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."

Why Language Is All Thumbs

Why Language Is All Thumbs: "Human beings are insatiably curious, especially when it comes to the subject of ourselves. This is not a new insight. Philosophers, poets, theologians, and scientists from Plato to Darwin, St. Augustine to Freud have already penned volumes about our humanness that bow endless rows of the sturdiest library shelves. You might ask, if these thinkers have fallen gasping to the mat trying to wrestle these questions into submission, why this book should have any better luck. The simple answer is that today we have far more solid information to work with."

Why Dont We Invent It Tomorrow? - Paper Cuts - Books - New York Times Blog

Why Dont We Invent It Tomorrow? - Paper Cuts - Books - New York Times Blog: "In his new book “Physics of the Impossible,” Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a cofounder of string field theory, delves deeply into cutting-edge science to tell us what breakthrough innovations we can expect in our own lifetimes — and which our grandchildren’s grandchildren will still be dreaming about."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota, estimates that digital traffic on the global network is growing about 50 percent a year, fueled by the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment -- video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games"

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 04 - yves.conta@gmail.com

Iraq War Caused Slowdown in the US – (The Australian – February 28, 2008)http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.htmlThe Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. The former World Bank vice-president said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003. Professor Stiglitz and another Clinton administration economist, Linda Bilmes, have produced a book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, pulling together their research on the true cost of the war, which does not include the cost to Iraq. One of the greatest discrepancies is that the official figures do not include the long-term healthcare and social benefits for injured servicemen, who are surviving previously fatal attacks because of improved body armor. The ratio of injuries to fatalities in previous wars was 2:1. In this war they admitted to 7:1 but a true number is (something) like 15:1." Some 100,000 servicemen have been diagnosed with serious psychological problems and the soldiers doing the most tours of duty have not yet returned.

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 04 - yves.conta@gmail.com

Map Pinpoints Disease Hotspots – (BBC News – February 20, 2008)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7252923.stmA detailed map highlighting the world's hotspots for emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) has been released. It uses data spanning 65 years and shows the majority of these new diseases come from wildlife. The researchers found that 60% of EID events were caused by "non-human animal" sources. They add that 71% of these outbreaks were "caused by pathogens with a wildlife source". "We are crowding wildlife into ever smaller areas, and human population is increasing," explained Dr Marc Levy. "Where those two things meet, that is the recipe for something crossing over."

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 04 - yves.conta@gmail.com

Running the Numbers – (Chris Jordan – 2008)

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php
This series of works by artist Chris Jordan looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes. In an elegant fashion, this project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 03 - yves.conta@gmail.com

Global Migration Patterns and Job Creation – (Gallup – October 11, 2007)http://gmj.gallup.com/content/101680/Global-Migration-Patterns-Job-Creation.aspx#1More and more often, global leaders are asking us the same simple, yet colossal, question: "Does anyone know for sure what the world is thinking?" Global leaders are right to wonder. To know what the whole world is thinking -- not just what people in their own countries are thinking -- on almost all issues all the time would certainly make their jobs a lot easier at the very least. To try to answer that question, Gallup has created a new body of behavioral economic data for world leaders that represents the opinion of all 6 billion inhabitants, reported by country and almost all demographics and sociographics imaginable. They call it the World Poll.

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 03 - yves.conta@gmail.com

Embryos Created with DNA from 3 People – (Associated Press – February 5, 2008)http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdcbUgqqy77XnKFlLA4PsopRH0pwD8UKDBFO0 British scientists say they have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man in a procedure that researchers hope might be used one day to produce embryos free of inherited diseases. The process aims to create healthy embryos for couples to avoid passing on genes carrying diseases. The genes being replaced are the mitochondria, a cell's energy source, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mistakes in the mitochondria's genetic code can result in serious diseases like muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, strokes and mental retardation.

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "In a new book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, Nicholas Carr argues that we're moving from the era of the personal computer to an age of utility computing--by which he means the expansion of grid computing, the distribution of computing and storage over the Internet, until it accounts for the bulk of what the human race does digitally."

Center for Global Change and Governance - Recent Books and Articles

Center for Global Change and Governance - Recent Books and Articles: "The arena of global politics is a fast-changing and fascinating one, encompassing as it does the accelerating processes of globalisation, the ever-present threat of war, conflict and terrorism and the role of both key individuals and wider alliances of NGOs and protesters in influencing world events."

Division of Global Affairs - Center for Global Change and Governance

Division of Global Affairs - Center for Global Change and Governance: "The Center for Global Change and Governance (CGCG) defines its academic mission in terms of the complex interplay of global change and governance-the large-scale transformations of political, economic, and cultural relations that simultaneously structure, and are structured by, the changing roles of states and non-state actors involved in creating order and disorder. At the core of the CGCG's concerns is the relationship between globalization, the post-cold war realignment of great-power relations, and the growing role in the promotion and attenuation of conflict of international governmental and non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, and social movements."

Immigration Watchdog » The New World Order Always Knew We Would Resist

Immigration Watchdog » The New World Order Always Knew We Would Resist: "“For some, the disarray of traditional relationships in international affairs indicates a dangerous deterioration of the international order and portends collapse of the system into chaos or anarchy. Others consider the turbulence of the 1990s as part of the process of evolution, an inevitable consequence of the transformation of the international system into a global system. In some respects, both are right. The international order has indeed deteriorated into ‘disorder’ in large measure, but there is growing evidence that a global system is emerging out of this ‘chaos.’”"

The Strategic Trends approach starts by identifying the major trends in each of these
dimensions and analyses ways in which these trends are likely to develop and interact
during the next 30 years, in order to establish a range of Probable Outcomes. Nothing in
the future is guaranteed, of course, and Strategic Trends varies the strength of its
assessments to highlight sets of Alternative Outcomes that, while less probable, are
nonetheless highly plausible, for example:
• By 2010, most people (above 50%) will be living in urban rather than rural
environments. Poor housing, weak infrastructure and social deprivation will
combine with low municipal capacity to create a range of new instability risks in
areas of rapid urbanization, especially in those urban settlements that contain a
high proportion of unplanned and shanty development.
http://www.skilluminati.com/docs/DCDC_Global_Trends_2007-2036.pdf

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future | Science | The Guardian

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future Science The Guardian: "The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%."

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future | Science | The Guardian

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future Science The Guardian: "'The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx,' says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: 'The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest'. Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the 'sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism'."

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future | Science | The Guardian

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future Science The Guardian: "An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a 'world city' such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organs but not buildings 'might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world'. The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the 'application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues'. The 'explicit use' of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles."

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future | Science | The Guardian

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future Science The Guardian: "Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. 'Flashmobs' - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the 'future strategic context' likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an 'analysis of the key risks and shocks'. Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as 'probability-based, rather than predictive'."

Technology Review: TR10: Modeling Surprise

Technology Review: TR10: Modeling Surprise: "The question is how wide a range of human activities can be modeled this way. While the algorithms used in SmartPhlow are, of necessity, domain specific, Horvit­z is convinced that the overall approach could be generalized to many other areas. He has already talked with political scientists about using surprise modeling to predict, say, un­expected conflicts. He is also optimistic that it could predict, for example, when an expert would be surprised by changes in housing prices in certain markets, in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or in the exchange rate of a currency. It could even predict business trends. 'Over the past few decades, companies have died because they didn't foresee the rise of technologies that would lead to a major shift in the competitive landscape,' he says.
Most such applications are a long way off, Horvitz concedes. 'This is a longer-term vision. But it's very important, because it's at the foundation of what we call wisdom: understanding what we don't know.'"

Technology Review: TR10: Modeling Surprise

Technology Review: TR10: Modeling Surprise: "Much of modern life depends on forecasts: where the next hurricane will make landfall, how the stock market will react to falling home prices, who will win the next primary. While existing computer models predict many things fairly accurately, surprises still crop up, and we probably can't eliminate them. But Eric Horvitz, head of the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at Microsoft Research, thinks we can at least minimize them, using a technique he calls 'surprise modeling.'
Horvitz stresses that surprise modeling is not about building a technological crystal ball to predict what the stock market will do tomorrow, or what al-Qaeda might do next month. But, he says, 'We think we can apply these methodologies to look at the kinds of things that have surprised us in the past and then model the kinds of things that may surprise us in the future.' The result could be enormously useful for decision makers in fields that range from health care to military strategy, politics to financial markets"

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "Futurist Peter von Stackelberg of research and consulting firm Social Technologies has released a report on the future of on providing clean water to the world.

Less than 2% of the planet's water store is fresh, and much of that is threatened by pollution, he says. 'By 2025, about 3.4 billion people will live in regions that are defined by the UN as water-scarce.'

He suggests ideas for technological advances in three major areas that will be critical for the hydrological future: desalination of seawater or brackish groundwater, purification of water containing chemical or biological contaminants, and conservation to cut demand."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "New York Times, Feb. 26, 2008

Scientists are building a Web site called the Encyclopedia of Life, dedicated to documenting all species on Earth.

Spearheaded by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson with $50 million initial funding, the first 30,000 pages will be introduced on Thursday this week. Within a decade, they predict, they will have the other 1.77 million."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "Science Daily, Feb. 26, 2008

University of Sheffield Professor Noel Sharkey is concerned that we are beginning to see the first steps towards an international robot arms race.

He warns that it may not be long before robots become a standard terrorist weapon to replace the suicide bomber."

How can future engineers make the world a better place? The U.S.National Academies have issued a set of twenty-first-century challengesdesigned to inspire engineering students toward creative problemsolving and "game changing" projects that could dramatically improvelife. Among the Grand Challenges are:
* Make solar energy affordable.* Provide access to clean water.* Restore and improve urban infrastructure.* Engineer better medicines.* Reverse-engineer the brain.* Prevent nuclear terror.* Secure cyberspace.* Advance personalized learning.
"Tremendous advances in quality of life have come from improvedtechnology in such areas as farming and manufacturing," says Googleco-founder Larry Page, a member of the Challenges committee. "If wefocus our effort on the important grand challenges of our age, we canhugely improve the future."
SOURCE: National Academy of Engineering, National Academies:http://national-academies.org or http://www.engineeringchallenges.org

INFERTILITY MAY BECOME COMMON
Future generations already have a problem: There may be fewer of them,as infertility becomes common, according to recent research publishedin the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL.
In affluent countries, infertility affects approximately 15% of couplestrying to conceive; up to 6% of children are conceived through assistedreproductive technologies in some countries.
SOURCE: BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL (16 February 2008), http://www.bmj.com

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 02 - yves.conta@gmail.com

Ethanol for $1 a Gallon without Corn – (Wired – January 24, 2008)http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said. Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol. "It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.

Gmail - Volume 11, Number 02 - yves.conta@gmail.com

The Lowdown on Topsoil: It's Disappearing – (Seattle Post Intelligencer – January 22, 2008)http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348200_dirt22.htmlThe planet is getting skinned. While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet. On average, the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil - the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and plays a critical role in supporting life on Earth. However, the estimate is that we are now losing about 1% of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head | Worldwatch Institute

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head Worldwatch Institute: "But it’s also about asking the question, what is an economy is really for? Not only can the global economy not keep growing forever, growth isn’t even working for many of us in wealthy nations anymore: U.S. per-capita income has tripled since 1950, for instance, but the share of Americans who say they’re very happy has dropped over the last 30 years.But it’s also about asking the question, what is an economy is really for? Not only can the global economy not keep growing forever, growth isn’t even working for many of us in wealthy nations anymore: U.S. per-capita income has tripled since 1950, for instance, but the share of Americans who say they’re very happy has dropped over the last 30 years."

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head | Worldwatch Institute

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head Worldwatch Institute: "Waste minimization is another way to reduce scale. Every year we dig up and process more than half a trillion tons of raw materials—and six months later more than 99 percent of it is waste. That can be fixed too: Ray Anderson’s Interface carpet company is a leader in this area, reducing manufacturing waste by 70 percent since the mid-1990s and saving over $300 million while doing it. Waste minimization is another way to reduce scale. Every year we dig up and process more than half a trillion tons of raw materials—and six months later more than 99 percent of it is waste. That can be fixed too: Ray Anderson’s Interface carpet company is a leader in this area, reducing manufacturing waste by 70 percent since the mid-1990s and saving over $300 million while doing it."

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head | Worldwatch Institute

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head Worldwatch Institute: "We’ve gotten really good at economic growth. Since Adam Smith’s time, the number of people in the world has exploded from about 1 billion to nearly 7 billion. And in the last 200 years, Gross World Product has risen by nearly a factor of 60. The ecosystem has suffered as a result, hence the headlines we see every day: climate change, species extinctions, dwindling rainforests, water shortages, and all the rest. We’ve gotten really good at economic growth. Since Adam Smith’s time, the number of people in the world has exploded from about 1 billion to nearly 7 billion. And in the last 200 years, Gross World Product has risen by nearly a factor of 60. The ecosystem has suffered as a result, hence the headlines we see every day: climate change, species extinctions, dwindling rainforests, water shortages, and all the rest."

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head | Worldwatch Institute

“Green Economics”: Turning Mainstream Thinking on Its Head Worldwatch Institute: "How big is the global economy relative to the global ecosystem? This is crucial, because the economy resides totally inside the global ecosystem—the ecosystem gives the economy a place to operate, supplies all of its raw materials, and supports it with many critical services. In physical terms, economic activity is basically converting bits and pieces of the ecosystem to human uses: trees and forests into lumber and houses, grasslands and other habitats into farms to feed the billions of humans, and so on. How big is the global economy relative to the global ecosystem? This is crucial, because the economy resides totally inside the global ecosystem—the ecosystem gives the economy a place to operate, supplies all of its raw materials, and supports it with many critical services. In physical terms, economic activity is basically converting bits and pieces of the ecosystem to human uses: trees and forests into lumber and houses, grasslands and other habitats into farms to feed the billions of humans, and so on."

NationMaster - GDP (purchasing power parity) (per capita) (most recent) by country

NationMaster - GDP (purchasing power parity) (per capita) (most recent) by country: "Economy Statistics > GDP (purchasing power parity) (per capita) (most recent) by country"

Reading Material — UN University OCW

Reading Material — UN University OCW: "Bijker, W. E. (2006b). Why and How Technology Matters. In Goodin, R. E. & C. Tilly (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (pp. 681-706). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: http://www.fdcw.unimaas.nl/staff/files/users/148/Bijker%20PoliticsOxfordHndb%202006.pdf"

nsf.gov - SRS US Doctorates in the 20th Century - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

nsf.gov - SRS US Doctorates in the 20th Century - US National Science Foundation (NSF): "The number and kinds of students seeking doctoral degrees during the last 25 years of the 20th century changed dramatically and included more women, minorities, and international students. As knowledge in many fields strained traditional discipline boundaries, new interdisciplinary programs as well as entire new fields developed. The costs associated with graduate education, and the way students paid for their education, became more complex. Career options available to doctoral graduates broadened, and traditional patterns of postgraduate employment changed. These and other changes, shifts, and trends are documented in this publication."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "Five advanced technologies available only in Japan include true mobile digital TV (all the regular terrestrial channels at no cost), mobile wallet service (phones have smart cards embedded inside, letting you add applications like electronic money or a credit card), connected cars (with a navigation system connected to a cell phone), primary wave earthquake warning systems, and home-help robots."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "The electronic world is replacing the natural world for leisure time in rich nations, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers believe.

Outdoor pursuits, ranging from camping to hunting, have entered a persistent and growing decline since 1987. Their statistical analysis shows that the increase in video games, movie rentals and other electronic entertainment most closely matches the decrease in camping and park visits, as opposed to income, vacation time, park overcrowding, foreign travel or other potential causes."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "French and Spanish researchers have found new evidence to support recent evolution in humans: genes for traits such as skin color and stature changed rapidly to allow humans to survive in new habitats.

The team identified 582 genes that have evolved differently in different populations in the past 60,000 years, including a dozen that protect people from obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other diseases.

Read Original Article>>"

Technology Review: The Rise of Systemic Financial Risk

Technology Review: The Rise of Systemic Financial Risk: "The financial system as a whole is getting more complex. Financial institutions rely on ever more elaborate systems architecture and electronic communications across different counterparties and sectors. The number of parties involved, the nature of transactions, the volume of transactions as the market grows--taken together, the dynamics among these aspects of financial markets imply that the complexity is growing exponentially. No single human can comprehend that complexity. And as the system grows more complex, it is a well-known phenomenon that the probability of some kind of shock spreading through the system increases as well. Systemic shocks become more likely. Today, we are looking at some significant exposure to relatively rare events."

Zakaria: The World Bails Us Out | Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com

Zakaria: The World Bails Us Out Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria Newsweek.com: "These trends represent a large, ongoing shift in the global economic order. Power is moving away from the traditional centers of the global economy—the Western nations—to the emerging markets. To put it more bluntly: the United States is in the beginning of a period of relative decline. It may not be steep or dramatic, but the fact that it's happening is clear. Even if one assumes a slowdown, the other big economies will still grow at two and three times the pace of the West. Over time they will take up a larger share of the global economy—and the United States and Western Europe will have thinner slices. This is not defeatism, it's math."

Zakaria: The World Bails Us Out | Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com

Zakaria: The World Bails Us Out Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria Newsweek.com: "The United States is in the beginning of a period of relative decline. This is not defeatism, it's math."

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View

Accelerating-Intelligence News: Single Article View: "With the end of the oil era approaching, and climate change progressing faster than most models have been predicting, the utilisation of space is essential not only for communications but also for the logistics of survival through things such as weather satellites, agricultural monitoring, GPS and climate science,'"

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years

WFS Forecasts for the Next 25 Years: "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. 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: "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. 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: "Forecast #3: The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States. Scenarios for what a war with China or Russia would look like make the clashes and wars in which the United States is now involved seem insignificant. The power of radical jihadists is trivial compared with Soviet missile capabilities, for instance. The focus of U.S. foreign policy should thus be on preventing an engagement among Great Powers. Forecast #3: The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States. Scenarios for what a war with China or Russia would look like make the clashes and wars in which the United States is now involved seem insignificant. The power of radical jihadists is trivial compared with Soviet missile capabilities, for instance. The focus of U.S. foreign policy should thus be on preventing an engagement among Great Powers."

Stand by for our diplomatic surge David Miliband - Times Online: "Third, we need to recognise that the balance of power in the world order is tilting east, with the emergence of India and China as world economies. That does not mean America’s position as the world’s superpower is under threat. It does mean these countries have a key role in their regions and globally."