Technology has immortality, cures for the worlds devastating diseases, quantum computing and a host of other science fiction notions in its grasp. Current trends in a number of areas indicate that over the next 10 years many of these technologies will come to fruition. "The Next 10 Years" tracks the trends that will transform our everyday lives in almost unimaginable ways.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Wired News: Podcasting After ITunes: "Podcaster Adam Kempenaar's first clue that something was afoot came when his internet host alerted him that he was at 80 percent of his bandwidth capacity.
Next came the note from a co-worker congratulating him for landing his movie-reviews show on the front page of the iTunes podcast directory. Then came the server crash, followed by a half-day of phone calls and negotiations to get it back up and running -- and the e-mails, hundreds of them, from new listeners."

Wired 14.07: The Wired 40: "What makes a company wired? We start by looking for the basics: strategic vision, global reach, killer technology. But that’s not enough. To land a spot on our annual Wired 40 list, a business also needs the X-factor – a hunger for new ideas and an impatience to put them into practice. Such companies inevitably become trendsetters, literally: As we debated and redebated the list this year, six major themes flickered into view. From the rise of peer production to the end of carbon pollution, they tell us where the world is heading. These are the companies leading the way."

Are Americans Finally Ready to Get Smart? - New York Times: "DaimlerChrysler, which shelved an earlier plan to bring its Smart mini-car brand to the United States, plans to announce on Wednesday that it will introduce the tiny, two-seat vehicle to the American market early in 2008, according to several executives at the company."

How to Cool a Planet (Maybe) - New York Times: "In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping greenhouse gases."

future trend: geoengineering

Monday, June 26, 2006

Good writing style Plain and simple: "The scientists say writers using long words needlessly and choosing complicated font styles are seen as less intelligent than those who stick with basic vocabulary and plain text -- suggesting efforts to impress readers by using florid font styles and searching through a thesaurus may have the opposite effect. "

Using silicon chips to trap ultracold atoms: "“The idea,” Seth Aubin, a post-doctoral researcher in the group, tells PhysOrg.com “is to create your own Hamiltonian for the simulation.” The research at the University of Toronto, published May 28th in Nature Physics, simplifies and accelerates the efficient production of the ultra-cold fermion gases required for the quantum simulations of high temperature superconductors.

“The idea of using a silicon chip is novel,” says Aubin. “It’s neat that we’re using these chips with lithographically printed wires. The wires can be used to get tighter traps. It’s the tightness that is important.” Aubin explains that tighter traps allow for a higher rate of collision between particles, as well as a higher re-thermalization rate. And this is important when one is dealing with trapping rare atoms for use in a simulation. "

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Use Chemistry To Tap Solar Power, Professor Says: "The basic science that will help produce an alternative, clean energy source with the help of sunlight needs to be realized within the next 10 years to make a difference, said Nocera, who is the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy and professor of chemistry at MIT.

Nocera spoke Thursday, May 11, on 'Powering the Planet: The Challenge for Chemistry in the 21st Century' as part of the MIT Energy Club Lecture Series.

Nocera's laboratory is seeking a future alternative fuel source by studying the principles that govern the conversion of photon energy into chemical potential during photosynthesis. The trick is to design a system in which the energy needed to break the chemical bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen in water is compensated by the absorption of a photon. The payoff: an alternative, clean fuel source -- hydrogen -- produced with the help of sunlight. "

Looming energy crisis requires new 'Manhattan Project' US scientists: "Soaring global demand for energy and rapid depletion of resources need to be addressed by a long-term government-led project similar to the World War II-era effort to develop an atomic bomb, University of Southern California scientist Anupam Madhukar said at the annual National Energy Symposium on Thursday.

'A sense of urgency is needed like the Manhattan Project or sending a man to the moon,' Madhukar said. "

World energy consumption could be cut by half if clean technology applied IEA: "'A sustainable energy future is possible, but only if we act urgently and decisively to promote, develop and deploy a full mix of energy technologies... We have the means, now we need the will,' said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

He was presenting an IEA report written in response to a call last year from G8 leaders who asked the agency to develop and advise on alternative scenarios and strategies for a clean, clever and competitive energy future. "

World energy consumption could be cut by half if clean technology applied IEA: "'A sustainable energy future is possible, but only if we act urgently and decisively to promote, develop and deploy a full mix of energy technologies... We have the means, now we need the will,' said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

He was presenting an IEA report written in response to a call last year from G8 leaders who asked the agency to develop and advise on alternative scenarios and strategies for a clean, clever and competitive energy future. "

Measuring single qubits: "This is where Korotkov and his peers come in. Their system would possibly be a more practical way of distinguishing between a system that exhibits classical behaviors and quantum behaviors. The test proposed by Korotkov and his colleagues is one that makes use of quantum back action, a concept that many in quantum mechanics choose to ignore. “Such an experiment would prove that you can’t explain this principle in terms of classical physics.” Plus, using such a test would detect a system that “is required to evolve in the direction of the result, giving you information gradually.” And a system that does that, a system affected by observation, is an indicator of a quantum system. "

Boom in Ethanol Reshapes Economy of Heartland - New York Times: "Dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown.

Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza."

PINR - Venezuela Moves to Nationalize its Oil Industry: " atin America's shift from the Western sphere of influence and toward an independent path is a major current of the recent years. Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, has spearheaded this change by exploiting soaring global oil prices in order to pursue a 'Bolivarian' economic model detached from the Washington Consensus. [See: 'Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Makes His Bid for a Bolivarian Revolution']"

Plastic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "One of the great appeals of plastics have been their low price as compared to other materials. However, in recent years the cost of plastics has been rising dramatically. The cause of the increase is the sharply rising cost of petroleum, the raw material that is chemically altered to form commercial plastics. As the cost of plastic hinges on the cost of petroleum, should petroleum prices continue to rise, so will the cost of plastic. In 2004, the higher price of plastic drove a number of plastic-toy manufacturers out of business.

Fears of dwindling petroleum supplies are becoming very real, with publications such as USA Today reporting that current oil reserves will only last 40 years. Alternate reserves such as oil shale and tar oil (tar sand) do exist, but the cost of production is much higher than with current sources. Thus, even if alternative sources are used, costs will continue to rise.

Scientists are seeking cheaper alternatives to plastic. Some plastic alternatives are: graphite, fiberglass, carbon fiber, graphene, carbon nanotubes, diamond, aerogel, carbon nanofoam, cellulose soybean plastic (bioplastic), and other carbon-based, non-petroleum materials. Some of these alternatives are too expensive or not malleable enough, but can be used in some plastic applications. Some are many times stronger than plastic, but crack if made thin like cellophane. The most promising alternatives to plastic are graphene, carbon nanotube, and carbon nanofoam. All three of these are made of nanocarbons, products of the new nanotechnology. Nanocarbons are very cheap, 100 times stronger than steel, slicker than Teflon, lightweight, and can be made very thin, made to stretch, and built into any shape—all the things plastic can do. In addition, nanocarbon manufacturing is low to nonpolluting."

future trend: invest in nanotech

Hubbert peak theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Hubbert peak theory, also known as 'peak oil', concerns the long-term rate of extraction and depletion in conventional petroleum and other fossil fuels. It is named after American geophysicist Marion King Hubbert, who created a model of known oil reserves, and proposed, in a paper he presented to the American Petroleum Institute in 1956 [1], that production of oil from conventional sources would peak in the continental United States between 1965 and 1970, and worldwide within 'about half a century' from publication."

future trend: plastics will become too expensive, carbon nanotubes will replace plastics. Invest in carbon nanotube / nanotech companies.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Panel Supports a Controversial Report on Global Warming - New York Times: "WASHINGTON, June 22 — An influential and controversial paper asserting that recent warming in the Northern Hemisphere was probably unrivaled for 1,000 years was endorsed Thursday, with a few reservations, by a panel convened by the nation's pre-eminent scientific body."

Old Shells Suggest Early Human Adornment - New York Times: "Archaeologists say they have found evidence that in one respect people were behaving like thoroughly modern humans as early as 100,000 years ago: they were apparently decorating themselves with a kind of status-defining jewelry — the earliest known shell necklaces."

Thursday, June 22, 2006

CNN.com - Heaven or hell? - Jun 12, 2006: "'The pace of change is exponential, not linear,' says inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil. 'So things fifty years from now will be very different. That's pretty phenomenal. It took us fifteen years to sequence HIV, we sequenced SARS in 31 days.'

Nanotechnology, genetics and cybernetics will mean that we will become faster, stronger and more beautiful; we will live longer and banish disease; we will be more intelligent and quicker-witted with photographic memories and the ability to go days without sleep."

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Wired News: Test Tube Meat Nears Dinner Table: "What if the next burger you ate was created in a warm, nutrient-enriched soup swirling within a bioreactor?
Edible, lab-grown ground chuck that smells and tastes just like the real thing might take a place next to Quorn at supermarkets in just a few years, thanks to some determined meat researchers. Scientists routinely grow small quantities of muscle cells in petri dishes for experiments, but now for the first time a concentrated effort is under way to mass-produce meat in this manner.
Henk Haagsman, a professor of meat sciences at Utrecht University, and his Dutch colleagues are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next few years."

DNA or RNA? Versatile Player Takes a Leading Role in Molecular Research - New York Times: "For decades, DNA has been the star of molecular biology. But it is increasingly having to share the stage as biologists discover more about the versatility of RNA, long viewed as a mere copyist of the genes encoded in the famous double helix. "

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Nanoparticles and Lasers Create CancerKilling Microbubbles: "Reporting their work in the journal Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, Dmitri Lapotko, Ph.D., from the Luikov Heath and Mass Transfer Institute in Minsk, Belarus, and colleagues used antibody-targeted gold nanoclusters to selectively destroy leukemia cells present in human bone marrow samples. To achieve optimal targeting, the investigators used a two-stage labeling technique.

In the first stage, they used diagnosis-specific monoclonal antibodies, that is, the antibodies used by clinical laboratories to diagnose specific subsets of acute B-lymphoblast leukemia (ALL) in human patients, to label the malignant cells. This type-specific antibody serves as the target for the second monoclonal antibody, which is attached to the gold nanoparticles. "

IBM develops speedier transistor - Yahoo! News: "SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM has built a transistor that runs about 100 times faster than current chips, a development that could pave the way for ultra-fast computers and wireless networks, the computing giant said on Monday.

Transistors are the basic building blocks of the processors found in everything from supercomputers to digital music players, and IBM achieved the record speeds by building one from silicon laced with exotic chemical element germanium."

Monday, June 19, 2006

Shuttling Electrons: "Twamley, a professor of quantum information science at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, worked with various colleagues, including theorists from the University of Queensland in St. Lucia, Australia and National Taiwan University in Taipei to develop a quantum nano-mechanical system that could measure the spin of a single molecule and perhaps be part of solid-state quantum computer. Their paper on the subject, “Spin-detection in a quantum electromechanical shuttle system,” appears in the May issue of the New Journal of Physics.

“Part of doing quantum computing,” Twamley explains, “is being able to input and output quantum bits (or qubits). If you are using a charge-based computer, you need to be able to read the charges. With spin-based, you need to read out spins.” Any quantum computer requires encoding quantum bits (qubits) into something. Twamley and his peers propose a readout device that would be able to detect changes in spin state of a single molecule, paving the way for spin-based input/output quantum computers in which qubits are inputted into the electron’s spin, and then decoded in the read-out to provide the asked-for information. "

future trend: quantum computing

Doctors remain powerless against cancer after 50 years of research: "The cancer mortality rate has barely changed in this century compared to 50 years ago, while the death rates of cardiac, cerebrovascular and infectious diseases have declined by about two-thirds, said Harold Varmus, a Nobel medicine prize laureate.

'Despite large federal and industrial investments in cancer research and a wealth of discoveries about the genetic, biochemical, and functional changes in cancer cells, cancer is commonly viewed as, at best, minimally controlled by modern medicine, especially when compared with other major diseases,' he wrote in the May 26 edition of the journal Science.

Varmus, a doctor at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said real progress will not be achieved unless an 'important change in culture' takes place to overcome social obstacles and improve collaboration between researchers, doctors, pharmaceutical laboratories and regulators.

Sandra Horning, the president of the American College of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), echoed those worries at the group's annual conference earlier this month and complained of a 'lack of progress' in the application of discoveries. "

Correlating Space and Time: "Homodyning is a process that involves a known reference laser, called the local oscillator, to measure the statistical properties of an unknown field: Shchukin explains to PhysOrg.com: “Appropriately analyzing the measured data allows us to determine the moments of the radiation field. Knowing the moments (which completely describe a radiation field) helps us to better understand other characteristics of quantum systems.”

The method Shchukin and Vogel propose, called balanced homodyne correlation (BHC) technique, has an advantage in that it uses simpler reconstruction procedure for arbitrary space-time correlations. Using an appropriate number of beam splitters and photo-detectors would allow scientists to measure, in principle, the correlations of an arbitrarily high order. This method goes beyond mere homodyne detection into correlation—offering something that can be experimentally applied.

“To my knowledge,” Shchukin says, “this is the first approach to experimentally realize such a general correlation measurement.” "

LiveScience.com - Molecule-sized Switch Could Control DNA Machines: "COLOGNE, GERMANY— A molecule-sized switch just 50 nanometers wide may someday control microscopic machines and also could make DNA sequencing faster, less expensive, and more precise.
Just about any machine depends on switches to turn this on or that off. And fully functioning nano-machines will need switches that are just as small as they are. Molecular switches, or 'mol-switches,' also could control larger devices and they could send information about the nano-world to remote, conventionally sized, sensors."

Sunday, June 18, 2006

'Mind over matter' no longer science fiction: "'B-O-N-J-O-U-R' he writes with the power of his mind, much to the amazement of the largely French audience of scientists and curious onlookers gathered at the four-day European Research and Innovation Exhibition in Paris, which opened Thursday.

Brunner and two colleagues from the state-financed Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York were demonstrating a 'brain computer interface (BCI),' an astounding technology which digitalizes brain signals emitted as electrical impulses -- picked up by the electrodes -- to convey intent. "

Neardeath experiences go under the French microscope: "More than 1,500 delegates including people who claim to have had NDEs are attending the one-day conference, which aims to take stock of the disputed phenomenon in the most scientific way possible.

Among them is anaesthetist and intensive care doctor Jean-Jacques Charbonnier, who has taken evidence from several people who claim to have had an NDE.

'People who were brain-dead could see what was going on in a waiting room, or around them, in precise detail. We are not talking about an hallucination here because it was quite real,' he said.

Sonia Barkallah, organiser of the conference, being held in Martigues near Marseille, added: 'These are people who have come close to death, whether through an accident or during an operation, and who have brought back from their unconscious state accounts that are quite out of the ordinary.

'They are floating above their bodies, they can hear what the doctors are saying about them, they feel themselves getting sucked into a dark tunnel with a bright but not blinding light at the end of it,' she continued. "

That Wild Streak? Maybe It Runs in the Family - New York Times: "Jason Dallas used to think of his daredevil streak — a love of backcountry skiing, mountain bikes and fast vehicles — as 'a personality thing.'

Jason Dallas of Seattle says he believes he is genetically predisposed toward risky behavior like backcountry skiing and mountain biking. Then he heard that scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle had linked risk-taking behavior in mice to a gene. Those without it pranced unprotected along a steel beam instead of huddling in safety like the other mice. "

future trend: genetic interventions to modify personality traits.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

How to Bake a Galaxy: "
Now, a new study from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is refining what is known about this essential ingredient of galaxies. It suggests that not only is dark matter necessary, but a minimum quantity of the material must be present before a galaxy can form. Any less would mean no galaxy -- the cosmic equivalent of a failed loaf of bread.

'Galaxies are born within huge clumps of dark matter,' said Dr. Duncan Farrah of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 'We are finding that these clumps seem to be remarkably consistent in size from galaxy to galaxy.' Farrah is lead author of a paper describing this and other findings in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. "

Sunday, June 11, 2006

LiveScience.com - How Life Began: New Research Suggests Simple Approach: "Somewhere on Earth, close to 4 billion years ago, a set of molecular reactions flipped a switch and became life. Scientists try to imagine this animating event by simplifying the processes that characterize living things. New research suggests the simplification needs to go further.

All currently known organisms rely on DNA to replicate and proteins to run cellular machinery, but these large molecules—intricate weaves of thousands of atoms—are not likely to have been around for the first organisms to use. "

Saturday, June 10, 2006

The Mathematical Structure of Terrorism: "The complex patterns of the natural world often turn out to be governed by relatively simple mathematical relationships. A seashell grows at a rate proportional to its size, resulting in a delicate spiral. The gossamer network of galaxies results from the simple interplay between cosmic expansion and the force of gravity over a wide range of scales. As our catalogue of natural phenomena has grown more complete, more and more scientists have begun to look for interesting patterns in human society. "

DNAbased medicine achieves a breakthrough: "A multi-national team of researchers from Germany, the United States, Switzerland and Britain said both men suffered from the disease that's inherited through a defective gene, leaving left them highly susceptible to fungal or bacterial infections, The Wall Street Journal reported. "

Researchers find gene linked to asthma: "'What makes our find so special is that we found an individual immunological gene that seems to be directly connected to the risk of developing asthma,' the head of the research team, Torben Kruse, said. 'Scientists have never been able to say the same before. Other findings have been described as possibly having an effect on allergies and eczema.'

Kruse said the discovery is likely to lead to earlier detection and better treatment. But he said the causes of asthma are complicated and include environmental factors. "

Scientists say they have cleared technical hurdle in fusion research: "In fusion, atomic nuclei are fused together to release energy, as opposed to fission -- the technique used for nuclear power and atomic bombs -- where nuclei are split.

In a fusion reactor, particles are rammed together to form a charged gas called a plasma, contained inside a doughnut-shaped chamber called a tokamak by powerful magnetic coils

A consortium of countries signed a deal last year to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France as a testbed for an eventual commercial design.

But many experts have been shaking their heads at the many challenges facing the ITER designers. "

Scientists develop highresolution touch nanosensor: "One of the trickiest decisions facing a cancer surgeon today is where to stop cutting. The surgeon doesn't want to stop too soon and leave cancer cells in the patient's body, but he or she also doesn't want to take too many cells and do unnecessary damage to organs. That decision could soon be made much easier, though, thanks to a high-resolution touch sensor developed by chemical engineers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that may allow surgeons to tell at the level of a single layer of cells whether or not they have excised a tumor in its entirety."

Scientists hope to cure Alzheimer's with piglet clones: "We will start to make transfers of genetically modified piglets containing the putative Alzheimer gene,' Gabor Vajta, professor at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences and head of the team, told AFP. The team of scientists, which includes three Chinese nationals, said it hoped to investigate other diseases using the same technique. "