Harvard Gazette: Is 7-million-year-old skull really human?: "These fossils give researchers and others concerned about our deep past plenty to think, or argue, about. The evolutionary path from ape to man was once compared to a straight ladder. As fossils accumulated, a luxuriantly branching tree became needed to account for all the different hominid skulls, leg bones, arm bones, jaws, and teeth that were discovered. But, notes Pilbeam, 'at the base of this tree, there might well have only been one hominid for the first few million years. And that one may have been like Toumai.' "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Russia's international political interests now lay in reasserting its influence in Ukraine, cooperating with China in Central and East Asia, and expanding its influence in the Persian Gulf (as can be seen in Moscow's hostility toward possible coercive actions against Tehran). Such goals -- which appear quite logical from the Russian point of view -- would be at odds with Germany's ambition of becoming Washington's privileged partner in Western Europe. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): " Because of geographical realities, Germany needs Russia as an energy supplier. Because of the world's geopolitical configuration, Berlin perceives its interests as being those of a great power which needs to function as a 'bridge' between the dominant Western power -- the United States -- and Europe. "

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Merkel's statement made clear Berlin's commitment to its common energy strategy with Russia established the year before. However, Germany and the present Austrian E.U. presidency are obviously concerned about Europe's strong energy dependence upon Russia. "

State of the World 2006: China, India, the U.S., Europe, and Japan by the Numbers: Worldwatch Institute News: "These slides offer a glimpse of the rising ecological impact of two populous developing nations, China and India, while illustrating that the per-capita resource consumption and pollution of countries in the industrialized world�including the United States, the European Union and Japan�is much higher. If by 2030, China and India alone were to achieve a per-capita footprint equivalent to that of Japan today, together they would require a full planet earth to meet their needs. "

State of the World 2006: "From the Foreword:

'The western model of growth that India and China wish to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources�energy and materials�and generates enormous waste. The industrialized world has mitigated the adverse impacts of wealth generation by investing huge amounts of money. But... it remains many steps behind the problems it creates. India and China have no choice but to reinvent the development trajectory.'

World Future Society � THE FUTURIST � World Trends & Forecasts: "he economy of China is growing faster than that of any other nation on earth. Chinese manufacturers currently produce more than 70% of the world's toys, 60% of its bicycles, half its shoes, one-third of its television sets and air conditioners, and half of its microwave ovens. Despite the accomplishments of Chinese manufacturing firms on behalf of such recognizable Western brands as Boeing, efforts to market uniquely Chinese brands have thus far stalled. However, that may soon change, according to a new book, The Chinese Century (Wharton 2005). "

World Future Society Book Review: "For all his careful analysis of economics, technology, demography, and ideology, Kelly envisions a future that is guided by no single area of knowledge. Rather, he foresees a future where new and newly efficient organizations, as well as individuals, realize unprecedented power. This vision is at once hopeful and terrifying. History has seen the transfer of power from mobs to empires, and from empires to states, but this final transfer, from states to groups and citizens, may be the last if citizens fail to wield power responsibly. "

World Future Society Book Review: "In Powerful Times, Global Business Network CEO and President Eamonn Kelly lays bare the real and existential conflicts that surround us. He calls these conflicts 'key dynamic tensions,' and, according to Kelly, they are shaping both this age and the next: Human knowledge, in the form of technology, is expanding across the globe. In spite of that positive trend, religious extremism continues to attract followers. Opportunities for economic growth are accelerating, along with economic pitfalls. The Internet has opened up vast virtual frontiers; simultaneously, our ecosystems are straining under ecologically disastrous human behaviors and practices. According to Kelly, how humanity chooses (or does not choose) to resolve these key conflicts will determine the face of the next era of human history"

People's Daily Online -- Beijing to control population within 16 million by 2010: "The Chinese capital will take measures to keep its permanent residents within 16 million by 2010, according to an economic and social development program for 2006-2010 to be discussed at the municipal legislature's annual session. "

SPACE.com -- E-Weapons: Directed Energy Warfare In The 21st Century: "LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico -- There is a new breed of weaponry fast approaching�and at the speed of light no less. They are labeled 'directed-energy weapons' and may well signal a revolution in military hardware�perhaps more so than the atomic bomb. "

G A P M I N D E R: HOME: "HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TRENDS 2005
Gapminder produce an interactive presentation for the 'Human Development Report 2005' by UNDP."

EducationGuardian.co.uk | E-learning | Digging for data that can change our world: "Scientific research is being added to at an alarming rate: the Human Genome Project alone is generating enough documentation to 'sink battleships'. So it's not surprising that academics seeking data to support a new hypothesis are getting swamped with information overload. As data banks build up worldwide, and access gets easier through technology, it has become easier to overlook vital facts and figures that could bring about groundbreaking discoveries."

Cells That Read Minds - New York Times: "The ability to share the emotions of others appears to be intimately linked to the functioning of mirror neurons, said Dr. Christian Keysers, who studies the neural basis of empathy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and who has published several recent articles on the topic in Neuron.
When you see someone touched in a painful way, your own pain areas are activated, he said. When you see a spider crawl up someone's leg, you feel a creepy sensation because your mirror neurons are firing.
People who rank high on a scale measuring empathy have particularly active mirror neurons systems, Dr. Keysers said. "

Cells That Read Minds - New York Times: "Mirror neurons provide clues to how children learn: they kick in at birth. Dr. Andrew Meltzoff at the University of Washington has published studies showing that infants a few minutes old will stick out their tongues at adults doing the same thing. More than other primates, human children are hard-wired for imitation, he said, their mirror neurons involved in observing what others do and practicing doing the same things. "

Cells That Read Minds - New York Times: "Other animals - monkeys, probably apes and possibly elephants, dolphins and dogs - have rudimentary mirror neurons, several mirror neuron experts said. But humans, with their huge working memory, carry out far more sophisticated imitations. "

Cells That Read Minds - New York Times: "In a study published in March 2005 in Public Library of Science, Dr. Iacoboni and his colleagues reported that mirror neurons could discern if another person who was picking up a cup of tea planned to drink from it or clear it from the table. 'Mirror neurons provide a powerful biological foundation for the evolution of culture,' said Patricia Greenfield, a psychologist at the U.C.L.A. who studies human development.
Until now, scholars have treated culture as fundamentally separate from biology, she said. 'But now we see that mirror neurons absorb culture directly, with each generation teaching the next by social sharing, imitation and observation.' "

The Empire: What It Is and What It Means for All of Us - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: " A majority of Americans now feel that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. They would like the Bush Administration to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It is significant that armed forces recruitment exercises in the last one year or so have consistently recorded shortfalls. In other words, fewer and fewer Americans are prepared to go and fight in Iraq. "

The Empire: What It Is and What It Means for All of Us - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "However, resistance from outside alone will not be enough to bring down the Empire. It is one of the unerring laws of history that empires collapse partly because of internal weaknesses. "

The Empire: What It Is and What It Means for All of Us - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "Like other empires in the past, this empire is also being forged through the force of arms. The US today commands overwhelming military power. It is not only more powerful than any other nation on earth. Its strength exceeds that of the next 14 militarily powerful states put together. There has never been a military power as formidable as the US in history. No less than 800 US military bases garrison the globe. Its military strength extends from the depths of the ocean to the outer reaches of space. It aims for �total spectrum dominance�. "

Books from the Earth Policy Institute - Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble: "�If we fail to build a new economy before decline sets in, it will not be because of a lack of fiscal resources, but rather because of obsolete priorities,� adds Brown. �The world is now spending $975 billion annually for military purposes. The U.S. 2006 military budget of $492 billion, accounting for half of the world total, goes largely to the development and production of new weapon systems. Unfortunately, these weapons are of little help in curbing terrorism, nor can they reverse the deforestation of the earth or stabilize climate.
�The military threats to national security today pale beside the trends of environmental destruction and disruption that threaten the economy and thus our early twenty-first century civilization itself. New threats call for new strategies. These threats are environmental degradation, climate change, the persistence of poverty, and the loss of hope.� "

Books from the Earth Policy Institute - Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble: "If China one day has three cars for every four people, U.S. style, it will have 1.1 billion cars. The whole world today has 800 million cars. To provide the roads, highways, and parking lots to accommodate such a vast fleet, China would have to pave an area equal to the land it now plants in rice. It would need 99 million barrels of oil a day. Yet the world currently produces 84 million barrels per day and may never produce much more. "

Books from the Earth Policy Institute - Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble: "Although it is obvious that no society can survive the decline of its environmental support systems, many people are not yet convinced of the need for economic restructuring. But this is changing now that China has eclipsed the United States in the consumption of most basic resources, Brown notes in Plan B 2.0, which was produced with major funding from the Lannan Foundation and the U.N. Population Fund.
Among the basic commodities�grain and meat in the food sector, oil and coal in the energy sector, and steel in the industrial sector�China now consumes more than the United States of each of these except for oil. It consumes nearly twice as much meat (67 million tons compared with 39 million tons) and more than twice as much steel (258 million to 104 million tons). "

IFTF's Future Now: "IFTF's Future Now"

Foreign Affairs - A Natural History of Peace - Robert M. Sapolsky: "The first half of the twentieth century was drenched in the blood spilled by German and Japanese aggression, yet only a few decades later it is hard to think of two countries more pacific. Sweden spent the seventeenth century rampaging through Europe, yet it is now an icon of nurturing tranquility. Humans have invented the small nomadic band and the continental megastate, and have demonstrated a flexibility whereby uprooted descendants of the former can function effectively in the latter. "

Foreign Affairs - A Natural History of Peace - Robert M. Sapolsky: "In other words, adolescent males that enter Forest Troop after having grown up elsewhere wind up adopting the unique behavioral style of the resident males. As defined by both anthropologists and animal behaviorists, 'culture' consists of local behavioral variations, occurring for nongenetic and nonecological reasons, that last beyond the time of their originators."

Foreign Affairs - A Natural History of Peace - Robert M. Sapolsky: "To some extent, the age-old 'nature versus nurture' debate is silly. The action of genes is completely intertwined with the environment in which they function; in a sense, it is pointless to even discuss what gene X does, and we should consider instead only what gene X does in environment Y. Nonetheless, if one had to predict the behavior of some organism on the basis of only one fact, one might still want to know whether the most useful fact would be about genetics or about the environment."

Foreign Affairs - A Natural History of Peace - Robert M. Sapolsky: "And so the crude picture of combat as the sole path to evolutionary success is wrong. The average male baboon does opt for the combative route, but there are important phases of his life when aggression is less important than social intelligence and restraint, and there are evolutionarily fruitful alternative courses of action."

Foreign Affairs - A Natural History of Peace - Robert M. Sapolsky: "More discomfiting is the continuum that has been demonstrated in the realm of cognition. We now know, for example, that other species invent tools and use them with dexterity and local cultural variation. Other primates display 'semanticity' (the use of symbols to refer to objects and actions) in their communication in ways that would impress any linguist. And experiments have shown other primates to possess a 'theory of mind,' that is, the ability to recognize that different individuals can have different thoughts and knowledge."

Foreign Affairs - A Natural History of Peace - Robert M. Sapolsky: "The evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, 'All species are unique, but humans are uniquest.' Humans have long taken pride in their specialness. But the study of other primates is rendering the concept of such human exceptionalism increasingly suspect.
Some of the retrenchment has been relatively palatable, such as with the workings of our bodies. Thus we now know that a baboon heart can be transplanted into a human body and work for a few weeks, and human blood types are coded in Rh factors named after the rhesus monkeys that possess similar blood variability."

News & Broadcast - Press Reviews: "But for all its shortcomings, she writes, the coming-of-age of the politics of global inequality is being driven by an important issue that will ensure it stays on the international agenda: at its heart is a question of legitimacy. The west's global dominance is being challenged as unjust - whether that is by the WTO�s new bloc of leading developing countries or even by the fanatical violence of the Islamist extremists. The huge wealth generated by globalization, with its equally huge ecological footprint, cannot largely be for the benefit of a tiny proportion of the world's population."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Therefore, prospects exist for new and enhanced plans for ending such dependence. Already in September 2005, a group of European deputies announced the creation of a broad platform designed to implement a European hydrogen-based economy in the coming decades. Additionally, nuclear energy is, once again, considered to be an economic priority by many players."

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "The Russian president is now in control of the energy giant, guaranteeing that he will remain a key player, at least indirectly, even if he fails to be re-elected in 2008. His main international strategy is to give Russia the status of a great power in a new, multipolar world order in which Russia, China and India will be the main Eurasian powers."

Blackwell Synergy: Development Policy Review, Vol 23, Issue 6, pp. 643-663: Why Do Aid Agencies Exist? (Abstract): aid services suppliers, or, in general, suppliers whose products and
services could be valuable in developing countries, may want to use aid
transfers to enhance their positions on developing country markets (technical
assistance, commercial suppliers, but also academic and research institutes,
laboratories, construction companies, etc.). Here, the aid is instrumental in
bringing about a preference re-alignment in the mind of the recipient – who
gets a subsidy to do something he would otherwise not do, or to do it
differently.
• Last but not least, a donor country government may use aid flows to enhance
political alliances with the recipient country government, to obtain political
goodwill and changes (non-alignment in the original preferences) in the
decisions and policy stance of that government. Donor governments may also
wish to nurture their relationship with particular interest groups in the recipient
country (preferences aligned with those of the donor government) who can be
influential in political and economic decisions of interest to the donor country.

Blackwell Synergy: Development Policy Review, Vol 23, Issue 6, pp. 643-663: Why Do Aid Agencies Exist? (Abstract): Despite these formidable barriers foreign aid has reached unprecedented
historical proportions. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, it has become a full-scale
multinational industry with an annual turnover estimated at nearly US$70 billion
(OECD, 2005). Direct contact between potential donors and recipients would not be
able to achieve such massive transfers. Some sort of organisational set-up is required to
facilitate intermediation between them and reduce ex-ante transaction costs as well as
ex-post uncertainty to an acceptable level.

Blackwell Synergy: Development Policy Review, Vol 23, Issue 6, pp. 643-663: Why Do Aid Agencies Exist? (Abstract)
Aid – income redistribution between humans – is a phenomenon that is deeply
embedded in human behaviour. Indeed, we could not survive without it. For instance,
sharing food and other basic resources in families and kin groups is essential for the
survival of human beings – as essential as it is for most other animals. What
distinguishes humans from other animals, however, is our ability to redistribute and
share resources within a much wider social setting, outside immediate family and kin
groups, even with persons we have never met or will never meet.

United Press International - Hi-Tech - Commentary: Living forever: "Singularity,' John Casti of Nature wrote, is 'a mind expanding account (that) is nothing less than a blueprint for how to shove Homo sapiens off center-stage in evolution's endless play...if you buy into Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns - and all empirical evidence currently available supports it completely - then the replacement of humans by machines as the primary intellectual force on Earth is indeed imminent.' "

United Press International - Hi-Tech - Commentary: Living forever: "Bill Gates praises futurist Kurzweil and his 'Singularity' as 'the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.' He has a 20-year track record of accurate predictions. Bill Joy, co-founder and former chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, is filled with foreboding about the perils of humanity's technological future. But Joy still concedes 'The Singularity Is Near' is 'a clear call for a continuing dialogue to address the greater concerns arising from these accelerating possibilities.'
What worries Joy in his book 'Why The Future Doesn't Need Us' is that 'we are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes.'
Joy has a point. There is a growing abyss between the economic, scientific and technological knowledge of the masses and their representatives on the one hand, and, on the other, the knowledge that is required to make logical, rational and moral decisions. "

United Press International - Hi-Tech - Commentary: Living forever: "Kurzweil's latest futuristic tome is the sequel to his last bestseller, 'The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence,' which posited that the ever-accelerating rate of technological change would lead to computers that would rival the full range of human intelligence. He now takes his readers to the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the fusion of human brain and machine. Thus, 'the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will merge with the vastly greater capacity, speed and knowledge-sharing ability of our own creations.' "

ASU News > Scholars debate whether to limit scientific research: "We have reached a point in human history where some of the scientific research we could do, perhaps we should not do for safety, national security or ethical reasons,� says Gary Marchant, executive director of the center. �We therefore must choose, for the first time, which science should be allowed, and which should not. How, and by whom, such decisions should be made will be the focus of this timely and path-breaking conference.�"

ASU News > Scholars debate whether to limit scientific research:The first day of the conference will provide an overview of the legal and policy questions, plus a discussion about the limitations of the “right” to conduct scientific research. The second day’s events will focus on three case studies involving emerging research controversies in the areas of pathogens and toxins, nanotechnology and cognitive enhancement.

War and disasters aside, 2005 brought world progress | csmonitor.com: "Armed conflict: While the 20th century was the bloodiest in human history, the number of armed conflicts has declined steadily from about 50 in 1990 to less than 30 today - nearly the lowest levels since the end of World War II. The number of men and women in uniform and total world military spending has eased from cold war peaks. Catastrophic wars between major states that pervaded Europe and Asia until the end of World War II have largely been replaced by smaller-scale internal conflicts, primarily in lower-income countries. Progress toward a safer world, however, unlike progress in health, education, and income, can be quickly reversed with the outbreak of a single major conflict. Recent brinkmanship between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan is the most chilling reminder of this danger."

War and disasters aside, 2005 brought world progress | csmonitor.com: "Political and civil rights: Fully one-half of the world's population now lives in countries that have multiparty electoral systems that respect basic human rights - the highest level in history. The breakup of the former Soviet Union in 1991 precipitated a move toward Western system democracies not only within the borders of the former Soviet Union but also within former 'client' states. During the past three decades, more than 80 countries in Central Europe, East Asia, Latin America, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa have all notched gains in political and civil rights and more than 30 military dictatorships have been replaced by civilian governments."

War and disasters aside, 2005 brought world progress | csmonitor.com: "Income: Worldwide incomes are at their highest levels in history and are rising. Since 1960, more than 1 billion people have pulled themselves out of the direst poverty. This trend caused the World Bank to conclude that 'the past two decades have witnessed one of the most rapid reductions in poverty in human history.' This success has been propelled by China, which alone has lifted more than 400 million out of poverty in the past 20 years. Other countries, such as Bangladesh, have made substantial strides in poverty reduction - without China's high rates of economic growth - through progressive government programs focused on improving healthcare and education. The rapid globalization of the world economy and industrialization of many formerly agricultural economies, which has unquestionably brought environmental loss and social upheaval, has raised incomes for billions of people."

War and disasters aside, 2005 brought world progress csmonitor.com: "Judging from the headlines, 2005 was a gloomy year, indeed. Gulf Coast hurricanes, the devastating earthquake in Kashmir, ongoing war in Iraq, civil war in Sudan, renewed famine in central Africa, and the threat of a worldwide pandemic flu darkened the news. These headlines, however, obscure a far brighter underlying trend: On average, people across the planet are living longer, healthier lives, with greater opportunities for education and political freedom than ever before.
We unavoidably view our world through news articles that break up an otherwise overwhelming stream of information into digestible bites. As a result, we often 'lose the forest for the trees' by focusing on sensational short-term stories that impact relatively few people."

Wired 14.01: The 50 Best Robots Ever: ". SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY
Some robots sit in labs for researchers to tinker with. These two bots are on frickin' Mars. Expected to last only three months when they touched down on the Red Planet in January 2004, the rovers are still going strong two years later - each sends back 100 megabits of data a day.
02. ASTROBOY
While American kids were daydreaming of Superman, Japanese tykes were worshipping at the altar of Tetsuwan Atom, aka Astroboy. First drawn in 1951, Astroboy has rocket boots, lasers that shoot from his fingertips, and, uh, an ass cannon. The lovable crime-fighting robot was an inspiration to a generation of kids -some of whom went on to become robotics researchers. He's a big reason why Japan is at the forefront of android development today. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.
And the #1 Robot of All Time Is...
01. STANLEY
The Stanford Racing Team's autonomous vehicle is a modified Volkswagen Touareg that can scan any terrain and pick out a drivable course to a preset destination. Cup holders optional."

Top 10 tech trends for 2006: "Video -- in the form of your favorite TV dramas or Hollywood hit movies -- will come to the big screen in your living room and to the small screen on your cell phone. Whenever you want it. No need to mess around with time-shifting TV devices or mail-order flicks."

Evolution whispers some secrets - Science - Specials - smh.com.auTHIS year, mankind's drive to explore the universe saw spacecraft either on their way, or already at, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, a comet, an asteroid and the very edge of the solar system.

The Globe and Mail: Creating first synthetic life formHaving launched a company called Synthetic Genomics, Dr. Venter believes "the whole world is open" in terms of the commercial applications of being able to build or redesign micro-organisms for specific tasks.

He insists the main goal of his project to build the first synthetic life form, however, is to understand the essence of life, how it evolved and the essential elements that sustain it.

"Here we are trying to understand the human genome with 24,000 some odd genes and 100 trillion cells and we don't know how 300 or 400 genes work together to yield a simple living cell," he said.

The Globe and Mail: Creating first synthetic life form: "The work is an extreme example of a burgeoning new field in science known as synthetic biology. It relies on advances in computer technology that permit the easy assembly of the chemical bits, known as nucleotides, that make up DNA.
Several scientific groups are trying to make genes that do not exist in nature, in hopes of constructing microbes that perform useful tasks, such as producing industrial chemicals, clean energy or drugs. Dr. Venter and his colleagues are pushing the technology to its limits by trying to put together an entirely synthetic genome. "