your data-series into a Gapminder-like graph and put it on your web-page or blog. All you need is a free Google-account.

Futures Research Methodology--V3.0

Futures Research Methodology--V3.0: "Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0 is the largest, most comprehensive collection of internationally peer-reviewed handbook on methods and tools to explore future possibilities ever assembled in one resource.

Over half of the chapters were written by the inventor of the method or by a significant contributor to the method’s evolution.

The CD-ROM contains 39 chapters totaling about 1,300 pages.
Each method is treated in a separate file in word (.doc) and PDF format."

KurzweilAI.net

KurzweilAI.net
Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0 is the largest, most comprehensive collection of internationally peer-reviewed methods and tools to explore future possibilities ever assembled in one resource, according to the Millennium Project.

Written by leading futurists Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon, the 39 chapters include methods such as prediction markets, real-time delphi, robust decisionmaking, structural analysis, state of the future index, wild cards, and normative forecasting. Version 3.0 has added new chapters and updated and improved previous ones.

More info: The Millennium Project

One of the next frontiers of search is taking all of the unstructured data spread helter-skelter across the Web and treat it like it is sitting in a nice, structured database. It is easier to get answers out of a database where everything is neatly labeled, stamped, and categorized. As the sheer volume of stuff on the Web keeps growing, keyword search keeps getting closer to its breaking point. Adding structure to the Web is one way to make sense of all that data, and Google is starting the tackle the problem with a Google Labs project called Google Squared, which Marissa Mayer mentioned earlier today at the company’s Searchology briefing.

Google Squared extracts data from Web pages and presents them in search results as squares in an online spreadsheet. Michael was at the event and got a personal demo (see video below). From Michael’s Searchology notes:

Google Squared is launching later this month in labs. Google Squared returns search results in a spreadsheet format. It structures the unstructured data on web pages. So a search for Small Dogs returns results with names, description, size, weight, origin, etc., in columns and rows.

Google is looking for data structures on the web that imply facts, and then grabbing it for Squared results. “It takes an incredible amount of compute power to create one of those squares,” she says.

Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alphahttp://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html

KurzweilAI.net

KurzweilAI.netGoogle researchers Hyunyoung Choi and Hal Varian combined data from Google Trends on the popularity of different search terms with models used by economists to predict trends in areas such as travel and home sales, resulting in better forecasts in almost every case.

Google has demonstrated before that search data can predict flu outbreaks, and last week World Bank economist Erik Feyen said he could cut errors in a model that forecasts lending to the private sector by 15% using Google search data.

Ray Kurzweil: A singular view of the future - opinion - 06 May 2009 - New Scientist

Ray Kurzweil: A singular view of the future - opinion - 06 May 2009 - New Scientist: "The power of ideas to change the world is accelerating and few people grasp the implications of that fully. People don't think exponentially, yet exponential change applies to anything that involves measuring information content. Take genetic sequencing. When the human genome project was announced in 1990, sceptics said: 'No way you're going to do this in 15 years.' Halfway through the project the sceptics were still going strong, saying you've only finished 1 per cent of the project. But that's actually right on schedule: by the time you get to 1 per cent you're only seven doublings away."

Five futurist visionaries and what they got right - tech - 06 May 2009 - New Scientist

Five futurist visionaries and what they got right - tech - 06 May 2009 - New Scientist: "Five futurist visionaries and what they got right"

What to Read on Geopolitics | Foreign Affairs

What to Read on Geopolitics | Foreign Affairs: "Theorizing about the relationship between geography and security is one of the oldest and most central themes of Western political science. Modern geopolitical thinking appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, differing from its predecessors in its emphasis on technological change and global systems of power. In vogue before and through the world wars, geopolitics fell out of favor by the second half of the century, accused of everything from environmental determinism to simplistic binary categorization. Today, however, the subject is undergoing a revival -- perhaps based on the recognition that global political changes in the twenty-first century may stem not simply from human culture and institutions but also the geographical environment."

The Return of the Old Middle East | Foreign Affairs

The Return of the Old Middle East | Foreign Affairs: "Using traditional tools of influence to counter opponents and shift the strategic orientation of secondary regional actors would be a classic move -- and just the sort to get the United States right back in the game."

The Return of the Old Middle East | Foreign Affairs

The Return of the Old Middle East | Foreign Affairs: "All this is sensible, but to best secure U.S. interests in the Middle East, the new administration needs to remind itself of the rules of the local game -- the traditional contest for influence among regional states. It is played out more in political terms than in military ones, although the possibility of violence is never far. The players are the stronger regional powers (Egypt, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey) and the playing fields are the weaker powers (Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories) whose governments cannot prevent outsiders from interfering in domestic politics. The tools of influence are money, guns, and ideology -- and the scorecard is judged by the political orientations of the weaker states."

What to Read on Modernization Theory | Foreign Affairs

What to Read on Modernization Theory | Foreign Affairs: "Lipset's argument was actually fairly sophisticated. He claimed that economic development sets off a series of profound social changes that together tend to produce democracy. He noted, for example, that wealthier societies tend to have higher levels of education and urbanization, more sophisticated and varied means of communication, larger middle classes, and greater social equality and mobility. All of these things, Lipset argued, are associated with, and necessary for the emergence and proper functioning of, democratic political institutions."

NIC 2025 Project

NIC 2025 Project: "Some of our preliminary assessments are highlighted below:

The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.
The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.
Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply.
The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East."

Technology Review: Our Past Within Us

Technology Review: Our Past Within Us: "Furthermore, Renfrew told me, 'studies of mtDNA mutation rates give an approximate chronology that ties quite nicely to data from radiocarbon dating of fossil remains.' Like radiocarbon dating itself, mtDNA analysis has refuted long-cherished myths about race by showing that humankind almost certainly had a single origin in Africa, with our main dispersal out of that continent occurring about 60,000 years ago and proba bly involving a relatively small number of humans. During humanity's global diaspora, many populations grew isolated. Today, mitochondrial haplogroups--groups that share common ancestors--are identifiable as originating in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands."