Five Memorable Quotes |
Fifty Positive Developments |
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In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
-- Eric Hoffer
(via Wisdom Quotes)
- - - - -
Humanity is going through some very, very important
kind of transition into some kind of new relationship to the Universe, I'd
say, the kind of acceleration that would occur after the child has been formed
in the womb, taking the nine months, and suddenly begins to issue from the
womb out into an entirely new world.
- - - - -
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked
out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who,
while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently
and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American
People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United
States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign
lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day
of Thanksgiving andPraise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
- - - - -
The information age has been driven and dominated
by “technopreneurs”--a small army of "geeks" who have reshaped our world faster
than any Alexander, Napoleon or Genghis Khan could.
And that was the easy part. We now have to apply communications
technologies to save lives, improve livelihoods and eventually lift millions
of people out of squalor, misery and suffering.
I voted then, for Saddam, of course, because I was afraid. But this time, I came here by my own choice. I am not afraid anymore. I am a free man.
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Item 1
Surely no one will
think this is geeky...
The Tummy PC is my name for a lightweight (1.8 lbs) wearable, J-class clamshell handheld personal computer (HPC), worn like a "tummy pack," with nylon fabric covering the case. When the clamshell is open, the screen sits out in space, approximately 4" from the waistline of the wearer, for comfortable touchscreen navigation (picture right). When it is closed the fabric case cover makes the mini-PC look like a tummy pack (second picture right), and includes a pouch for a second battery (always helpful on the road).
The good news:
This is a first step -- maybe not the step we were looking for, but a step nonetheless -- towards true wearable computers. A few years from now, when we have real-time feeds directly into our optic nervesand the ability to pipe iTunes straight into our brains, will we even remember pioneers such as Tummy PC user shown here? Stalwart individuals unshaken by the the narrow worldviews of others or the stigma surrounding the term fanny pack.
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Item
2
Successful Space Elevator
Test
A private group has taken one small step toward the prospect of building a futuristic space elevator.
LiftPort Group Inc., of Bremerton, Wash., has successfully tested a robot climber — a novel piece of hardware that reeled itself up and down a lengthy ribbon dangling from a high-altitude balloo
The good news:
Space elevators will deliver on the promise of frequent, safe, and inexpensive transportation of people and goods into low Earth orbit. As Bradley Carl Edwards explained it recently in IEE Spectrum Online:
It all boils down to dollars and cents, of course. It now costs about US $20 000 per kilogram to put objects into orbit. Contrast that rate with the results of a study I recently performed for NASA, which concluded that a single space elevator could reduce the cost of orbiting payloads to a remarkably low $200 a kilogram and that multiple elevators could ultimately push costs down below $10 a kilogram. With space elevators we could eventually make putting people and cargo into space as cheap, kilogram for kilogram, as airlifting them across the Pacific.
The implications of such a dramatic reduction in the cost of getting to Earth orbit are startling. It's a good bet that new industries would blossom as the resources of the solar system became accessible as never before. Take solar power: the idea of building giant collectors in orbit to soak up some of the sun's vast power and beam it back to Earth via microwaves has been around for decades. But the huge size of the collectors has made the idea economically unfeasible with launch technologies based on chemical rockets. With a space elevator's much cheaper launch costs, however, the economics of space-based solar power start looking good.
The downside:
This test is nice as far as it goes, but that isn't very far. One could argue that, of all the huge obstacles that need to be overcome in order to build the world's first space elevator, this is the easiest.
On the other hand...
It's said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A thousand-foot climb is a very tiny step indeed in the space elevator scale, but it is a step.
Arthur C. Clarke recently observed:
As its most enthusiastic promoter, I am often asked when I think the first space elevator might be built. My answer has always been: about 50 years after everyone has stopped laughing. Maybe I should now revise it to 25 years.
Glenn Reynolds notes that the laughter has pretty much stopped.
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Item 3
The Singularity
is Near
The singularity is a future period in which technological progress becomes so rapid that it radically transforms humankind. To picture the singularity imagine computers trillions of times smarter than Newton, Einstein and Edison inventing new technologies while continually enhancing their own abilities. Ray Kurzweil argues that the Singularity will occur around 2045.
The Good News:
It is reported that Ray Kurzweil's book is now #14 on the New York Times bestseller list. A whole new segment of the population is being introduced to fundamental ideas about accelerating change.
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Item 4
Playing
a Shale Game
MEEKER, Colo. - Out in sagebrush country, Kenneth Brown is standing over part of the world's most concentrated energy resource, land that holds up to 1 million barrels of oil per acre.
The Downside:
Too bad it's locked up in layers of rock in some places hundreds of feet underground.
On the other hand...
Shell Exploration & Production Co. has been out here for nine years, trying to bake shale oil from the ground by using heating rods drilled into layers of rock.
"Things have progressed well in the last two years, which makes us feel good," said Brown, operations manager for Shell's closely guarded test in the middle of desolate Rio Blanco County, about 60 miles from tiny Meeker, the nearest town.
Shale will be, at best, a stop-gap measure along the way to more elegant energy solutions. But it's nice to know that there's a solution waiting in the wings to deal with the Peak Oil problem, should it rear its ugly head. Or that is to say, if it isn't doing so already.
Added Bonus:
The shale is here in Colorado. Oil boom, anyone?
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Item 5
Robots
that Build Themselves
Inspired by biological systems, scientists have developed miniature robots that can self-assemble using parts that float randomly in their environments. The robots also know when something is amiss and can correct their own mistakes.
Scientists have long been fascinated by how living cells are able to replicate DNA using building blocks floating randomly inside the cell’s nucleus. The interior of the nucleus is filled with a gel-like liquid known as nucleoplasm. The DNA building blocks, known as nucleotides, float around in this liquid like ingredients in a molecular soup. Also present in the nucleoplasm are proteins known as polymerases, which pluck nucleotides from the soup as needed when copying DNA.
The good news:
Self-assembling robots, particularly on the nanoscale, will play an important role in providing cures for virtually all diseases in the near future. And that's just one of their applications.
Consider this:
Self-assembly is a huge prerequisite for what J. Stoors Hall has dubbed utility fog:
Nanotechnology is based on the concept of tiny, self-replicating robots. The Utility Fog is a very simple extension of the idea: Suppose, instead of building the object you want atom by atom, the tiny robots linked their arms together to form a solid mass in the shape of the object you wanted? Then, when you got tired of that avant-garde coffeetable, the robots could simply shift around a little and you'd have an elegant Queen Anne piece instead.
You may as well make your car of Utility Fog, too; then you can have a "new" one every day. But better than that, the *interior* of the car is filled with robots as well as its shell. You'll need to wear holographic "eyephones" to see, but the Fog will hold them up in front of your eyes and they'll feel and look as if they weren't there. Although heavier than air, the Fog is programmed to simulate its physical properties, so you can't feel it: when you move your arm, it flows out of the way. Except when there's a crash! Then it forms an instant form-fitting "seatbelt" protecting every inch of your body. You can take a 100-mph impact without messing your hair.
The downside:
Of course, self-assembly is also the basis of the gray goo scenario, although that may not prove to be as big a threat as was once feared.
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Item 6
Mice
that (Re)Build Themselves
SCIENTISTS have created "miracle mice" that can regenerate amputated limbs or damaged vital organs, making them able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals.
The experimental animals are unique among mammals in their ability to regrow their heart, toes, joints and tail.
And when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate, the US-based researchers say.
The Good News:
The research leader, Ellen Heber-Katz, professor of immunology at the Wistar Institute, a US biomedical research centre, said the ability of the mice at her laboratory to regenerate organs appeared to be controlled by about a dozen genes.
Professor Heber-Katz says she is still researching the genes' exact functions, but it seems almost certain humans have comparable genes.
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Item 7
The
San Francisco Treat
Google Inc. has offered to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet access at no cost to the city, placing a marquee name behind Mayor Gavin Newsom's effort to get all residents online whether they are at home, in a park or in a cafe.
The offer by the popular Mountain View search engine was one of more than a dozen competing bids received by the city before its deadline Friday. Officials will review the submissions and decide which, if any, of the candidates gets the green light to build the so called Wi-Fi service, which would be free or inexpensive for users.
The good news:
Today San Francisco; tomorrow the world.
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Item 8
Juice
is the Answer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pomegranate juice, a deep red juice becoming popular as a health drink, works against prostate cancer cells in lab dishes and in mice, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Prostate tumors shrank in mice infected with human prostate tumors who drank pomegranate juice, the researchers report in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Good News:
Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer among men in the United States (after skin cancer.) Everybody reading this ough to think about pouring a glass of pomegranate juice for their dad or grandfather.
And if that's not enough...
Check out these 50 or so new treatments/major breakthroughs in understanding of cancer that New Scientist has compiled. Encouraging stuff.
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Item 9
Identity 2.0
Check out Dick Hardt's keynote address on the future of electronic identity from the recent OSCON 2005. The good news here is that we can expect solutions to some of the most annoying online identity-related difficulties that we face. Moreover, as you follow the highly entertaining and informative presentation, ask yourself this: is it possible to deny that we are, indeed, living in an ear of acclerating change? How much of Hardt's presentation could you explain to your parents or grandparents? How much of it would have made sense to you ten years ago?
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Item 10
Learning Like Children
Javier Movellan of UC San Diego is working to "create the world's first nondisappointing robot." Movellan is using two robots to teach and learn within the most chaotic of environments - preschool. His idea is to teach these learning and playing robots to interact with and relate to children much like children learn to relate with each other.
Movellan realized the potential power of "affective computing" in 2002.
The good news:[Movellan] was working in Kyoto at ATR, the Japanese government's robot research lab, sinking deeper and deeper into the mathematics of machine perception, drifting in the intellectual tides and feeling uninspired by it all. "I was very skeptical. There was a robot there, and I didn't like it. It would say things like 'Hug me! Hug me!' It really irritated me." One day Movellan found himself using the robot to test an early version of the face-tracking program that he and Fasel developed here in La Jolla. "It worked really, really well. As I was testing it, I kept moving, and this robot kept looking at me, and his eyes moved in a particular way, and I got close, and this robot kept looking at me. And then it hugged me. And it completely got me." Movellan was shocked by the strength of his own response. "I said, 'What's happening here? I know this thing is dead. I mean, it's not alive. But I would swear that this thing is alive.'"
If it is our destiny to share the planet with a new form of intelligence, it would be beneficial to find common ground. Growing up starts with socialization.
However...
It's just a baby step. Robots have a long way to go before they can hope to live up to the Hollywood hype.
Coming soon to a bookstore near you:
"All My Robot Needed to Know It Learned in Kindergarten."
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Item 11
A New
Hope For Avian Flu
Recently Stephen published a rather pessimistic (for him) assessment of the Avian Flu threat. Part of the problem is that we currently have few tools to fight this disease if it becomes a pandemic.
Hopefully, this is about to change:
NanoViricides, Inc. announced today [September 20, 2005] that the Company is actively developing its first NanoViricide drug, "FluCide-I." The Company expects to commence studies in external laboratories within a matter of weeks to verify the drug's effectiveness and basic safety profile against the influenza virus. Animal studies as well as cell culture studies will be initiated...
A NanoViricide(tm) is a specially designed, flexible, nanomaterial that contains an encapsulated active pharmaceutical ingredient and targets it to a specific type of virus, like a guided missile. When a NanoViricide drug enters the patient's blood stream, each nanoscale micelle of the drug attacks and neutralizes circulating virus particles. Once this is done, the active pharmaceutical ingredient is injected into the virus particle by the NanoViricide micelle, destroying it completely. The company plans to develop novel NanoViricide drugs first against HIV and Influenza, and anticipates that it will license the products to major pharmaceutical companies.
The good news:
A true cure for the flu could save millions of lives in the next pandemic, and thousands of lives annually.
Beyond the flu, a viral silver bullet could end the AIDS epidemic. Could Malaria be far behind?
But...
It's just a press release from a start-up company and animal tests have not started.
Nevertheless...
This is bold new thinking on a problem that deserves more attention.
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Item
12
Alien Fish Thwarted?
Lampreys are eel-like, blood-sucking creatures that have devastated Great Lakes fish populations for decades. But scientists at the University of Minnesota have discovered a chemical sex attractant that draws adult lampreys to spawning streams, where the males can be caught and sterilized, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported Monday.
The good news:
If you're reading news about alien fish , there's just no getting around it. Better All The Time is back!
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Item 13
War
is, like, so mid-20th century
According to the first Human Security Report released by the Canadian organisation Human Security Centre, armed conflicts, genocide and politicide have declined sharply since the early nineties. Also in a fifty year time span, the number of war casualties, coups and other war-statistics have gone down, often dramatically.
The good news:
Just read over this list and see if you find anything you like:
The number of armed conflicts are down more than 40%.
There were 25 ongoing armed secessionist conflicts, the lowest number since 1976.
The number of refugees in the world dropped by 45% between 1992 and 2003.
The post WWII peace period between major powers is the longest in several hundred years.
The average number of deaths per conflict fell 98% between 1950 and 2002 (from 38,000 people to 600 people).
Important disclaimers:
These numbers are good through 2003 and don't include the Iraq war or the conflict in Darfur. And of course, there are still terrible things going on in the world. Nor do the numbers in and of themselves give us any particular reason to expect that these trends will continue.
However, they also don't give us any reason to think they won't continue...
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Item
14
More productive
all the time
Economist Arnold Kling has some provocative thoughts about accelerating technological change and economic growth:
Technological innovation is what drives productivity growth.... [T]he rate of technological innovation is doubling every decade, which to me would imply that the rate of productivity growth will double every decade. If annual productivity growth was 3.5 percent in the decade ending in 2005, then it will be 7 percent in the decade ending in 2015 and 14 percent in the decade ending in 2025. By that time, productivity would be more than 7 times what it is today. Thus, if average income per person is $35,000 today, then it will be over $250,000 per person (in today's purchasing power) in 2025.
The good news...?
Maybe this all sounds a little too good to be true. Is it possible that Kling is just letting himself get carried away? Sure, it's possible. But on the other hand, he appears to be taking a relatively conservative view. Contrast Kling's scenario, above, with a possibility that George Mason university economist Robin Hanson has raised:
If it is possible for the economy to again transition to a faster mode, and if modes are comparable in terms of how much the economy grows when they dominate and how much faster new modes are, then within the next century we may see a transition to a growth mode where the doubling time is measured in weeks, not years.
(Emphasis added.)
The downside:
With that kind of spare cash floating around, school districts all over the country will probably have to cancel their proms.
On the other hand...
Maybe we'll think of something really important we can do with all that "wretched excess."
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Item 15
Isn't
she lovely?
Stevie Wonder has been tested for pioneering surgery which uses a microchip to restore sight to the blind.
The 55-year-old singer, who has been blind since shortly after birth, is in talks with a leading surgeon who has developed a technique to implant a solar-powered microchip at the back of his eye.
The Good News:
A man who has spent virtually his entire life without eyesight may see for the first time. Kind of speaks for itself.
The Downside:
If successful, the sight recovery would be limited and he would not be able to see the faces of his wife and children, but he would be able to perceive simple forms and shapes.
But then again...
This is a new procedure. A technique that yields simple forms and shapes in its first iteration may be able to show more of the world in later versions.
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Item
16
Space Elevator
Competition
This weekend in Mountain View, California NASA will host the first Space Elevator Games. The games consist of two contests each with a $50,000 prize: the beam power challenge, and the tether challenge. The beam power challenge will have seven teams racing climbers up a 16-story ribbon. Climbers must maintain a meter per second climbing rate or be disqualified. And here's the kicker - they will be powered by a beam of light. The interesting thing is that a couple of teams are going with an unorthodox solution. Instead of using photoelectric cells like the other five teams, two teams are using Stirling engines that will run off of the beam's heat. Four teams are competing in the tether challenge.
UPDATE: This source has the team count at 12 climber teams and 5 tether teams.
In this competition, $50,000 would go to the team whose tether outlasts the others in a pulling machine that Schwager called "a tether torture chamber." To make sure the winning tether really represents a technological leap, it will have to show a 50 percent improvement in breaking force over commercially available products.
Good News:
The event manager Marc Schwager of the Spaceward Foundation says that that these tethers are incredibly strong. A thread of the size of a hair could pick up a human. Some sociologist or economist should do a paper on the leveraging power of prize money. The ten million dollar X-prize has finally given us a private space program.
It gets better:
We now expect a 50% leap in materials technology for a $50,000 prize? What a bargain!
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Item 17
Go ahead -- drink
the water
You know how you're always hearing that too many people worlwide don 't have clean drinking water, and that a shortage of drinking water might eventually lead to a global crisis? Wow, wouldn't it be nice if somebody was doing something about that?
Well, check out these excellent plans for making wholesome drinking water available to everybody:
LifeStraw: It sucks—and that’s good
At 2 dollar U.S., LifeStraw is unusually affordable. Modeled after the simple drinking straw we all know, it has the advantage of being small (25 cm long or 10 inches) and easy to use. [T]he LifeStraw relies on suction to force water through textile filters, which catch sediment. The water is then exposed to bacteria-killing agents like iodine and sent through active carbon, which catches all remaining parasites. One LifeStraw can purify 700 litres, the personal water supply of one person for a year.Solar Pasteurization Unit: Letting the sun do the work
Developed in Denmark, the Solar Pasteurization Unit looks like a slide projector, tilted to reflect sunlight onto a black cylinder containing a 1.5 litre bottle, which heats up to over 100 degrees Celsius. To kill all pathogenic bacteria, the first batch of water requires one and a half hours; consecutive batches require 30 minutes. The unit can also be used to pasteurize AIDS-infected breast milk, cook food or sterilize surgical instruments.OPV Personal Water Cleaner: Water, water everywhere
The Organic Molecular Photovoltaic (OPV) Personal Water Cleaner...is designed for regions beset by monsoons or frequent flooding. [It] can provide a family with enough potable water to survive until the waters recede or help arrives.
The device looks like an old-fashioned canteen, consisting of a “bellows” and an internal filtration system. Like the LifeStraw, the OPV relies on the force of suction to set the purifying process in motion. The whole unit can be easily carried.
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Item 18
Coming
soon: the Mini Micro Nano Cooper
Researchers at Rice University have created a "nanocar" measuring just 4 x 3 nanometers. It is slightly wider than a strand of DNA -- a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick. The car has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece.
Good News:
As Glenn Reynolds put it:
So much for those who claimed that such precise nanoscale structures weren't possible.
A car that small doesn't sound like it would be good for much, but what we're seeing here is the first-generation ancestor of machines that will one day:
- Clean up the environment
- Provide full-immersion virtual reality
- Keep us in perfect health
- Provide almost unimagined levels of material abundance
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Support your local long-lived mouse
Word has it that, thanks to more than $250,000 in cash donations in the past 30 days, the Methuselah Mouse Prize is nearing the $2 million mark. For those of you unfamiliar with the prize:
Good News:
Read it again carefully: When aging in mice is shown to be 'treatable' the funding necessary for a full-line assault on the aging process will be made available. That means that right now there is almost $2 million in prize money waiting to be awarded to the scientist who figures out the best way to make you live longer.
The Kicker:
They aren't quite there yet. That means that somebody reading this -- and once again that means you, friend -- could be the one to put the Methuselah Mouse Prize over the top. What are you waiting for?
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Item 20
Take
two smart pills and stop calling me
Enhancing intelligence is not science fiction. Many "smart" drugs are in clinical trials and could be on the market in less than five years. Some medications currently available to patients with memory disorders may also increase intelligence in the healthy population. Likewise, few people would lament the use of such aids to ameliorate the forgetfulness that aging brings. Drugs that counter these deficits would be adopted gratefully by millions of people.
First the Downside:
Of course, there are serious potential risks associated with tampering with the brain's function, event if we're trying to bring about a good end.
A Suggestion:
Owing to the important role that intelligence enhancing medications might eventually play, it's important that we start testing them right away. Ideally, we want to find a group to test them on who:
- Would provide the most immediate benefit to society from a boost in intelligence
- Are otherwise expendable
Well, "expendable" is such a harsh term. Let's say "replaceable" instead. Now who would best fit this profile? For some reason, we keep coming back to one group. Or, if you want to break it down, we might call it three groups.
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Item 21
Admiral...there
be whales here!
Engineers here are testing a new kind of transparent armor -- stronger and lighter than traditional materials -- that could stop armor-piercing weapons from penetrating vehicle windows.
The Air Force Research Laboratory's materials and manufacturing directorate is testing aluminum oxynitride -- ALONtm -- as a replacement for the traditional multi-layered glass transparencies now used in existing ground and air armored vehicles.
The good news:
With this option in place, soldiers will be a lot less vulnerable to armor-piercing weaponsand they'll still be able to see what's going on. Excellent.
The good news for Star Trek Fans:
The transparent aluminum paradox has been resolved. For those unfamiliar with this vexing conundrum, Wikipedia provides an explanation Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't seen Star Trek IV:
The chemical formula for transparent aluminum plays a key role in the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In the movie, the formula is traded for Plexiglas sheets thick enough to create water tanks suitable for transporting two humpback whales through time, from the 20th century to the 23rd century, inside a Klingon Bird of Prey. Since the crew was temporarily stranded in the past without money appropriate to the period, they had to barter with the owner of the Plexicorp company (a fictional manufacturer of Plexiglas). Scotty trades the chemical formula for transparent aluminum for enough of the material to build the tanks.
As a result of this paradox, transparent aluminum is never actually invented by anyone. It was "invented" by the owner of Plexicorp, Dr. Nichols, in the 20th century after he got the formula from Scotty; Scotty then learned the formula from his knowledge of 23rd century engineering that built on Dr. Nichols's 20th century invention. No one ever actually invented transparent aluminum from scratch.
Well now we know. It looks like the Air Force was working on it in parallel. What a relief.
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Item 22
Prolog to the Future
Almost four decades ago, Stanley Kubrick gathered the world's scientific minds and asked them to predict the future. Their thoughts would then form the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, his epic about a mission to Jupiter which becomes a life or death battle between the space crew and their on-board computer HAL 9000.
But the interviews were never screened and the collective thoughts of 21 eminent men and women of science appeared to have been lost for ever.
Now the musings are to be made public for the first time when they are published next month, giving Kubrick enthusiasts an insight into his ultimate vision for the classic film.
The good news:
It's a conversation across time. To hear what Isaac Asimov, Margaret Mead,
Freeman Dyson, Sir Bernard Lovell, and many others had to say about the future
-- about the era we are living in, and beyond -- some 35-40 years ago, is a
wonderful gift. What did they get right? What did they miss? And what are we
not thinking about now that they were
then, and why?
We'll know very soon.
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Item 23
The
Latest Buzz
Roland Piquepaille describes some recent, amazing contributions being made by bees.
Two months ago, I told you that bees could be trained to find land mines. Now, researchers from University College London (UCL) have shown that bees are able to solve complicated color puzzles. In their study, bees were trained to find artificial flowers containing a nectar reward and colored in blue. Then they removed the nectar and put at random artificial flowers illuminated by yellow, blue, yellow and green lights. But wherever the blue flowers were, the bees continued to select them even if there was no longer a reward. These findings may soon lead to the design of sophisticated visual systems for autonomous robots.
The good news:
No longer satisfied with mere honey-making and flower-pollinating, it appears that bees are moving into some high-concept endeavors. They can be trained to sniff out the explosives in land mines in a matter of days, and are highly reliable at locating the hidden killers. Using bees is a huge improvement over the standard method, in which trained mine-hunters, often accompanied by dogs, subject themselves to tremendous risk by looking for mines on foot. Bees are perfect for this: they can find the mines, but they can't trip them.
Meanwhile, their clever color-pattern-detection skills are paving the way for a coming generation of highly sophisticated puzzle-solving robots--which might also help us find land mines, along with performing dozens, if not hundreds of other useful tasks.
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Item 24
The
First Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car
Jon Spallino and his family have become the first people to test a hydrogen fuel cell car in real world conditions. They are being leased the car by Honda as part of an early test to determine whether the technology can work outside the lab.
Honda actually built a hydrogen station for the family to use, but the fire department, concerned about a Hindenburg-esque explosion, wouldn't allow it to open. So, the family is currently fueling the car at Honda's U.S. headquarters.
The good news:
We're eager to see whether hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are the next big thing.
What better way to test than with a real family fighting rush hour traffic and
picking up the kids from school?
Also:
There was other big hydrogen
news last week. Israeli scientists announced that they have developed
a system for extracting hydrogen from water as needed for use in an internal
combustion engine - no fuel cells or electricity involved.
Scientists seem determined, one way or another, to put hydrogen to work for
us.
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Item 25
A Shot of DNA
Several biotechnology companies are at work on a new and quicker way of making a flu vaccine they hope can replace one that requires people to be inoculated with the entire influenza virus. Their technique: extract just a few genes from the virus and inject it into people.
The nascent technology, called DNA vaccines, is a form of gene therapy that proponents argue is the best way to overhaul a 50-year-old vaccine manufacturing system.
The good news:
RNA viruses like the flu are particularly scary because they change and adapt
so quickly. Every year we have to develop a new flu vaccine using chicken
eggs because older vaccines offer limited or no protection against an ever-adapting
enemy. This nine-month process involves guessing which of the many flu
strains will be attacking us in the coming flu season. If we guess wrong
- and this happens sometimes - more of us die the following flu season.
Now, with a flu coming that's so deadly that it kills the chicken eggs before
a vaccine is made, we humans show our adaptability
by developing a whole new way to vaccinate. This method should eventually
allow us to create vaccines "on the fly" - vaccines in days or even hours after
a new strain is discovered. H5N1 pushed, and we pushed back. Intelligence
triumphs!
Also:
We are hopeful that this new method may prove helpful in battling humanity's
other great viral enemies: TB, Malaria, and AIDS.
Item 26
Nun
More Deserving
Speaking of DNA, here's an unexpected development:
There were many big-league DNA scientists at the annual genome sequencing conference held here last month, but no one stood out more than a slight high school teacher in religious habit towing five of her students through the imposing crowd of genetics pioneers with a quiet grace.
The unlikely delegate was Sister Mary Jane Paolella, of Sacred Heart Academy, an all-girls Roman Catholic high school in Hamden, Connecticut. She wasn't here on a sightseeing trip. Paolella showed up with her students to make an official presentation of DNA sequencing data that her honors biotechnology class generated from genes associated with osteoporosis.
The good news:
The students sequenced three bovine genes that correspond to human genes associated with osteoporosis. Their work was so good that it will be included in GenBank, collection of all DNA sequences maintained by the National Institutes of Health. Several of the girls now say that they are looking to make their careers in science or engineering.
Bonus:
The work the students did was part of an overall project that the Sacred Heart
Academy has undertaken to tackle osteoporosis. These students are on the front
lines of the healthy
life extension movement.
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Item 27
A
Better Understanding of Klotho
Scientists say the recently discovered anti-aging hormone 'Klotho' acts by increasing a cell's ability to detoxify harmful reactive oxygen species...
Makoto Kuro-o, assistant professor of pathology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, has discovered one way in which Klotho extends lifespan. Using cultured cells and transgenic mice, the researcher showed Klotho increases resistance to oxidative stress.
The good news:
We began to get excited about Klotho last August when Reason at FightAging
reported:
It is pleasing to see that Klotho has now been welcomed into that small, select circle of known ways to significantly extend healthy life span in mice
Scientists knew that Klotho could extend life in August but only could guess how it worked. By November they are already beginning to learn why. This speed is cause for optimism.
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Item 28
MPAA
Jumps the Shark
This may not immediately seem like a good news story, but stick with us. Here
are the facts:
A 67-year-old man who says he doesn't even like watching movies has been sued by the film industry for copyright infringement after a grandson of his downloaded four movies on their home computer.
The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh.
The good news:
Admittedly this doesn't seem
like good news, when you consider the fact that the grandson apparently didn't
realize he was committing a criminal act, and that the grandfather had no idea
that such activity was even taking place. Or when you learn that the grandfather
had the chance to settle for a much smaller amount, but...
"I can see where they wouldn't want this to happen, but when you get up around $4,000 … I don't have that kind of money," Lawrence said. "I never was and never will be a wealthy person."
No, it really doesn't seem like good news at all. But, still...
there's just something so familiar about
this story.
It's kind of like this story, isn't it?
Or is it more like this
one ?
Or, wait -- it's this
one isn't it?
To paraphrase Zuzu: "Teacher says that every time the MPAA acts
like a bunch of heartless thugs, an angel gets its wings."
Anyhow, we know how this one ends. If the MPAA would only pay a little more attention to some of their classic storylines, they would realize that things are bound to go better for Jimmy Stewart than they are for Lionel Barrymore.
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Item
29
So? We Like Mice!
Some readers have commented that there is almost always a picture of a mouse in Better All The Time contents collage and, correspondingly, almost always a good news piece that involves a mouse. We won't even attempt to deny it. What with mice developing the ability to regenerate their little bodies and with generous donors putting up more and more money to help ensure that they live longer, the mouse world is improving exponentially.
Plus, look at the little guy. Isn't he cute?
More thoughts on the significance and the Methuselah Mouse Prize (and other prizes) can be found here.
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Star Trek Watch: Can the Transporter Be far Behind?
Technology that provides live translation of speech from one language to another has been revealed by scientists from the US and Europe.
This and other translation technologies were demonstrated publicly for the first time at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US, last Thursday. They were developed by researchers from the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (InterACT), a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.
The good news:
Here at Better All The Time, we are committed to keeping you, the reading
public up to speed on all developments that bring our world closer to that of
Star Trek. (Granted, what we're showing here is a babel fish from Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, but it's a more interesting picture.) Last time, it
was transparent
aluminum . Now we have the universal
translator . Transporters and warp engines may still be a ways off, but
then again, a few years ago we might have thought the same thing about communicators
.
Or even replicators.
- - - - -
While reading about Microsoft's announcement to publish "live" Internet software, we learned about one company that's already made the leap. "Writely" is an free online word processor that allows easy collaboration on documents. When we collaborated on writing projects in the past, we had to constantly guard against "over-writing" each other. Instant messages and schedules for writing were the rule of the day. When using Writely to compose this edition of BATT we found that Writely warns when the other writer logs on to edit. It also keeps a revision history.
Otherwise Writely is a simple but decent word processor. Most basic functions are available including spell check. You can save offline as a Word documents, but we suspect that most of our documents will be saved online. You can email collaborators directly from the document, but we hope for a built-in instant messenger in a future edition.
Did we mention it's free?
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Item 32
The
Retro Rocket
A private company wants to sell NASA trips into orbit on a shuttle-like spaceship that the agency itself designed two decades ago.
SpaceDev, an aerospace company based in California, US, has announced plans to build a spacecraft that will carry both tourists and astronauts into orbit.
The good news:
Didn't the airline business really get its start after WWII when there were all these airplanes lying around that needed to be used for something? Granted, the HL-20 Dream Chaser was never actually built, but the fact that private developers are looking to repurpose its design commercially is a very encouraging development.
The company says it could begin flying four-person suborbital flights in 2008 if it receives about $20 million in funding. It could then launch six-person missions to the International Space Station by around 2010 for an additional $100 million, it claims.
More good news:
Unlike the shuttle's launch rockets, Dream Chaser’s launcher will not use cryogenic fuel, which must be insulated with foam. This will avoid the problem of falling foam on take-off that ultimately destroyed the shuttle Columbia in 2003. The trouble recurred in Discovery's most recent flight, though to no ill effect.
Seeing as this design is "only" 20 years old, it will actually represent a technological leap forward from the existing shuttle. It's also (arguably) a more advanced design than what the Chinese are currently using for their capsule-based space program or that NASA has proposed for its Crew Exploration Vehicle.
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Item 33
Live
Long and Sweat
Sorry, couch potatoes -- the verdict is in: People who exercise regularly really do live longer.
In fact, people who get a good workout almost daily can add nearly four years to their life spans, according to the first study to quantify the impact of physical activity this way.
The good news:
If you exercise regularly you will not only live longer, you'll look and feel better while doing it. The best approach is to find a form of exercise you really enjoy. Then you can add pleasure to your day while adding years to your life. And you'll reduce stress, too.
This excellent news comes by way of FuturePundit, who suggests that pet ownsership might be a good approach. (The stress-reducing health benefits of pet ownership have been widely established.) Randall puts it like this:
This result strikes me as an argument for getting a dog that is big enough to run as fast as you can. Those little pint-sized dogs just can't keep up to a human running at full gait. Dogs are great personal trainers, coming to you every day trying to get you to take them for a walk or run.
Good advice, but perhaps a bit too limiting. Some pint-size dogs are pretty quick, while some humans -- even at full gait -- are fairly slow. Plus, who hasn't seen big dogs literally dragging their dimminutive owners down the path? It seems the dragging would cut into the exercise that the human is getting. Besides, any pet can assist in a daily exercise rotuine if the pet owner is creative enough. For example, a tropical fish enthusiast might decide to take the little darlings along on a walk. Carrying the fish tank would provide an excellent upper-body workout, and trying not to slosh all the water on the sidewalk would be good for overall balance and coordination.
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Item 34
On
All the
Time
A web camera in a Norwegian artist's living room in California allowed her sons in Norway and the Philippines to see that she had collapsed and call for help, one of the sons said Friday.
The
good news:
A lot of folks are worried about how the world will change as cameras continue to get smaller and more ubiquitous. And there may, indeed, be plenty to worry about. But for every news story that suggests we're all heading for a life sentence in the panopticon, there is another to suggest that transparency will be a tremendous benefit to the most vulnerable members of society.
Or as Glenn Reynolds put it -- "The Internet: If it saves just one life, it's worth it!"
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Item
35
Babel
Fish Drafted
We wrote about exciting
developments in real-time translation technology in the last Better
All The Time . Now here's a real-world application:
The risky business of battle-zone translation could get a technological boost, however, as researchers prepare to test a system that instantly translates spoken conversations to and from English and Iraqi Arabic.
Funded by Darpa, the system would allow troops to communicate in Arabic through a laptop computer equipped with voice recognition and translation software. Troops could speak in English and have their words instantly translated into Iraqi Arabic, "spoken" by a computerized man's voice. The program also translates Arabic into English.
The good news:
The job of translator has been a hard one for the US to fill in Iraq, and
where personnel have been found to fill this vital position, it has been difficult
to ensure their saftey. This system will help to compensate for that shortage.
Plus:
It's easy to imagine that the system will get used in a lot of scenarios where
the presence of a formal translator was never even proposed. The troops should
get a tremendous boost from being able to make themselves understood -- and
to understand the folks around them -- in dozens of day-to-day situations where
misunderstandings regularly occur.
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Item 36
Putting
the Bio in Biodiesel
DaimlerChrysler, the world's fifth-biggest carmaker, pledged on Thursday to help promote the use of biofuels by developing engines that can run on higher mixtures of the alternative energy sources.
It also promised it would work with other automakers and oil companies to lobby for adjusting fuel standards and creating incentives to promote biofuels.
Biofuels based on such common commodities as rapeseed oil and sugar cane are growing in popularity in Europe as countries try to cut greenhouse gas emissions -- blamed for global warming -- and crude oil import bills.
The good news:
Biofuels may not be the be-all and end-all solution to our energy problems,
but it looks like they will have a role to play. Anyhow, they certainly have
an
interesting
side to them.
Meanwhile...
Brazil is making a big push to be the Saudi Arabia of biofuels.
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Item
37
Full
Mouse / Hungry Mouse
In 1999 Japanese scientists discovered the "ghrelin" hormone. And in 2000 American researches discovered that this hormone drives appetite.
Ghrelin is still the only hormone known to directly affect appetite this way. With the developed world getting fatter every year, scientists rushed to learn everything they could about the hormone.
They were able to track the hormone back to a gene, and then they produced a mouse without the ghrelin gene. They expected to have a skinny, emaciated mouse. But the mouse appeared normal.
This remained a mystery until yesterday's announcement by a group of scientists at Stanford. These scientists have discovered another hormone, obestatin, that sends out a signal to eat less or stop eating. It is the anti-ghrelin. But, amazingly, it is coded by the same gene as ghrelin.
So when they knocked out the gene for the hunger hormone ghrelin, they were also knocking out the fullness hormone obestatin. The net effect was an apparently normal mouse.
The good news:
Scientists are excited about these discoveries, in part, because both hormones
are produced in the stomach instead of some more problematic area like the brain.
It is thought that an oral medication could be developed to either inhibit ghrelin
or boost obestatin (or do both).
The tricky part:
Part of the ghrelin/obestatin mystery remains:
[Dr. Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University] said having two hormones with opposite effects embedded in the same molecule was like driving with one foot on the brake and one on the gas.
On the other hand:
We have now located both the brake and the gas. Plus, with holidays
coming up, millions of people worlwide will be experimenting with their
obestatin levels over the next few weeks. Let the research continue!
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Item 38
Slow-Acting
Yeast
By deleting a gene that has been linked to longevity in previous studies, scientists have produced one of the longest recorded life-span extensions in any organism, and opened a new door for anti-aging research in humans.
The good news:
Obviously, any discovery that opens a new door for human anti-aging research
is a good thing. The organism in question got a lifespan boost of six times
over normal. The same level boost for human beings would produce a lifespan
of about 450 years. Yes, there's a big difference between yeast and human beings,
but this is a very encouraging development.
The tricky part:
The scientists in question made this breakthrough by removing
a gene that was formerly thought to be one of the biggest helpers
in increasing longevity. (We waxed enthusiastic about the SIR2 gene here
and, before that, here
.) This is a bit like figuring out that airplanes will fly much better if we
just remove the wings. It only goes to show that the more we learn, the more
surprises we are likely to encounter.
Hat-tip: Fight
Aging!
- - - - -
Item 39
Can
you feel it coming?
WITH refugees still huddling in tents across Kashmir after tens of thousands died in October's earthquake there, the need for earthquake prediction systems is once again thrown into stark relief. Knowing that the geologically restless Himalayas will produce more, stronger quakes is no use: what people need to know is when and where a quake will strike next.
Prior to some recent quakes, scientists have detected electromagnetic pulses emanating from the ground and electromagnetic disturbances in the ionosphere, the planet's tenuous envelope of charged particles extending from about 80 to 1000 kilometres up. "There are definitely hints of something [electromagnetic] happening in the region of earthquakes before the earth moves," says Colin Price, a geophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Some research groups are already tunnelling underground to pick up radio pulses in the ULF range, while others are using sensor-stuffed satellites to measure radio disturbances in the ionosphere above quake-prone regions.
The good news:
Imagine the lives that could be saved if we could pinpoint the occurence of a
major earthquake to within a window of a one or two days and a geographic area
of, say, 100 square miles -- especially if we get a week or so of advanced
notice.
Important disclaimer:
Because there have been many false dawns in earthquake prediction, Price is cautious. "But if the chances are one in a hundred that we succeed, the huge benefits of success make this research worth continuing," he says.
We will certainly second that thought.
- - - - -
A
Revolutionary Approach to Education
Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the School That Beat the Odds (Palgrave Macmillan) tells the story of a San Jose charter school that prepares students who are "failing but not in jail" for four-year colleges.
It really is an inspiring story. The average Downtown College Prep student comes from a Mexican immigrant family and enters ninth grade reading at a fifth grade level; 100 percent of graduates have been accepted at four-year colleges and 97 percent are on track to earn a bachelor's degree. DCP now scores well above the state average on the Academic Performance Index, ranking in the top third compared to all high schools, including affluent suburban schools. DCP follows what I call the work-your-butt-off philosophy of education. Its leaders analyze what's not working, adapt quickly and waste no time on esteem inflation or excuses.
The good news:
Hmmm...this "work your butt off" thing sounds highly radical and controversial.
But there could be something there.
A random thought:
Any chance the organizers of Downtown College Prep might end up running their
local school board?
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Item 41
Here
Comes the Sun
The sun has stopped shining in Rattenberg. But with the aid of a few mirrors, the winter darkness that grips this small town could soon be brightened up with pockets of sunshine.
That's because sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 3,000-foot hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year.
The solution: 30 heliostats, essentially rotating mirrors, mounted on a hillside to grab sunshine off reflectors from the neighboring village of Kramsach.
The good news:
Not only will the town be a little brighter with the reflected sunlight,
the additional light will help to ward off depression and will probably be good
for business.
Other thoughts:
This is a good test run for manipulating the sun's power. More
ambitious efforts will come later.
And isn't it interesting that, although mirrors have been around for a long
time, this kind of approach has never been tried before? The people of Rattenburg
have this idea that technology can and should be used to improve their world.
That idea is as important as the technology itself.
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Item 42
Vitamin
D for Lung Health
Vitamin D may play a role in keeping our lungs healthy, with greater concentrations of vitamin D resulting in greater lung health benefits. A study in the December issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), shows that patients with higher concentrations of vitamin D had significantly better lung function, compared with patients with lower concentrations of vitamin D.
"Low levels of vitamin D have been associated with osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer," said lead author Peter Black, MB, ChB, Department of Medicine, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. "Our research shows that vitamin D may also have a strong influence on lung health, with greater levels of vitamin D associated with greater and more positive effects on lung function."
The good news:
Amazingly, these studies show that poor lung health is more closely correlated with low levels of vitamin D than it is with smoking. If these findings are confirmed, it would be difficult to overtsate the importance of keeping up healthy levels of vitamin D. FuturePundit Randall Parker has been tracking research in this area for some time. Related blog posts he has authored on the subject include:
Vitamin D Could
Decrease Overall Cancer Risk 30%
Higher Vitamin D Reduces Aging Bone Fracture Risks
Both are highly recommended reading. Also check out this summary, with good information on foods that contain vitamin D as well as the risks associated with taking too much.
Everything in moderation, after all.
- - - - -
Item 43
Video
Games Are Okay
Well, it turns out that they don't turn players into anti-social, trigger-happy zombies after all. In fact, a few of them might actually tend in the other direction:
The Sims designer Will Wright argues that games are perhaps the only medium that allows us to experience guilt over the actions of fictional characters. In a movie, one can always pull back and condemn the character or the artist when they cross certain social boundaries. But in playing a game, we choose what happens to the characters. In the right circumstances, we can be encouraged to examine our own values by seeing how we behave within virtual space.
The good news:
So maybe we can all lighten up. Have some fun. Let our kids have some fun. Granted, a six-hour stretch of World of Warcraft doesn't provide the same benefits as working through some difficult math problems or going out for a brisk bike ride. But then, weren't we just saying something about moderation?
- - - - -
Item 44
Big-Ticket
Manufactured Goods
WASHINGTON - Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods jumped by the largest amount in six months, reflecting soaring demand for commercial aircraft.
The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods were up 4.4 percent to a record $223 billion last month, following a 3 percent gain in October.
The 4.4 percent advance was far above the 1.1 percent increase that Wall Street analysts had been expecting. The strength was led by a 133.8 percent surge in orders for commercial aircraft and parts, which jumped to $25.9 billion from $11.1 billion the previous month.
The good news:
Looks like a lot of folks put airplane parts on their Christmas wish lists. Who would have expected that? Anyhow, while we'll take good economic news any time, it seems especially appropriate here at the end of the year. And then there's this:
The U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in 1 1/2 years in the summer as booming auto sales offset the adverse effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But the year is expected to end with much slower growth.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, grew at a 4.1 per cent annual rate from July through September.
Hmm, maybe we should have shown a car in addition to an airplane.
And not to pile on or anything, but it appears that investor confidence has hit a 17-month high. Anybody care to throw a Bah, Humbug! on all this good economic news?
No? We didn't think so.
- - - - -
Item 45
Stretchable
Electronics
The next wave in electronics could be wavy electronics.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a fully stretchable form of single-crystal silicon with micron-sized, wave-like geometries that can be used to build high-performance electronic devices on rubber substrates.
“Stretchable silicon offers different capabilities than can be achieved with standard silicon chips,” said John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering and co-author of a paper to appear in the journal Science, as part of the Science Express Web site, on Dec 15.
Functional, stretchable and bendable electronics could be used in applications such as sensors and drive electronics for integration into artificial muscles or biological tissues, structural monitors wrapped around aircraft wings, and conformable skins for integrated robotic sensors, said Rogers, who is also a Founder Professor of Engineering, a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and a member of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory.
The good news:
The age of the wearable computer draws nearer. Here's a good explanation of the concept for the unitiated:
A wearable computer is a very personal computer. It should be worn like a piece of clothing, as unobtrusive as possible. A user should interact with the computer based upon context. It could be a communications device (immediate or store and forward), a recorder (visual, audio, other sensors) or a reference device (local or remote resources).
There's no question that we will have wearable computers sooner or later. The only issue is whether they will look more like this:
Or like this:
Obviously, we're hoping for the latter. And stretchable silicon
could go a long way towards getting us there.
- - - - -
Item 46
New
Neurons
Scientists from Johns Hopkins' Institute for Cell Engineering have discovered the steps required to integrate new neurons into the brain's existing operations. "GABA is important during fetal development, but most scientists thought it would have the same role it has with adult neurons, which is to inhibit the cells' signals," says Hongjun Song, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Neuroregeneration and Repair Program within ICE. "We've shown that GABA instead excites new neurons and that this is the first step toward their integration into the adult brain." Song added that their discovery might help efforts to increase neuron regeneration in the brain or to make transplanted stem cells form connections more efficiently.
The good news:
The ability to augment our brains could lead to tremendous breakthroughs in the treatment of the degenerative diseases of aging, and may very well also give us the ability to make ourselves smarter.
- - - - -
All the uproar over "Cyber Monday" -- the Monday after Thanksgiving, when people supposedly rushed online at work to do holiday shopping -- both about how it was a PR invention, and then that the actual date simply got screwed up has obscured the real truth about online holiday shopping: that it lets people procrastinate. A study says that people spent 29 percent more online last week than they did in the same week last year, spurred on by last-minute promotions and cheaper, faster shipping.
The good news:
Of course, the flip side of "procrastination" is that -- rather than shopping -- people were able to do things they needed or wanted to do more. Online shopping gives us freedom that we never had before, but it can't change certain basic human functions, such as putting off shopping until the last possible moment. The online option merely changes the parameters!
Item 48
10th
Planet
We may have it:
On Dec. 13, another group said they’d found an object half the mass of Pluto orbiting twice as far from the Sun as Neptune. The object’s path has them puzzled.The faraway world is catalogued as 2004 XR 190 and known temporarily as Buffy. It was discovered as part of the Legacy Survey on the Canada France Hawaii Telescope.
"It was quite bright compared to the usual Kuiper Belt Objects we find," said the University of British Columbia’s Lynne Allen, who was part of the international discovery team. "But what was more interesting was how far away it was."
Buffy never gets closer than 52 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, or 52 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Neptune is 30 AU from the Sun. Pluto ranges from 30 to 50 AU.
What makes Buffy special is its nearly circular path, which extends out to just 62 AU.
The good news:
Welcoming a new member into our exclusive little solar system club is always cause for celebration. We aren't quite there yet, but stay tuned.
About that name...
We kind of hope it sticks. We're going to run out mythological
names before we've named 1% of the objects in the Kuiper belt, anyhow. TV
characters seems like the logical next step. One day, a tour ship of the outer
solar system might include stops at such locales as Fonzie, Frazier, and Floyd
the Barber. And that's just the F's!
- - - - -
Item 49
Tiny Gadgets
You may not have noticed, but the smallest revolution in world history is under way. Laboratories and factories have begun to make medical sensors and computer-chip components smaller than a single blood cell or the periods on this page.
Viruses are among the most important causes of human diseases and are of increasing concern as agents of bioterrorism. Nanoscale silicon wires could be fashioned into chip arrays capable of sensing thousands of different viruses, ushering in a new era for quick response to viral outbreaks.
Lieber and his colleagues have also built a cracker-size detector for cancer. Someday, such sensors might be used to test people for cancers in doctors' offices.
Other potential nanodevices being looked at may help doctors detect whether cancer has spread, or is shrinking in response to treatments. In the future,