IN 1975 scientists expert in a new and potentially world-changing technology, genetic engineering, gathered at Asilomar, on the Monterey peninsula in California, to ponder the ethics and safety of the course they were embarking on. The year before, they had imposed on themselves a voluntary moratorium on experiments which involved the transfer of genes from one species to another, amid concerns about the risk to human health and to the environment which such “transgenic” creations might pose. Continue reading Messing with our planet
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IN MORE than 30 years of teaching introductory macroeconomics, says Alan Blinder of Princeton University, he has never seen interest as high as it was last year. At Harvard, says David Laibson, students in his undergraduate macroeconomics course are “chomping at the bit”. Continue reading Rewriting Macroeconomics Curriculum PROVIDENCE – Brown University said Thursday it admitted just 9.3 percent of those who applied to join its Class of 2014, making this the most selective year in the school’s history. Continue reading Brown 2014 In the most selective admission process in the University’s history, Princeton has offered admission to 2,148, or 8.18 percent, of the record 26,247 applicants for the class of 2014. This compares to an admission rate of 9.79 percent at this time last year, and 9.25 percent the previous year. Continue reading Princeton 2014 As MIT students celebrated π day this Sunday, 10,948 high school seniors waited nervously by their computers for the Class of 2014 admissions decisions. Continue reading MIT 2014 A record-low 6.9 percent of applicants have been accepted to the Harvard College Class of 2014. Continue reading Harvard 2014 Yale College admitted 7.5 percent of its applicants to the class of 2014, equaling last year’s record low rate. Continue reading Yale 2014 The takeover of Cadbury by Kraft seems to symbolise a hollowing-out of corporate Britain. The truth is rather more complicated. THE Thames Valley provides two contrasting examples of what happens when foreign companies buy British ones. Continue reading Small island for sale THE renewable-fuel standard released in February by America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paints an ambitious picture of biofuels’ future. It wants the amount of the stuff used as transport fuel to climb from 13 billion gallons (49 billion litres) in 2010 to 36 billion gallons in 2022, requiring by far the largest part of that increase to come from various advanced biofuels, rather than ethanol made from corn (maize). But although the future looks exciting, the present is rather grim. Continue reading Coming up emptyAdmission decisions will, in fact, be released sometime after 3pm (Pacific Time) today, March 26, six days ahead of schedule. Continue reading Stanford 2014MANHASSET, NY — Researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have successfully created a transistor made from a single molecule. The researchers showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor. Continue reading Single Molecule Transistor The tyres of the future may be made from dandelions. OTHER than being an ingredient of the more recherché sorts of salad, herbal tea or wine, dandelions are pretty useless plants. Or, at least, they were. But one species, a Russian variety called Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS), may yet make the big time. It produces molecules of rubber in its sap and if two research programmes, one going on in Germany and one in America, come to fruition, it could supplement—or even replace—the traditional rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. Continue reading Rubber from Dandelions A team led by Harvard researchers has discovered a family of naturally occurring proteins in human cells that protect against influenza and other illnesses—a finding that may lead to methods to speed up vaccine production and to new flu prevention drugs for humans. Marin Soljacic couldn’t sleep. The problem was his wife’s Nokia cell phone. The tyrannical device beeped on the bedside table when it needed to be plugged in. It could not be disabled. How a new communications technology disrupted America’s newspaper industry — in 1845. CHANGE is in the air. A new communications technology threatens a dramatic upheaval in America’s newspaper industry, overturning the status quo and disrupting the business model that has served the industry for years. This “great revolution”, warns one editor, will mean that some publications “must submit to destiny, and go out of existence.” With many American papers declaring bankruptcy in the past few months, their readers and advertisers lured away by cheaper alternatives on the internet, this doom-laden prediction sounds familiar. But it was in fact made in May 1845, when the revolutionary technology of the day was not the internet—but the electric telegraph. Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94. Copying Birds may save aircraft fuel.
Source: The Economist. Photo: Corbis All elephants living in Indian zoos and circuses will be moved to wildlife parks and game sanctuaries where the animals can graze more freely, officials said Friday. Continue reading Elephant Camps A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm. Continue reading Giant Crack in Africa LONDON – Ireland is to ban the traditional lightbulb with householders forced to switch to new long-life low-energy bulbs. Legislation is being introduced to ban the sale of the normal incandescent lightbulb from January, 2009 so as the normal lightbulb breaks, householders will have to replace them with the more environmentally friendly long-life bulb which uses far less energy. Continue reading Irish Carbon Budget PORTLAND, Ore. — Diatoms–single-celled phytoplankton (algae)–are one of the most plentiful life forms on Earth, accounting for 20 percent of the carbon dioxide removed from the environment each year. The mechanism they use–encasing themselves in patterned silicon dioxide shells as they fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes worldwide–removes as much carbon dioxide from the environment as all of the planet’s rainforests combined. Continue reading Diatoms PORTLAND, Ore. — The hydrogen economy is getting a shot in the arm from a start-up that says its nanoparticle coatings could make hydrogen easy to produce at home from distilled water, and ultimately bring the cost of hydrogen fuel cells in line with that of fossil fuels. QuantumSphere Inc. says it has perfected the manufacture of highly reactive catalytic nanoparticle coatings that could up the efficiency of electrolysis, the technique that generates hydrogen from water. Moreover, the coatings could also eliminate the need for expensive metals like platinum in hydrogen fuel cells. Continue reading Car fuel from water A tiny chemical “brain” which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented. The molecular device – just two billionths of a metre across – was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test. Continue reading Molecular Machines PORTLAND, Ore. — Thermoelectric coolers and power generators were handed a 40-percent boost in performance recently by a nanotechnological reconstruction of a classic bulk material. The technique is suitable for mass production, according to its inventors at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Continue reading Bismuth Antimony Telluride After 38 years, Israeli solves math code. A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard. Continue reading Road Coloring Problem
Wall Street Journal | September 12, 2009 Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe. Continue reading Doomsday Seed Vault LONDON (Reuters) – A 17-year-old Briton became the youngest person to sail round the globe single-handed on Thursday after nine months at sea. Continue reading Youngest circumnavigator An adhesive made by worms inspires a new treatment for broken bones. Continue reading Biomimicry Celebrating 400th anniversary of Galileo’s Telescope. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14213985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
Wild elephants cross a road at the Kerala – Karnataka state border (Bandipur forest) in India. Photo by K. K. Mustafa | The Hindu | 19 August 2009 Triple Olympic champion Usain Bolt set a new world record as he cruised to a stunning victory in the 100m at the World Championships in Berlin. The 22-year-old Jamaican stormed home in a time of 9.58 seconds to leave the rest of the field in his wake. Continue reading Bolt 9.58s Built in 427 AD, world’s first university predating Harvard and Oxford.
At a summit meeting of leaders next week in the Philippines, senior officials from India, Singapore, Japan and perhaps other countries are scheduled to discuss the revival of an ancient university in India called Nalanda. Continue reading University Predating Harvard and Oxford Google Earth’s got some competition now — from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which today unveiled its beta version of Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit). Continue reading Bhuvan challenging Google Earth Between GPS devices on your car’s dashboard and digital maps of almost any locale in the world on your smartphone or laptop, it’s hard to get lost these days. Continue reading Mapping the world A flying frog, the world’s smallest deer and the first new monkey to be found in over a century are among 350 new species discovered in the eastern Himalayas in the past decade, the WWF said Monday. Continue reading Flying Frogs Stars in a distant galaxy move at stunning speeds — greater than 1 million mph, astronomers have revealed. Continue reading 1 million mph BANGALORE – Red-hot chili peppers could soon come to India’s defense. The country’s defense scientists are working on using the world’s hottest chilies in hand grenades for use in counter-insurgency operations and riot control. Continue reading World’s Hottest Chili
Solar Eclipse July 22, 2009 | New Delhi, India Zac Sunderland completes solo sail around the world.
The 17-year-old from Thousand Oaks is the youngest sailor to complete the feat. The journey lasted 13 months. Zac Sunderland, who left Marina del Rey 13 months ago with a bold ambition to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, returned to complete that quest today at 10:30 a.m. Continue reading Sailing solo around the world The Times of India Online has emerged as the world’s No.1 English newspaper website in terms of page views. According to the latest figures from internet marketing research company ComScore, timesofindia.com with 159 million page views in May 2009 was way ahead of the New York Times, Sun, Washington Post, Daily Mail and USA Today websites. Continue reading Largest English Newspaper Henry Kissinger on Obama’s Opportunity to Forge a Peaceful U.S. Foreign PolicySPIEGEL: Dr. Kissinger, 90 years ago, at the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Is that an event of the past only of interest to historians or does it still shape contemporary politics? Continue reading Lessons from VersaillesFinancial Times | Jonathan Leahy | June 26 2009
India’s government has launched one of the biggest bureaucratic exercises in the country’s history – the issue of a single identity card for each of its 1.1bn citizens. Continue reading World’s Largest Database RAY HENRY | June 25, 2009 09:53 PM EST Rhode Island Slavery Legacy Prompting Name Change PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The country’s smallest state has the longest official name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” A push to drop “Providence Plantations” from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the “State of Rhode Island.” It’s an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it’s an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island’s tradition of religious liberty and tolerance. Continue reading Renaming Rhode Island
Source: yosemitehikes WASHINGTON: When the letter with the 90-cent Lincoln stamp was mailed in 1873 by an ice exporter in Boston to his office in Calcutta, Mohandas Gandhi (later Mahatma) was a toddler of four, Narendranath Dutta (later Swami Vivekananda) was a stripling of ten, and Ulysses Grant (later to visit Calcutta) was President of the United States. According to Roman legend, there once was a cruel boy who tortured a fox by tying straw to its tail and then setting the straw ablaze. The god Robigus was so outraged that he punished humanity with wheat rust, a fungal nightmare that leaves crops looking as though they had been burned. STOCKHOLM (AFP) – A 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300 years, Swedish media reported on Thursday. The dive to 10,902m (6.8 miles) took place on 31 May, at the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean. Californian school kids have been told to throw away their textbooks to help the state avoid bankruptcy. But they won’t need total recall — they’re going digital instead. The textbooks have been terminated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilding state governor who says they are “outdated” and too expensive. BENIPUR VILLAGE, India — Advertisers in India can’t rely on TV, radio or even newspapers to reach the country’s 700 million rural consumers. So they use Sandeep Sharma. http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2009061204 http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4608799.cms http://www.myyearbook.com/our_story.php Usain Bolt ran the 100 metres in a breathtaking 9.77 seconds – the fastest time in the world this year – at the IAAF Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava.
Whenever a new gadget hits the streets, it’s a race to see who will be the first to reduce to its constituent pieces. With the launch of the iPhone 3G S we’ve got a pair of different companies doing their darndest to disassemble the latest iteration of Apple’s iconic device. Frankly, I’d be happy to have one fully assembled right now, but the FedEx guy has shown up yet. |
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