Complexity Digest 2004.23

07-Jun-2004

Alan Guth - Inflationary Universe
ICCS2004 - Slides in pdf format now on-line at:

http://www.comdig2.de/conf/iccs04

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Previous issue 2004.22 | Next issue 2004.24

Content

  1. Send In the Swarm, Fortune
    1. The Emergence of Complexity, Kassel University Press
    2. Proceed With Caution, NY Times
    3. Concepts, When Symmetry Breaks Down, Nature
  2. Ion Entanglement in Quantum Information Processing, Science
  3. Designer Nanotubes by Molecular Self-Assembly, Science
    1. Dancing Lasers Levitate Carbon Nanotubes, NewScientist
    2. Study: Self-Replicating Nanomachines Feasible, SmallTimes
  4. Genetically-Modified Virus Explodes Cancer Cells, NewScientist
    1. Theoretical Immunology: Parasitic Turncoat, Nature
    2. Are HIV Vaccines Fighting Fire with Gasoline?, The Scientist
  5. ECOLOGY - Lessons From The Wolf, Scientific American
    1. Challenges of Modeling Ocean Basin Ecosystems, Science
    2. Dead Waters, Science News
    3. Flexibility in Algal Endosymbioses Shapes Growth in Reef Corals, Science
  6. Controversial Fossil Could Shed Light on Early Animals' Blueprint, Science
    1. Fossils Hint At Early Complexity, BBC News
  7. Young World: NASA Telescope Reveals Clues To Newborn Planet, Science News
    1. Youngest Extrasolar Planet Reported, Science
  8. Gene Expression Is Noisy, The Scientist
    1. Gene Regulation: A Reason For Reading Nonsense, Nature
    2. Scientists Find New Type of Gene in Junk DNA, Reuters
  9. Neurobiology: A Matter Of Balance, Nature
    1. Neuroscience: Crossing The Midline, Science
  10. Genes Promoting Nerve, Other Cell Communications May Have Come From Bacteria, ScienceDaily
  11. Flock Density, Social Foraging, And Scanning: An Experiment With Starlings, Behav. Ecol.
  12. Behold the Talking Chimp, The Scientist
  13. Colour And The Mind: Do You See What I See?, Alphagalileo
  14. From Collective Mind To Communication, Com. Sys.
  15. Modeling The Movement Of Crowds In A City, Com. Sys.
  16. Brain Disease Research, Particle Physics Meet In The Middle(Ware), ScienceDaily
  17. What's Google's Secret Weapon? An Army of Ph.D.'s, NY Times
    1. Net Brings Activists Out In Force, BBC News
    2. How Web Site Organization Influences Free Recall, Factual Knowledge, Human Comm. Res.
  18. Following The Afghan Drugs Trail, BBC News
    1. The Preemptive-War Doctrine has Met an Early Death in Iraq, Los Angeles Times
    2. Measuring Saud Family's Hold on Saudi Arabia, NPR ATC
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. Spain and U.S. at Odds on Mistaken Terror Arrest, NY Times
    2. Saudi Arabian Oil, NPR ME
    3. Saudi Arabia Dissolves Muslim Charity, NPR ATC
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference & Call for Papers Announcements

  1. Send In the Swarm, Fortune Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Military brainstormers think that scores or hundreds or even a few thousand cheap robots working in concert may play an important role in future operations such as land-mine disposal (...). Hence the financial support for figuring out the software for coordinating and controlling such swarms. As befits a man who looks to the insect world for inspiration, McLurkin has on his bookshelf such volumes as Journey to the Ants, by Harvard naturalist Edward O. Wilson, and The Wisdom of the Hive, by Cornell honeybee expert Thomas Seeley.

    1. The Emergence of Complexity, Kassel University Press Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: This book considers the question how complex systems suddenly emerge during the course of evolution and why the long-winded evolution of systems and species is interspersed with short phases of fast revolutions. Based on an agent based view of complex systems, it describes how systems become more and more complex, well illustrated with many examples for the emergence of complexity. From ancient cultures to modern states and from the earliest primitive organisms to self-conscious human beings, the text explores the widest range of phenomena with the fewest possible principles.

    2. Proceed With Caution, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Joy often uses the free market as an example of a system where any outcome, good or bad, is possible. At the moment, he argues, the same potential for good and bad outcomes exists in various kinds of private-sector research. The problem, though, is that a single bad biotech outcome may quickly become epidemic, unstoppable and irreversible. ''Markets can take us places we don't want to go,'' he says, ''and science, unchallenged and uninhibited, will take us places we don't want to go.''

    3. Concepts, When Symmetry Breaks Down, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: For example, in a liquid, an atom is equally likely to move in any direction in space - (...). But if we cool the liquid until it freezes, a crystal will form, which has distinguished axes. All directions in space are equally possible as crystal axes, but when the liquid freezes, some distinguished axes will always emerge. The symmetry between the different directions in space has been lost or 'spontaneously broken'.

      (...) just after the 'Big Bang' there was a perfect symmetry between the photon and the W and Z bosons.

  2. Ion Entanglement in Quantum Information Processing, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Roos et al. (3) [HN5] and Leibfried et al. (4) [HN6] report the creation, control, and potential applications of three-particle entangled states made with trapped ions.

    (...)development of microscopic systems based on pure-state dynamics, which may lead to scalable quantum computation.(...)

    These two complementary studies show the continued progress in engineering quantum systems to perform tasks that are beyond their classical counterparts. They open a new path for coherent control by enabling the control operation to be conditional on measurement, and they point to practical applications for entangled states.

  3. Designer Nanotubes by Molecular Self-Assembly, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: On a molecular scale, the accurate and controlled application of intermolecular forces can lead to new, previously unachievable, nanostructures. This is why molecular self-assembly (MSA) is a highly topical and promising field of research in nanotechnology today. MSA encompasses all structures formed by molecules selectively binding to a molecular site without external influence. With many complex examples all around us in nature (ourselves included), MSA is a widely observed phenomenon that has yet to be fully understood. Being more a physical principle than a single quantifiable property, (...) truly interdisciplinary.

    1. Dancing Lasers Levitate Carbon Nanotubes, NewScientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      How lasers can pick and place nanotubes
      For the first time, carbon nanotubes have been picked up and moved with a laser beam. The trick may finally offer engineers who want to build microchips based on nanotube components a way to move the diminutive devices into place.

      The semiconducting properties of nanotubes - (...) - mean they might one day be used as the basis for low-power, ultra-fast chips. But until now, the only way to position the carbon tubes has been laborious: nudging them around with an expensive instrument called an atomic force microscope.

    2. Study: Self-Replicating Nanomachines Feasible, SmallTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A useful self-replicating machine could be less complex than a Pentium IV chip, according to a new study (PDF, 1.73 MB) performed by General Dynamics for NASA.

      (...) examined the design of "kinematic cellular automata," a reconfigurable system of many identical modules. Through simulations, the researchers demonstrated the feasibility of this kind of self-replication, which could in a decade or more lead to the mass manufacture of molecularly precise robots, display monitors and integrated circuits that can be programmed in the field, the study said.

  4. Genetically-Modified Virus Explodes Cancer Cells, NewScientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A genetically-modified virus that exploits the selfish behaviour of cancer cells may offer a powerful and selective way of killing tumours. (...)

    Normally, the detection of an intruder by a cell triggers a process called apoptosis (...)

    (...) virus was immediately detected by normal cells and was unable to spread. But in cancer cells, which grow uncontrollably and ignore the cell death process, the virus was able to thrive and spread rapidly. It then multiplied so vigorously that it killed the cancer cells by making them explode.

    1. Theoretical Immunology: Parasitic Turncoat, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Some parasites evade the immune response of their victim by changing their antigenic coat. Surprisingly, it seems that the trick works best if the new coat isn't completely different from the old one.

      Antigenic variation is one of the tricks that pathogens have evolved to escape the immune response of vertebrates. The basic idea is simple. When the specific immune responses directed against the pathogen's antigens have reached a sufficiently high level to clear the infection, the pathogen changes its antigens, rendering the immune responses useless.

    2. Are HIV Vaccines Fighting Fire with Gasoline?, The Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: An effective HIV vaccine has yet to be created, and maybe one never will. Scientists working on protective vaccines have mountains of problems with the virus' slippery nature, but perhaps most unnerving is that a vaccine-primed immune system might be more susceptible to infection. Boosting the HIV-specific helper cells may be giving the virus more factories in which to reproduce.

      T helper (Th) cells have a "dual role as target cells for infection, as well as being important mediators of the host immune response," (...).

  5. ECOLOGY - Lessons From The Wolf, Scientific American Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Image: DIANE HARGREAVES
    EARLY SPRING in the Lamar River Valley: several wolves chase elk while an interested grizzly bear awaits the outcome. Grizzlies can drive wolves off a kill; more often they scavenge after the wolves have eaten their fill.
    Bringing the top predator back to Yellowstone has triggered a cascade of unanticipated changes in the park's ecosystem.

    The wolf-effect theory holds that wolves kept elk numbers at a level that prevented them from gobbling up every tree or willow that poked its head aboveground. When the wolves were extirpated in the park as a menace, elk numbers soared, and the hordes consumed the vegetation, denuding the Lamar Valley and driving out many other species. Without young trees on the range, beavers, for example, had little or no food, (...).

    1. Challenges of Modeling Ocean Basin Ecosystems, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: (...) there is a growing need to understand and predict changes in marine ecosystems. Biogeochemical and physical oceanographic models are well developed, but extending these further up the food web to include zooplankton and fish is a major challenge. The difficulty arises because organisms at higher trophic levels are longer lived, with important variability in abundance and distribution at basin and decadal scales. Those organisms at higher trophic levels also have complex life histories compared to microbes, further complicating their coupling to lower trophic levels and the physical system.

    2. Dead Waters, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      SUFFOCATING STRETCH. Map depicts 20,700 square kilometers of the dead zone in the 2001 Gulf of Mexico. The zone probably extends farther west, but researchers ran out of money before they could finish charting that area.
      S. Norcross, adapted from Rabalais/LUMCON
      JPL-Caltech/NASA
      Massive oxygen-starved zones are developing along the world's coasts

      Although the precise timing and size of the Gulf's dead zone varies with the weather, in many years it encompasses 22,000 square kilometers, a parcel of underwater real estate roughly the size of New Jersey. Fish that can evacuate as oxygen drops do so-although abandoning their home habitat may render them vulnerable to predators. Crustaceans and other seafloor life that can't leave fast enough simply die.

    3. Flexibility in Algal Endosymbioses Shapes Growth in Reef Corals, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The relation between corals and their algal endosymbionts has been a key to the success of scleractinian (stony) corals as modern reef-builders, but little is known about early stages in the establishment of the symbiosis. Here, we show that initial uptake of zooxanthellae by juvenile corals during natural infection is nonspecific (a potentially adaptive trait); the association is flexible and characterized by a change in (dominant) zooxanthella strains over time; (...) clade C-infected juveniles growing two to three times as fast as those infected with clade D.

  6. Controversial Fossil Could Shed Light on Early Animals' Blueprint, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The new animal, (...), was an oval blob less than a fifth of a millimeter long. The authors say it shows that key features of bilaterians are preserved in rocks some 580 million to 600 million years old--and thus that the genetic tool kit used to assemble more sophisticated body plans was present long before the Cambrian. "If these are bilaterian fossils, they would help tone down the suddenness of that 'explosion,' " says Jere Lipps of the University of California, Berkeley.

    1. Fossils Hint At Early Complexity, BBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      The animals may even have possessed sensory organs
      Blob-like fossils dating back about 600 million years may indicate that complex life evolved much earlier on our planet than had been thought, scientists say.(...)

      If the analysis of the fossils by Jun-Yuan Chen and colleagues is accepted by the scientific community, the specimens would represent the most ancient evidence yet of animals complex enough to have the symmetrical two-sided body plan found in modern creatures, such as humans.

      The animals - (...)- even have what look like pits in their outer surface that might have contained sensory organs.

  7. Young World: NASA Telescope Reveals Clues To Newborn Planet, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    NEW PLANET? An artist's conception of a young planet, larger than Jupiter, as it orbits the star CoKu Tau 4. Astronomers didn't see the planet directly but inferred its existence from a gap in the star's dust cloud, using infrared measurements from the Spitzer Space Telescope.
    JPL-Caltech/NASA
    Astronomers have found signs of what may be the youngest planet known, plus the first signs ever of organic compounds in a region of dust that could evolve into a planet-forming system.

    By measuring infrared light, the Spitzer Space Telescope also located hundreds of newborn stars, some with potentially planet-forming dust. "The number of potential Earthlike planets in the galaxy is greater than we previously imagined,"(...)

    CoKu Tau 4, about 420 light-years from Earth and in the constellation Taurus, is only 1 million years old, a cosmic baby.

    1. Youngest Extrasolar Planet Reported, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: When Watson and his colleagues compared the behavior of shorter-wavelength infrared radiation coming predominantly from the star to that at longer wavelengths mainly from the dusty disk, they concluded that the debris has been cleared out near the star to form a gap. Such gaps have been found around other stars, Watson noted, but the Spitzer observations show an exceptionally clear and sharp-edged gap. The most likely explanation, said Watson, is that a planet formed there and swept up the debris.

  8. Gene Expression Is Noisy, The Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The random fluctuations-also known as noise-of gene expression could account for phenotypic variations ranging from the minor-such as different fingerprints in identical twins-to the major (...).

    (...) measurements of noise in single budding yeast cells suggest that noise also provides a means, albeit temporary, of cellular adaptation to the environment. (...)

    The team also identified mutations that could convert a gene from a less to a more noisy state, and vice versa, (...) a cellular population can take advantage of: to evolve to better adapt to an environment."

    1. Gene Regulation: A Reason For Reading Nonsense, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The process of transcribing DNA can itself regulate gene expression in yeast: (...) the very act of reading the DNA, not the message produced, that carries out the regulatory job.

      What is the production of DNA transcripts good for? Most notably, of course, the transcripts provide the read-out of an organism's genome in the form of messenger RNAs that act as blueprints for protein construction. (...) Why is there (...) production of large quantities of apparently non-coding and non-functional RNAs?

      These RNAs are often dismissed as 'noise', (...).

    2. Scientists Find New Type of Gene in Junk DNA, Reuters Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Unlike other genes, the new one does not produce a protein or enzyme to carry out its function. But when it is turned on, it regulates a neighboring gene. (...)

      "I cannot think of another regulatory gene such as this one," he added.

      There are about 30,000 to 40,000 genes in the human genome. Much of the genome consists of junk DNA which scientists are trying to decipher to determine the causes and potential treatments for human diseases.

  9. Neurobiology: A Matter Of Balance, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: (...), in the spinal cord of developing frogs, profiles of neurotransmitter expression can change in response to differing degrees of neuronal activity. Although it was well known that neurons can alter the levels of expression of particular neurotransmitters after changes in circuit activity, (...) embryonic spinal-cord neurons can also alter the types of neurotransmitter that they produce - and that they do this independently of changes in cell identity. Moreover, these changes in neurotransmitter phenotype, (...), occur in a system that was thought to be genetically 'hardwired'.

    1. Neuroscience: Crossing The Midline, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: But how do countless axons find the correct target neurons with which to form synapses, ensuring normal development and function of the nervous system? The more complex the nervous system of an organism, the greater is the problem. The sheer distances traveled by axons--up to 105 times an axon's diameter--and the number of potential target neurons are staggering. Furthermore, there is the problem of negotiating the midline of the nervous system. How do axons know if and when they need to cross the midline?

  10. Genes Promoting Nerve, Other Cell Communications May Have Come From Bacteria, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Specifically, the genes contain the information needed to make enzymes, which, in turn are crucial for making the complex molecules that cells use to communicate with each other. The researchers also identified genes for enzymes that are involved in the manufacture of the following chemical messengers: * acetylcholine - involved in learning and memory, muscle contraction, * dopamine - the absence of which results in Parkinson's disease * norepinephrine and epinephrine - involved in alertness, vascular tone * serotonin - involved in mood, * glutamate - involved in alertness * nitric oxide - involved in many bodily functions, including blood pressure regulation * histamine - involved in the allergic response

  11. Flock Density, Social Foraging, And Scanning: An Experiment With Starlings, Behav. Ecol. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Social foraging differs from individual foraging because it alters both resource availability and the forager's behavior. We examined responses of starlings to the presence of conspecifics by manipulating foraging-group density experimentally, while ensuring that each subject's foraging opportunities were unchanged. The focal individual analysis showed that (1) food-searching activity increased, while time spent scanning, (...) decreased with flock density; (2) food finding per unit of searching effort increased with density; (3) head orientation during scanning was sensitive to companions' proximity (...). We conclude that behavioral responses of individuals to the presence of others generate important changes in foraging performance (...).

  12. Behold the Talking Chimp, The Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Zeroing in on the genetic basis of language
    SMALL HINTS, LARGE CHANGES: Although the genetic differences are small, as illustrated in the above stretch of FOXP2, and the neural differences still largely unknown, there is a world of difference between the mind of a chimp and the mind of a human.
    Photo: Courtesy of Rick Effland; Design, Erica P. Johnson
    It has long been clear that resolving the mystery of language will require cooperation among researchers steeped in a broad range of disciplines, from genetics and neuroscience to psychology, anthropology, and linguistics. (...). Brain imagers are beginning to collaborate with professional linguists, psychologists are collaborating with geneticists, and so forth. Such studies have already overturned the simplistic story found in many textbooks (...) and stimulated a great deal of new research, aimed at understanding language as the product of a far more complex network that spans the brain.

  13. Colour And The Mind: Do You See What I See?, Alphagalileo Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Science Museum visitors are being offered the chance to take part in a scientific study into how the brain creates experiences of colour. As part of the Museum's 'Live Science' initiative, scientists will investigate how people use the mind's eye to associate colours with symbols and will explore individual differences in the way we perceive the world. "Our experiment (...) will hopefully show that significant differences do exist in the way that some people colour their world and give us the opportunity to find out whether these differences are more common in men versus women and children versus adults."

  14. From Collective Mind To Communication, Com. Sys. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: "Collective mind" is introduced as a set of simple intelligent units (say, neurons, or interacting agents) that can communicate by exchanging information without explicit global control. Incomplete information is compensated for by a sequence of random guesses symmetrically distributed around expectations with prescribed variances. Both the expectations and variances are the invariants characterizing the whole class of agents. These invariants are stored as parameters of the collective mind, while they contribute to dynamical formalism of the agents' evolution, (...). The main departure of this model from newtonian and statistical physics is due to feedback from the mental to the motor dynamics (...).

  15. Modeling The Movement Of Crowds In A City, Com. Sys. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: A simulation of crowd movement in a city is studied under various assumptions about interactions between people. We find, in general, that there are two modes of steady-state behavior. The crowd may be distributed across the city, or it may end up gathered in one place. A mathematical model describes the long-term behavior and shows that this change in behavior is sensitive to a critical parameter setting in our model. Some alternative interpretations of the results are formulated.

  16. Brain Disease Research, Particle Physics Meet In The Middle(Ware), ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The study of Alzheimer's disease and the analysis of particle collisions may not appear to have much in common, but behind the scenes, middleware being developed (...) Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) is establishing the cyberinfrastructure (...). The ability to share and compare massive data sets such as MRI brain scans or high-resolution electron microscopy images is essential to participants' research into Alzheimer's disease, depression, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis and other disorders. With the participating research labs connected by the Internet2 high-performance network, the BIRN cyberinfrastructure uses software from the NSF Middleware Initiative (NMI) to harness grid-based services (...).

  17. What's Google's Secret Weapon? An Army of Ph.D.'s, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Microsoft has 56,000 employees, but its research group, with 700, is separate. Google has 1,900 employees, and no separate research group, so all 1,900, effectively, are charged to "boldly go where no one has gone before" (its words). You have to like Google's chances.

    Employee motivation is tied to sundry conveniences and happy stomachs, or so it would seem. When Google filed its initial public offering plans in April, it enumerated employee benefits like those washing machines, free meals and doctor visits at company offices.

    1. Net Brings Activists Out In Force, BBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: With politics in America more polarised than any time since the 1960s, there is one thing that all the parties can agree on this crucial election year - the power of web-based activism.

      New York City may be a bastion of Democratic Party politics and support, but that didn't stop the Republican grassroots' campaigner-in-chief, Ralph Reed, from attending a downtown seminar in late May on politics and the internet.

      The legendary right-wing organiser - (...) - told his mainly left-leaning audience that local democracy was being regenerated through the internet.

    2. How Web Site Organization Influences Free Recall, Factual Knowledge, Human Comm. Res. Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: Past research has demonstrated that nonlinear Web presentations (i.e., those that allow viewing in multiple orders) may lead to decreased free recall and learning of factual information compared to traditional, print-like linear Web designs. Recent evidence suggests, however, that nonlinear designs may facilitate learning of the interconnectedness of the presented information. This article (...) examine the potential influence of two mediating variables: selective scanning and elaboration. The central finding is that linear site designs encourage factual learning, whereas nonlinear designs increase knowledge structure density. The effects of elaboration and selective scanning, however, are mixed.

  18. Following The Afghan Drugs Trail, BBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The Afghan drugs trade is growing so fast some fear the country could become a narco-state, where drugs barons rule, not the government. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, has been visiting the country to assess the situation, touring north and western Afghanistan before meeting President Karzai and other leaders in Kabul. BBC Afghanistan correspondent Andrew North has been travelling with Mr Costa. This is his diary from the trip.
    The UN is worried by a big rise in the opium trade

    1. The Preemptive-War Doctrine has Met an Early Death in Iraq, Los Angeles Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Bush's preemption doctrine went well beyond anything previous presidents had contemplated. To be sure, the option of using force preemptively had existed for Bush's predecessors. Some had used it-as Bill Clinton did in 1998 when he ordered an attack on a pharmaceutical plant (...). But Bush's conception of preemption far exceeded responding to an imminent danger of attack. He instead advocated preventive wars of regime change. The United States claimed the right to use force to oust leaders it disliked long before they could threaten its security.

    2. Measuring Saud Family's Hold on Saudi Arabia, NPR ATC Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: NPR's Robert Siegel speaks with Yousef Ibrahim, former New York Times correspondent and now managing director of the Strategic Energy Investment Group in Dubai, U.A.E., about the stability of the ruling Saud family in Saudi Arabia. The recent armed attacks in Khobar are only the surface indications of great pressures threatening the country's leadership.

  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Spain and U.S. at Odds on Mistaken Terror Arrest, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: (...) F.B.I. at one point told federal prosecutors that Spanish officials were "satisfied" with their conclusion.

      But in interviews this week, Spanish officials vehemently denied ever backing up that assessment, saying they had told American law enforcement officials from the start, after their own tests, that the match was negative. The Spanish officials said their American counterparts relentlessly pressed their case anyway, explaining away stark proof of a flawed link - including what the Spanish described as tell-tale forensic signs - and seemingly refusing to accept the notion that they were mistaken.
      Editor's Note: One might wonder about the fate of other terrorist suspects in U.S. custody where the outcome of the case exclusively depends on F.B.I. "evidence" without any potential corrective influence from unbiased international experts.

    2. Saudi Arabian Oil, NPR ME Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who worked in the Middle East. They discuss potential future terrorist attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure. Over the weekend, armed militiamen killed 22 workers at a compound in the Saudi city of Khobar. Baer is the author of upcoming book Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude.

    3. Saudi Arabia Dissolves Muslim Charity, NPR ATC Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Saudi Arabia dissolves a large Saudi-based Muslim charity in what it says is an action to halt terrorist financing. Assets of the charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, were placed in a national commission meant to control. The move follows a weekend attack by suspected al Qaeda gunmen in the kingdom. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Privacy and The Matrix, Barry Steinhardt, 04/05/27, Washington Post
      2. Total Information Dilemma, Cynthia L. Webb, 04/05/27, Washington Post
      3. Control And Measurement Of Three-Qubit Entangled States, Christian F. Roos, Mark Riebe, Hartmut Häffner, Wolfgang Hänsel, Jan Benhelm, Gavin P. T. Lancaster, Christoph Becher, Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler, Rainer Blatt, 04/06/04, Science : 1478-1480.
      4. Development Spending:Economists Rate Greenhouse Gas Curbs a Poor Investment, John Bohannon, 04/06/04, Science : 1429
      5. Nice Threads, 04/06/05, Science News, Once researchers figure out how to spin strong fibers out of carbon nanotubes, real-world applications such as long-distance power-transmission cables, lightweight aircraft materials, and electronic textiles become feasible.
      6. Protein Power: Solar cell produces electricity from spinach and bacterial proteins, 04/06/05, Science News, Researchers have fabricated a solar cell that uses photosynthetic proteins to convert light into electricity.
      7. Tiny Tubes Brighten Bulbs: Nanotubes beat tungsten in lightbulb test—maybe, 04/06/05, Science News, Experiments suggest that lightbulbs with filaments made from carbon nanotubes outshine conventional bulbs.
      8. Death Waits for No One: Deferred demises take a couple of hits, 04/06/05, Science News, Two new reports challenge the idea that elderly people suffering from serious physical illnesses can prolong their lives just long enough to experience a personally meaningful event.
      9. Geyser Bashing: Distant quake alters timing of eruptions, 04/06/05, Science News, A powerful earthquake that struck central Alaska on Nov. 3, 2002, changed the eruption schedule of some geysers in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park, more than 3,10
      10. Breast milk may lower cholesterol, 04/06/05, Science News, Feeding a newborn baby breast milk instead of formula during the first month of life improves the child's cholesterol readings later on.
      11. Killer weather on Mount Everest, 04/06/05, Science News, An analysis of weather patterns around Mount Everest in May 1996, when eight climbers died, suggests that a sudden drop in barometric pressure may have played a significant role in the deaths.
      12. Simple water filter can nail arsenic, 04/06/05, Science News, Field tests suggest that people who live in areas with arsenic-tainted aquifers may be able to purify their drinking water by passing it through a low-tech, low-cost filter that includes a bed of iron nails.
      13. Satellite Images 'Show Atlantis', Paul Rincon, 04/06/06, BBC News,
        The imagery may show the former locations of major buildings and rings
      14. Drugs May Turn Cancer Into Manageable Disease, Andrew Pollack, 04/06/06, NYTimes
      15. Brain-Mimicking Circuits To Run Navy Robot, Charles Choi, 04/06/07, United Press International
      16. Remembrance Of Odors Past: Human Olfactory Cortex In Cross-Modal Recognition Memory, J. A. Gottfried - j.gottfriedafil.ion.ucl.ac.uk, A. P. R. Smith, M. D. Rugg, R. J. Dolan, 2004/05/27, Neuron
      17. New Dinosaurs Link Southern Landmasses In The Mid-Cretaceous, P. C. Sereno, J. A. Wilson, J. L. Conrad, 2004/06/01, Alphagalileo & Proceedings Biological Sciences
      18. Spatial Variation And Density-Dependent Dispersal In Competitive Coexistence, P. Amarasekare, 2004/06/01, Alphagalileo & Proceedings Biological Sciences
      19. Reproductive Isolation Caused By Visual Predation On Migrants Between Divergent Environments, P. Nosil, 2004/06/01, Alphagalileo & Proceedings Biological Sciences
      20. New Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndrome Identified, 2004/06/01, ScienceDaily & Duke University Medical Center
      21. Scientists Discover Way To Regulate The Body's Energy Expenditure, T. Stephenson - at.stephensonaimperial.ac.uk, 2004/06/02, Alphagalileo
      22. A Trade-Investment Model For Distribution Of Wealth, N. Scafetta - ns2002aduke.edu, S. Picozzia, B. J. Westa, 2004/06/15, Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, DOI: 10.1016/j.physd.2004.01.031
      23. Statistical Mechanical Foundations Of Power-Law Distributions, A. K. Rajagopal, 2004/06/15, Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, DOI: 10.1016/j.physd.2004.01.010
      24. What Should A Statistical Mechanics Satisfy To Reflect Nature?, C. Tsallis - tsallisacbpf.br, 2004/06/15, online 2004/02/26, Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, DOI: 10.1016/j.physd.2004.01.006
      25. "No No No" And Other Types Of Multiple Sayings In Social Interaction, T. Stivers - tanya.stiversampi.nl, Apr. 2004, Human Communication Research
      26. The Globalization Of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion In The International Political Economy, K. Ward - k.g.wardaman.ac.uk, Jun. 2004, Journal of Economic Geography
      27. US Multinational Affiliate Exports From Developing Countries, H. J. Shatz - shatzappic.org, Jun. 2004, Journal of Economic Geography
      28. Extrapair Paternity And The Evolution Of Bird Song, L. Z. Garamszegi - laszlo.garamszegiaua.ac.be, A. P. Møller, May 2004, Behavioral Ecology
      29. Feelings And Emotions: Roles For Electrophysiological Markers, J. T. Cacioppo - cacioppoauchicago.edu, Oct. 2004, online 2004/04/09, Biological Psychology, DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2004.03.009
      30. The Institutionalization Of The U.S. Supreme Court, K. T. McGuire - kmcguireaunc.edu, Spring 2004, Political Analysis

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
      2. International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
      3. Life, a Nobel Story, Brussels, Belgium, 04/04/28
      4. Nonlinear Dynamics and Statistical Mechanics Days, Brussels, Belgium, 04/04/26-27
      5. Science Education Forum for Chinese Language Culture, , Panel Discussion, Taipei, Taiwan, 04/05/01
      6. Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology, , Lausanne,Switzerland, 04/01/29-30
      7. Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
      8. World Economic Forum 2004, Davos, Switzerland
      9. CODIS 2004, International Conference On Communications, Devices And Intelligent Systems, 2004 Calcutta, India, 04/01/09-10
      10. EVOLVABILITY & INTERACTION: Evolutionary Substrates of Communication, Signaling, and Perception in the Dynamics of Social Complexity, London, UK, 03/10/08-10
      11. The Semantic Web and Language Technology - Its Po tential and Practicalities, Bucharest, Romania, 03/07/28-08/08
      12. ECAL 2003, 7th European Conference on Artificial Life, Dortmund, Germany, 03/09/14-17
      13. New Santa Fe Institute President About His Vision for SFI's Future Role, (Video, Santa Fe, NM, 03/06/04)
      14. SPIE's 1st Intl Symp on Fluctuations and Noise, Santa Fe, NM, 2003/06/01-04
      15. NAS Sackler Colloquium on Mapping Knowledge Domains, Video/Audio Report, 03/05/11
      16. 13th Ann Intl Conf, Soc f Chaos Theory in Psych & Life Sciences, Boston, MA, USA, 2003/08/08-10
      17. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
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    3. Conference & Call for Papers Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. ECC8 Experimental Chaos Conference, Florence, Italy, 04/06/14-17
      2. An Intl Tribute to Francisco Varela, Paris,04/06/18-20
      3. 7th Intl Conf on Linking Systems Thinking, Innovation,Quality, Entrepreneurship and Environment (STIQE), MARIBOR, SLOVENIA, 04/06/24-26
      4. Biannual Meeting Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, Whistler, BC, 04/06/24-26
      5. NAACSOS 2004, North American Association for Computational Social and Organizational Science, Pittsburgh PA, 04/06/27-29
      6. Statphys - Kolkata V An International Conference on Complex Networks: Structure, Function and Processes , Kolkata, India, 04/06/27-30
      7. ICAD 2004 10th International Conference on Auditory Display, Sydney, Australia, 04/07/06-09
      8. 3rd Intl School Topics in Nonlinear Dynamics Discrete Dynamical Systems and Applications , Urbino (Italy), 04/07/07-09
      9. `Perspectives on Nonlinear Dynamics 2004 (PNLD-2004), Chen! nai, India, 04/07/12-15
      10. From Animals To Animats 8, 8th Intl Conf On The Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'04), Los Angeles, USA, 04/07/13-17
      11. 14th Annual International Conference The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences , Milwaukee, WI, USA, 04/07/15-18
      12. Facing Complexity, Wellington, NZ, 04/07/15-17
      13. Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Security Bytes, Security/Life/Terror , Lancaster, 04/07/17-19
      14. Gordon Research Conference on "Oscillations & Dynamic Instabilities In Chemical Systems", Lewiston, ME, 04/07/18-23
      15. 3rd Intl Conf Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent Systems Conference (AAMAS 2004), New York City, 04/07/19-23
        1. 7th Intl Workshop on: Trust in Agent Societies , New York City, 04/07/19-20
      16. 8th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Orlando, Florida, USA, 04/07/18-21
      17. The 4 th International Workshop on Meta-Synthesis and Complex Systems (MCS'2004) , Beijing, 04/07/22-23
      18. 2004 Summer Simulation MultiConference (SummerSim'04), San Jose Hyatt, San Jose, California, 04/07/25-29
      19. SME 2004 Symposium on Modeling and Control of Economic Systems , University in Redlands, CA, 04/07/28-31
      20. 6th International Mathematica Symposium (IMS 2004), Banff, Canada, 04/08/02-06
      21. img src="http://alife.org/img/new.gif"> Real-Life Complex Adaptive Systems: Modelling And Control, session in Intl Conf on Computing, Communications and Control Technologies: CCCT'04, Austin, Texas, 04/08/14-17
      22. Fractals and Natural Hazards at 32nd Intl Geological Congress (IGC), Florence, Italy, 04/08/20-28
      23. Intl Conf on Science of Complex Networks: from Biology to the Internet and WWW (CNET2004), Aveiro (Portugal), 04/08/29-09/02
      24. ICCC 2004, IEEE International Conference on Computational Cybernetics, , Vienna, Austria, 04/08/30-09/01
      25. ANTS 2004, 4th International Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence, Brussels, Belgium, 04/09/05-08
      26. Dynamic Ontology, An Inquiry into Systems, Emergence, Levels of Reality, and Forms of Causality, Trento, Italy, 04/09/08-11
      27. 9th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (ALIFE9), Boston, Massachusetts, 04/09/12-15
      28. Neuroeconomics 2004, Charleston, SC, 04/09/16-19
      29. TNew Economic Windows 2004: Complexity Hints for Economic Policy, Salerno, Italy, 04/09/16-18
      30. The Verhulst 200 on Chaos, Brussels, BELGIUM, 04/09/16-18
      31. The 8th Intl Conf on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN VIII), Birmingham, UK, 04/09/18-22
      32. XVII Brazilian Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Sao Luis, Maranhao - Brazil, 04/09/22-24
      33. TEDMED Conference , Charleston SC, 04/10/12-15
      34. Wolfram Technology Conference, Champaign, Illinois, 04/10/21-23
      35. 6th Intl Conf on Electronic Commerce ICEC'2004: Towards A New Services Landscape, Delft, The Netherlands, 04/10/25-27
      36. Complexity and Philosophy Workshop - 2-Day Conference , Rio de Janeiro, 04/11
      37. ICDM '04: The Fourth IEEE Intl Conf on Data Mining, Brighton, UK, 04/11/01-04
      38. The 7th Asia-Pacific Complex Systems Conference, Queensland, Australia, 04/12/06-10
      39. 17th Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Queensland, Australia, 04/12/06-10
      40. 18th International Conference on Noise and Fluctuations (ICNF 2005), Salamanca, Spain, 05/09/19-23

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