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.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Report: I.T. Industry Can Thrive Despite Offshoring - Yahoo! News: "The practice of exporting jobs overseas is here to stay, but career opportunities in I.T. will remain strong in those countries that practice offshoring, according to a new study by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). "

Future of the Internet Highway Debated - Yahoo! News: "On the Internet, the traffic cops are blind � they don't look at the data they're directing, and they don't give preferential treatment.

That's something operators of the Internet highway, the major U.S. phone companies, want to change by effectively adding a toll lane: They want to be able to give priority treatment to those who pay to get through faster."

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Stem Cells May Be Key to Cancer - New York Times: "One day, perhaps in the distant future, stem cells may help repair diseased tissues. But there is a far more pressing reason to study them: stem cells are the source of at least some, and perhaps all, cancers."

Monday, February 20, 2006

et Ancient People Followed 'Kelp Highway' to America, Researcher Says - Yahoo! News: "Ancient humans from Asia may have entered the Americas following an ocean highway made of dense kelp.

The new finding lends strength to the 'coastal migration theory,' whereby early maritime populations boated from one island to another, hunting the bountiful amounts of sea creatures that live in kelp forests."

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Astronomers get shortlist of possible ET addresses - Yahoo! News: "ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Astronomers looking for extraterrestrial life now have a short list of places to point their telescopes.

They include nearby stars of the right size, age and composition to have Earth-like planets circling them, scientists said on Saturday."

UPHS News: Penn Researchers Create Technique to Engineer Nerve Tissue - Jumper Cables - to Repair Spinal Cord Injury, in Animal Model: "Penn Researchers Create Technique to Engineer Nerve Tissue Jumper Cables to Repair Spinal Cord Injury, in Animal Model
Technique Holds Promise for Spinal-Cord Repair in Humans
(Philadelphia, PA) - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have created - in a rodent model - a completely new way to engineer nerve structures, or constructs, in culture. This proof-of-principle research has implications for eventually becoming a new method to repair spinal cord injury in humans. The work appears in the latest issue of Tissue Engineering."

Friday, February 17, 2006

Greek Hiker Finds 6,500-Year-Old Pendant - Yahoo! News: "THESSALONIKI, Greece - A Greek hiker found a 6,500-year-old gold pendant in a field and handed it over to authorities, an archaeologist said Thursday.

The flat, roughly ring-shaped prehistoric pendant probably had religious significance and would have been worn on a necklace by a prominent member of society."

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

woPlanets Might Orbit Backward around Odd Star - Yahoo! News: "A developing star has been found to have two disks of material rotating in opposite directions. The discovery hints at a future solar system with planets going this way and that.
ADVERTISEMENT

'This is the first time anyone has seen anything like this, and it means that the process of forming planets from such disks is more complex than we previously expected,' said Anthony Remijan, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory."

Sunday, February 12, 2006

SPACE.com -- Spirit Mars Rover Reaches 'Home Plate': Formation Has Researchers Puzzled: "The images relayed so far by Spirit of Home Plate 'really are stunning,' Squyres added. 'Many of us were pretty much reduced to incoherent babble�like �WOW!!�, �Holy Toledo!� � in our emails to one another as the first good pictures were coming down.'"

Thursday, February 09, 2006

SPACE.com -- Asteroid Mining: Key to the Space Economy: "The Near Earth Asteroids offer both threat and promise. They present the threat of planetary impact with regional or global disaster. And they also offer the promise of resources to support humanity's long-term prosperity on Earth, and our movement into space and the solar system."

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

New Scientist Premium- Quantum foam blows away naked singularity - News: "A theory called loop quantum gravity can explain the final moments of a star collapsing into a point, and reveals a distinct signal to watch for
NAKED singularities and cosmic censorship may sound like lurid terms from the tabloids, but in fact these phrases lie at the heart of a troubling question for modern cosmology: what happens when our known laws of space and time break down, as happens in the final moments of a star collapsing to a point under its own gravity? "

BBC NEWS Science/Nature New Orleans 'risks extinction': "In the chaos that followed the worst natural disaster in American history, a forensic investigation has been taking place to find out what went wrong and why."

Scientists Warn of Melting Ice in Arctic - Yahoo! News: "Scientists on Monday painted a gloomy picture of the effects of global warming on the Arctic, warning of melting ocean ice, rising oceans, thawed permafrost and forests susceptible to bugs and fire.

'A lot of the stories you read make it sound like there's uncertainty,' said Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona. 'There's not uncertainty.'"

IBM says alters silicon's behavior to power new chip - Yahoo! News: "Instead of just making transistors smaller, IBM came up with a process to alter how silicon behaves by placing a layer of insulator underneath a layer of silicon less than 500 atoms thick, said Bernard Meyerson, chief technologist of IBM's technology group."

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Eye Test Could One Day Help Prevent Heart Attacks: "An eye test that could one day help prevent heart attacks is being supported by a $300,000 grant from Australia's leading research-based medicines company. "

Eye Test Could One Day Help Prevent Heart Attacks: "An eye test that could one day help prevent heart attacks is being supported by a $300,000 grant from Australia's leading research-based medicines company. "

Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail - New York Times: "Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers."

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Cracking the Mona Lisa Smile - Yahoo! News: "Beyond the alluring curve of her neck, the playful intelligence in her eyes, and her curious lack of eyebrows, it was really her smile that haunted the researchers the most. "

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Study Finds New Planet Bigger Than Pluto - Yahoo! News: "Scientists say they have confirmed that a so-called 10th planet discovered last year is bigger than Pluto, but that likely won't quell the debate over what makes a planet.

The astronomers who spotted the icy, rocky body informally called 2003 UB313 had reported only a rough estimate of its size based on its brightness."