B.Gates :  "I wrote Steve Jobs a letter"

   
“Steve was an incredible genius who contributed immensely to the field I was in. We had periods, like the early Macintosh, when we had more people working on it than they did. And then we were competitors. The personal computers I worked on had a vastly higher [market] share than Apple until really the last five or six years, where Steve’s very good work on the Mac and on iPhones and iPads did extremely well.

   
Letter that he kept by his bed (telegraph)

  

  Knowledge: Universal Natural Resource

 
One of the more important points in understanding some of the fights over the ridiculousness of today's copyright and patent laws is to recognize how knowledge (information) is a natural resource. It is the input that makes other great things. Economist Paul Romer's famous research really showed how knowledge and information as a resource is what creates economic growth.

   
Improving human' condition (techdirt)

  

  Biodiesels pollute more

   
The default values assigned to the biofuels compare to those from Canada’s oil sands – also known as tar sands – according to the figures, which should be released along with long-awaited legislative proposals on biofuels in the spring. A spokesperson for the European Commission said she could “not comment on leaked documents, such as impact assessments which have not been published.”

  
Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels (euractiv)

  

  Acta: why should you be worried ?

   
Sopa and Pipa might be on hold for the time-being, but there is a greater threat looming. It's called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and it's an international agreement that aims to establish multinational standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. Most recently, Acta made the headlines when online activists paralysed some of Poland's government sites to protest against Warsaw's plans to sign the international copyright treaty.

  
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (wired.co.uk)

   

  ISO makes food irradiation safer

   
Food irradiation is the process where food is exposed to ionizing radiation in order to improve its safety and quality. It is intended to be used only on food that has been produced under good manufacturing practice (GMP) principles. The irradiation of food can be used for different purposes including control of pathogenic microorganisms and parasites.

  
State-of-the art on food irradiation (iso)

   

  Cloud Computing: Agility & Expensivity

   
Are cloud services attractive because they are less expensive than traditional offerings or are IT professionals drawn by greater agility? Bernard Golden writes that it's not an either-or debate. Much like those famous 'tastes great ... less filling" beer commercials, the beauty of cloud computing lies in the beholder. In Silicon Valley, the saying "it's a dessert topping and a floor wax" is often used to puncture the pretensions of a product that promises that it can address every need.

 
The conflict between agility and cost (cio)

   

  Misguided FDA Food Regulations

   
This year will mark another push for aggressive food regulation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On tap, salt regulations and industrywide regulations dictating which foods can be advertised on television. In October 2011, the FDA announced in the Federal Register that it would begin accepting comments on “approaches to reducing sodium consumption.”

  
How to reduce childhood obesity ? (qualitydigest)

  

  Tweets: Promoting / endorsing a product

   

We don’t know how much these celebrities were paid for the ‘stunt’, but it must’ve been fairly substantial. It’s thought that Rio alone earns over £100,000 a week at Manchester United (even when he’s not playing), so for him to risk irking his mass of followers, Snickers must’ve waved a sizable sum at him. This is perhaps indicative of the way Twitter is going though.

 
The value of a tweet (thenextweb)

   

  Seaweed farming for biofuels

   
Biofuels have been touted as low-carbon replacements for petrol and diesel, but those made from crops like corn and sugar have been blamed for increasing global food prices and delivering only modest benefits. Earlier studies have indicated that large-scale use of seaweed as an energy source could in theory supply the world's needs several times over and the UK government envisages 400 km sq of offshore seaweed farms in its long-term energy planning.

   
GM microbe breakthrough (guardian)

   

  Spain’s development aid

  
Though the economic crisis has forced Spain to cut public spending in the past year, including to development co-operation, its aid has almost doubled since 2003. In addition to this higher quantity, the OECD’s Review of the Development Co-operation Policies and Programmes of Spain commends the improved quality of its development co-operation programmes.

  
Spain's world’s 7th largest donor (oecd)

   

  In sight:FFT's new algorithm

  
The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It’s universal in signal processing, but it can also be used to compress image and audio files, solve differential equations and price stock options, among other things. A group of MIT researchers will present a new algorithm that, in a large range of practically important cases, improves on the fast Fourier transform.

   
The faster than fast Fourier transform (mit)

   

  Intel: overclocking warranty

   
Intel announced a new program designed to give overclockers an extra feeling of safety if they choose to push their processors beyond recommended specs. The Performance Tuning Protection Plan (PTPP) is available on select K- and X-model CPUs and allows customers “a single processor replacement, hassle-free, from our customer support. This is in addition to your standard 3 year warranty.”

  
An extra feeling of safety for overclockers (extremetech)

   

  EU: To halve food wastage

   
Up to 50% of edible and healthy food gets wasted in EU households, supermarkets, restaurants and along the food supply chain each year, while 79 million EU citizens live beneath the poverty line and 16 million depend on food aid from charitable institutions. Parliament called in a resolution adopted on Thursday for urgent measures to halve food waste by 2025 and to improve access to food for needy EU citizens.

  
How to halve food wastage in the EU ? (europarl.europa)

   

  Most Critical Test on EUV

  
After decades of bringing us the incredible shrinking transistor, chipmakers are now hard up against the limits of their printing technique: Trying to use today's ultraviolet lasers to print the next generation of circuits would be like trying to trace a fine line with a preschooler's crayon. Fifteen years ago, researchers predicted that by about 2006, EUV chips would roll out commercially at the 65-nm node. And yet ?

   
EUV lithography isn't ready ? (ieee)

   

  Watts: to be better informed

  
You may think you know how much electricity you're using, but there's a whole lot more you could--and should--know. Despite living in the information age, most of us are basically in the dark when it comes to electricity bills, with just a rough idea of how much we consume every month and what it will cost. a lot of the action in home energy is moving to software and up into the cloud.

  
House' energy monitor (cnet)

   

  Under Asia's sea: Crowded

   
Submarines are difficult to find and hard to destroy. Even fairly crude submarine forces can attack surface ships or other targets with a great deal of stealth, making them perfect for countries with limited resources. The threat of such an attack is a powerful deterrent in Asia, where coastal defenses are vital. America's submarine dominance in the Pacific is facing its biggest challenge since the Cold War.

   
Control of Asia's seas goes underwater (News.yahoo)
   

  Helium-3 alternatives

  
The Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), based in Tokai, was supposed to be one of the leading facilities of its kind, allowing an unprecedented view of microstructures in the life and physical sciences. But when the $1.5 billion (£1 billion) facility opened in 2009, it was missing something important: helium-3, a neutron-detector material. Thanks to a global shortage, which came to light the year before, availability of helium-3 has plummeted while prices have skyrocketed.

  
Alternatives to helium-3 neutron detectors (rsc)

  

  Raising funds: What should'y ovoid?

  
Here are some things entrepreneurs should avoid when raising capital. For all of the talk about how much excess capital there is, it’s actually hard to raise capital because very few projects fit the VC profile—even though many VC-funded projects come across as frivolous, me-too projects. Life’s unfair. To quote Mark Twain: “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

   
Things entrepreneurs should avoid (techcrunch)

   

  Female politicians boosts aspirations

   
Voters often regard politicians with derision — so often, in fact, they may lose sight of the extent to which elected officials are role models for younger people. Indeed, new evidence suggests that when those politicians are female, they play a highly influential and positive role in the lives of young women. A newly published study co-authored by MIT economist Esther Duflo, along with three colleagues, shows that the increased presence of local female political leaders in India has had a marked impact on adolescents.

  
Leading by example (mit)

   

  Europe isn’t ‘squeaky clean’

  
A leading food safety expert has urged people to remember that Europe is not squeaky clean when it comes to scare stories, following the reported death of another Chinese baby from claimed infant formula consumption. Bloomberg reported today on local media stories claiming that a baby had died in Jiangxi province after suffering from diarrhea and uncontrollable shaking, following the consumption of Youbo milk formula produced by Beijingbased Synutra International, whose share price subsequently nosedived.

  
Chinese infant formula death (foodproductiondaily)

   

  IT teaching:A major overhaul

  
Before the UK Government rushes headfirst into its consultation process for overhauling the IT curriculum in schools, I'd suggest it read up on Nick D'Aloisio. The 16-year old has already developed a string of apps, and his latest has attracted the attention - as well as a $250,000 investment - from private equity firm Horizons Ventures, whose previous investments have been into Skype, Facebook and Spotify.

   
How to help design courses ? (theinquirer)

  

  The radar interference deadlock

   
A technical issue that has emerged over the last few years has been setting wind farm developers and airport operators against one another. Groups of wind turbines can appear as aircraft to air traffic control (ATC) radar systems, creating cluttered zones and making it difficult to track planes flying over wind farms. This safety concern is costly and time-consuming for airports, which must spend time disputing wind farm developments.

   
Radar & wind farms conflicts (airport-technology)

   

  Of texting and Internet taxing

  
The National Safety Council estimates that 28 percent of all crashes in the United States are caused by drivers using cellphones or texting. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 3,092 traffic deaths in the United States last year were attributed to "distraction-affected crashes." Among the most frequent distractions: cellphone and smartphone use by drivers. The NHTSA believes that the numbers of distracted-driving deaths and accidents are higher than reported.

  
Imbroglio of road safety (heraldtribune)

   

  EFSA Report: MRLs for trinexapac

  
Primary crop metabolism of trinexapac was investigated following a single foliar application in wheat, rice and rape seed, hereby covering two different crop groups. Metabolic patterns in the different studies were shown to be similar and the relevant residue for enforcement and risk assessment in all plant commodities could be defined as the sum of trinexapac (acid) and its salts, expressed as trinexapac.

   
Trinexapac's metabolism (efsa)

  

  FDA Warns: Stem Cell Claims

  
Stem cell therapies offer the potential to treat diseases or conditions for which few treatments exist. Stem cells, sometimes called the body’s “master cells,” are the precursor cells that develop into blood, brain, bones and all of your organs. Their promise in medical treatments is that they have the potential to repair, restore, replace and regenerate cells that could then be used to treat many medical conditions and diseases.

  
Body’s “master cells market (fda)

  

  I know what you did at 3:30 a.m

  
Now, with smart meters, the data is going directly to the utilities, many times by Wi-Fi. The fact that somebody driving by might pick it up, and from the data they could gather all sorts of information regarding the types of appliances you are using, where you are in the house, and so on. So there are many different privacy issues related to this. What if appliance manufacturers get this information? Are they going to start trying to sell a household their product to replace their inefficient one that they see you still have?

   
Gathering personal data (csoonline)

  

  Inside metrology: Sensor Improvement

   
An advance in sensor design by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Waterloo’s Institute of Quantum Computing (IQC) could unshackle a powerful, yet high-maintenance technique for exploring materials. The achievement could expand the technique—called neutron interferometry—from a test of quantum mechanics to a tool for industry as well.

   
Improvement in sensor design (qualitydigest)

   

  US retaliation over EU law

  
The EU law went into effect on January 1 and requires global airlines to pay for carbon emissions on flights to and from Europe. Several experts said one option the United States could pursue would involve charging European airlines to maintain U.S. access to pressure EU policymakers. This strategy was used by the United States in a recently concluded dispute with Argentina over landing fees.

  
Carbon emissions tax on flights (reuters)

  

  Germany once admired British workmanship

  
Fear and envy of German manufacturing prowess began a long time before, as any economic history will tell you. Together with the US, Germany began to displace Britain as the world's foremost industrial nation well before the close of the 19th century. Books and newspaper articles sounded the alarm ("American furniture in England – a further indictment of the trade unions," read a Daily Mail headline in 1900).

  
German manufacturing prowess (guardian)

   

  ISO standards & Road vehicles

  
"The importance of this challenge is reflected by ISO's response. Out of a current total of nearly 19 000 ISO International Standards for almost all sectors of business and technology, some 900 have been developed for road vehicles and related technologies." They cover all aspects of road vehicles: safety, ergonomics, performance, test methods, the environment, and the roll-out of innovative technologies.

   
900 standards for vehicles (iso)

  

  Stealth Fighter Program Delayed

  
The Pentagon will delay acquisition of more than 100 early-model Joint Strike Fighters, a bid to save up-front money and to give more time for testers to work out the finicky F-35 warplane’s many technical kinks. That much was expected: The real surprise is that a newly cash-conscious Defense Department still seems fully committed to buying nearly 2,500 of the stealth jets. Total cost: about a trillion dollars.

  
The Trillion-Dollar Program postponed (wired)

  

  Supercentenarians & Genetic engineering

  
Study, published this week in Frontiers in Genetics, found that the participants had other gene variants that somehow disabled the genes that would have otherwise killed them both. In other words, they had good genes that fought off the bad genes, automatically achieving what some of the best minds in science have tried to do -- with very little success -- through genetic engineering.

  
In Frontiers in Genetics (gma.yahoo)

  

  Silicon Valley entrepreneurs

  
The awkward-looking, four-legged object crammed with circuitry and silver propellant tanks that sits in a hanger at NASA's Ames Research Center hardly looks like a world-changing device. But for Moon Express, the prototype of the 3-foot tall robotic spacecraft the private company hopes to land on the moon less than three years from now represents the next step in humankind's economic evolution, a first giant leap for commerce off the Earth.

  
The entrepreneurship for the space (siliconvalley)

  

  Desert cure for date disease

  
Poisonous plants from the Sahara desert have proven effective in killing a fungus that is ravaging date palms in Algeria and Morocco ? raising hopes that a cure might finally have been found for the century-old problem. An Algerian research team said that four plants are effective against the fungus that causes Bayoud disease. The extracts inhibited growth of Fusarium oxysporum forma specialis albedinis (FOA), which causes Bayoud disease.

   
Killing a fungus (visbdev)

   

  Delusions of the Euro Zone

  
Since its inception, the euro zone has been built on lies, the most grievous of which is the idea that the common currency could work without political union. But Europe's politicians are currently suffering under a different but equally fatal delusion -- that they have all the time in the world to fix the crisis. How much does time cost? That depends what you need it for. The time that Europe's leaders want to buy to tackle the euro crisis is a precious commodity.

   
The common currency upheaval (spiegel)

  

  What is MITx?

  
MIT seeks through the development of MITx to improve education both on the MIT campus and around the world. On campus, MITx will be coupled with an Institute-wide research initiative on online teaching and learning. The online learning tools that MITx develops will benefit the educational experience of residential students by supplementing and reinforcing the classroom and laboratory experiences.

  
The development of MITx (mit)

  

  Maximizing Cloud Uptime

  
For enterprises, the cloud can be as much of a problem as an opportunity. If employees can’t access the cloud, or if the data centers and other cloud infrastructure suffer an outage, productivity and sales can grind to a halt. Wireless is the latest wild card: By percent of cloud users will access those applications and services via wireless, Ericsson predicts. Wireless is even more unpredictable than fiber and copper, so how can enterprises ensure that wireless doesn’t jeopardize their cloud-based systems?

  
Applications & services effectiveness (consumerelectronicsnet)

   

  Tech luminaries lost in 2011

  
It's been a rough year for the IT industry. The death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in October grabbed international headlines. But we also lost other major figures from almost every area of technology, including Xerox PARC founder Jacob E. Goldman, who died in late December. Here's one last look at some of the people who made a big difference.

  
IT luminaries (computerworld)

   

  Stuxnet & Duqu building: same team

  
Duqu and Stuxnet, two of the most sophisticated computer viruses ever discovered, were developed by the same team, according to an analysis carried out by Kaspersky Labs. The company also found hints that the team used the same software development environment to build the advanced viruses — and others — between 2007 and 2011, Kaspersky announced on Thursday.

  
Kapersky's labs conclusions (zdnet)

   

  2011: Most Visited Web Sites

  
Earlier this week, Experian Hitwise released its annual list of the most-visited Web sites of 2011; unsurprisingly Facebook topped the list, surpassing Google. Just a few days after that Nielsen Research came out with its own analysis and released its own list of the 10 most-visited Web sites, putting Google on top. According to the study, an average of 153,441,000 people visited Google every month during the time frame.

  
The Masters: as usual (ibtimes)

   

  Verizon’s play for spectrum

  
While everyone was worried over whether AT&T would be acquiring T-Mobile USA or not, Verizon was making some sneaky moves to acquire a truckload of spectrum for their 4G LTE network. On December 2, Verizon Wireless announced its intent to acquire all 122 licenses of the AWS-1 spectrum that SpectrumCo, LLC held. The acquisition of SpectrumCo’s AWS assets will give Verizon at least 20MHz more spectrum in most parts of the United States.

  
Widen spectrum from Verizon (extremetech)

  

  S&T Cooperation: US & EU

  
In practice, S&T cooperation between the SFIC members and observers and the US is enacted through a number of different interlocutors in the US (Q2). Only IT and UK (out of 25 countries that responded to this question) and the Commission described full institutional cooperation with most of the departments, agencies and institutions linked to the federal US government.

  
IT & UK leading so far (jrc)

  

  Unflinching Toyota

  
Japan, like Toyota, knows how to take punishment and turn adversity into opportunity. You can count on the country, and its premiere automotive superstar, to bounce back stronger after every disaster. The country isn’t a member of the elite G7 for nothing. Toyota earned its Triple Crown status, and has successfully worn it for a decade now.

  
Turning adversity into opportunity (inquirer)

  

  Pentagon’s Alt- Medicine Mecca

  
The Pentagon is turning to alternative medicine to help alleviate the devastating symptoms of Post-traumatic stress disorder that afflict more than 250,000 military personnel; soothe the brain trauma that’s left thousands more with tremors, speech impediments and memory lapses; and assuage the chronic pain that lingers after grueling, repeat deployments.

  
Alternative medicine at the Pentagone (wired)

  

  Vitamin E’s body functions

  
The powerful antioxidant found in most foods helps repair tears in the plasma membranes that protect cells from outside forces and screen what enters and exits, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers report in Nature Communications. Everyday activities such as eating and exercise can tear the plasma membrane and the new research shows that vitamin E is essential to repair.

  
Vit E's main functions (biochemist)

  

  Russia building supercomputer

  
Russia is playing catch-up in a rapidly developing race among China, Japan, the U.S. and Europe to build an exascale system in this decade. These are systems which would have 1,000 petaflops of computing power. (A petaflop is a quadrillion floating-point operations per second.) Building an exascale system will require new approaches in microprocessors, interconnects, memory and storage.

  
1,000 petaflops envisioned (computerworld)

   

  IBM's Top 5 Technology Predictions

  
Who would have guessed, five years ago, that by 2011 we would have mobile phones that would, in a rudimentary way, listen to our questions and give us useful answers? Or ways for doctors to get help to people in the most remote corners of the world? Crystal-ball forecasts, fanciful or otherwise, are a staple of year-end conversations, but IBM, the computer-services giant, has a research arm that makes them as a matter of course.

  
IBM's forecast (news.yahoo)

  

  Edison's revenge on renewable energy

  
At the start of the 20th century, inventors Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla clashed in the "war of the currents." To highlight the dangers of his rival's system, Edison even electrocuted an elephant. The animal died in vain; it was Tesla's system and not Edison's that took off. But today, helped by technological advances and the need to conserve energy, Edison may finally get his revenge.

  
Reviving the war of discoveries (reuters)

  

  E-Mail:`Big Brother' Software

  
Aided directly and indirectly by American and European suppliers, Ammar 404 took control of virtually all electronic communication in Tunisia and turned lives upside down -- even changing the content of e-mails in transit. In this world, Tunisians of all stripes could never be sure if e-mails arrived as sent or at all, or who was reading them. Asma Hedi Nairi, a former Amnesty International youth coordinator, says e-mails she and her friends exchanged were replaced by messages ranging from random symbols to ads for rental cars.

  

A play on the “Error 404” message (bloomberg)

  

  Energy 2050: missed opportunity

 
European clean energy advocates criticised the European Commission’s energy roadmap for 2050, published today (15 December), as a "missed opportunity" for omitting intermediate targets from the final text. Rather than weigh targets and policy options, the roadmap instead mulls the potential merits of five ‘decarbonisation scenarios’ on the way to 2050.

  
The roadmap question (euractiv)

  

  China’s Pork & Food safety

  
IBM recently deployed a pilot pork monitoring and tracking system at six slaughterhouses, six warehouses, and 100 supermarkets in the Shangdong Province, a major pork production hub. The system monitors temperature, humidity, GPS, and other geographic information to ensure that high-risk pork shipments don’t end up in a customer’s mouth unless they have been inspected.

  
China's tracking system (fastcoexist)

  

  Inside positioning systems

  
Up until now, the powerful smartphones we carry in our pockets have been useless at indoor navigation due to poor GPS signal quality while beneath a thick slab of concrete. Help is on the way however, however, with companies like Google and Nokia working to remedy the situation with the development of inside positioning systems, or IPS for short. The wireless technology behind IPS is nothing new as it makes use of WiFi and Bluetooth in conjunction with cell towers to triangulate your position.

  
GPS vs IPS (extremetech)

   

  MS-IE: silent' updates

  
Microsoft said it was starting the project to update millions of machines to improve security online. Future updates to the browser would be applied without a user's knowledge to help beat scammers catching people out with fake updates. Those who did not want their browser updated could opt out or uninstall the software, said Microsoft.

  

MS to improve security online   (bbc)

  

  Self-Cleaning Cotton Fabric

  
A group of engineers funded by Donghua University and the National Natural Science Foundation of China released a report recently about a method of making cotton into a self-cleaning fabric. The method uses titanium dioxide, which is a white material found in everything from food products to white paint and sunscreen lotions. According to the BBC the chemical is also known to be an “excellent catalyst in the degradation of organic pollutants.”

  
Self-cleaning fabric (redorbit)

   

  Energy Efficiency & Moore’s Law

  
The world’s first general purpose computer, the ENIAC, weighed 30 tons and needed about 150 kilowatts to perform its calculations—enough electricity to power about 100 000 smartphones, with just a fraction of the speed of an iPod Nano. As powerful as computers have gotten since the days of the ENIAC, they’ve also come to use a lot less energy—and thank goodness, or else computing as we know it would be impossible.

   
Moores law for energy efficiency (spectrum.ieee)

  

  Top of the line razors

  
The basis for Gillette's parent company, Procter & Gamble competitive advantage in a category is the process or manufacturing operation that allows the company to make better quality than their competitors at a lower cost," said Bruce Brown, chief technology officer. Mike Chaney, Gillette's vice president of product supply, cites the line of Sensor razors, introduced in 1990 and no longer protected by patents, as an example.

  
P & G competitive advantage (reuters)

  

  Survey: successful REACH registrants

   
During the summer, the European Chemicals Agency conducted a “Survey of successful Registrants”. We were keen to find out about their experience of the process and their feedback on the various tools and information that we made available. We obviously intend to learn from this to improve ahead of the 2013 registration deadline. I would like to thank the almost 1000 companies who gave us their feedback and responded to the survey.

  
Registrants' feedback (echa.europa)

  

  Links: Mood control & Longevity

 
Over the past decade, MIT biologist Leonard Guarente and others have shown that very-low-calorie diets provoke a comprehensive physiological response that promotes survival, all orchestrated by a set of proteins called sirtuins. In a new paper that appeared online in Cell on Dec. 8, Guarente and colleagues have now shown that sirtuins likely also play a key role in the psychological response to dietary restriction.

  
Sirtuins' protein effects (mit)

   

  Re-engineering Earth's climate

   
Variously called geo-engineering, climate remediation and planet hacking, the idea is to do on purpose what industry and other human activities have done inadvertently, which is to change the amount of climate-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and as a result, cool it down. In the lead-up to the latest round of U.N. climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, there have been serious examinations of what it might take to start countering the effects of increasing carbon dioxide in the air.

   
The climate remediation (reuters)

  

  US Assesses Chinese nuclear forces

   
We could talk about the attitude of the US gov. -right now it’s something they are following with a great interest and they are concerned about the long-term prospects about this. U.S. military planners are taking it into account the way they plan their own force structures and strategies and all these things. So it is something that we will be keeping a close eye on, and something that is also not just for U.S.- Chinese relations, but also of course for the whole- the role of China in the northeast Asia, it’s a huge importance for other countries in that region as well.

  
US vs China military might (fas)

  

  Exposure to mineral oils

   
The Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) and International Confederation of Paper and Board Converters in Europe (CITPA) made the joint pledge yesterday amid unease that traces of toxic mineral oils that can leach from paper and board packaging into food pose a hazard to humans.The issue became a major talking point last year after the Official Food Control Authority in Zurich, Switzerland raised concerns in two studies.

  
Mineral oils: hazard to humans (foodproductiondaily)

  

  US Tox21 screening 10,000 chemicals

   
A high-speed robotic screening system, aimed at protecting human health by improving how chemicals are tested in US, begins today to test 10,000 compounds for potential toxicity. The compounds cover a wide variety of classifications, and include consumer products, food additives, chemicals found in industrial processes, and human and veterinary drugs. A complete list of the compounds is publicly available at www.epa.gov/ncct/dsstox.

   
Assessing potential toxicity (nih)

   

  2012 IT Leader Survival Guide

   
When we talk about transformative and disruptive technologies, a very disruptive technology might displace another during the span of a decade or so. Think about VCRs and video tape, and the move to CDs and DVDs, and the subsequent move to streaming media. When investments are large as they are in this example, it's not unusual to see three or more generations of technology still being actively used.

  
IT Leader Survival Guide (informationweek)

   

  Fracking: EPA first look

   
Rigorous studies on fracking have been sparse, and the impassioned debate has raged on. A new investigation by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at a site in Wyoming is one of the first to look thoroughly at the potential link between fracking operations and groundwater contamination. The agency's report was released yesterday—and it provides a clear link between fracking and water supply problems.

  
Rigorous studies on fracking (arstechnica)

  

  2012 Hard drive shortage

   
Hard disk drive supply shortages in the wake of Thailand flooding will continue to affect consumers, computer system manufacturers and corporate IT shops into 2013, according to market research firm IDC. most painful period will occur now through February of next year. They expect the situation will improve, but it won't feel as if things are back to normal until 2013.

  
Thailand flood aftermath (computerworld)

   

  ISO Certifications up by + 6 %

  
The latest edition of The ISO Survey of Certifications, for 2010, underlines the global market relevance of ISO's management system standards for quality, environment, medical devices, food safety and information security revealing an increase in certificates of 6.23 %, a worldwide total of 1 457 912 certificates and users of one or more of the standards in 178 countries.

   
ISO certification assessment (iso)

   

  China’s science drive

  
China’s BGI put the results online three days later, enabling researchers to trace the strain’s origins while they tried to work out what caused the bug to kill at least 49 people and sicken thousands more in 13 countries. Such missions are payoff from a four-year drive to build the world’s biggest sequencer of genomes -- data used to fight disease, improve crops and save rare species.

   
The Human Genome Project (businessweek)

   

  Why G.W.Bush look like Einstein?

   
The US Republican race is dominated by ignorance, lies and scandals. The current crop of candidates have shown such a basic lack of knowledge that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein. The Grand Old Party is ruining the entire country's reputation. Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns.

   
The crop of candidates (spiegel)

  

  Ubuntu 12.04 Development update

  
Ubuntu 12.04 will be an LTS (long term support) release, so we have taken extra measures for it to be more stable, testable and the like. Martin Pitt today reported a lot of improvements in automated testing, error reporting and creating ISO images, which will speed up operations a lot. More interesting for developers who want to keep the Ubuntu archive of packages tidy,

   
New ubuntu at use (ubuntu)

  

  2012 & Byond: For IT Organizations

   
Gartner, Inc. has revealed its top predictions for IT organizations and users for 2012 and beyond. Analysts said that the predictions herald changes in control for IT organizations as budgets, technologies and costs become more fluid and distributed. This year's selection process included evaluating several criteria that define a top prediction. The issues examined included relevance, impact and audience appeal.

  
IT top predictions (gartner)

  

  Food labels in Europe

   
Despite good understanding and prevalence of nutrition information on food labels in Europe, a lack of motivation and attention of consumers prevents labels from impacting positively on food choices. Nutrition labelling may be a quick guide to inform consumers about the nutritional value of different products, however use and actual effects on shopping basket composition have been largely unknown.

  
The food choices (eufic)

   

  Way to concentrate sun’s heat

  
Most technologies for harnessing the sun’s energy capture the light itself, which is turned into electricity using photovoltaic materials. Others use the sun’s thermal energy, usually concentrating the sunlight with mirrors to generate enough heat to boil water and turn a generating turbine. Now, researchers at MIT have found a way to use thermophotovoltaic devices without mirrors to concentrate the sunlight.

   
Storing sun's heat captures energy (mit)

  

  Alibaba is preparing bid

  
Shares in Yahoo rose on reports that China's Alibaba Group was preparing a takeover bid with private equity firms Blackstone and Bain Capital. Alibaba, one of China's top internet firms, said it was weighing options.Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole company bid for Yahoo," said John Spelich, spokesman of Alibaba Group.

  
Alibaba's takeover bid (bbc)

  

  Food security at Durban

  
Paramu Mafongoya, a University of Zimbabwe agronomist, says Vambe's worries and those of millions of other poor farmers -- most of them women -- across Africa are a clear sign of the impact of climate change on a continent already struggling to feed itself. Changes have been noted in the timing and the distribution of rainfall on the continent. Zimbabweans say the rainy season has become shorter and more unpredictable, Mafongoya said.

  
The impact of climate change (ctv)

   

  Microbial Biogeography

  
While we have known for some time that human-associated bacteria can be readily cultivated from both domestic and public restroom surfaces, little was known about the overall composition of microbial communities associated with public restrooms or the degree to which microbes can be distributed throughout this environment by human activity. The results presented here demonstrate that human-associated bacteria dominate most public restroom surfaces.

   
Human-associated bacteria (plosone)

   

  Chessboard : "Clash of Civilizations"

  
The name "Arab Spring" is a catch phrase concocted in distant offices in Washington, London, Paris, and Brussels by individuals and groups who, other than having some superficial knowledge of the region, know very little about the Arabs. What is unfolding amongst the Arab peoples is naturally a mixed package. Insurgency is part of this package as is opportunism. Where there is revolution, there is always counter-revolution.

   
Rule the "New Middle East" (globalresearch)

   

  Small Business Saturday

  
Between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the unending onslaught of online deals, there is another holiday shopping day that might get lost in the shuffle: Small Business Saturday. This year marks the second annual such event, a new tradition that tries to steal some addition from chain retailers and big e-commerce sites and give it to local vendors. And this year, the fledging ritual is getting some serious attention from social media sites. Facebook, Twitter, and Google have all pledge their efforts to support them.

  
The unending online deals (digitaltrends)

  

  Cloaking magnetic fields

   
Spanish researchers have designed what they believe to be a new type of magnetic cloak, which shields objects from external magnetic fields, while at the same time preventing any magnetic internal fields from leaking outside, making the cloak undetectable. The development of such a device, described as an ‘anti-magnet’, could offer many beneficial applications, such as protecting a ship’s hull from mines designed to detonate when a magnetic field is detected, or allowing patients with pacemakers or cochlear implants to use medical equipment.

   
New magnetic cloak (engineerlive)

   

  US-EU Values Gap

  
As has long been the case, American values differ from those of Western Europeans in many important ways. Most notably, a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project finds that Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Spain, Britain, France and Germany. And Americans are less inclined than the Western Europeans, with the exception of the French, to help other nations.

  
American individualism ? (pewglobal)

   

  The Thankful Software Developer

  
McAllister expresses gratitude for open source tools, online documentation and support, modern IDEs, desktop virtualization, distributed version control, and jQuery. I use the remainder of this post to look at some of the thing I'm thankful for as a developer. I'm thankful for open source tools and online documentation and support. I've been the beneficiary of others' work in the open source community with products (tools, libraries, frameworks, etc.)

   
Helpfull online doc. & support (marxsoftware.blogspot)

   

  A virus that could kill cancer

   
Research associate Samina Alam prepares DNA samples for further analysis. Alam was responsible for performing all of the laboratory experiments associated with the project. Dr. Craig Meyers and his research team at Penn State Hershey Medical Center has found a virus that kills breast cancer cells in the lab. He hopes to have human trials in the next few years, but that all depends on whether his discovery gets adequate funding.

   
Laboratory experiments (pennlive)

    

  Siemens to acquire Vistagy company

  
This is precisely the aim Siemens is pursuing by adding industry-specific engineering software to its industrial software portfolio for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Already today, Siemens is among the technology leaders for the automation of production lines for carbon fiber components. With the acquisition of Vistagy, Siemens will become the only company worldwide to support the whole value creation for carbon fiber components with its software tools – from product definition and development to manufacturing and service.

   
Industrial software portfolio (jeccomposites)

   

  The Science of Sarcasm?

  
Sarcasm so saturates 21st-century America that according to one study of a database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase “yeah, right” was used, it was uttered sarcastically. Entire phrases have almost lost their literal meanings because they are so frequently said with a sneer. “Big deal,” for example. When’s the last time someone said that to you and meant it sincerely? “My heart bleeds for you” almost always equals “Tell it to someone who cares,” and “Aren’t you special” means you aren’t.

  
The Science of Sarcasm? (smithsonianmag)

   

  Diabete: Better treatment in sight

  
NCoR acts as a dimmer switch for other molecules in a cell. It is known as a corepressor, slowing the production of transcription factors, which in turn regulate the expression of genes. Dimmer-switch molecules are often good drug targets thanks to this subtle effect, says Johan Auwerx, a researcher at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, who led the first study, which involved knocking out NCOR in muscle.

  
Engineering a Mightier Mouse (technologyreview)

   

  Who’ll Save GPS?

  
The enemies threatening the future of the GPS are many: Next-generation mobile broadband services angling for a piece of the electromagnetic spectrum relied on by GPS; Cheap GPS jammers flooding the highways, thanks to consumers worried about invasive police and employer surveillance; Cosmic events, like solar storms; Future location technology that will ultimately push those services to places where GPS simply cannot go.

   
The future of the GPS (wired)

   

  Screaming for Ice Cream Sandwich

  
Google released the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich earlier this week, which is good news for these Android enthusiasts. This means that device makers and other developers can get to work on porting the software to other devices. Will your Android samrtphone be one of them? If not can you still get Ice Cream Sandwich anyway? In this edition of Ask Maggie I answer that very question.

  
Ice Cream Sandwich source code released (cnet)

   

  Stem cells: Hope and hype

   
Stem cells are often portrayed in the media as a miracle cure for many serious conditions and disabilities. Hugely positive headlines have led significant and understandable public interest in this fascinating cutting-edge science. But are all the claims for stem cells justified? Can stem cell treatments pose dangers to unwary patients? And who has control over this often controversial, pioneering branch of medicine?

   
Stem cells in the media (NHS)

   

  Chemical ind. & low-carbon economy

  
The 2nd edition of Industrial Green Chemistry World (IGCW) -2011, the world's first and largest Industrial convention focused on Green Chemistry, will be held from 4-6 December 2011 at Intercontinental- The Lalit, Mumbai. The convention will showcase technologies and products in the chemical Industry that can expand the implementation and commercialization of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering.

   
Green Chemistry (indiaprwire)

   

  Sopa condemned by web giant

  
The act aims to tackle online piracy by giving the US Justice Department new powers to go after websites, both domestically and abroad, that host disputed copyright material. The act would allow the US to effectively pull the plug on websites and go after companies that support them technically or through payment systems. A vote on the bill could come as early as next month.

   
US Justice Department new powers (guardian)

   

  EU to boost research

   
A new report scheduled to be discussed later this month in the Parliament will push for radical new measures to unlock a third of the structural funds for research infrastructure, which would give access to another €120 billion for research under the EU's next long term budget for 2014-2020. Carvalho, a former Portuguese science minister who previously worked in the cabinet of Commission President José Manuel Barroso, is strongly tipped to be appointed as the lead rapporteur for the 'Horizon 2020' proposal in Parliament.

  
EU: €20 billion more for R&D (euractiv)

   

  Standford: Cancers diagnosis by computer

  
Using machine learning, researchers at the Stanford schools of engineering and medicine have trained computers to objectively and accurately assess images of breast cancer tissues to predict patient survival. The computational system could help pathologists make more accurate, reproducible predictions of patient prognosis. In the long run, it could bring world-class pathology to underserved areas of the world and usher in the era of personalized medicine.

  
Trained computers (engineering.stanford)

   

  Redefining the SI Base Units

  
The international General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) has approved a plan to redefine four of the seven base units of the International System of Units (SI) in terms of fixed values of natural constants. The initiative would make possible new worldwide levels of consistency and accuracy, as well as simplify and normalize the unit definitions. Up until now, the system has been dependent on the prototype kilogram, an artifact adopted in 1889 and still used as the world’s physical standard for mass.

   
Plan to redefine Units system (qualitydigest)

    

  Urine: Future Electri. generation

  
So far the use of urine as a biomass that can be converted to power via MFCs (microbial fuel cells) has been neglected by scientists, despite the fact that urine is an abundant waste product. Each human produces approximately 2.5 litres of urine a day, amounting to around 6.4 trillion litres globally each year. MFCs consist of two half-cells - an anode and a cathode - that are separated by an ion selective membrane.

   
Urine as new fuel generation (engineerlive)

  

  The Future of Books

  
In September, just days before Borders Group met its end, one of the chain’s last retail holdouts, in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood, Tenn., was being liquidated, with prices slashed by 90 percent. It was difficult in the stark surroundings not to think of a battle waged and lost, of the armies of Kindle owners and e-book peddlars off celebrating victory while all around lay the carnage—two copies of a Paul Reiser memoir, the suspect Greg Mortensen book Stones into Schools, a still-brimming manga section.

   
Borders Bookstore extinction (businessweek)

   

  Facebook Messages reengineering

  
Upgrading any kind of software usually requires that its users stop using it, at least briefly, to enable the new software to replace the old and to transfer any stored information before users start working with the new version. We’re all familiar with messages from systems administrators reminding us that servers we’re using will be off-line for a couple of hours in the middle of the night for maintenance.

   
Facebook Messages reengineering (ieee)

   

  TB 'electronic nose' offers hope

  
A team of Indian researchers are planning to have a prototype of an "electronic nose" that can detect tuberculosis from a person's breath in hospitals by October 2013, after receiving a $950,000 grant. Working on the same principles as a breathalyser, the device – if successful – could mark a breakthrough in the fight against TB, which claimed 1.4 million lives last year.

  
Prototype of an "electronic nose" (guardian)

   

  DR.Google: Patient-Doctor Relationship

    
Many websites on the internet deal with online medical information, providing people with crucial tips about their health through the internet.Th is includes providing possible illnesses when one provides symptoms. Some studies show that as many as 60 per cent of internet users consult the internet to diagnose their aches and pains, rather than consult a real doctor, or before they see their doctor.

  

Google as a medical adviser (allafrica)

   

  EADS & RUSNANO Nanotec. Collaboration

  
European aerospace and defence group EADS and Russian Nanotechnology Corporation RUSNANO are planning to cooperate in the research and development of new technologies. The respective document was signed by Anatoly Chubais, CEO of Rusnano and EADS Chief Technical Officer Jean Botti. As a first step, the partners will identify relevant patents in EADS’s portfolio which could be suited to develop new business in the Russian industry.

   
Nano-Tech. cooperation (jeccomposites)

   

  Nobel-winning chemistry reaction

  
One limitation to the metathesis reaction is that it had not been possible to control the configuration of the olefin products, which can occur in one of two configurations. However, Schrock and his collaborator Amir Hoveyda at Boston College have now developed a catalyst that yields almost exclusively the more desirable configuration, known as cis. “Sought by many investigators for almost two decades, this milestone achievement will be welcomed by the synthetic community as a major advance in organic synthesis”.

  
Stereochemistry breakthrough (mit)

   

  “Natural” Search User Interfaces

  
“Natural” modes of interaction are starting to be commonplace in hardware and software tools, influencing search interfaces in interesting ways. Content analysis over huge collections of user behavior data, combined with interactive user-interface design could lead to breakthroughs in such longstanding problems as human-computer dialogues for question answering.

  
Interactive user-interface design (delivery.acm)

   

  Plant powered by thorium

  
In a rare interview, Ratan Kumar Sinha, the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, told the Guardian that his team is finalising the site for construction of the new large-scale experimental reactor, while at the same time conducting "confirmatory tests" on the design. Producing a workable thorium reactor would be a massive breakthrough in energy generation. Using thorium – a naturally occurring moderately radioactive element named after the Norse god of thunder – as a source of atomic power is not new technology.

   
India's NUKE power plants (guardian)

   

  Dyslexia not tied to IQ

  
Regardless of high or low overall scores on an IQ test, children with dyslexia show similar patterns of brain activity, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. The results call into question the discrepancy model — the practice of classifying a child as dyslexic on the basis of a lag between reading ability and overall IQ scores.

  
The discrepancy model (nih)

   

  Prescription: Quality & Safety

  
Observation of how doctors, receptionists, and other administrative staff contributed to, and collaborated on, the repeat prescribing routine. Analysis included mapping prescribing routines, building a rich description of organisational practices, and drawing these together through narrative synthesis. This was informed by a sociological model of how organisational routines shape and are shaped by information and communications technologies.

  
The repeat prescribing routine (bmj)

   

  HP Dreams

  
Internet companies are learning that small towns are often great places to set up data centers. They have lots of land, cheap energy, low-cost labor, and something that may be a secret weapon in the race toward internet nirvana: cow dung. Data centers produce a lot of heat, but to energy connoisseurs it’s not really high quality heat. It can’t boil water or power a turbine. But one thing it can do is warm up poop. And that’s how you produce methane gas.

   
Cow dung & D.C. links (wired)

   

  Fracking tests & Tremors

   
It is "highly probable" that shale gas test drilling triggered earth tremors in Lancashire, a study has found. But the report, commissioned by energy firm Cuadrilla, also said the quakes were due to an "unusual combination of geology at the well site". Protesters opposed to fracking, a gas extraction method, said the report "did not inspire confidence".

   
Test drilling & Tremors  (bbc)

   

  What can make a dent?

  
With the world’s energy needs growing rapidly, can zero-carbon energy options be scaled up enough to make a significant difference? How much of a dent can these alternatives make in the world’s total energy usage over the next half-century? As the MIT Energy Initiative approaches its fifth anniversary next month, this five-part series takes a broad view of the likely scalable energy candidates.

   
Energy needs (mit)

   

  CIOs/CEO migration ?

   
A recent report from CA Technologies called”The Future Role of the CIO 2011; Becoming the Boss," reveals that ambitious CIOs want to advance their careers from technology to business leadership. The report, which includes global research of 685 CIOs, reveals that 53% feel ideally positioned to move to the CEO role. One in four CIOs stated that their board was ‘digitally illiterate’ and did not understand the impact of new and emerging technologies, and a further 39% of CIOs said that the board didn’t understand the value that IT brings to the business.

   
The CIO 2011 (itpreport)

   

  New agreement:ISO & ASTM

  
The agreement provides new opportunities for the two organizations to adopt and jointly develop International Standards that serve the global marketplace in the field of additive manufacturing. It specifies development approaches, as well as publication and distribution arrangements. The agreement is expected to optimize stakeholder resources in the development of standards on additive manufacturing where both ISO and ASTM have expertise, helping to shorten standards development time and the availability of this work to the market.

   
International Standards collaboration (iso)

   

  Addi. Investments in Youth Needed

  
Additional Investments in Youth Needed as World Population Tops 7 Billion, States UNFPA Report. Our record population size can be viewed in many ways as a success for humanity because it means that people are living longer and more of our children are surviving worldwide, the report shows. But not everyone has benefited from this achievement or the higher quality of life that this implies. Great disparities exist among and within countries.

   
UNFPA Report (unfpa)

   

  Microsoft Security Intelligence Report

  
IT professionals are accustomed to thinking about the technical aspects of security. However, as this report has shown, the human element—the techniques that attackers use to trick typical users into helping them—has become just as important for attackers as the technical element, if not more so. By implementing effective technical safeguards, programs, and processes designed to defend against social engineering, you can help your users avoid being taken advantage of by attackers.

   
Technical element vs Human element (securityvibes)

   

  New Island in the Canaries?

  
What would the island be called? And who would own it? Spewing magma and growing in height, an underwater volcano off the Canary Island of El Hierro has captured the imagination of locals in recent weeks. It could eventually rise from the sea to create a new part of the archipelago. It hasn't yet reached the surface, but residents of the Canary Islands have taken to the internet to suggest names for a potential new islet.

   
New Island in the Canaries? (spiegel)

   

  Prospects for Us economy

  
The authors find that the current US economic expansion may continue into 2013, but that satisfactory growth cannot be achieved without a major increase in net export demand. Although domestic monetary and fiscal stimulus measures have helped, deficits will likely remain far below the levels needed to bring about a strong recovery, largely due to congressional objections to further stimulus and a shift in focus to cutting the budget deficit.

  
Jobless recovery is no recovery (levyinstitute)

   

  FDA: Shifting focus

  
While the issue of how the federal agency regulates an increasingly global market is not new, the release of the Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality report in July signaled a shift in how the FDA plans to address growing concern about counterfeit or adulterated drugs and an increasingly complex global supply chain. FDA has 50 permanent employees based outside of the United States, including 33 U.S. citizens and 17 locally employed support staff.

   
FDA & Global market (asq)

   

  Europe "is scaring the world"

   

France, like all of Europe, is caught in an economic tsunami, and France is teetering at the edge of the precipice. Every week, it seems, presidents and prime ministers hold urgent meetings searching for a solution, culminating with the Group of 20 convocation last weekend. Still, the problem grows only worse. It all started with Greece, of course. You might ask: How can one relatively small country cause so much havoc for everyone, everywhere?

   
Economic tsunami (sfgate)

   

  New Zealand’s Quality Model

   
A new report by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise suggests that New Zealand can provide a valuable model for health policy makers and IT professionals seeking to reduce costs and increase the quality of health care in the United States and other nations. By strategically viewing health care as a continuum, from the patient to the care provider and community, and employing a range of new approaches and electronic health technologies, New Zealand has overcome many of the barriers to developing a truly integrated care service.

   
A valuable model for health (qualitydigest)

   

  Mid-East:INTEL to boost Collab.

   
Intel will work in collaboration with the NGOs to create local capacity with programs including; Intel Entrepreneurship Challenge, Intel Learn Program and Intel Youth Enterprise Program. These programs are part of Intel’s annual investment to improve education globally. Each of the agreements seeks to enable the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing young people with the opportunity to develop their talents, passions, and skills while creating employment opportunities for other youth and developing their local communities.

   
Intel Entrepreneurship Challenge (albawaba)

  

  Stanford's New Online Classes

  
About 300,000 students have registered for Stanford University's first set of comprehensive, free online computer science courses, which include courses in databases, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Registered students come from more than 190 countries, with 40 percent being from the United States, and India accounting for the second largest block of students.

   
Free online courses (engineering.stanford)

  

  6 Google Reader replacements

   
Moments ago, Google chambered the mother of all bombshells: Reader, as soon as next week, will become part of Google+. It will be impossible to use Google Reader as a standalone product, and many of its social features (friending, following, sharing) are being buried in favor of Google+ equivalents. After exporting (click Cog> Reader Settings> Import/Export) and saying goodbye to your old friend, then, the only thing left is to find a Google Reader alternative that will allow you to import your exported OPML file.

   
Google+ equivalents (extremetech)

   

  America's Demographic Opportunity

   
Among the world’s major advanced countries, the United States remains a demographic outlier, with a comparatively youthful and growing population. This provides an unusual opportunity for America’s resurgence over the next several decades, as population growth elsewhere slows dramatically, and even declines dramatically, in a host of important countries.

  
America’s resurgence (newgeography)

   

  WHO worries mercury treaty

   
The World Health Organization is trying to fend off an effort to include a mercury derivative used in vaccines from being banned in a global treaty on mercury currently under negotiation. The next round of talks for the proposed binding treaty begin on Oct. 31, and the Geneva-based UN health agency is trying to lobby for support of its position that banning thimerosal would be a mistake.

 
Global treaty on mercury (huffingtonpost)

   

  Mind-bending holodesk design

  
As stuck in the mud as Microsoft is in many ways, its research division is on the cutting edge of cool. The latest innovation out of Microsoft Research is a real "holodesk" that lets you physically manipulate virtual objects through the magic of the Kinect. As you can see in the video above, moving your hands to interact with purely digital cubes and balls under the glass of the holodesk is amazingly fluid, simulating how those objects would respond to physical touch in the real world with amazing accuracy.

  
The latest innovation (news.yahoo)

   

  Quality : Nissan's new strategy

   
Stung by slumping U.S. quality scores, Nissan Motor Co. will overhaul quality control in a bid to catch Japanese and Korean rivals boasting better customer satisfaction. The new strategy focuses on two areas in which Nissan acknowledges it trails the competition: perceived quality and soft quality, or the customer perception of quality through touch and feel, fit and finish and intuitive controls.

   
Quality Scores called into question (asq)

   

  The Social-Network Chip

   
Currently, the chips inside data-center servers are nearly all manufactured by Intel, which commands roughly 90 percent of the server market with its family of Xeon microprocessors. Xeon chips have up to 10 processing centers, known as cores, that work in parallel to do hefty computational lifting. In contrast, Tilera's chips contain up to 100 smaller, lower-power cores.

   
The data-center door (technologyreview)

   

  In China: A German Ghost Town

   
Anting German Town, 30 kilometers from the Chinese metropolis, is a typical German residential district built in China as an experiement that isn't working. Indeed, it is a ghost town. The streets are deserted, a bored security guard sits in his hut, For Sale signs are everywhere. The post office is finished and the postbox says "Collection Once Daily." But you wouldn't be wise to throw a letter in because it has yet to be emptied and the post office remains closed for business.

 
Classified as management disaster (spiegel)

   

  Career in Biotech Patent Law

   
A patent law career offered practical advantages, I realized, over a career in academia. In academic science, funds for conducting research were -- and continue to be -- very limited, and the requirements for obtaining funding are exceptionally high. Capable and qualified scientists were not being funded, and many talented postdoctoral scientists were ahead of me in the long line for an academic position.

   
Patent professionals work (sciencecareers)

   

  New P2P Live-Streaming test

   
BitTorrent plans to test out its new P2P live-streaming protocol, and has invited the BitTorrent community to tune in and take part. “We’re suiting up for an early R&D technology test, which is open to anyone interested in helping us move our Live Streaming technology forward,” the company wrote in a blog post. The test is scheduled for 5PM PDT and will feature popular San Francisco DJ and Producer Janaka Selekta.

    
BitTorrent Test (zeropaid)

   

  Influx of Brazilian students

   
Universities in Germany, the US, the UK and other nations are preparing for an influx of tens of thousands of Brazilian students, doctoral candidates and post-docs in the next three years. The students will start arriving in January as part of Brazil's new Science Without Borders programme. The goal of the programme is to more than quadruple the number of Brazilians studying abroad to 75,000 by 2014.

  
Science Without Borders programme (rsc)

   

  The invoice of the pollution

   
The indicative ruling, by the advocate general of the European court of justice, is a blow to airlines and non-European governments that had hoped to escape from the extension of the European Union's emissions trading scheme to cover air transport from next year. It was greeted with jubilation by environmental campaigners, who want to ensure that emissions from aviation are subject to the same controls as those of other industries.

     
EU's emissions trading scheme (environmentalresearchweb)

   

  Seeding Scientists

   
Most research universities have technology transfer offices to help researchers transfer their ideas to the private sector. But those partnerships are good for more than transferring intellectual property. Sometimes they yield a talent transfer as well: It's not unusual for young researchers involved in those projects to join the companies that sponsored their academic pursuits.

  
Pipeline of talent (sciencecareers.sciencemag)

   

  Your Life duration could be known

   
The key measure, explains María Blasco, a 45-year-old molecular biologist, head of Spain's cancer research centre and one of the world's leading telomere researchers, is the number of short telomeres. Blasco, who is also one of the co-founders of the Life Length company which is offering the tests, says that short telomeres do not just provide evidence of ageing. They also cause it.

     
Blood test techniques (guardian)

   

  Health care: The future design

  
Every year, the biggest ideas in health care are presented at the Mayo Clinic’s Transform conference in Rochester, Minnesota. I was there this year to present a pre-conference workshop with a Continuum colleague on everyday creativity, and another pair of Continuum designers gave a main-stage talk entitled, “Patient Centricity: A design identity crisis.”

  
Patient Centricity (fastcodesign)

  

  IT hell: The nine circles

  
How many of us have been abandoned by our vendors to IT limbo, only to find ourselves falling victim to app dev anger when in-house developers are asked to pick up the slack? How often has stakeholder gluttony or lust for the latest and greatest left us burned on a key initiative? How many times must we be kneecapped by corporate greed, accused of heresy for arguing for (or against) things like open source?

   
How to learn from experience ? (infoworld)

  

  Optimising food’s goodness

  
With the vast array of food now on offer to most Europeans, dietary deficiencies should be a thing of the past. Food fortification can be used to increase the micronutrient content of foods or to replace nutrients lost in food processing, thus playing a valuable role in preventing dietary deficiencies. We look at how fortification can benefit both individuals and population groups, whilst remaining an area of controversy.

   
The micronutrient content of foods (eufic)

  

  DHS: Data mining benefit

  
Data mining--a technique for extracting useful information from large volumes of data--is one type of analysis that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to help detect and prevent terrorist threats. To do so, GAO (Government Accountability Office) developed a systematic evaluation framework based on recommendations and best practices outlined by the National Research Council, industry practices, and prior GAO reports.

    
The systematic evaluation framework (gao)

  

  The third-Largest Pharmaceutical Market

  
MarketResearch.com has announced the addition of the new report "Emerging Pharmaceutical Market in China - Forecast to Become The World's Third-Largest Pharmaceutical Market By 2013," to their collection of Country Overviews market reports. The US and Europe dominate the contract research organization market and account for the majority of clinical research activities.

        
Emerging Pharmaceutical Market (marketwire)

  

  Fingerprint Scanner

  
The Motorola ATRIX 4G is one of the exciting new dual-core Android smartphones to hit the market this year. One of its most compelling security features is its first-of-its-kind fingerprint reader or scanner. The fingerprint scanner is located on the back of the device, enabling users to unlock their devices at the swipe of a finger as opposed to entering cumbersome numeric codes or passwords.

   
The Motorola ATRIX 4G (developer)

  

  Leaves are changing color

  
Scientists don't quite know if global warming is changing the signs of fall like it already has with an earlier-arriving spring. They're turning their attention to fall foliage in hopes of determining whether climate change is leading to a later arrival of autumn's golden, orange and red hues. Studies in Europe and in Japan already indicate leaves are changing color and dropping later, so it stands to reason that it's happening here as well.

  
The global warming (news.yahoo)

  

  PC: The birth and the end

  
Steve was undeniably an extraordinary visionary by any standards who has left his legacy on personal computers with the Apple II and Macintosh, music with iPod and iTunes, mobile communications with the iPhone, animation with Pixar and his final legacy the iPad. He has changed the lives of millions by making technology that is easy-to-use and exciting, a man who has played a part in both the birth and the end to the personal computer.

  
Steve Jobs tribute (itpreport)

  

  Networking: weapon on poverty

   
Speaking to an overflow crowd inside Harvard University’s Memorial Church, Sam Vaghar delivered his opening address to the Millennium Campus Conference, a gathering two weeks ago of 1,200 students from around the country united in fighting global poverty. He urged attendees to focus on results and not simply their good intentions. “Don’t just think about why you care, but how do we actually have an impact? The ‘why’ is incomplete unless we can answer the ‘how.

  
The war on global poverty (boston)

    

  The ‘perfect plastic’

   

Researchers at the University of Leeds and Durham University have solved a long-standing problem that could revolutionise the way new plastics are developed. The breakthrough will allow experts to create the 'perfect plastic' with specific uses and properties by using a high-tech 'recipe book'. It will also increase our ability to recycle plastics. The research is published in the journal Science.

 
New plastics (leeds)

   

  Strange Portals in Physics

    
Many people feared the LHC would produce a planet-devouring black hole. Scientists took it very seriously, and they ruled out this possibility not only theoretically, but also by looking at collisions of cosmic rays that create this same type of energy. We live in a world where there are many risks, and it's high time we start taking seriously which ones we should be worried about. Physicists showed this particular one is not a risk.

  
Opening Strange Portals in Physics (smithsonianmag)

    

  Zaha Hadid's Brixton school

   
Architect Zaha Hadid's Z-shaped school in Brixton, south London, has beaten the hot favourite, the Olympic velodrome, to win the 16th annual RIBA Stirling prize for architecture. Victory for Evelyn Grace academy gives Hadid's practice a Stirling prize for the second year running, although it is the architect's first major building project in Britain. Last year her practice won for the Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.

    
RIBA 2011 (guardian)

   

  Pharma’s emerging markets

            
As the landscape for selling pharmaceuticals becomes more difficult in developed markets, underdeveloped markets are emerging as the industry’s strongest engines of growth. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Mexico, collectively referred to as BRICM, represent the most dynamic and profitable of these emerging markets, according to eyeforpharma’s Pharma Emerging Markets Report 2011-12.

   
Strategies for sales success (eyeforpharma)

     

  SMEs' European future

   
Special commercial embassies in Brazil and other fast-growing economies, easier terms for banking credit, and new investment funds designed to assist innovative businesses are likely to be touted in a European Commission action plan due later this year. The plan is a joint initiative of Michel Barnier and Antonio Tajani, commissioners for the internal market and enterprise respectively.

  
Foreign embassies and easy cash (euractiv)

  

  BABSON entrepreneur experience Lab

      
The Babson Entrepreneur Experience Lab (a partnership between Babson College and the Business Innovation Factory) is a research platform that puts the voice and experience of real-world entrepreneurs at the center of an ongoing effort to design, develop and experiment with new education and support solutions that will help shape future generations of entrepreneurs. This first look at the observations and insights gleaned from engaging over 250 entrepreneurs offers a glimpse into their everyday lives.

   
The voice and experience (businessinnovationfactory)

   

  Firefox7 & MemShrink effort

   
With Firefox 7, which is being officially released, Mozilla is taking specific aim at reducing the amount of memory that Firefox uses. Mozilla has been actively working on reducing memory usage by way of the MemShrink effort. The goal of MemShrink is to find areas where Firefox memory management and usage could be improved.

   
Memory usage with firefox7 (datamation)

  

  Nanotube Cables Hit a Milestone

  
For the first time, researchers have made carbon-nanotube electrical cables that can carry as much current as copper wires. These nanotube cables could help carry more renewable power farther in the electrical grid, provide lightweight wiring for more-fuel-efficient vehicles and planes, and make connections in low-power computer chips. Researchers at Rice University have now demonstrated carbon-nanotube cables in a practical system.

  
Carbon-nanotube electrical cables (technologyreview)

  

  Breakthroughs in rolling element

   
Rolling element bearings have a significant impact on the energy-efficiency of most mechanisms, yet they have their limitations in terms of load capacity, speed and longevity. Jon Severn reports on recent developments that could lead to major advances in bearing steels. manufacturers are continually seeking to improve their designs in order to stay one step ahead of their competitors.

   
Rolling element developments (engineerlive)

   

  How to safely eliminate bedbugs

  
Bedbugs have been in the U.S. since World War II. Infestations are on the rise across the country and in some cities the problem is increasing exponentially. Bedbugs have been found in hotels, homes, student lodging, even on some public transportation. Bedbugs feed on the blood of warm-blooded animals, preferring humans, and feed in the early morning hours when it's dark and quiet.

  
US: bedbugs Infestations (redding)

   

  MIT: Math Prize for Girls

   
On a beautiful, bright blue Saturday morning, as students soaked up the sun on lawns across campus, 276 girls from middle schools and high schools across the United States and Canada sat in buildings 4 and 10, puzzling over a set of complex math problems. The prize money is certainly a draw for participants, some of whom have traveled thousands of miles for the chance to compete.

  
A numbers game (mit)

  

  HP CEO transition

  
The mystery isn’t why Hewlett-Packard is likely to part ways with Chief Executive Léo Apotheker after just a year in the job. It’s why he was hired in the first place. The answer, say many involved in the process, lies squarely with the troubled HP board. “It has got to be the worst board in the history of business,” said Tom Perkins, a former HP director and a legend in Silicon Valley.

     
The troubled HP board (asq)

  

  Rural renewables & Red tape

    
Clean energy projects in rural areas are still being held back by administrative burdens, one year after EU member states began implementing their National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs), EurActiv has learned. However, Brussels believes the situation is improving. Internal research suggested that renewable energy promoters and developers were "most concerned with long lead times and high costs of obtaining permissions," according to the official.

   
Rural renewables & Red tap (euractive)

  

  Testing earthquake early warning

    
After years of lagging behind Japan, Mexico and other quake-prone countries, the U.S. government has been quietly testing an earthquake early warning system in California since February. Cochran belongs to an exclusive club of scientists who receive a heads up every time the state shakes. With more testing and funding, researchers hope to build a public warning system similar to the Japanese one.

  
Earthquake early warning system (news.yahoo)

  

  The GMO Salmon Struggle

    
Transgenic salmon are not the first animal product derived from genetic engineering. That would be the transgenic mouse, an animal developed for biomedical research and now widely utilized in many different custom formulations. It is not even the first fish. They are among a handful of genetically engineered products meant for human consumption, and they have long been projected to be the first edible transgenic animal that will receive regulatory approval.

   
FDA May Approve GM for Human Consumption (scienceprogress)

  

  Remote welding at nuclear sites

    
Safety at nuclear power stations is of paramount importance and operators need to specify the best fail-safe repair systems in order to guarantee minimum risk. An essential part of EDF Energy's comprehensive safety system in their UK nuclear fleet is the high quality welding systems provided by Arc Machines Inc (AMI) for secure repairs to damaged re-heater tubes.

 
EDF' remote-controlled Tech. (engineerlive)

   

  UK: What are we paying for ?

   
The total earnings for the top-paid director at BAE Systems have increased by more than 8,000 per cent since 1978 when the company was called British Aerospace. That compares to a rise of 556 per cent in median male income over the period.Many factors have driven up pay at the top, but one of the most important when it comes to directors’ pay has been the mantra that rewards must be linked to company performance...

     
Performance vs Wages ? (docuticker)

  

  Product Sourcing in Asia Pacific

    
China’s infrastructure, the completeness of its supply chain, its speed to market and a growing presence in global shipping all mean that China will continue to be a preferred source for sourcing. But Southeast Asian countries will increasingly present even more attractive sourcing opportunities as new preferential trade agreements continue to be negotiated.

  
kpmg report on Asia-pacific economy

    

  German 'Energy Revolution'

    
The German government's 180-degree turn in nuclear policy has helped breathe new life into Europe's energy industry -- though not always to Germany's benefit. The country has gone from being an energy exporter to an energy importer practically overnight, which brings along with it a number of negative consequences for its economy, consumers and security. The Federal Statistical Office believes the nuclear phase-out has helped cause this anemic growth.

   
Nuclear phase out (spiegel)

  

  Microsoft hints at Metro Office

    
In the article on Windows 8, I already mentioned that in order to demonstrate the viability of Metro for something other than Facebook and Twitter, Microsoft should come up with a Metro interface for Microsoft Office - one that doesn't leave out 90% of Office's features. Well, Microsoft has hinted that they are, indeed, working on Metro Office. In addition, it turns out Microsoft isn't entirely sure to how to address the issue if legacy applications on ARM.

    
Viability of MS-Metro (osnews)

     

  JS that brings parallel programming

    
For the most part, JavaScript – the web's standard scripting language – does not give applications access to multiple processor cores, or even a processor's vector instructions. This puts web applications at a significant disadvantage next to traditional native software. The technology provides access both to multiple cores and vectors instructions, and since it's embedded with JavaScript.

    
Intel parallel javascript (theregister)

    

  NHS: foreign Doctors' support

    
Newly qualified and foreign doctors need to go on a basic induction course before they start working in the UK amid fears they may be not be fully prepared to start treating patients, according to the General Medical Council. Those entering the UK health service for the first time should be given a basic induction, the GMC said.

    
Induction training for Doc. (guardian)

    

  Microsoft: All For One

    
AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft compete for ad dollars. But a new pact calls for the rivals to cooperate on ad sales, too. The three companies are going to start selling ad inventory on each others’ sites, in a plan they hope will make them more competitive with Google. AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft hope to convince big Web properties to share some of their ad inventory as well, and to get big ad holding companies to funnel some of their purchases through the consortium.

   

Aol/Yahoo/Ms merging (allthingsd)

    

  Publish-or-perish

   
To have "written" 800 papers is regarded as something to boast about rather than being rather shameful. University PR departments encourage exaggerated claims, and hard-pressed authors go along with them. Not long ago, Imperial College's medicine department were told that their "productivity" target for publications was to "publish three papers per annum including one in a prestigious journal with an impact factor of at least five.″

   
Far from chalk and talk (guardian)

    

  Military Assault on Global Climate

   
By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy ... Yet, the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements ... Any talk of climate change which does not include the military is nothing but hot air, according to Sara Flounders. It's a loophole [in the Kyoto Convention on Climate Change] big enough to drive a tank through, according to the report " A Climate of War."

  
Military institutions & Greenhouse gas (truth-out)

   

  From science fiction to reality

    
Rosie the Robot could finally be coming to your home. Willow Garage, a unique startup in Menlo Park, has designed a robot called the PR2 that calls to mind the Jetsons' beloved robotic housekeeper. It's still under development, but already the PR2 can fold clothes, fetch a drink from the fridge, set the table and even bake cookies. The robot's backers aren't ready to say just how soon the PR2 will hit the mainstream market.

    
Beloved robotic housekeeper (siliconvalley)

   

  Tunnel freeze

    
Tunnel freezer aimed at small processors poised for European launch. Affordability, ease of use and space savings are all benefit s claimed by Air Products for its cryogenic tunnel freezer to be launched in Europe later. The equipment has been designed with smaller volume food processors and startup operations in mind.
        
Cryogenic tunnel freezer (foodproductiondaily)

  

  UK Workless households

    
In 2010, there were three areas across the UK where more than three out of every 10 households had no-one in work, according to sub-regional data on working and workless households. Over the seven years since 2004 that data are available, Liverpool has had the highest percentage of workless households in five of the years, with it being in the top three in the other two years.

    
UK's youth unemployment crisis (docuticker)

   

  Fastest growing industries

  
Photovoltaics is a method of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity. It is one of the most promising technological options to realise the shift to a decarbonised energy supply. Current solar cell technologies are well established with sufficient efficiency and energy output for at least 25 years of lifetime.

   
Solar radiation power (engineerlive)

    

  OECD Economic growth

  
Economic recovery appears to have come close to a halt in the major industrialised economies, with falling household and business confidence affecting both world trade and employment, according to new analysis from the OECD. Growth remains strong in most emerging economies, albeit at a more moderate pace. “Growth is turning out to be much slower than we thought three months ago, and the risk of hitting patches of negative growth going forward has gone up.

    
OECD navigation in a World trade(oecd)

  

  Taming Light

    
Physicists of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have generated for the first time “white” light pulses and they are able to control their field on a time scale shorter than an optical oscillation. These new tools hold promise for unprecedented control of the motion of electrons in the microcosm. This type of control over light pulses has now, for the first time, been achieved by a team of physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ).

   
Creating “white” light pulses (innovations-report)

   

  IRCA has launched a new PQMS Auditor certification scheme

   
The International Register of Certificated Auditors (IRCA) has launched a new Pharmaceutical Quality Management Systems (PQMS) Auditor certification scheme (ICH Q10), to support the assurance of global supply-chain integrity. In a sector that has seen an increase in the contracting out of operations, and increasingly complex global-supply chains, companies and regulators are asking for evidence of relevant training and experience for pharmaceutical QMS auditors who conduct audits of suppliers, service providers, contractors, and their own operations.

   
New scheme for PQMS Auditor certification (qualitydigest)

  

  Updated report on furan in food

  
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a report with the latest Member State monitoring results of the levels of furan found in food. This is the third report on furan in food published by EFSA since 2009. With the inclusion of 2009 and 2010 findings, the report comprises 17% new data and is the first to include exposure estimates for different populations drawn from data from EFSA’s recently established Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database.

   
EFSA report

  

  EU Chemicals Trends Report

    
EU chemicals production recorded a 3.4 percent increase in the first six months of the year, according to the latest Cefic Chemicals Trends Report. The monthly data for June showed a 1.2 per cent decline compared with June 2010, a modest downturn in EU chemicals industry production after an impressive first three months of 2011 and positive year-on-year monthly growth in April and May.

  
Chemicals Trends Report (cefic)

  

  New way to find cancer

   
About 10 years ago, scientists discovered a new type of genetic material called microRNA, which appears to turn genes on or off inside a cell. More recently, they found that these genetic snippets often go haywire in cancer cells, contributing to tumors’ uncontrollable growth. A team of researchers at MIT has now engineered a way to detect abnormal microRNA levels in the blood of cancer patients, raising the possibility of developing a simple blood test to diagnose or monitor the disease.

  
MicroRNA involvement (mit)

   

  A Moore’s Law for Renewable Energy

   
“Oil companies should think more like technology companies.” So said one of the world’s largest oil companies, the Chevron Corporation, as part of a 2011 public outreach campaign. This idea deserves to be taken seriously, and at a global, industry-wide scale. Since World War II, the computer industry has transformed the global economy and the patterns of everyday life in ways that would have been unimaginable before.

    
Another way of problem solving (strategy-business)

  

  Dams No Longer Needed on Elwha

    
No one has attempted such a feat since two dams were built, near the mouth of the river, in the early 20th century, blocking salmon runs. But on September 15, officials in Olympic National Park will begin the long process of dismantling the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on the Elwha River. The largest dam-removal undertaking in U.S. history, the project could serve as an inspiration and a model for similar enterprises in other parts of the country, conservationists say.

    
Dam-removal (nationalgeographic)

    

  Where BP failed, Exxon succeeds

    
FOR BP it could hardly have been worse. On August 30th Exxon Mobil struck a deal with Rosneft to explore the same icy blocks of the Arctic Kara Sea that slipped from BP’s grasp when its vaunted tie-up with the Russian state-controlled oil firm collapsed in the spring. Then things did get worse: the next day, one of BP’s Moscow offices was raided by bailiffs.

  
Exxon Mobil & Rosneft deal (economist)

  

  Hungary Introduces "Fat Tax"

   
In an effort to address rising obesity rates and health care costs, Hungary on Thursday implemented a law imposing special taxes on foods with high fat, salt and sugar content. The move comes as other European countries also consider policies to fight obesity. The Hungarian government argues that this kind of diet is also leading to obesity and increased health problems, and that those who partake in indulgences like sweets should also pay a premium to help offset those costs.

    
How to address rising obesity ? (spiegel)

    

  Future iPhones & voices ID.

    
The concept was revealed with a new patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and discovered by AppleInsider. Entitled "User Profiling for Voice Input Processing," it describes a system that would identify individual users when they speak aloud. Apple's application notes that voice control already exists in some forms on a number of portable devices.

   
Voice's user Profiling (appleinsider)

  

  Collaborative Traffic Signal

    
While traffic signals are necessary to safely control competing flows of traffic, they inevitably enforce a stop-and-go movement pattern that increases fuel consumption, reduces traffic flow and causes traffic jams. These side effects can be alleviated by providing drivers and their onboard computational devices. with information about the schedule of the traffic signals ahead.

   
How to control flows of traffic ? (mit)

  

  Visionaries wanted

     
If Steve Jobs had never lived, would we still have the iPhone and iPad today? Similarly, if Walt Disney, George Lucas, and Pete Diamandis had all taken jobs on Wall Street instead of living their lives as true innovators, would we still have Disneyland, Star Wars, and the X-Prize Foundation today? To put it more succinctly, if the visionary never existed, would we still have the industry?

   
No Need to Apply, Just Do It (futuristspeaker)

    

  Quantitative Analysis

    
Real-time systems and resource allocation problems have manifested themselves under different names in application domains such as manufacturing, transport, communication networks, embedded systems, and digital circuits, and have been treated using theories and methods in several disciplines. Most of these applications involve distributed, reactive systems of considerable complexity, and with a number of real-time constraints.

   
Timed automata and extensions (acm)

    

  If PHP were British

     
When Rasmus Lerdorf first put PHP together, he - quite sensibly, despite his heritage - chose not to write it in Greenlandic or Danish. Good job too - that would have been rather unpleasant to work with. He opted instead, being in Canada at the time, for the local tongue. PHP developers in Britain have been grumpy about this ever since. What was he thinking? And more importantly, how do we undo this travesty?

  
PHP Beyond chauvinism (addedbytes) 

     

  Futurism a true calling

    
Terms and concepts that are on the tip of everyone's tongue today leap off the pages: the crisis of industrialism, the promise of renewable energy, ad-hocracy in business, the rise of the non-nuclear family, technology-enabled telecommuting, the power of the pro-sumer, sensors embedded in household appliances, a gene industry that pre-designs the human body, corporate social responsibility, "information overload"....

   
Technology will take on a life of its own (foreignpolicy)

     

  Fusion power: Are we closer?

   
Last year, when asked to name the most pressing scientific challenge facing humanity, Professors Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox both gave the same answer: producing electricity from fusion energy. The prize, they said, is enormous: a near-limitless, pollution-free, cheap source of energy that would power human development for many centuries to come.

    
Most pressing scientific challenge (guardian)  China advanc. on fusiontech. (report)

     

  Decay: Filling without drilling

     
Tooth decay begins when acid produced by bacteria in plaque dissolves the mineral in the teeth, causing microscopic holes or 'pores' to form. As the decay process progresses these micro-pores increase in size and number. Eventually the damaged tooth may have to be drilled and filled to prevent toothache, or even removed. Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered a pain-free way of tackling dental decay that reverses the damage of acid attack and re-builds teeth as new.

    
Filling without pain (leeds)

    

  Interactive packaging: explosion expected

    
Germanbased Schmitt Sohne has added QR code technology to the labels and pointofsale materials for all of its brands. The QR codes, when scanned by a smartphone and code reader application, take consumers to a mobile site where they can interact with the brand in various ways, such as reading and submitting user reviews and getting advice for food pairing suggestions.

   
The QR code technology (foodproductiondaily)

   

  Alt Text: Patents Impending

    
Everyone agrees that patent law is a huge mess, the sort of mess rarely seen outside of Fresno’s annual “Unsupervised Toddler and Malamute Spaghetti Feed.” And yet, it remains a mess, year after year, in spite of pundits, politicians and protesters standing around clucking their tongues and making that finger gesture of shame that only grade-schoolers usually do, where you kind of slide one finger across the other as if you’re trying to start a campfire.

  
The patent law (wired)

    

  Women See Value of College

    
At a time when women surpass men by record numbers in college enrollment and completion, they also have a more positive view than men about the value higher education provides, according to a nationwide Pew Research Center survey. Half of all women who have graduated from a four-year college give the U.S. higher education system excellent or good marks for the value it provides given the money spent by students and their families; only 37% of male graduates agree.

    
Women higher education (pewsocialtrends)

    

  To clean up pollution

  
The report that prompted Ramesh’s action was prepared by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Central Pollution Control Board. It found that 10 industrial clusters scored at least 80 out of 100 in a pollution index, or were emitting effluents and pollutants at an alarming level; 33 scored between 70 and 80 (critically polluted); and another 32 scored between 60 and 70 (seriously polluted).

   
Decontaminating the environment (livemint)

    

  Labs that gave birth to digitworld

    
Throughout history there is a recurring theme of like-minded individuals coming together to create a shared “hive mind” intelligence that is greater than its constituent parts. There are extremely rare cases of geniuses that worked on their own, but for the most part almost every famed inventor, pioneer, or philosopher was part of a group or cadre of other great thinkers.

   
A shared “hive mind” intelligence (extremetech)

  

  Process Safety Performance Indicators

     
Process and Plant Safety performance can be evaluated through the use of key performance indicators that measure and analyze Process Safety Incidents (PSI). Whilst the use of key performance indicators is common at individual company level, their application across industry is restricted because they are not harmonized into a universally shared management model for Process Safety.

   
Key performance indicators (cefic)

   

  Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

     
The transformation of the Finns’ education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000, when the first results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardized test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the world.

  
Finns' education success (smithsonianmag)

  

  IBM Unveils Cognitive Chips

   
Called cognitive computers, systems built with these chips won’t be programmed the same way traditional computers are today. In a sharp departure from traditional concepts in designing and building computers, IBM’s first neurosynaptic computing chips recreate the phenomena between spiking neurons and synapses in biological systems, such as the brain, through advanced algorithms and silicon circuitry.

    
Neurosynaptic computing chips (ibm)
    

  To get from London to Paris

  
For those who haven't made the trip, an obvious question is why you'd want to take Eurostar when you can fly between London and Paris in about an hour and a quarter. The answer, of course, starts with the fact that Eurostar leaves and departs from the hearts of the two cities rather than requiring time-consuming and costly travel to their suburban airports. And then there's added time for airport security, the limits on what you can bring, and other annoying inconveniences.

   
Eurostar travellers (cnet)

  

  Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs

    
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009. The Pew Research Center analysis finds that, in percentage terms, the bursting of the housing market bubble in 2006 and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites.

    
Wealth-disparity (pewresearch)

    

  Stick-On Electronic Tattoos

    
Researchers have made stretchable, ultrathin electronics that cling to skin like a temporary tattoo and can measure electrical activity from the body. These electronic tattoos could allow doctors to diagnose and monitor conditions like heart arrhythmia or sleep disorders noninvasively. To achieve flexible, stretchable electronics. A professor of materials science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign employed a principle he had already used to achieve flexibility in substrates.

    
Temporary tattoo (technologyreview)

    

  Search: Bing Beats Google

   
The success rate for Bing searches in the U.S. in July was 80.04%, compared to 67.56% for Google, according to Experian Hitwise. The market watcher defines "success rate" as the percentage of search queries that result in a visit to a website. Searches made through sites owned by Yahoo, which farmed out search to Bing under a deal struck in 2009, were also more efficient than Google. Those searches yielded a success rate of 81.36%.

   
Search engine race (informationweek)

    

  Math to Crack the Barca Code

    
Math and geometry, with angles and diagonals, must be applied to the game in order to grasp why Barcelona won the Champions League and La Liga while Real Madrid only took home the Copa del Rey. It is something many football coaches occupy themselves with before and after the game, and some even during halftime. José Mourinho is obsessed with modern match analysis, like many other coaches in Spain and England.

   
How to decipher Barca' game ? (spiegel)

    

  ISO Std on Biometric information protection

  
Biometrics, like fingerprints and iris scans, is being used more and more as a reliable form of authentication for online transactions. But how can we be sure that this data won’t be compromised? To ensure security and privacy when managing and processing biometric information, ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have jointly published a new International Standard, ISO/IEC 24745:2011.

   
Biometric info. prot. Normali. (iso)

  

  Cell membrane & their interactions

    
Supported lipid bilayers are important tools for researchers who want to investigate the properties of cell membranes. Scientists create these bilayers by putting lipid vesicles in solution above a solid support. At a critical coverage the vesicles burst and fuse producing a two-dimensional membrane that can be studied with a microscope or other surface-based techniques.

  
Cell membrane properties (rsc)

  

  Underwater Volcanic Eruption

     
The discovery came as a surprise, as researchers attempted to recover instruments they'd left behind to monitor the peak a year earlier. When the researchers hefted a seafaring robotic vehicle overboard to fetch the instruments, the feed from the onboard camera sent back images of an alien seafloor landscape. Scientists have long known about the existence of subsea volcanoes, but information on their behavior is relatively sparse.

    
Subsea volcanoes (yahoo)

  

  Technology & digital printing

    
Consider this: in 2010, imports of printed material and related products from Hong Kong and China to U.S. shores hit $2.397 billion (or nearly 45% of the category total). That is almost back to the pre-crisis level of 1998. Obviously, the outsourcing flow has not ebbed despite fervent calls for made-in-U.S.A. books. Then again, there is the slumping greenback and weak economy.

   
Printing in Hong Kong 2011 (publishersweekly)

     

  Antimatter belt around Earth

   
This Letter reports the discovery of an antiproton radiation belt around the Earth. The trapped antiproton energy spectrum in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region has been measured by the PAMELA experiment for the kinetic energy range 60--750 MeV. A measurement of the atmospheric sub-cutoff antiproton spectrum outside the radiation belts is also reported.

    
Pamela discovery (arxiv)

  

  US fund: billion euros in German windfarms

     
The US investment fund Blackstone plans to invest several billion euros in German wind farms, as the biggest economy in Europe will need the energy when it abandons nuclear power by 2022. The first farm, to comprise 80 turbines built by the German group Siemens, is to become operational in 2013 with a generating capacity of 288 megawatts.

    
The biggest German offshore (france24)

     

  Office 15 extensions

     
Microsoft officials have made it clear that HTML5 and JavaScript are going to be key for developing for Windows 8. But Microsoft’s HTML5/JS love doesn’t stop there. It turns out that HTML5 and JavaScript also are going to be key to Microsoft’s Office 15 programmability story. Office programmability refers to the ability to extend the Microsoft Office platform with custom code and third-party add-on applications.

    
MS to focus on HTML5 and JS (zdnet)

    

  Worst alien invader of waterways

     
The agency said invasive species cost the UK about £1.7bn a year and it will work with partner groups to manage the spread of damaging plants and animals. Several species of pond plant which have escaped from gardens and parks are also on the list of non-native wildlife which pose the greatest threat to the country's rivers and lakes.

    
'Killer' shrimp (bbc)

    

  Short selling popped a China bubble

      
Some have never even been to China; most don't speak or read Chinese. And yet in the past nine months, this small group of "short sellers" has published research exposing accounting fraud at a series of Chinese companies listed in the United States and Canada, and made as yet unproven allegations against a whole bunch more. As a result they have scuttled a once hot sub-sector of the American capital markets.

   
The investigation (reuters)

    

  Defense of Japan 2011

     
Looking at the region surrounding Japan, the nuclear and missile problems of North Korea still require due caution. Tensions have increased on the Korean Peninsula due to such incidents as the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Furthermore, China continues to rapidly expand and modernize its military forces and the activities that it conducts in the waters surrounding Japan are growing larger in scale and more intense. Russia also continues to intensify the level of its military activities.

   
Report (mod.go)

    

  Medical device of new regulations

       
A new report calling for a complete overhaul of the federal approval process for medical devices would pile more regulations onto medical manufacturers. The latest report called for a new approval system for so-called moderate-risk devices — a category that now includes artificial hips and hospital pumps — and said the current system one was not fixable. A new report calling for a complete overhaul of the federal approval process.

    
Overhaul of the federal approval (dailynewsatlanta)

   

  Salmonella resistant to Ciprofloxacin

      
The report discribe an increase in nontyphoidal salmonellosis caused by S. enterica serotype Kentucky isolated in European countries during the period 2005–2008. This increase is due to the emergence of the ST198-X1 CIPR Kentucky clone, which infected almost 500 patients in France, England and Wales and Denmark during 2000–2008. The number of cases is likely underestimated due to limitations in the catchment area of these national surveillance systems.

    
ST198 resistant to Ciprofloxacin (oxfordjournals)

    

  Is your IT job set to survive?

  
The halcyon days when IT pros could name their price ended with the passing of the Y2K crisis and the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Suddenly, companies didn't need as many coders. Suddenly, there were far fewer start-ups buying servers and hiring sysadmins to run them. Most IT departments are a shadow of their former selves. They've drastically reduced the number of tech support staff, or outsourced the helpdesk entirely.

   
The present IT situation (zdnet)

   

  Missoula: Mix of Town & Country

    
Many towns in the West consider themselves “outdoor” towns—suggesting a citizenry eager to bike, run, ski, paddle, hunt, fish, hike, backpack, float and camp. Missoula, Montana, is one of these towns, but it possesses some indefinable spirit that keeps it from being confused with any other. Many of the West’s outdoor towns lie farther south, and closer to larger population centers. Missoula still has space around it.

   
The land beyond the town (smithsonianmag)

   

  Algae Could Solve fuel crisis

    
Scientists rave about a new, green revolution. Using genetic engineering and sophisticated breeding and selection methods, biochemists, mainly working in the United States, are transforming blue and green algae into tiny factories for oil, ethanol and diesel. A green algae liquid sloshes back and forth in culture vats and circulates through shiny bioreactors and bulging plastic tubes. The first tests of algae-based fuels are already being conducted in automobiles, ships and aircraft.

   
The green revolution (spiegel)

   

  Canada’s slaughter industry

     
The idea of horses — often viewed as majestic “companion” animals — being slaughtered for food triggers discomfort, even outrage, in Canadians who consider the practice inhumane. Those in the horse slaughter industry call such assertions naïve, insisting they provide a necessary service, feeding European demand for the exotic meat with a glut of horses whose owners can no longer care for them.

    
Feeding European demand (thestar)

   

  Celsion biotech to leave Columbia

       
Celsion’s move to Lawrenceville is contingent on receiving a jobs creation incentive grant from New Jersey. But the primary driving factor is access to a greater pool of employee talent and financial markets, said Jeffrey Church, the company’s senior vice president for corporate business strategy and investor relations. Lawrenceville is between New York City and Philadelphia, near Trenton and Princeton, N.J. That corridor has a lot of big pharmaceutical companies".

   
In search of fund (gazette)

   

  Technology1, distracted drivers0

    
Here’s proof that technology really does make driving safer: Volvos equipped with the automaker’s City Safety collision avoidance system are in 27% fewer accidents than comparable vehicles. That’s a huge reduction, says the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). City Safety is a Volvo-exclusive (at least for now in the US) laser that watches the road one car-length ahead from the vantage point of the rear view mirror. If it sees a slow or stopped car ahead, it jams on the brakes.

    
Safety collision avoidance system (extremetech)

     

  Harvesting wild plants

    
Mendel University in Brno will begin teaching rural residents and those of low socio-economic status how to harvest and use various types of wild plants, including medicinal plants, aromatic herbs, mushrooms and wild berries. The school has joined an international project of four Central European countries whose goal is to support rural residents from areas with a high rate of unemployment. The target group is minorities, for example the Roma, as well as active retirees and women on maternity leave, university representatives told the press on July 26.

   
How to harvest wild plants ? (romea)

  

  Research: the quality of outcomes

   

Last month an innovative new project funded by JISC asked people to contribute to a unique dictionary of Scottish words and place-names. The twist? Contributors are using tools of the web: posting messages on Facebook, tweeting the project team and contributing to an online discussion. It's the latest in a series of community projects that are asking the general public to contribute their knowledge and expertise to research through interactive web technology, not simply because they can or because it's trendy, but because crowdsourcing is now, by default, digital.

    
Digital crowdsourcing (guardian)

    

  A Global Knowledge 'Network'

   
The world's first search engine is made of wood and paper. Specifically, it consists of rows of dark brown cabinets about as tall as a person, filled with boxes of index cards. "Sixteen million index cards," notes Jacques Gillen, laying one hand on a cabinet handle. Gillen is an archivist at the Mundaneum, the institution that operated this gigantic catalogue in the 1920s.

   
Birth of the first network (spiegel) 

  

  Non-plastic food materials

   
A large number of substances used in non-plastic food contact materials have never been evaluated, said a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) working group tasked with developing a regulatory framework on the issue. The body’s Scientific Cooperation (ESCO) Working Group has also proposed that a Pan-European network of experts be set up to help tackle crisis situations that surface in relation to such issues as printing inks, coatings, paper and board, and adhesives.

    
Materials & Food contact (foodproductiondaily)

    

  New industry initiatives

     
Nine of the world’s leading oil and gas companies – BG Group, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Petrobras, Shell, Statoil and Total – have launched the subsea well response project (SWRP), an initiative designed to enhance the industry’s capability to respond to subsea well control incidents. Acting on the recommendations of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers’ (OGP) Global Industry Response Group (GIRG), the companies have signed an interim joint development agreement, with Shell as the operator.

    
Health and safety rules (engineerlive)

    

  What Happened to Software Engineering?

    
Over the past few years there has been an evolutionary shift in the world of software development. Not very long ago, the dominant Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology was the Waterfall Method with very specific phases that separated the construction phase from phases like design and test. This style of project management has been very successful in construction.

    
Software development (developer)

  

  Building confidence in G.carbon market

     
A new International Standard detailing the level of competency required by those responsible for verifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been published. It is the latest addition to ISO’s toolbox of standards for addressing climate change and supporting emissions trading schemes. ISO 14066 is the latest document in the ISO toolbox of standards to address climate change and GHG emissions.

    
ISO' GHG emissions standard
    

  New products & Manufacturing techniques

     
For more than a decade, scientists have been touting the promise of nanomaterials as a source of new and better products, from stronger structural materials to speedy but power-efficient computers to drugs that target and kill diseased cells. But making commercial products from nanomaterials is tricky. In these materials, tiny structural changes lead to very different properties, and precision manufacturing is critical.

    
Source of new-better products (technologyreview)

  

  Animal testing & Regulation

     
Better regulation is needed to govern rapidly expanding research in animals containing human tissue or genes, the Academy of Medical Sciences says. It said such studies were necessary for medical research, but that new ethical issues could emerge and called for a national body of experts. The academy recommended three classifications for research on animals containing human material.

  
Animal testing regulation (bbc)

  

  Food waste vs starvation

   
India's Food Minister K.V. Thomas wants to curtail what has become known as the Big Fat Indian Wedding. The tons of food wasted at social gatherings across the country each day contrasts sharply with the food shortages, often bordering on chronic starvation, faced by millions of poor Indians. Like elsewhere in Asia, food prices in India are rising fast — by 8.4 percent in June alone — as demand outstrips production.

    
Big Fat Indian Wedding (yahoo)

    

  Pushing HTML5 to the limit

    
The emerging HTML5 model for Web apps differs in four major areas. The most visible may be the relative standardization of the canvas object, an improvement that makes it easier to write Flash-like animations with JavaScript. The results are often just as, well, flashy as the ones that come from Flash for anyone who's able to put in the time. Casual game developers who used to write for Flash are producing slick games that run in JavaScript alone.

   
HTML5 model for Web apps (infoworld)
     

  $13 bil. biodiesel & Environment harm

     
The EU will protect existing investment in its $13 billion biodiesel sector even as it acts on new evidence that suggests making the fuel from food crops can do more harm than good in fighting climate change. European Union policymakers are preparing a political compromise that will safeguard existing biodiesel investments, having baulked at penalizing individual biofuel crops.

   
Biodiesel sector & environment (reuters)

   

  The Man Behind The Math

    
Though generations of schoolchildren have cursed arithmetic, the world was a much more inconvenient place without it. Before the advent of modern arithmetic in the 13th century, basic calculations required a physical abacus. But then came a young Italian mathematician named Leonardo da Pisa — no relation to da Vinci — who, in 1202, published a book titled Liber Abaci. That's Latin for "Book of Calculation."

   
Leonardo da Pisa calculation (npr)

    

  The Swedish Invasion

    
Spotify's arrival on U.S. shores brings a new and much-anticipated music platform to American users. The Swedish service's social networking features and broad catalog have been a hit in Europe, and a rumored Facebook partnership shows promise, though competition in the U.S. will be tight. Meanwhile, hackers keep hacking, Netflix pulls a price switch and RIM's two-headed CEO is tasked with justifying its existence.

   
Tight competition in music platform (technewsworld)

  

  Rewriting the code of life

    
MIT and Harvard researchers have developed technologies that could be used to rewrite the genetic code of a living cell, allowing them to make large-scale edits to the cell’s genome. Such technology could enable scientists to design cells that build proteins not found in nature, or engineer bacteria that are resistant to any type of viral infection. The technology, described in the July 15 issue of Science, can overwrite specific DNA sequences throughout the genome.

   
Rewriting code of a living cell (mit)
    

  Clinical Evaluation of Innovative Products

   
Recent amendments made to the European Medical Device Directive (MDD 93/42/EEC) state that every medical device (MD) sold in Europe, regardless of its classification, must have a clinical evaluation report in its technical file. This is meant to reinforce safety and performance of Innovative Health Technologies (IHT). The Directive’s specific focus on implantable or class III medical devices gives the false impression that clinical investigation does not apply to other MD.

  
European Medical Device Directive (lne-america)

  

    
A strong majority of baby boomers are enthusiastic about some perks of aging — watching their children or grandchildren grow up, doing more with friends and family, and getting time for favorite activities. About half say they're highly excited about retirement. And boomers most frequently offered the wisdom and knowledge accumulated over their lives as the best thing about getting older.

   
Upbeat baby boomers (yahoo)

   

  Geo-engineering threats

   
The alert on the Climate Ark website in January 2009 was marked urgent: "Take action: A rogue science ship is poised to carry out risky experimental fertilisation of the Southern Ocean. This is likely [to be] the first of many coming attempts to begin geo-engineering the biosphere as a solution to climate change. The chemical cargo is likely to provoke a massive algal bloom big enough to be seen from outer space..."

    
Geo risky experimental engineering (guardian)

    

  Smart meter Technology

   
A smart meter is usually an electrical meter that records consumption of electric energy in intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least daily back to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes.[7] Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system. Unlike home energy monitors, smart meters can gather data for remote reporting.

   
Data collection and treatment (wikipedia)

    

  GM Foods don't sit well in U.S.

    
some consumer advocates argue that chronic effects of eating genetically engineered foods could go undetected by what they see as lax oversight. "Consumers have a legitimate right to be skeptical, given the imperfections of our safety system," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist at the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C.

    
Consumers' legitimate rights (latimes)

    

  How to ease Internet data flow ?

    
Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and Skype have become household names as demand soars for movies, television shows, amateur videos, and video calls delivered via the Internet and mobile networks. As a result, this enormous thirst for moving pixels is fast outpacing the capacity to supply video to viewers' screens. A team of Princeton researchers led by Mung Chiang, is grappling with the problem by exploring ways to make global networks more efficient.

    
Enormous thirst for moving pixels (princeton)

    

  Vacation interruptus

     
IT staffers aren't the only ones feeling the vacation pinch, according to a poll conducted by CareerBuilder at the end of May. Of the 5,600 full-time U.S. workers polled, 24% reported they have had to work while their families went on vacation without them, and 16% said they gave up vacation days in the previous year because they didn't have time to use them. Aside from the health of the company's IT function, there is the health of the IT staff to consider as well.

    
The vacation pinch (computerworld)

    

  Tidal Power Potential

   
Tidal stream energy extraction is derived from the kinetic energy of the moving flow; analogous to the way a wind turbine operates in air, and as such differs from tidal barrages, which relies on providing a head of water for energy extraction. A tidal stream energy converter extracts and converts the mechanical energy in the current into a transmittable energy form. A variety of conversion devices are currently being proposed or are under active development.

   
Kinetic energy of the moving flow (spectrum.ieee)

   

  How Toyota Rebounded

    
Within hours of the March 11 Japan earthquake, Toyota Motor Corp.’s global parts logistics teams had sprung into action. Managers worked overtime to ensure few customers would need to wait for a back-ordered part. In nearly all cases, Toyota filled about 140,000 replacement part orders per day. As of June 20, Toyota’s U.S. parts depots stopped working overtime to get inventories back to normal.

   
How Toyota Rebounded (asq)
    

  Sus. development victim of 'short-termism'

     
While little has moved on sustainable development since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the topic is back on the public agenda, thanks to stronger scientific evidence of environmental degradation and its visible impacts, said Maja Göpel, 'future justice' director at the World Future Council. The WFC is a foundation concerned about the present over-consumption of resources and seeks to defend the interests of future generations in today's policymaking.

   
Sustainable development (euractiv)

    

  Calorie reduction prevents infertility

     
A strategy that has been shown to reduce age-related health problems in several animal studies may also combat a major cause of age-associated infertility and birth defects. Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have shown that restricting the caloric intake of adult female mice prevents a spectrum of abnormalities, such as extra or missing copies of chromosomes, which arise more frequently in egg cells of aging female mammals.

    
Infertility related to calories (laboratoryequipment)

     

  Brazil to protect Amazon activists

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo, had spent more than a decade fighting illegal loggers, ranchers and charcoal producers, and had repeatedly alerted local and federal authorities to the threats they suffered as a result. One of the highest-profile Amazon killings in recent history was the murder of Dorothy Stang.

    
Fighting illegal loggers (guardian)

      

  The WikiLeaks You Missed

      
Since the first few Julian Assange-saturated months of 2011, the U.S. media have largely moved on to Arab revolutions and other sex scandals. But WikiLeaks has continued releasing embassy cables -- fewer than 16,000 of the more than 250,000 have been published so far. In contrast to its early, now-frayed partnerships with the Guardian and the New York Times, WikiLeaks is now working with local papers in countries like Peru, Haiti, and Ireland to release cables of national interest.

   
What's more about Leaks-Wiki (foreignpolicy)

    

  ‘Radar for the human eye’

     
While the standard test for cataracts in an ophthalmologist’s office assigns a score on a scale of 1 to 4 — from no cataracts to completely blocked vision — the new, inexpensive test actually provides much more information. Media Lab graduate student Vitor Pamplona, a member of the team developing Catra, explains that it “scans the lens of the eye and creates a map showing position, size, shape and density of cataracts.”

     
Cataract early detection (mit)

  

  Next-Generation Product Development

     
To get more out of new product design, companies need to adopt a third-generation approach: a more agile product development system capable of addressing frequent iterations of multiple design options early in the process, based on continuous testing and highly sophisticated customer-driven design changes. This method, which both encourages flexibility and recognizes the unpredictability of the early stages of product development, ensures that the latter part of the cycle is much less uncertain.

    
New product design (strategy-business)

  

  How German reduce joblessness?

    
German model has used a "short work" policy to keep the unemployment rate down – at very low cost to the government. Its unemployment rate today is 0.5 percentage points lower than it was at the start of the downturn, even though the German economy actually has grown less than the US economy over this period. There are many different packages that fit the short work scheme, but the basic story would be that rather than having a firm lay off 20% its workers, the government encourages the firm to cut their work time by 20%.

    
German' "short work" policy (guardian)

     

  Two genes linked in cancer cells

    
Telomeres contain repeated sequences of DNA that, in normal cells, shorten each time a cell divides. Without telomeres, the cell division-related shortening could snip off a cell's genes and disrupt key cell functions. Most cancer cells, naturally prone to divide rapidly, use high amounts of an enzyme called telomerase to keep their telomeres intact. Yet, some cancer cells are known to maintain their telomere length without help from telomerase.

    
Genes' identification linked to cancer cells (innovations-report)

    

  The Ultimate Energy Efficiency

   
Today's silicon-based microprocessor chips rely on electric currents, or moving electrons, that generate a lot of waste heat. But microprocessors employing nanometer-sized bar magnets – like tiny refrigerator magnets – for memory, logic and switching operations theoretically would require no moving electrons. Future computers may rely on magnetic microprocessors that consume the least amount of energy allowed by the laws of physics, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, electrical engineers.

    
Magnetic microprocessors tech. (pddnet)

    

  Report: Mobile Wireless Competition

   
In this Report, we present our findings regarding the state of competition in the mobile services marketplace, pursuant to Congress's instruction in section 332(c)(1)(C) of the Communications Act. Promoting competition is a fundamental goal of the Commission's policymaking. Competition has played and must continue to play an essential role in mobile - leading to lower prices and higher quality for American consumers, and producing new waves of innovation.

   
State of mobile' competition (fcc)

  

  World’s loudest animal

      
Researchers have shown for the first time that the loudest animal on earth, relative to its body size, is the tiny lesser water boatman, Micronecta scholtzi - at 99.2 decibels, the sound is equivalent to listening to an orchestra play loudly while sitting in the front row. The majority of the loudest animals on Earth are also the biggest, with blue whale songs reaching 188 dB and elephant's rumbling calls measuring 117 dB.

    
The loudest animal on earth (strath)

  

  Anti-Virus Pioneer Evgeny Kaspersky

    
Unfortunately, Russians are also among the most sophisticated and advanced players in criminal cyber activity. These days, they invent viruses and complex Trojan programs on demand. They launder money through the Internet. However, the largest number of harmful programs are written in Chinese. This means that they can be coming directly from the People's Republic, but also from Singapore, Malaysia and even California, where there are Mandarin-speaking hackers.

    
Kaspersky' views (spiegel)

  

  2011 EU chemicals sector output

    
Growth in the EU chemicals industry in 2011 will be better than initially expected and will likely move towards more modest expansion in 2012, chemicals industry group Cefic said today. The European trade group revised upward its annual summary forecast of chemicals sector economists, predicting growth in 2011 to reach 4.5 per cent. The revised forecast is nearly double the initial full-year forecast of 2.5 per cent predicted last November. Cefic also announced projected expansion in 2012.

    
EU chemicals indus. better than expected (cefic)

    

  Cambodia's oil

    

Emerging from genocide and decades of civil war, Cambodia's discovery of oil raised hopes of faster development for the country – but also fears that the "resource curse" might strike again. There is some cause for hope – for instance, the ministry of economics and finance's disclosure on its website of information about the rental income it receives from the extractive industries for land usage. CRRT has called the move "a significant step in the right direction".

   
Cambodia's faster development (guardian)

   

  BMW automatic crash notification

    
BMW has raised automatic crash notification to a new level. The on-board BMW Assist telematics system already calls 911 after a crash, just as many other brands do. But BMWs can also report to the 911 call center the likely severity of occupant injuries, and now BMW says it can transmit the injury information to a nearby hospital trauma center. BMW’s enhanced automatic collision notification (enhanced ACN or EACN) uses a sophisticated set of algorithms.

   
BMW' sophisticated set of algorithms (extremetech)

   

  Next Mars rover in action

     
The new action packed animation is 11 minutes in length. It depicts sequences starting with Earth departure, smashing through the Martian atmosphere, the nail biting terror of the never before used rocket-backpack sky crane landing system and then progressing through the assorted science instrument capabilities that Curiosity will bring to bear during its minimum two year expedition across hitherto unseen and unexplored Martian landscapes, mountains and craters.

   
Footage animation of the next Mars rover exploration (io9)

     

  L.Page could learn from B.Gates

     
Microsoft suffered that fate in its two-decade fight with the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys over charges that it abused its monopoly in operating systems to crush competition in other areas. After a high-profile trial, Microsoft finally settled the matter in 2002, and only last month emerged from government oversight. Google said recently that the Federal Trade Commission has started a formal investigation into its business, raising concerns among investors about a lengthy, distracting probe and potential legal action.

    
Formal investigation against Google (yahoo)

    

  How yeast cells reverse aging?

    
Human cells have a finite lifespan: They can only divide a certain number of times before they die. However, that lifespan is reset when reproductive cells are formed, which is why the children of a 20-year-old man have the same life expectancy as those of an 80-year-old man. How that resetting occurs in human cells is not known, but MIT biologists have now found a gene that appears to control this process in yeast.

    
Cells' rejuvenation (mit)

  

  Paid Antivirus On PCs, the End!

    
AMEX launched a free dashboard to help customers manage social media. That shouldn't be surprising, however, since free antivirus regularly finds a place in "top 10" third-party antivirus software rankings. "The good antivirus is a free antivirus, we all know this. Avast is good, AVG is good. So many people are 'good enough' that where is the market, if antivirus is free?" Eric Domage, manager of western European security research and consulting for IDC, tells me.

  
State of free antiviruses (informationweek)

  

  Debate: High-speed trains

    
The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will shorten the travel time between the two cities by several hours, and it is just one of the many high-speed railway lines planned across the country. The government plans to build several other lines linking Beijing with the cities in western China in the next few years. This has excited some scholars, who think high-speed railway links will not only reduce travel time, but also boost industries.

   
The High-speed railway (chinadaily)

  

  German Wind Bigger than Ever

  
Siemens has announced installation in the sea off Denmark of its prototype 6-MW wind turbine, which has a rotor diameter of 120 meters and yet weighs in total only 350 tonnes. The company boasts that the machine's relatively low weight is path-breaking. "In tendency large wind turbines have always been heavier per megawatt than small ones," comments Henrik Stiesdal, CTO of Siemens' Wind Power Business Unit.

  
Siemens' Wind Power (ieee)

    

  Aquaculture Dilemma

   
Fish, of course, are different. When we tuck into a swordfish steak or halibut filet, we generally expect that it was caught in the open ocean. And yet, the efficiencies of aquaculture—or cultivating freshwater and saltwater fish under controlled conditions—are becoming ever more a part of our seafood diet. Aquaculture is a divisive topic, pitting those who fear its potential to pollute ocean waters and wild fishes’ gene pools against those who see the possibility of alleviating pressure on traditional fisheries and providing an additional source of protein.

   
The efficiencie of aquaculture (scienceprogress)

    

  2011: Gartner's Supply Chain Rankings

   
Last year, we talked about the trend toward vertical integration. What we've seen since then is more about choosing the right set of value chain network integration strategies that allow better control of the end-to-end value chain. What this means is that there's no one answer that's always right. We see companies like Samsung, which have always been vertically integrated, weathering the ups and downs through ownership of supply...

    
Network integration strategies (gartner)

  

  Puzzling parasite

   
Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that infects about one-third of the world’s population, comes in several strains. Some can have severe consequences such as encephalitis, while others produce no noticeable symptoms. Jeroen Saeij, an MIT biologist who has been studying Toxoplasma for several years, is trying to figure out the root of that discrepancy. In his latest work, he found that two of the three most common strains of Toxoplasma produce a protein that actually suppresses inflammation in the infected host.

    
Puzzling parasite (mit)

  

  Facebook’S Facial Recognition Flops

    
Facebook says its facial-recognition technology is convenient because it groups together multiple images of the same person; as a result, you have to type a friend’s name only once, and the tag will apply to all photos of that person. If your friend has been previously tagged in enough photos, Facebook will suggest his or her name so you don’t have to do anything. And yes, we think that would be more convenient--if it worked.

    
Facial-recognition technology (cio)

   

  Making ISO simpler & better

    

ISO’s current portfolio of more than 18 600 voluntary standards is the output of stakeholders in business, government, international organizations, consumer associations and other groups, working in over 3 200 technical bodies under more than 700 ISO committees. Every working day, 10 or more ISO meetings are taking place in different parts of the world, not counting the virtual meetings and contacts using ISO’s Web-based IT tools for its technical work.

   
ISO portoflio (iso)

  

  Bitcoin-thieving Trojans

      
Bitcoin is an encrypted, peer-to-peer (P2P) currency, in existence since 2009, designed as an alternative to government-controlled currencies. It makes it possible to digitally purchase goods and services. It has seen its value rocket recently, reaching $30 (£19) per Bitcoin on some online exchanges. Both Trojans were found on Bitcoin user forums, potentially affecting all forum members if they were to click infected links.

     
Trojans found on Bitcoin (zdnet)

  

  Digital agriculture & Harvest changes

    
Across the globe, rising temperatures and more intense droughts, floods and storms are forcing a rethink in how to grow food, from breeding hardier crop varieties and changing planting times to complete genetic overhauls of plants. Growing populations, changing diets and insatiable demand for grains, meat and vegetables is putting pressure on global food production and prices like never before.

   
Rethinking agriculture (reuters)

  

  Fukushima assessed by Independent Panel

   
An independent panel of experts met for the first time Tuesday to look into the Fukushima Dai-1 nuclear plant accident from a variety of perspectives. The panel, headed by Yotaro Hatamura, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, has been given the authority to question all entities involved, including TEPCO, government ministers, and even the prime minister.

   
Nuclear plant accident assessment (ieee)

    

  24hour trial of a new Internet IPv6

    
IPv6, which features an expanded addressing scheme, is an upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol, which is known as IPv4. Internet engineers have dubbed this problem "IPv6 brokenness." The term refers to PCs and smartphones that have IPv6 addresses and run operating systems such as Apple Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows 7 that default to IPv6.

   
Communications protocol to be upgraded (cio)

   

  How to reduce peanut allergens?

     
A Univ. of Florida researcher has developed a new technique to make peanuts safer for people with peanut allergies. By releasing pulsed, or concentrated, bursts of light containing multiple wavelengths, PUV changes peanut allergens so that human antibodies can’t recognize them and cause the release of histamines, which are responsible for allergy symptoms such as itching, rashes and wheezing.

   
How to make peanuts safer ? (laboratoryequipment)

    

  Photovoltaic system selection

    
Most PV systems that are installed by qualified and reputable professionals are installed safely and reliably. However, having a PV electric power system installed by untrained persons can lead to trouble. Some of the common problems associated with the design, installation, and operation of PV systems include: - Extensive shading of the PV array - Insecure structural attachment to rooftops and other structures - Inadequate weather sealing for roof and other penetrations - Unsafe wiring....

    
Qualifying photovoltaic installation (csemag)

    

  Groupon: The golden nugget

     
Sure, Groupon is fun: each morning, you open your email to discover one or two offers of steep discounts on restaurant food, or beauty treatments, or adventurous experiences: recent London deals, for example, included 54% off a kite-surfing course, tapas for two at £19 instead of £48, and six sessions of laser hair removal at a quarter of the regular price. Nominally, there's a catch – you get the deal only if it "tips", meaning that a sufficient number of people sign up – but today that almost always happens.

    
Groupon' business model (guardian)

  

  Inside Germany's E.coli hunt

  
The German E.coli strain was first sequenced by a laboratory at the Beijing Genomics Institute, the world's largest DNA sequencing center. On June 3 it identified the E.coli as a new and "highly infectious and toxic" strain. E.coli turns into HUS when bacterial or "Shiga" toxins enter the bloodstream, according to kidney specialist Professor Rolf Stahl, head of nephrology at the Hamburg university clinic.

    
E.coli hunt (yahoo)

    

  EU: eHealth Deployment in Acute Hospitals

  
The topic covered falls within the scope of research activities carried out over the past three years by the Information Society Unit at IPTS1 in the specific domain of eHealth, as regards its development and innovation dynamics and also benchmarking and evaluation. Stated briefly, the objective pursued by eHealth policy is to ‘improve the quality of care’ and at the same time ‘reduce medical costs’.

    
EU eHealth Deployment (jrc)
    

  Retaining 100 years of information

     
There are different reasons for storing information over a long term. Laws and regulations force organisations to keep data for specific lengths of time e.g. life insurance information has to be retained for no less than the remaining validity of the insurance (which often relates to how long people live) and people tend to live longer and longer. Other fields where data has to be stored for a long time include web services and fixed content repositories.

  
Data storage (theregister)
    

  When water becomes the new oil

   
It's been said that water one day may become more valuable than oil in many countries. Some big companies around the world are devoting time and capital to the scarce-water problem. GE is one of them. Joseph Such is the general manager of GE's Water & Process Technologies capital equipment business and is in charge of its Minnetonka facility that employs more than 500 people.

   
Water rarefaction (startribune)

   

  Conference on Healthcare Engineering

    
The European Conference of Healthcare Engineering is the bi-annual event of the European regional group (IFHE Europe) of the International Federation of Hospital Engineering (IFHE), which comprises more than thirty associations in Hospital engineering from all continents. IFHE Europe was created in September 2005 in Strasbourg and includes hospital engineering associations from twelve countries.

    
Healthcare Engineering (glassonweb)

    

  IonSense Introduces the ID CUBE

    
IonSense, Inc. today introduced the ID CUBE Source with OpenSpot Sample Card to speed the analysis of new materials being created by synthetic and medicinal chemists in universities and in pharmaceutical companies. The easy sample preparation and near-instantaneous analysis of this open-access platform allows chemists to directly analyze their own samples and obtain immediate feedback on the results of their synthesis.

    
How to speed the analysis ?   (tech.rambergmedia)

     

  Growing a better future

     
Based on the experience and research of Oxfam staff and partners around the world and, Growing a Better Future shows how the food system is at once a driver of this fragility and highly vulnerable to it, and why in the twenty-first century it leaves 925 million people hungry. The report presents new research forecasting price rises for staple grains in the range of 120–180 per cent within the next two decades, as resource pressures mount and climate change takes hold.

    
Growing a better future (oxfam)

     

  Conflict without borders

   
The potential damage caused by highly sophisticated computer viruses was underlined last year with the discovery of the Stuxnet virus, which successfully disrupted Iran's uranium enrichment programme.The emerging threats we face are … breathtakingly complicated and far more sinister, far more deadly and far, far more likely [to be used]. Modern technology increasingly allows the individual to bring to bear industrial violence against our citizens previously the exclusive right of states …

   
Modern technology & threats  (guardian)
   

  HSBC study: The Future of Retirement

     
HSBC’s The Future of Retirement programme is a world-leading independent study into global retirement trends. It provides authoritative insights into the key issues associated with ageing populations and increasing life expectancy around the world. The 2011 report, The power of planning, is the sixth in the series and is based on interviews with more than 17,000 respondents in 17 countries.

   
Global retirement trends (hsbc)

    

  Civilizing the Internet edition

    
Doctors and dentists tell patients, "all your review are belong to us": Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews, and medical privacy laws do make it tricky for them to respond when their work is unfairly maligned. The growing use of censorious copyright assignments recently caught the attention of law professors, who created a site called Doctored Reviews to educate doctors and patients about the phenomenon.

    
Copyright provisions (arstechnica)

    

  The Startup Genome Report

    
Today we are releasing the first Startup Genome Report with in-depth analysis on what makes internet startups successful based on data from over 650 startups. Here is a small window into the report with 14 indicators of succes. Hundreds of people built social networks before Mark Zuckerberg came along. But Facebook emerged as the winner, and it now has the potential to grow into the most important company of this era.

    
What makes internet startups successful ? (startupgenome)
     

  GE's big bet on Natural Gas

    
GE (NYSE: GE), whose technology helps to deliver a quarter of the world’s electricity, today announced a first-of-its-kind power plant engineered to deliver an unprecedented combination of flexibility and efficiency. By rapidly ramping up and down in response to fluctuations in wind and solar power, the technology will enable the integration of more renewable resources into the power grid.

   
Combination of flexibility (genewscenter)

    

  Automotive Black Boxes

     
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will later this year propose a requirement that all new vehicles contain an event data recorder, known more commonly as a “black box.” The device, similar to those found in aircraft, records vehicle inputs and, in the event of a crash, provides a snapshot of the final moments before impact.

    
Highway Traffic Safety (wired)
     

  Future EU bio-based economy

    
Lowering trade barriers for renewable raw materials would be a first step for Europe to reach its EU2020 goals, concludes a policy paper released by Cefic – the European Chemical Industry Council. The Cefic paper, published during EU Green Week, notes that removal of import duties for renewable raw materials forms the heart of a much-needed market-based policy approach.

    
Renewable raw materials (cefic)

   

  Designing the Green Climate Fund

    
under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that industrialized countries must assume a large share of the global emission reduction target, adapting to the existing and future consequences of climate change will be a greater challenge for developing countries. In recognition of this, in 2009 developed countries proposed a fund of up to US$100 billion per year to help developing countries.

   
The global emission reduction target   (environmentmagazine)

    

  Research known as open science

    
Bill Gates has said that if he were a teenager today, he would be working on biotechnology, not computer software. There are many interpretations of what open science means, with different motivations across different disciplines. Some are driven by the backlash against corporate-funded science, with its profit-driven research agenda. Others are internet radicals who take the "information wants to be free" slogan literally.

    
What open science means ? (guardian)

    

  Drones are Ready for Takeoff

    
Until now, drone aircraft have been confined largely to war zones—most recently in Libya—and they have become controversial for killing civilians along with insurgents. But critics and boosters alike say unmanned aircraft will increasingly be used for peacetime work. They disagree about the likely scale of the industry, but the Federal Aviation Administration is already considering new rules and training staffers to adjust to unmanned aircraft in U.S. airspace.

   
New rules ahead for Drones (smithsonianmag)

    

  Facility Management Best Practices

     
While best practices and automation are not alien to the real estate (RE) and facility management (FM) fields, they haven’t been as rapidly adopted compared to other industries. Most RE/FM organizations have grown organically, with generations of management building their businesses traditionally, in their own ways, if not always the most efficient ways. This tradition-laden organizational evolution has served most RE/FM reasonably well, whether on a small scale or throughout a global portfolio.

    
Facility management (FM) fields (areadevelopment)

    

  Germany & Food safety rules

     
Consumers worried about filthy kitchens full of rotting food will soon know just how clean German restaurants are thanks to a new hygiene rating system set to begin in 2012. A "traffic light" scheme will show which eateries are spick-and-span -- and which have nasties lurking under the cupboards. Finding a random hair in an entrée can be distressing enough, but there are a host of other potential hygiene dangers that are often invisible to restaurant customers, hidden behind closed kitchen doors.

    
How clean are German restaurants? (spiegel)

    

  Biogen drug: EU backs Acorda

    
In a surprise reversal, European regulators have recommended approving Acorda Therapeutics Inc's drug Fampyra, sending the company's shares up as much as 21 percent. Fampyra is designed to improve the walking ability of patients with multiple sclerosis. The European Medicines Agency, which advises the European Commission on whether to approve new drugs, said in a statement it has recommended giving the drug conditional approval.

    
Acorda approved by European regulators (reuters)

    

  Thoughts From The Frontline

     
It seems like we have to pay more and more attention to politicians and what they are doing and less and less to our economic theory. But that is the nature of the Endgame. And this is not just in the US, but all over the world. The choices that voters make, and then the things the politicians do, are becoming ever more important. Those choices can mean the difference between Muddle Through and a recession here and there, a full-on Depression 2.0, or even hyperinflation in some countries...

   
Full-on Depression 2.0 (businessinsider)

    

  Fuel Cell Cars by 2015

    
According to Andreas Truckenbrodt, CEO of the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation company that combines the hydrogen research of Ford and Daimler, automakers are very committed, and planning on ramping up volumes quickly. Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai-Kia and Toyota are all planning on introducing fuel-cell cars in 2015, with what he said was “tens of thousands of cars per manufacturer,” moving to as many as 100,000 per company by 2020.

    
Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation (bent)

     

  Firefox 5 rapid release

    
Mozilla released a beta version of Firefox yesterday, its first on a new quick-release plan intended to bring features to browser users and Web developers sooner. Mozilla is following in Google's Chrome footsteps with a faster release cycle that means new versions arrive more rapidly but the differences from their predecessors are less dramatic. It also means a major change in version number doesn't mean a major overhaul has taken place.

    
Beta version of Firefox (cnet)

     

  Eye-tracking-google

    
With Google changing the way websites advertise on the web, many companies have galvanised their businesses by investing significant amounts of money into Google’s Adwords platform to rank above their competitors and turn clicks into conversions. However, a study by Internet research firm Miratech suggests advertisers should not focus on out-bidding their competitors to rank top of Google’s sponsored listings, for second position gets more attention than the top ranked listing.

    
The way websites advertise on the web (miratech)

     

  Cloud computing: Hidden danger

   
Lawyers disagree about the security of so-called "cloud computing." But what about clients? Do clients really want their lawyers to entrust their confidences and secrets (that is, the kind that we lawyers swear to take to the grave) to "The Cloud"? One implication of storing client data on "The Cloud" is that a government entity may issue a subpoena to the third party (that is, the administrators of the remote server where the data is stored, aka, "The Cloud" server) commanding them to produce the data.

   
Security of so-called "cloud computing" (thedrum)

    

  The economic design of control charts

      
As Shewhart wrote on page 276 of his book, Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product, (D. Van Nostrand Co., 1931): “How then shall we establish allowable limits on the variability of samples? Obviously, the basis for such limits must be, in the last analysis, empirical. Under such conditions it seems reasonable to choose limits q1 and q2 on some statistic such that the associated probability P is economic in the sense now to be explained.

   
Quality of Manufactured Product (qualitydigest)

    

  GE and EADS & Printing Technology

    
Technology for printing three-dimensional objects has existed for decades, but its applications have been largely limited to novelty items and specialized custom fabrication, such as the making of personalized prosthetics. But the technology has now improved. As a result, companies such as GE and the European defense and aerospace giant EADS are working to apply it in situations more akin to conventional manufacturing, where large numbers of the same part are need.

GE and EADS to Print Parts for Airplanes (technologyreview)
   

  China Renewable Energy Industry

     
“China has become the single largest driver for global wind power development. In 2010, every second wind turbine that was added anywhere in the world was installed in China,” Steve Sawyer, the Global Wind Energy Council’s (GWEC) secretary general, said earlier in April. The wind market in the Asian country doubled each year between 2005 and 2009, while in 2010 the total installed capacity arrived at 44.7 gigawatts.

    
China global wind power development (china-briefing)

    

  The camera megapixel race

    
Megapixels are the digital camera market's equivalent of horsepower and megahertz—a single metric that consumers and marketers latch on to tenaciously, despite the fact that it hardly describes overall performance. Over the last several years, camera manufacturers have been pumping up the megapixels on each successive camera model, regardless of whether such increases offered any real benefits (hint: they usually did not).

   
Digital camera market (arstechnica)

    

  The power of placebos

     
A recent survey, led by McGill Psychiatry Professor and Senior Lady Davis Institute Researcher Amir Raz, reports that one in five respondents – physicians and psychiatrists in Canadian medical schools – have administered or prescribed a placebo. Moreover, an even higher proportion of psychiatrists (more than 35 per cent) reported prescribing subtherapeutic doses of medication (that is, doses that are below, sometimes considerably below, the minimal recommended therapeutic level) to treat their patients.

   
Placebos survey (innovations-report)

    

  Microsoft Word Nightmares

    
Microsoft (MSFT) Word can keep you up all night, and not only because you've got writer's block. You change the font, and Word changes it back. The columns don't line up. The program freezes up, taking your work with it. If Word Fails to Load, talk about a nightmare. You load your word processor, and it either freezes up or closes down. You can't do anything with it. Chances are that your Normal template has been corrupted.

   
Five common Word disasters (cio)

    

  Local food pioneers head to Spain

    
Stephen and Inez Ribustello have been developing a reputation as pioneers in Tarboro’s local food movement ever since they opened On the Square almost a decade ago. Husband, wife and restaurant have won their share of epicurean accolades — Inez, in fact, was elected a runner up in the American Sommelier Association’s 2009 Best Sommelier in America competition — while at the same time tailoring their menu to support the local farming community and promote the superior flavors and sustainability of local products.

    
Tarboro’s local food movement (rockymounttelegram)

   

  Albert Einstein was right

    
After working for half a century and spending £500m, scientists last week revealed that they have detected strange fluctuations in Earth's orbit. Space-time is bent and then twisted round our planet as it rotates, announced researchers with Nasa's Gravity Probe B project. The effect is tiny but crucial, they added – and was predicted almost 100 years ago by Albert Einstein in his great theory of gravity, general relativity.

  
The Einstein'S Predicted Effects (guardian)

  

  Solar Power Without Solar Cells?

     
A dramatic and surprising magnetic effect of light discovered by University of Michigan researchers could lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells. The researchers found a way to make an “optical battery,” says Stephen Rand, a professor in the departments of electrical engineering and computer science, physics, and applied physics. In the process, they overturned a century-old tenet of physics.

   
A way to make an "optical battery" (qualitydigest)

     

  ISO 14155:2011/ Good -MED Practices

    
Thousands of new medical devices enter the market every year. Are they safe? A new ISO International Standard will help to assess better the safety and performance of medical devices and so improve the protection of patients, provide a technical basis for regulation and minimize technical barriers to trade. ISO 14155:2011, Clinical investigation of medical devices for human subjects – Good clinical practice, will help to improve the quality of medical devices.

     
ISO std. for safety Medical devices (iso)
    

  Fishing for Funding

       
Genomics gave new meaning to the phrase “big data.” One person’s genome, for instance, consists of 3 billion base pairs. Spelling out the order of, or sequencing, each pair requires about two bits of computer storage, making the whole genome’s storage size 12 billion bits. This translates to about 1.5 gigabytes of data. A modern machine can sequence more than 500 billion base pairs in a week or just over.

    
The way genomic science is funded (scienceprogress)
     

  EU biodiversity strategy

     
The strategy follows work by the EU executive's in-house research facility, the Joint Research Centre, on mapping ecosystem services at EU level, the first draft of which - known as "the atlas of ecosystem services" - was published in March. It also follows work carried out by the European Environment Agency (EEA) on ecosystem services accounting in Europe.

    
Mapping ecosystem services (euractiv)

      

  Leading tourist destinations

   
The top echelons of the global tourism industry are now only partly German-speaking: as a holiday destination, Austria has slipped two places compared with 2008 in the "Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011", and now ranks fourth. By contrast, Germany has made further progress amongst the leading trio, and is now positioned behind global tourism champion Switzerland in second spot.

    
The global tourism industry (ameinfo)
   

  EU - Russia bans meat

     
Pigs Produced in US Tests Reveal High Levels of Hormones, Chemicals Pigs Produced in US Tests Reveal High Levels of Hormones, Chemicals Canada imports a great amount of US pork, beef and chicken and have no standards on the excess use of hormones, antibiotics or gmo in the products they buy from the United States. No matter how hard the lobbyists, politicians and presidents push made in USA food products today are being banned in many countries.

    
Meat industry & key issues (meattradenewsdaily)

     

  Battle pits Cocoa speculators

    
From wheat to rice to soybeans -- have become objects of speculation. While cocoa speculators are threatening the survival of some of Germany's oldest chocolate makers, entrepreneurs in Ghana are trying to give farmers a larger share of the profits. Cocoa makes up one of the world's smallest commodities markets. Indeed, the annual harvest amounts to only 3.5 million tons, with more than half coming from Ivory Coast and its eastern neighbor, Ghana.

   
Why do we speculate on cocoa? (spiegel)

     

  First zero-carbon city

      
Conceived in 2006, phase one of the city is now complete after three years' work and a spend of $1.4bn. The development, near Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, consists of six main buildings, one street, 101 small apartments, a large electronic library, and the Masdar Institute. This offshoot campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has 167 students and 43 academics, most of whom are from other countries, the US, Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the Middle East.

    
Masdar: Offshoot campus of MIT (guardian)

    

  Steve Jobs, Come Clean!

     
U.S. Sen. Al Franken is seeking answers from Apple after a pair of researchers this week discovered that Apple’s iPhone and iPad 3G have been keeping track of everywhere their owners go. “Obviously there are things about location tracking that can be useful,” Franken said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “It can be very useful for Apple to share this data with people who want to advertise. There’s a business model around that. But this situation seems out of balance.”

 
Owners 'tracked by iPhones' (news.yahoo)

     

  EU-Mediterranean Free Trade Area

   
To avoid the emergence of new dividing lines between the larger EU and its neighbours, the aim of the ENP has been to promote prosperity, stability and security while offering the partner countries a privileged relationship with the EU in the form of deeper economic integration and political association. The degree of integration is set out to depend on the extent to which a certain number of values are shared, namely democracy, human rights, rule of law, market economy and good governance.

   
investment in the South-Med countries (animaweb)

    

  Private sector & UN Environ. talks

     
Yvo de Boer, the former UN climate chief, has called for the private sector to participate in international negotiations about the financing of the yearly $100 billion Green Climate Fund. He spoke to EurActiv in an exclusive interview. "We're in need of some kind of consultative mechanism to help bring private sector perspectives into this debate," De Boer told EurActiv.

    
Private sector & UN Environ. talks (euractiv)

    

  Automation standards & Cybersecu. threats

     
The emergence of the Stuxnet worm last summer has forced process companies to redouble their cybersecurity efforts. It has also provoked a lot of activity from various standards authorities. According to the ISA, Stuxnet is the first known malware to have been specifically written with the intent to compromise a control system and sabotage an industrial process. The ANSI/ISA99 standards address the vital issue of cybersecurity for industrial automation and control systems.

     
Cybersecurity threats (engineerlive)

     

  Steps Closer to Design Babies

      
A new approach to testing the genes of early-stage fetuses could radically alter the experience of pregnancy and parenting from as early as five weeks, leading to a potentially dangerous moral quandary. The technique being developed analyzes fetal DNA that is collected from women’s blood as early as five weeks into a pregnancy. So-called “noninvasive prenatal diagnosis,” or NIPD, may hit the market as a test for Down syndrome later this year.

    
Prenatal genetic testing (scienceprogress)

    

  NUK: Trillion-Dollar Question

    
With nuclear plants costing several billion dollars apiece, the answer to those questions may be worth a trillion dollars to the nuclear industry. Little wonder that the main players have rushed to reassure their clients that all is well. Today, there are 62 reactors under construction, mainly in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), with 158 more on order or planned and another 324 proposed, according to World Nuclear Association data from just before Fukushima.

    
NUK answers could save trillion $ (huffingtonpost)

    

  Gm Crops: Environ. & Socio-Eco. impacts

   
GM technology has had a significant positive impact on farm income derived from a combination of enhanced productivity and efficiency gains (Table 1). In 2009, the direct global farm income benefit from biotech crops was $10.8 billion. This is equivalent to having added 5.8% to the value of global production of the four main crops of soybeans, maize, canola and cotton.

  
GM technO. & Environment (pgeconomics)
     

  Through the looking glass

     
Girls do better in their exams, more of them go to university and, for the first time, women aged 22–29 have closed the gender pay gap, with young women getting paid 2.1 per cent more than their male peers. But alongside this success, British teenage girls experience worse rates of binge drinking, worse levels of physical inactivity and more frequent incidences of teen pregnancy than their European counterparts.

    
UK Girls & binge drinking (demos)
    

  Global IT Report 2010–2011

    
The Global Information Technology Report 2010–2011 features the latest results of the NRI, offering an overview of the current state of ICT readiness in the world. This year’s coverage includes a record number of 138 economies from both the developing and developed world, accounting for over 98 percent of global GDP.

   
IT Report (weforum)
   

  ISO/IEC 20000-1 Second Edition

     
Many of the significant changes are linked to applicability of Part 1 and the definition of the scope of the service management system and within that, service management. The first edition of Part 1 has a solitary requirement for scope to be defined as part of planning. Defining the scope is a complex part of service management, so Part 1 now includes requirements for how this is to be done. This is supported by the scenario based advice in Part 3, published in 2009.

   
ISO 20000-1 significant changes (itpreport)
     

  NIH genomic analysis

     
A team led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health is the first to systematically survey the landscape of the melanoma genome, the DNA code of the deadliest form of skin cancer. The researchers have made surprising new discoveries using whole-exome sequencing, an approach that decodes the 1-2 percent of the genome that contains protein-coding genes.

   
Discoveries: whole-exome sequencing (nih)
    

  Productivity on software projects

   
Software projects are notorious for getting into schedule trouble. And with that trouble comes more trouble. More often than not, overtime is seen as a way of getting a project back on track and appeasing the “higher ups” that the project team is committed to its work and that they are doing everything possible to get the project across the finish line.

   
Project team commitment (developer)

   

  Finland's paper mills battle the internet

    
The paper industry's raw material costs have been rocketing, and since the rapid growth of the internet, demand for paper is in free fall. Henri Parkkinen, an analyst at Pohjola, says: "The main issue for the paper business is the fact there is declining paper demand and escalating costs. It has been the same story for the past few years. Fifty per cent of the end users are advertisers and they are shifting to mobile and internet."

    
Shift from paper to digital (independent)

  

  Cyberspy vs. cyberspy

   
As America and China grow more economically and financially intertwined, the two nations have also stepped up spying on each other. Today, most of that is done electronically, with computers rather than listening devices in chandeliers or human moles in tuxedos. According to U.S. investigators, China has stolen terabytes of sensitive data -- from usernames and passwords for State Department computers to designs for multi-billion dollar weapons systems.

Spying on each other (reuters)

    

  Explanation for smell gains traction

    
Experiments using tiny wires show that as electrons move on proteins within the nose, odor molecules could absorb these quanta and thereby be detected. If the theory is right, by extending these studies, an "electronic nose" superior to any chemical sensor could be devised. But how precisely an odorant molecule is detected remains a mystery.

    
Electronic nose as new sensor (bbc)
    

  Ten reasons to get out of IT

     
You're probably very attached to your life in IT, but it might take less than you think to make you consider other career options. Despite the positive aspects of life in IT, circumstances may conspire to nudge you towards the exit. In fact, IT jobs that don't involve stress are rare. Remember, IT is disaster management. When a client or user calls you, it's almost always because of an emergency that must be dealt with immediately.

     
Reasons for IT job exit (zdnet)

     

  Microsoft: IE9's web privacy hole?

    
A hole has been spotted in Internet Explorer 9's do-not-track technology, and Microsoft says it's a feature not a bug. In response to a US government call for greater protection of consumers' privacy online, Microsoft added a Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) feature to IE9. Netizens can use one or more lists to prevent certain ad networks and websites from tracking their behavior online.

    
IE9 & Tracking Protection Lists (theregister)

    

  Gazprom & the Rule of EU Law

   
Russian officials are openly dismissive of EU energy liberalization and are outraged at the idea that Gazprom's operations within the EU should be subject to EU competition and liberalization law. The deputy chairman of the Duma, Valeri Yazev, speaking to the Brussels press corps recently, argued that liberalization would inflict on Gazprom "direct economic prejudice," and demanded a change in the rules of the game.

  
EU energy liberalization (online.wsj)

    

  International Arms Transfers

   
The volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons for the period 2006–10 was 24 per cent higher than for the period 2001–2005. The five biggest suppliers in 2006–10 were the United States, Russia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The top five suppliers accounted for 75 per cent of all exports of major conventional weapons in 2006–10, compared with 80 per cent in 2001–2005.

   
SIPRI report (books.sipri)
    

  The future of cars

   
If today's traffic is like a bloom of bacteria that responds collectively to changes in the environment, then tomorrow's networked traffic, where all the cars are linked to the road, to the cloud, and to one another by a wireless nervous system, will be more like a fully formed, adaptive and evolving organism. In addition to the existing network of sensors already embedded in roads and highways, the cars themselves will become collections of sensors enmeshed in a peer-to-peer wireless network.

    
Cars & High-tech (arstechnica)

    

  Understanding Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

   
Following the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan has been challenging. At best, even those present at the site have a limited view of what’s going on inside the reactors themselves, and the situation has changed rapidly over the last several days. Meanwhile, the terminology involved is somewhat confusing—some fuel rods have almost certainly melted, but we have not seen a meltdown.

    
Japan' nuclear crises (wired)

    

  Caution over RSA security breach

   
Several security analysts today urged companies that are using SecurID to review their authentication measures and to shore them up if necessary. Until RSA releases further details on the breach it is best to assume that SecurID is vulnerable, they added. In an embarrassing admission for a security company, RSA said on Thursday that unknown intruders had stolen information relating to its SecurID technology in what it described as "extremely sophisticated cyber attack against RSA".

   
RSA security breach (computerworld)

    

  New process: oil-tar extraction

    
A new, more environmentally friendly method of separating oil from tar sands has been developed by a team of researchers at Penn State. This method, which utilizes ionic liquids to separate the heavy viscous oil from sand, also is capable of cleaning oil spills from beaches and separating oil from drill cuttings, the solid particles that must be removed from drilling fluids in oil and gas wells.