FUTUREdition - The Future Today

FUTUREdition - The Future Today: "A Critique of Shortsighted Anthropic Principles – (Phys Org – May 16, 2008)
http://www.physorg.com/news130167074.html
Many people marvel that we live in a universe that seems to be precisely tailored to suit the development of intelligent life. The observation is the basis for some forms of “Anthropic Principles” that strive to explain why the laws of physics take the form we observe, given the nearly countless other possibilities permitted by schools of thought such as string theory. But a new paper in Physical Review Letters from a group of physicists at Case Western Reserve University argues that any connection between the laws of physics and the existence of life is likely to be an illusion stemming from our shortsighted definition of intelligent life."

We're really subsidising Opec-Swaminomics-Swaminathan A Aiyar-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India

We're really subsidising Opec-Swaminomics-Swaminathan A Aiyar-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India: "Rich countries have learned from history, but developing countries have not. The demand for oil in rich countries is slowing today with rising prices. Petrol consumption has fallen in the US as the price has risen to $4/gallon. US demand for gas-guzzling large cars has collapsed, and General Motors wants to sell its Hummer brand, the largest car of all. All these positive outcomes flow from passing on the burden of Opec to the consumer.

But China, India and many developing countries have tried to keep oil prices artificially low. Thus, they have kept demand artificially high (they now account for a big chunk of world demand). And that is why Opec is able to sell oil at $135/barrel, despite a global slowdown.

Ideally, India should pass on the full cost to consumers, as it did in 1974. But for politicians who view high subsidies as electoral necessities, here is a proposal. First, abolish all implicit and explicit subsidies on oil. Use the money saved to cut excise duties on other items of common consumption and provide cash to poor families. Overall inflation and government revenue will be unchanged. Yet, the poor will benefit, and high oil prices will encourage energy-efficiency. India's oil use will fall, helping lower Opec's prices. That will be better than today's policy, which ends up subsidising Saudi Arabia."

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com: "By 2010, China will have more Ph.D. scientists and engineers than the United States. These professionals are not fundamentally a threat. To the contrary, they are creators, whose ideas are likely to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, not just the business elites. The more access the Chinese have to American and other markets, the more they can afford higher education and the greater their incentive to innovate."

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com: "THE last 20 years have brought the world more trade, more globalization and more economic growth than in any previous such period in history. Few commentators had believed that such a rise in trade and living standards was possible so quickly.
David G. KleinMore than 400 million Chinese climbed out of poverty between 1990 and 2004, according to the World Bank. India has become a rapidly growing economy, the middle class in Brazil and Mexico is flourishing, and recent successes of Ghana and Tanzania show that parts of Africa may be turning the corner as well."

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons: "Thanks also, I should note, to the success of the system’s
modern version of bread and circuses, a unique combination of
entertainment, sports, television, internet sex and games, consumption,
drugs, liquor, and religion that has so far successful deadened most of
the general public into apathetic stupor."

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons: "Third, military overstretch. Empires are by definition
colonizers, and trying to keep control over hostage peoples by force
inevitably leads to large and often uncontrollable armies, massive
drains on the economy, and ultimately rebellion on the
periphery. As the Roman empire collapsed when the
“barbarians” at its frontiers revolted and the Roman legions, stretched
from Germany to Africa to Persia and grown unruly and corrupt, were
defeated, as the Persian empire fell in the 5th century BC because it
was unable to maintain the colonies it had established from India to
Africa and the peripheries rose in revolt, so the American empire is
overextended, weakened at the peripheries, forced to use ill-equipped
and undertrained troops to maintain it, and even the generals admit
that it can’t be sustained. We have 547,000 – more than half a million – active troops,
based at (this is amazing and little understood) more than 725 admitted
military bases in at least 40 countries around the world, plus a formal
“military presence” in no less than 153 countries, on every continent
but Antarctica, and nearly a dozen fully armed carrier and missile
fleets on all the seven seas."

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons: "I have studied empires pretty carefully
over the last few years, and I have figured out the basic nature of
these systems and concluded that all empires collapse, and usually
within less than a century, because of their inherent nature.
They not only make mistakes but usually the same set of mistakes,
simply because of the inevitable character of the imperial structure,
which ultimately fails because of its size, complexity, territorial
reach, social stratification, economic disparities, heterogeneity,
domination of people and nature, hierarchy, and environmental ignorance."

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons

Kirkpatrick Sale - You Know Your Empire Is Collapsing When... - Vermont Commons: "Let’s say for starters, you know your empire is collapsing when the
empire that is your fiercest rival buys up a total of 26 percent of
three of your major Wall Street firms for $9 billion, and declares that
it has another $200 billion that it is looking to invest.[Since we’re going to be doing some numbers here, I should pause
to give a little reference for the concept “billion.” A billion seconds
ago was . . . 1959, which means some of you here haven’t yet lived a
billion seconds. A billion minutes ago Jesus was walking along
the Sea of Galilee – more than 2 millennia ago. A billion hours
ago, about 100,000 years before the present, the classic Neanderthal
peoples were wandering Europe and the Middle East, and Homo sapiens
started to move out of Africa. We throw the term around a lot,
but a billion is a big, big number.]Next, you might figure your empire is collapsing when its total debt
obligations amount to $50.5 trillion. That is so big that it’s about
the same as the total household income of everyone in the"

Technology Review: TR10: Modeling Surprise

Technology Review: TR10: Modeling Surprise: "TR10: Modeling Surprise
Combining massive quantities of data, insights into human psychology, and machine learning can help manage surprising events, says Eric Horvitz."

Who Will Rule the 21st Century?

Who Will Rule the 21st Century?: "China has other challenges as well. Aside from its risky social experiment, it has an economy in which less than a quarter of its people truly participate, and its one-child policy is exacerbating the problems of an already aging population. India, meanwhile, will continue to struggle with its overwhelming number of have-nots and its aforementioned corruption. True, India is a democracy, but a democracy muddled by a profusion of divergent political parties."

Who Will Rule the 21st Century?

Who Will Rule the 21st Century?: "But “right now” doesn’t mean forever. All you need is a ruler to draw the straight-line extrapolation showing that China and India, with their faster growth rates, will eventually catch up to the U.S. in terms of pure economic size. For China, that would occur as early as 2045; for India, the date would be some 20 years later. Which is why you so often hear experts predicting that, by midcentury, the U.S. will be trailing the two new world superpowers.

We'd say: Not so fast. Straight-line calculations about the U.S., China, and India are just that. They assume all three national will enjoy smooth upward rides. No recessions, no banking breakdowns, not political crisis, no disruptive social uprisings. Unlikely? For sure! With China's massive experiment combining communism and capitalism, India's entrenched bureaucracy and corruption, and America's long term entitlement obligations, it is far more probable that growth trajectories will zig and zag more than zoom. Further, straight-line calculations do not take into account relationships with other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, where changing alliances could have economic repercussions."

Three Chinese banks in world's top four: study

Three Chinese banks in world's top four: study: "Three Chinese institutions were among the world's top four banks at the end of 2007 at a time when the market capitalisation of Western banks was suffering from a global financial crisis, a study showed Wednesday.
The number one spot in the rankings, compiled by the Boston Consulting Group, was occupied by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, with market capitalisation of nearly 340 billion dollars (218 billion euros).
In second place was China Construction Bank, followed by HSBC of Britain, Bank of China, Bank of America and Citigroup of the United States."

Bloomberg.com: News

Bloomberg.com: News: "April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's discoveries of what may be two of the world's three biggest oil finds in the past 30 years could help end the Western Hemisphere's reliance on Middle East crude, Strategic Forecasting Inc. said.
Saudi Arabia's influence as the biggest oil exporter would wane if the fields are as big as advertised, and China and India would become dominant buyers of Persian Gulf oil, said Peter Zeihan, vice president of analysis at Strategic Forecasting in Austin, Texas. Zeihan's firm, which consults for companies and governments around the world, was described in a 2001 Barron's article as ``the shadow CIA.''
Brazil may be pumping ``several million'' barrels of crude daily by 2020, vaulting the nation into the ranks of the world's seven biggest producers, Zeihan said in a telephone interview. The U.S. Navy's presence in the Persian Gulf and adjacent waters would be reduced, leaving the region exposed to more conflict, he said.
``We could see that world becoming a very violent one,'' said Zeihan, former chief of Middle East and East Asia analysis for Strategic Forecasting. ``If the United States isn't getting any crude from the Gulf, what benefit does it have in policing the Gulf anymore? All of the geopolitical flux that wracks that region regularly suddenly isn't our problem.''"

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says - CNN.com

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says - CNN.com: "The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.
The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.
The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations before the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas."

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says - CNN.com

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says - CNN.com: "Studies using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through mothers, have traced modern humans to a single 'mitochondrial Eve,' who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago."

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says - CNN.com

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says - CNN.com: "Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

Geneticist Spencer Wells, here meeting an African village elder, says the study tells 'truly an epic drama.'
The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.
The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age."

Fertility Falls, Population Rises, Future Uncertain | Worldwatch Institute

Fertility Falls, Population Rises, Future Uncertain Worldwatch Institute: "Although the average woman worldwide is giving birth to fewer children than ever before (see Figure 1), an estimated 136 million babies were born in 2007.1 Global data do not allow demographers to be certain that any specific year sets a record for births, but this one cer­tainly came close. The year's cohort of babies propelled global population to an estimated 6.7 billion by the end of 2007. (See Figure 2.) Although the average woman worldwide is giving birth to fewer children than ever before (see Figure 1), an estimated 136 million babies were born in 2007.1 Global data do not allow demographers to be certain that any specific year sets a record for births, but this one cer­tainly came close. The year's cohort of babies propelled global population to an estimated 6.7 billion by the end of 2007. (See Figure 2.)"

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years: "Virtual Reality Is Getting Real — In the next 15 years VR experiences will be fully integrated into real life. We’ll “attend” meetings, practice surgical techniques, travel to exotic places, test design flaws before building things, and create digital clones to be our representatives in virtual worlds. Virtual Reality Is Getting Real — In the next 15 years VR experiences will be fully integrated into real life. We’ll “attend” meetings, practice surgical techniques, travel to exotic places, test design flaws before building things, and create digital clones to be our representatives in virtual worlds. Virtual Reality Is Getting Real — In the next 15 years VR experiences will be fully integrated into real life. We’ll “attend” meetings, practice surgical techniques, travel to exotic places, test design flaws before building things, and create digital clones to be our representatives in virtual worlds."

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years: "Forecast #9: Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. Not just oil and natural gas, but also the Arctic’s supplies of nickel, copper, zinc, coal, freshwater, forests, and of course fish are highly coveted by the global economy. Whether the Arctic states tighten control over these commodities or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead. Forecast #9: Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. Not just oil and natural gas, but also the Arctic’s supplies of nickel, copper, zinc, coal, freshwater, forests, and of course fish are highly coveted by the global economy. Whether the Arctic states tighten control over these commodities or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead. Forecast #9: Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. Not just oil and natural gas, but also the Arctic’s supplies of nickel, copper, zinc, coal, freshwater, forests, and of course fish are highly coveted by the global economy. Whether the Arctic states tighten control over these commodities or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead."

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years: "Forecast #6: Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century. Global fresh water shortages and drought conditions are spreading in both the developed and developing world. In response, the dry state of California is building 13 desalination plants that could provide 10%-20% of the state’s water in the next two decades. Desalination will become more mainstream by 2020. Forecast #6: Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century. Global fresh water shortages and drought conditions are spreading in both the developed and developing world. In response, the dry state of California is building 13 desalination plants that could provide 10%-20% of the state’s water in the next two decades. Desalination will become more mainstream by 2020. Forecast #6: Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century. Global fresh water shortages and drought conditions are spreading in both the developed and developing world. In response, the dry state of California is building 13 desalination plants that could provide 10%-20% of the state’s water in the next two decades. Desalination will become more mainstream by 2020."

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years: "The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States."

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years: "The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025. Globalization and technological innovation are driving this increased prosperity. But challenges to prosperity will also become more acute, such as water shortages that will affect two-thirds of world population by 2025. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025. Globalization and technological innovation are driving this increased prosperity. But challenges to prosperity will also become more acute, such as water shortages that will affect two-thirds of world population by 2025. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025. Globalization and technological innovation are driving this increased prosperity. But challenges to prosperity will also become more acute, such as water shortages that will affect two-thirds of world population by 2025."

ID21 - communicating development research

ID21 - communicating development research: "A publication from the Oxford Research Group, in the UK, challenges the idea that the ‘war on terror’ must be prioritised over all other global challenges. Current responses to terrorism may actually provoke rather than contain it. The authors identify four challenges more deserving of international attention: climate change; competition over resources; socio-economic marginalisation of the majority world; and global militarisation."

TheMercury.com - News Article

TheMercury.com - News Article: "As important as military strength is to China today, economic development and political stability are just as central to its leaders' thinking—as Ambassador Zhou himself made clear when he was here just 11 weeks ago. From the U.S. perspective, China's growing engagement with the rest of the world is driven primarily by two things: a need for access to markets, resources, technology, and expertise, and a desire to assert its influence in the region and with developing countries in other parts of the world.
I should note that even as it aspires to a larger global role, China faces significant domestic challenges and structural weaknesses: things like uneven income distribution, growing dependence on foreign oil and other imported resources, environmental degradation, an aging population, and massive migration from rural areas to cities. All of these factors will influence China's trajectory, and we can't ignore them. But to me, the key question for the future is whether China is ready to accept the responsibility that comes along with 'great power status.'"

TheMercury.com - News Article

TheMercury.com - News Article: "I say that with full appreciation for the remarkable speed and scope of China's recent military buildup. The Chinese have fully absorbed the lessons of both Gulf wars, developing and integrating advanced weaponry into a modern military force. While it's true that these new capabilities could pose a risk to U.S. forces and interests in the region, the military modernization is as much about projecting strength as anything else. After two centuries of perceived Western hegemony, China is determined to flex its muscle. It sees an advanced military force as an essential element of great power status. And it is the Intelligence Community's view that any Chinese regime, even a democratic one, would have similar nationalist goals."

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 07 - yves.conta@gmail.com

"We Have the Technology that Can Make a Cloned Child – (Independent – April 14, 2008)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/now-we-have-the-technology-that-can-make-a-cloned-child-808625.html
A new form of cloning has been developed that is easier to carry out than the technique used to create Dolly the sheep, raising fears (and hopes) that it may one day be used on human embryos to produce 'designer' babies. Scientists who used the procedure to create baby mice from the skin cells of adult animals have found it to be far more efficient than the Dolly technique, with fewer side effects, which makes it more acceptable for human use."

He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work) - New York Times

Meteorites Delivered the 'Seeds' of Earth's Left-hand Life – (PhysOrg – April 6, 2008)
http://www.physorg.com/news126694357.html
Flash back three or four billion years — Earth is a hot, dry and lifeless place. All is still. Without warning, a meteor slams into the desert plains at over ten thousand miles per hour. With it, this violent collision may have planted the chemical seeds of life on Earth. Scientists have evidence that desert heat, a little water, and meteorite impacts may have been enough to cook up one of the first prerequisites for life: the dominance of “left-handed” amino acids, the building blocks of life on this planet. In a report at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Ronald Breslow, Ph.D., University Professor, Columbia University, and former ACS President, described how our amino acid signature came from outer space.

Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "Shared misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection

Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity

Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment

Evolution always promotes the survival of species

It doesn't matter if people do not understand evolution

'Survival of the fittest' justifies 'everyone for themselves'

Evolution is limitlessly creative

Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality

Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution"

Evolution myths: 'Survival of the fittest' justifies 'everyone for themselves' - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: 'Survival of the fittest' justifies 'everyone for themselves' - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "Looked at from this point of view, the concept of the survival of the fittest could be used to justify socialism rather than laissez-faire capitalism. Then again, the success of social insects could be used to argue for totalitarianism. Which illustrates another point: it is nonsense to appeal to the 'survival of the fittest' to justify any economic or political ideology, especially on the basis that it is 'natural'.

Is cannibalism fine because polar bears do it? Is killing your brother or sister fine because nestlings of many bird species do it? Is murdering your children fine because mice sometimes eat their own pups? Is paedophilia fine because bonobo adults have sex with juveniles?"

Evolution myths: 'Survival of the fittest' justifies 'everyone for themselves' - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: 'Survival of the fittest' justifies 'everyone for themselves' - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "What we see in the wild is not every animal for itself. Cooperation is an incredibly successful survival strategy. Indeed it has been the basis of all the most dramatic steps in the history of life. Complex cells evolved from cooperating simple cells. Multicellular organisms are made up of cooperating complex cells. Superorganisms such as bee or ant colonies consist of cooperating individuals."

Evolution myths: Evolution is limitlessly creative - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: Evolution is limitlessly creative - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "Nevertheless, there are structures that would clearly be useful but have never evolved. Zebras with built-in machine guns would rarely be bothered by lions, some point out. So why can evolution invent some things but not others?"

Evolution myths: Natural selection leads to ever greater complexity - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: Natural selection leads to ever greater complexity - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "In fact, natural selection often leads to ever greater simplicity. And, in many cases, complexity may initially arise when selection is weak or absent.

If you don't use it, you tend to lose it. Evolution often takes away rather than adding. For instance, cave fish lose their eyes, while parasites like tapeworms lose their guts.

Such simplification might be much more widespread than realised. Some apparently primitive creatures are turning out to be the descendants of more complex creatures rather than their ancestors. For instance, it appears the ancestor of brainless starfish and sea urchins had a brain.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that evolution has produced more complex life-forms over the past four billion years. The tough question is: why? It is usually simply assumed to be the result of natural selection, but recently a few biologists studying our own bizarre and bloated genomes have challenged this idea."

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "Random genetic drift has certainly played a big role in human evolution. Human populations were tiny until around 10,000 years ago, and went through a major bottleneck around 2 million years ago. Other bottlenecks occurred when a few individuals migrated out of Africa around 60,000 years ago and colonised other regions.

There is no doubt that most of the genetic differences between humans and other apes – and between different human populations – are due to genetic drift. However, most of these mutations are in the nine-tenths of our genome that is junk, so they make no difference. The interesting question is which mutations affecting our bodies or behaviour have spread because of drift rather than selection, but this is far from clear."

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "The DNA in all organisms is under constant attack from highly reactive chemicals and radiation, and errors are often made when it is copied. As a result, there are at least 100 new mutations in each human embryo, possibly far more. Some are harmful and are likely to be eliminated by natural selection – by death of the embryo, for instance. Most make no difference to our bodies, because most of our DNA is useless junk anyway. A few cause minor changes that are neither particularly harmful nor beneficial.

You might think that largely neutral mutations would remain restricted to a few individuals. In fact, while the vast majority of neutral mutations die out, a few spread throughout a population and thus become 'fixed'. It is pure chance – some just happen to be passed on to more and more individuals in each generation."

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "Much change is due to random genetic drift rather than positive selection. It could be called the survival of the luckiest."

Evolution myths: Everything is an adaptation - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist

Evolution myths: Everything is an adaptation - life - 16 April 2008 - New Scientist: "For all these reasons and more, we need to be sceptical of headline-grabbing claims about evolutionary explanations for different behaviours. Evolutionary psychology in particular is notorious for attempting to explain every aspect of behaviour, from gardening to rape, as an adaptation that arose when our ancestors lived on the African savannah.

Needless to say, without solid evidence, claims about how, for instance, TV dinners 'evolved' should be taken with a large pinch of salt."

The Institute For The Future

The Institute For The Future: "The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent, nonprofit research group with nearly 40 years of forecasting experience. The core of our work is identifying emerging trends and discontinuities that will transform global society and the global marketplace. We provide insights into business strategy, design process, innovation, and social dilemmas."

Delta Scan: The Future of Science and Technology, 2005-2055: Home

Delta Scan: The Future of Science and Technology, 2005-2055: Home: "Welcome to the Delta Scan. This is a forum for scanning the science and technology horizon over the next 50 years. The forum contains a hundred outlook pages covering a wide range of scientific disciplines and technologies. These include topics associated with the future geography and structure of science."

KurzweilAI.net

KurzweilAI.net: "University of East Anglia scientist Andrew Watson has developed a new mathematical model of the probability of intelligent life in the universe.

His model, published in the journal Astrobiology, suggests the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve, the remaining life span of Earth, and the low probability of the four independent evolutionary steps needed to create intelligent life (less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years)."

KurzweilAI.net

KurzweilAI.net: "In the biggest analysis of flu strains ever, Cambridge University researchers have shown the annual flu epidemic comes from eastern and southeast Asia, a product of the connectedness of people and the patchiness of the region's rainy seasons.

New viruses appeared in eastern and southeast Asia 6 to 9 months before they showed up anywhere else, and took another 6 to 9 months to reach Latin America.

The team found that outbreaks follow the cooler temperatures of the rainy seasons, which are staggered in time across the region because of complex geography and air movements. There is always a flu epidemic happening somewhere in east and southeast Asia, they said.

Then when the climatic conditions are right in the northern or southern temperate zones, they seed the next winter epidemic, which goes to Europe, Oceania, and North America first."

KurzweilAI.net

KurzweilAI.net: "Among the forecasts:

- Our grandchildren will live to be 140 years old.
- Diseases such as breast cancer and heart disease will be preventable or even wiped out.
- Each of us will have a copy of our own complete DNA sequence, incorporated into a highly accurate electronic medical record and can be accessible from anywhere.
- Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders will be well understood and treatable.
- People will be forced to marry others based on genotypes and those who are not authorized will be subject to tremendous tax burdens for any sick or disabled children.
- Humans will have exhausted most of the coal and oil reserves of the planet and added many pollutants to the environment.
- We may have lived through a nuclear war."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "Recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that the very nature of civilization means that ours, like previous civilizations, is destined to collapse sooner or later.

It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, the tipping point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity, says archaeologist Joseph Tainter and author of the 1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies."

Technology Review: On Markets and Complexity

Technology Review: On Markets and Complexity: "complexity also raises the specter of risks that can cause a crisis in which you don't fully understand what's happening, because you're in a new environment where the structures are different from what they were ten years ago. There's a psychological reason for that. We tend to be much more comfortable doing something familiar than we are with doing something new, even if the risk is the same in both cases. I'm not saying that bad things haven't happened. But if you take a horizon of, say, ten years, on the whole, the system is structurally better, but we probably have had a mismatch between the infrastructural growth and the growth of the innovations such that we find ourselves in a situation that is very costly and expensive and unnerving."

Technology Review: On Markets and Complexity

Technology Review: On Markets and Complexity: "Sometimes the term 'complex' is used as a euphemism for 'less-well understood.' People sometimes say, 'Things have gotten more complex,' but what they're really saying is, 'I understand things less well.'"

On Deep History and the Brain - Daniel Lord Smail - Book Review - New York Times

On Deep History and the Brain - Daniel Lord Smail - Book Review - New York Times: "In “On Deep History and the Brain,” Daniel Lord Smail suggests that human history can be understood as a long, unbroken sequence of snorts and sighs and other self-modifications of our mental states. We want to alter our own moods and feelings, and the rise of man from hunter-gatherer and farmer to office worker and video-game adept is the story of the ever proliferating devices — from coffee and tobacco to religious rites and romance novels — we’ve acquired to do so. Humans, Smail writes, have invented “a dizzying array of practices that stimulate the production and circulation of our own chemical messengers,” and those devices have become more plentiful with time. We make our own history, albeit with neurotransmitters not of our choosing."

Why Language Is All Thumbs

Why Language Is All Thumbs: "This means that two astounding advances were unfolding during Homo habilis' brief stay on Earth. First, entirely new knowledge was being intentionally generated out of the brain of a single creature. Toolmaking marked the birth of invention. Second, knowledge could now be duplicated and relocated to other minds; it was no longer doomed to die with the brain that conceived it. Just as the evolution of DNA made it possible for a gene to be copied and shared from one generation to the next, mirror neurons, and the new behaviors they made possible, meant that an idea—a “meme,” as Richard Dawkins has put it—could be copied and passed along from one mind to the next. Conscious communication had emerged, even if only in an embryonic form, and in its wake everything from gossip to oratory, mathematics to the laws of Hammurabi, stand-up comedy to the computer code that sends probes to the moons of Saturn would follow. We were building the scaffolding for true human behavior, relationships, and, ultimately, that most monumental of all human inventions: culture."

Why Language Is All Thumbs

Why Language Is All Thumbs: "Both our toes and thumbs are linked to the third trait—our unusual throats and the uniquely shaped pharynx inside, which enables us to make more precise sounds than any animal. Standing up straightened and elongated our throats so that our voice box dropped. In time that made speech possible, but we also needed a brain that could generate the complex mental constructions that language and speech demand. Because toolmaking required a brain that could manipulate objects, it supplied the neural foundations for logic, syntax, and grammar so that eventually it could not only take objects and arrange them in an orderly manner, it also could conceive ideas for our pharynx to transform into the sound symbols we call words and organize them so they made sense as well."

Why Language Is All Thumbs

Why Language Is All Thumbs: "Scientists also keep nibbling away at the mysterious edges of paleoanthropology, psychology, physiology, sociology, and computer science, to mention only a handful, shedding light bit by bit on the special brand of behaviors we call human. In other words, we remain largely unknown to ourselves, but we are making impressive progress."

Why Language Is All Thumbs

Why Language Is All Thumbs: "The other field is brain research. Being a human being (as opposed to a wasp or a fruit fly), all of your behaviors and actions are not dictated by your genes alone. Your brain holds many of the secrets that make humans human. Genes may be outrageously complicated, but the human brain makes our genetic code look like the crayon drawings of a four-year-old. Though it weighs a mere three pounds, it consists of a hundred billion neurons, each of which is connected in a thousand different ways to the other neurons around it. This means that every waking moment your brain is linked along a hundred trillion separate paths, trafficking in thought and insight, processing great streams of sensory input, running the complex plumbing of your body, generating (but not always resolving) all of your colliding and conflicting emotions, conscious and unconscious. These connections, by one estimate, make your possible states of mind during the course of your life greater than all of the electrons and protons in the universe. Given the immensity of this number, you are never likely to think all of the thoughts you are actually capable of thinking, nor feel every possible feeling. Nevertheless, each shining day we give it a try."

Why Language Is All Thumbs

Why Language Is All Thumbs: "During the past decade enormous strides have been made in two broad scientific fields: genetics and neurobiology. Advances in genetics are helping us gain insights into the way all living things evolve and develop. Each of us has come to exist in the unique form we do because of the combinations of genes that our parents passed along. You are, to a large degree, the person you are because of the messages these genes sent, and continue to send, to the ten thousand trillion cells that have assembled just so to form you. Hardly a day goes by without some news about a remarkable discovery that further illuminates the molecular machinery of the DNA that makes life possible."