Connecting Science And Global Security, AAAS News Release 
Excerpt: Ever since September 11, 2001, security issues have topped the American policy agenda. A critical facet of security policy is the availability of accurate technical information - along with means of transferring that information reliably from the laboratory to policy makers. To facilitate that type of transfer, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has created the AAAS Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy.(...)
"We want to facilitate the process of getting objective science and technology considerations fully encompassed in the policy process, (...)." [Dr. Norman Neureiter]
Societal Complexity And Diminishing Returns In Security, Int. Security
Excerpts: (...) There has been little effort, however, to approach the problems that complexity poses for security in a comprehensive way, though this is not to say that work applicable to such a purpose has failed to appear. (...) This article argues that security is becoming an area of diminishing returns to complexity for today's advanced societies because of the diminishing returns from investments in complexity in general, the risks posed by the interconnections this growing complexity creates, and the rising cost of security forces. (...) According to one definition, complexity refers to "asymmetric relationships that reflect organization and restraint" between the parts of a system.(...)
Knowledge As Power: Science, Military Dominance, And U.S. Security, Int. Security
Excerpts: Can the United States maintain its global lead in science, the new key to its recently unparalleled military dominance? U.S scientific prowess has become the deep foundation of U.S. military hegemony. U.S. weapons systems currently dominate the conventional battlefield because they incorporate powerful technologies available only from scientifically dominant U.S. weapons laboratories. Yet under conditions of globalization, scientific and technical (S&T) knowledge is now spreading more quickly and more widely, suggesting that hegemony in this area might be difficult for any one country to maintain. Is the scientific hegemony that lies beneath U.S. weapons dominance strong and durable, or only weak and temporary? (...)
Let a Thousand Ideas Flower: China Is a New Hotbed of Research, NY Times
Excerpt: "The Chinese are going to become sources of innovation,'' said Denis Fred Simon, a specialist in Chinese science and technology who is provost of the new graduate-level Levin Institute of the State University of New York. "They will find themselves enmeshed in global R.& D. more and more.''
The starting point for this research boom is China's growing importance and sophistication as a market for technology, especially telecommunications and the Internet, (...).
"People realize that with the expansion of China's market they need to tailor products to the China market,"(...).
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Abstract: In this review, we examine the earliest states in Mesoamerica and how they developed. We present a definition of the state and explain why first-generation or primary states have special significance in anthropology and archaeology; we also discuss how anthropological archaeologists can detect the emergence of state organization in the archaeological record. We review the archaeological data bearing on early state formation in Oaxaca, the Southern Gulf Coast, the Southeastern Lowlands, and the Basin of Mexico. Although we acknowledge that more data are needed from all regions, we conclude that Oaxaca currently provides the most compelling evidence of primary state formation in Mesoamerica.
Early Brain Growth In Homo Erectus And Implications For Cognitive Ability, Nature
Excerpt: An adaptive solution has been reached by giving birth to offspring with relatively small brains compared with adult brain size. Whereas Macaca newborns display an endocranial volume equivalent to 70% of adult size1, the modern human brain represents only 25% of its adult size at birth and continues to grow at its fast fetal rate during the first year of life. At 1 yr of age the human brain is 50% of its adult size and at 10 yr 95% of the adult brain size is achieved.
The Beginning of Violence, Science Now
Excerpt:
Sign of foul play. A projectile point (arrow) in a vertebra of an ancient skeleton hints at an early start to human violence.
Credit: Fanny Bocquentin/Journal Of Human Evolution
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Anthropologists and archaeologists have long suspected that social tensions began to arise after the advent of settled life, when hunter-gatherers formed close-knit communities and eventually took up farming. Yet evidence for this hypothesis has been lacking. The best-studied early sedentary peoples, the Natufians--who occupied parts of present-day Israel beginning about 14,500 years ago--were thought (...) to have been fairly peaceful.
Now a study of one of the richest collections of Natufian skeletons, from Kebara Cave on Mount Carmel, has turned up fresh evidence of violence among these early settlers.
Humans Not Irrational, Just Wary, ScienceDaily
Excerpts: Psychologists often conclude from research subjects' behavior in psychological experiments that humans are irrational. New research indicates that humans are in fact quite rational; they just do not trust what people in lab coats tell them. (...) by taking doubt into account, psychologists have the opportunity to strengthen the predictive power of many commonly used models and potentially better understand human behavior. "It may be that subjects are responding in a perfectly adaptive way if you see it through their eyes: this strange experience of walking into a laboratory and meeting someone who tells them to do something they've never done before," (...).
The Body Beautiful: Symbolism and Agency in the Social World, Annual Review of Anthropology
Excerpt: The prominence of the body in popular culture has prompted intense academic interest in recent decades. Seeking to overturn a naturalistic approach to the body as a biological given, this broad literature redefines the body as a sociocultural and historical phenomenon. Within anthropology, two primary theoretical orientations toward the body have emerged: the body as "symbol" and the body as "agent." (...) The review explores also the body beautiful as a primary site for the construction and performance of gender, and specifically of femininity, (...).
Anthropological Perspectives on Clothing, Fashion, and Culture, Annual Review of Anthropology
Excerpts: Clothing research has attracted renewed interest in anthropology over the past two decades, experiencing a florescence that had been kept within bounds by reigning theoretical paradigms. (...) The most noticeable trend is a preoccupation with agency, practice, and performance that considers the dressed body as both subject in, and object of, dress practice. The turn to consumption as a site and process of meaning making is evident also in clothing research. Dress has been analyzed, by and large, as representing something else rather than something in its own right, (...).
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Excerpt: The review explores these processes with reference to an anthropological and ethnomusicological account of globalization that has gathered pace over the last decade. It outlines some of the main ethnographic and historical modes of engagement with persistent neoliberal and other music industryinspired global myth making (particularly that associated with world music), and argues for an approach to musical globalization that contextualizes those genres, styles, and practices that circulate across cultural borders in specific institutional sites and histories.
Musical Training Enhances Automatic Encoding Of Melodic Contour, J. Cognitive Neurosc.
Excerpts: In music, melodic information is thought to be encoded in two forms, a contour code (up/down pattern of pitch changes) and an interval code (pitch distances between successive notes). A recent study (...) demonstrated that people with no formal music education process both contour and interval information in the auditory cortex automatically. However, it is still unclear whether musical experience enhances both strategies of melodic encoding. We designed stimuli to examine contour and interval information separately. (...) The results suggest that musical training enhances the ability to automatically register abstract changes in the relative pitch structure of melodies.
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Excerpts: The benefits of visualizing mathematics by using technology (...) are indisputable. On the basis of some examples we would like to show that visualizing techniques can help students to analyse certain mathematical problems better and give them strong support in finding formal proofs for considered problems. We present some tasks taken from school algebra, geometry and probability; for these problems it is easier for students to pass the bridge between visual and formal solutions. We conclude that the role of technology is essential in building up associations between graphs, drawings and other tools used for the formal proofs.
- Source: From Visualizing To Proving, P. Zarzycki, Teaching Mathematics and its Applications, Sep. 2004
- Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01
yahoo.com
Kids Create New Sign Language, BBC News
Excerpt:
Some language rules may be innate
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A new sign language created over the last 30 years by deaf children in Nicaragua has given experts a unique insight into how languages evolve.
The language follows many basic rules common to all tongues, even though the children were not taught them.
It indicates some language traits are not passed on by culture, but instead arise due to the innate way human beings process language, experts claim.
(...)
"It shows that children have sophisticated mechanisms of language analysis which give language many of its distinctive qualities."
New Sign Language, NPR TOTN
Excerpt: We consider a new language invented by deaf children in Nicaragua, and how scientists are able to see the language evolving.
Children Creating Core Properties of Language, Science
Excerpts: A new sign language has been created by deaf Nicaraguans over the past 25 years, providing an opportunity to observe the inception of universal hallmarks of language. We found that in their initial creation of the language, children analyzed complex events into basic elements and sequenced these elements into hierarchically structured expressions according to principles not observed in gestures accompanying speech in the surrounding language.(...)
Thus, children naturally possess learning abilities capable of giving language its fundamental structure.
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Excerpt: Since the late 1980s, language endangerment and death have been discussed as if the phenomena had no connection at all with language birth. More recently the phenomena have been associated almost exclusively with the intense and pervasive economic globalization of same period, a process that some authors have reduced too easily to the McDonaldization phenomenon. Moreover, the relation of globalization to different forms of colonization has been poorly articulated. (...) give some broader perspective on the mechanisms of language birth and death (...).
How Would You Feel Versus How Do You Think She Would Feel?, J. Cognitive Neurosc.
Excerpts: Perspective-taking is a complex cognitive process involved in social cognition. This (...) study investigated by means of a factorial design the interaction between the emotional and the perspective factors. Participants were asked to adopt either their own (first person) perspective or the (third person) perspective of their mothers in response to situations involving social emotions or to neutral situations. (...) These results support our prediction that the frontopolar, the somatosensory cortex, and the right inferior parietal lobe are crucial in the process of self/ other distinction. In addition, this study provides important building blocks in our understanding of social emotion processing and human empathy.
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Excerpt: According to recent interpretive approaches to the study of children's socialization, meaning creation is an active process by which children playfully transform and actively resist cultural categories, and where language is viewed as social action that helps shape reality (...). Four ways in which children's peer talk establishes and maintains peer culture are considered: (a) how children elaborate games and codes (and ritualize the basis of inclusion in the peer group) through peer talk, (b) how conflict talk functions to elaborate peer culture, (c) how identities as peer group phenomena are talked into being through peer talk, and (d) how adult culture is resisted through peer talk.
Novel Mating Strategy: Males Pirate And Fertilize Egg Clutches, ScienceDaily
Excerpts: (...) The European common frog, Rana temporaria, has long been thought to have a straightforward breeding strategy - one lucky male grabs the female and fertilizes her eggs as soon as she releases them into the water. (...) so many males are vying for fatherhood that they pirate the egg clutches after they're laid. Grasping them as they would a female, they release sperm in the floating clutches, often successfully fertilizing the eggs left unfertilized after the initial encounter. (...) "Because of a population excess of males, the males found a system to reproduce without the female."
Post-Mating Clutch Piracy In An Amphibian, Nature
Excerpt: 'Pirate' males search for freshly laid clutches, clasp them as they would do a female and fertilize the eggs that were left unfertilized by the 'parental' male.
- Source: Post-Mating Clutch Piracy In An Amphibian, David R. Vieites, Sandra Nieto-Román, Marta Barluenga, Antonio Palanca, Miguel Vences, Axel Meyer, DOI: 10.1038/nature02879, Nature 431, 305 - 308, 04/09/16
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Excerpt: Recent advances in understanding circadian (daily) rhythms in the genera Neurospora, Gonyaulax, and Synechococcus are reviewed and new complexities in their circadian systems are described. The previous model, consisting of a unidirectional flow of information from input to oscillator to output, has now expanded to include multiple input pathways, multiple oscillators, multiple outputs; and feedback from oscillator to input and output to oscillator.(...)
Mathematical models of the Neurospora system are also discussed
Transmission Rates And Adaptive Evolution Of Pathogens In Plant Populations, Alphagalileo & Proc. B
Abstract: In order to design successful strategies to control plant diseases, it is important to understand the effects of agricultural practices on the evolution and diversity of pathogens. To achieve this we developed and analysed a mathematical model for evolution of a pathogen exposed to two host plants. We assumed that an increase in the ability to transmit infection on one host invokes a fitness cost that decreases the ability to transmit infection of the other. Our results show that the nature of this relationship has a strong impact on the evolution of diversity within pathogens and the range of hosts they can infect.
Adaptive Changes May Provide Insight Into The Genetics Of Complex Disease, ScienceDaily
Excerpts: One of the most comprehensive studies of the forces that have shaped patterns of human genetic variation has found strong evidence for the action of natural selection, which may help explain why certain people are at risk for a variety of conditions and others are not. (...) For the paper, researchers studied the molecular evolution of 132 genes by comprehensively resequencing them in 24 African-Americans and 23 European-Americans. The results showed strong evidence for natural selection at eight genes in the European-American population, likely explained by the different environmental conditions people encountered as they moved into Europe sometime between 25,000 to 50,000 years ago. (...)
Physical Chemistry: Quantum Mechanics For Plants, Nature
Excerpt: To what extent do photosynthetic organisms use quantum mechanics to optimize the capture and distribution of light? Answers are emerging from the examination of energy transfer at the submolecular scale. (...)
Plants use solar antennae to capture incident photons and transmit the excitation energy to reaction centres, where it is used to initiate the primary electron transfer reactions of photosynthesis. These antennae are one of nature's supreme examples of nanoscale engineering, and are constructed from specialized light-harvesting complexes (...). Photon collection involves up to several hundred light-absorbing molecules, (...).
Enter Transfer RNA, Nature
Excerpt: By the 1950s, scientists generally assumed that converting genetic information into the substance of life was a matter of translation. A DNA sequence, made from a combination of four kinds of nucleotides, was translated into a protein sequence, which was made from a combination of twenty kinds of amino acids. But how did this translation occur, and what machinery was involved? (...)
How the answers were found includes an unexpected subplot that involves the joining of two groups of scientists with very different backgrounds and interests - biochemists and molecular biologists.
- Source: Enter Transfer RNA, Mahlon Hoagland, DOI: 10.1038/431249a, Nature 431, 249, 04/09/16
RNA Interference, Nature
Excerpts: The most familiar role for RNA is as a relatively passive intermediary in the translation of information from genes into proteins. But other functions for this versatile molecule have been emerging. This Insight explores the surprising recent discovery that RNA can actively regulate gene expression.
RNA interference or RNAi is a remarkable process whereby small noncoding RNAs silence specific genes.(...)
Small RNAs termed microRNAs regulate gene expression in organisms ranging from nematode to man.
(...), and even shows therapeutic potential.
- Source: RNA Interference, Alex Eccleston, Angela K Eggleston, DOI: 10.1038/431337a, Nature 431, 337, 04/09/16
Unlocking The Potential Of The Human Genome With RNA Interference, Nature
Excerpts: In a remarkably short time since its discovery in model organisms, the RNAi pathway has emerged as a powerful tool for the study of gene function in mammals. (...) it seems likely that RNAi will find a place (...) in the treatment of diseases, although it is unclear how long we will have to wait to witness the first RNAi-based drug. The big question is whether RNAi can revolutionize the treatment of human disease in the same way that it has revolutionized basic research into gene function.
A Swell Idea for a Warmer Wetsuit, Science Now
Excerpt:
Outdated. Tomorrow's wetsuits may adapt to keep divers comfortable in a range of water temperatures.
CREDIT: DALE SHECKLER
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Designed for commandos, a new wetsuit automatically adjusts to keep divers warmer in cold water.
(...), the new high-tech suit shuts off the flow of water when it gets cold by swelling (...). The key to the suit is a new material called SmartSkin, (...). Between two protective layers of fabric lie an outer layer of neoprene-(...)--and an inner layer of urethane foam. The foam is impregnated with a polymer called a "hydrogel" that can absorb many times its original volume of water.
To Throw Farther, Waste Some Energy, Science Now
Excerpt:
Go deep. A bit of wasted energy may help a quarterback's arm achieve the optimal angle and speed for long passes.
Credit: Corbis
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In throwing and other physical activities, the first step forward is often a step back. For example, to jump straight up, a person first crouches toward the ground. The body briefly continues to move downward even after the muscles in the legs and torso begin to pull it upward, and when moving one way and pulling the other, the body does mechanical work against itself and wastes energy. Similarly, in throwing, the forearm momentarily moves backward even as the upper arm pulls it forward, again squandering energy. Biomechanicists have proposed various explanations for such "countermotion.
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Excerpt:
Quantum Jostling. Atoms of a confined, ordinary gas don't collide much after the gas expands. However, when a trapped gas of strongly interacting, fermionic atoms is released, the atoms themselves effectively grow in size. Sustained jostling and pressure among those ballooning atoms can cause telltale, lopsided gas expansion.
E. Roell
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Extreme physical conditions have a way of bringing out the strangest behaviors that nature can muster. (...) They were manipulating tiny clouds of lithium gas. When the scientists turned off the lasers, peculiar things began to happen. At first, the microscopic puff of lithium billowed out of the spot where the lasers had held it. But then, instead of expanding evenly in all directions, as any normal gas would, the lithium cloud morphed into a pancake.
Games Blur News And Entertainment, BBC News
Excerpt:
September 12th looks like a shooting game
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Some game developers are trying to get players to expand their horizons by reflecting on news events in computer games. (...)
The game has some straightforward instructions. Players can shoot, or not. If you decide to shoot, a missile will smash into the targeted area.
You may kill some terrorists but there is a catch - you will almost certainly kill innocent civilians too. (...)
"After a while, they transform themselves into terrorists. (...), you may kill terrorists, but you will encourage more and more people to become terrorists."
Game Sequel Takes Leaps In AI Technology, Mercury News
Excerpt:
For EA programmers, a character appears to possess intelligence if it behaves intelligently. Behavior is a collection of actions and each action is governed by a choice. And so the Sims face a web of inter-connected choices. If they make a friend, they have the option to hug the friend. If the friend accepts the hug, they have the option to kiss. Each choice leads to other choices. The Sims make choices and therefore they seem intelligent. (...)
The Sim will function on its own, but the player can interrupt the Sim's ``life.''
They're Robots? Those Beasts!, NYTimes
Excerpt: Their field is often referred to as biomimetics, and the researchers who are developing robotic lobsters, flies, dogs, fish, snakes, geckos and cockroaches believe that machines inspired by biology will be able to operate in places where today's generation of robots can't go.
"Animals have adapted to any niche where we'd ever want to operate a robot," (...). His RoboLobster, for instance, is being designed to hunt for mines that float in shallow waters or are buried beneath beaches, a harsh environment where live lobsters have no trouble maintaining sure footing.
Test of Missile Defense System Delayed Again, Washington Post
Excerpts: The Pentagon's chief weapons evaluator has calculated that the system may be capable of hitting its targets only about 20 percent of the time. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), which is responsible for developing the system, offers estimates of greater than 80 percent, according to several officials familiar with the classified figures.
The missile defense system, a top Bush administration priority, is designed to send interceptors into space to knock down enemy warheads.
The first two interceptors have already been lowered into silos (...).
Editor's Note: The old Star Wars system of the 80s was announced to shoot down 80 percent of the incoming missiles. One could ask if lowering that probability to 20 percent has any defense value considering the costs and potential scenarios where the system would be used. So far only North Korea recently has the nuclear weapons and missile capabilities.
Middle Miocene Southern Ocean Cooling and Antarctic Cryosphere Expansion, Science
Excerpt: The large, permanent ice sheets that presently occupy Antarctica began to form around 14 million years ago, when Earth entered a phase of global cooling. However, the climate processes that produced these changes, as well as the temporal relation between ice sheet growth and cooling, have remained obscure. Shevenell et al. (p. 1766) analyzed Mg/Ca ratios (...) from Southern Hemisphere marine sediments with ages between 15 and 13.2 million years. Deep-ocean cooling began roughly 60,000 years before ice sheet growth, and both of these processes happened during a period of atmospheric CO2 increase. These findings suggest that factors other than radiative forcing, such as ocean heat transport, were key elements of this climate transition.
This Week in Science
"(...) ocean circulation changes altered meridional heat/vapor transport, triggering ice growth and global cooling."
OPEC to Put Formal Lifting of Output on the Table, NY Times
Excerpt: Oil ministers are meeting to consider raising the formal output ceiling as crude prices remain stubbornly high despite OPEC's persistent efforts to lower them.
(...) OPEC's actions have had some limited success. Prices have remained well above the $22 to $28 a barrel target range (...) even as most of the group's members are producing as much as they can. (...)
Mr. Naimi has in recent months called for oil prices of about $25 a barrel. Higher prices could hurt OPEC in the long run by curbing demand for crude oil.
Editor's Note: If oil is a limited resource, why would it not be in the interest of OPEC to maximize their profit by increasing the prices according to market demand?
Ready or Not (and Maybe Not), Electronic Voting Goes National, NY Times
Excerpt: In what may turn out to be one of the most scrutinized general elections in the country's history, nearly one-third of the more than 150 million registered voters in the United States will be asked to cast their ballots on machines whose accuracy and security against fraud have yet to be tested on such a grand scale.
Because of the uncertainties, experts say there is potential for post-election challenges in any precincts where the machines may malfunction, or where the margin of victory is thin.
Editor's Note: This almost sounds like the elections could be decided by smart hackers who make sure the machine appear to function normally and who produce clear victories for the party of their choice.
Custody of Voting Machine Argued in Montgomery Court, Washington Post
Excerpt:
Joe Torre, Maryland's director of procurement and voting systems, shows how to use a touch-screen voting machine during a new conference. (2003 Photo Don Wright -- AP)
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A volunteer Maryland election worker touched off a frenzied legal effort in Montgomery County yesterday after he refused to return a touch-screen voting machine, telling state election officials he intended to let an expert hired by CBS News examine it.
Stan Boyd, 63, a retired teacher, said he was giving CBS access to the machine because he believed it might have malfunctioned during a weekend demonstration with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a view the senator does not share, according to a spokesman.
Amazon to Take Searches on Web to a New Depth, NY Times
Excerpt: The service will offer users the ability to store and edit bookmarks on an A9.com central server computer, keep track of each link clicked on previous visits to a Web page, and even make personal "diary" notes on those pages for viewing on subsequent visits.
"In a sense, this is a search engine with memory," said Udi Manber, a computer scientist who was a pioneer in online information retrieval and worked at Yahoo before moving to Amazon two years ago.
Complex Challenges: Global Terroist Networks
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Excerpt: How changing the country's electoral process can fortify Russia against more terrorist attacks is a head-scratching mystery. The only reasonable explanation for President Putin's plans to deprive voters of their right to directly elect regional governors and representatives in the national parliament lies in his pattern of power consolidation.(...)
Putin may argue that centralization will enhance Russian security but the opposite is the more likely outcome. Authoritarianism breeds inefficiency, as people wait for decisions from the top (...). But Putin wrongly calculates that governing Soviet-style will secure Russia's future.
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Excerpt: The boldness of Vladimir Putin's assault on Russian democracy in the past few days ought to have been galvanizing to a U.S. president who has made the defense of freedom the rhetorical centerpiece of his foreign policy. Instead, the abrupt announcement by the Russian president that he intended to combat terrorism by abolishing elections for governors, (...) has been greeted with confused, contradictory and timid murmurings from the State Department and the White House. Distressed Russian politicians described Mr. Putin's act as "a constitutional coup d'état" and "a step toward dictatorship."
Bush Concern At Afghan Drug Boom, BBC News
Excerpt:
Afghanistan produces 75% of the world's opium, says a UN report
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Countries certified as "majors" by Washington can attract US sanctions, but the White House said such penalties were unlikely this year.
The UN released figures earlier this year saying three-quarters of the world's opium poppy was now grown in Afghanistan.
Hamid Karzai has warned that drug-trafficking and production is helping terrorism, and the Central Bank governor reportedly said earlier this week it accounted for a third of the country's economy.
The US report noted the "good faith efforts" by the Afghan government to tackle the problem.
Editor's Note: It might be interesting to do a comparative quantitative estimate of the effect on the war on terrorism before and after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Iraq War Illegal, Says Annan, BBC News
Excerpt: The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.
He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally.
The UK government responded by saying the attorney-general made the "legal basis... clear at the time".(...)
He has said from the beginning the invasion did not conform with the UN charter - phrasing that was seen as a diplomatic way of saying the war was illegal.
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Excerpt: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday expressed strong disapproval of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's description of the U.S.-led war in Iraq as illegal, saying the comment was "not a very useful statement to make at this point."
"What does it gain anyone? We should all be gathering around the idea of helping the Iraqis, not getting into these kinds of side issues," Mr. Powell said (...).
[Mr Powell] lamented the unwillingness of many in the Muslim and Arab world to take on Islamic extremists in their midst.
Editor's Note: The wide perception of a rule of law has been mentioned as one of the important parameters that determine the recruitment rate of terrorist organizations. Legality of a super-power to attack and occupy a sovereign nation seems to be a central issue for that perception.
Saudis Take a Small Dose of Democracy, Washington Post
Excerpt: For the first time in 41 years, it is allowing elections, local ones, that will fill half the seats on 178 municipal councils.
The ruling family's goal, political analysts and diplomats here say, is to determine whether a more open government might help defuse a rising armed threat by Muslim militants in the kingdom or merely inspire reform advocates to push harder against the princes' long hold on power.
(...)
In a country that takes even its name from the ruling family, few institutions are more foreign than electoral politics.
Links & Snippets
Other Publications
- China's Changing Farms Damaging Soil And Water, Rapid urbanisation is destroying China's agriculture and its ability to feed one-fifth of the world's people
- China's GM Trees Get Lost In Bureaucracy, China has planted a million genetically modified trees to tackle desertification and flooding - but no one knows for sure where they all are
- Language Revitalization And New Technologies: Cultures Of Electronic Mediation and the Refiguring of Communities , Patrick Eisenlohr, Annual Review of Anthropology; Volume 33, Page 21 - 45
- Hang On To Your Self: Of Bodies, Embodiment, And Selves , Steven Van Wolputte, Annual Review of Anthropology; Volume 33, Page 251 - 269
- Early Dispersals Of Homo From Africa , Susan C. Anton, Carl C. Swisher, III, Annual Review of Anthropology; Volume 33, Page 271 - 296
- Social Status And Health In Humans And Other Animals , Robert M. Sapolsky, Annual Review of Anthropology; Volume 33, Page 393 - 418
- Origins And Development Of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives , George L. Cowgill, Annual Review of Anthropology; Volume 33, Page 525 - 549
- The Evolution Of Human Skin And Skin Color , Nina G. Jablonski, Annual Review of Anthropology; Volume 33, Page 585 - 623
- Shrinking Time , Physicists make the world's smallest atomic clock
- Failing the Senate Intelligence Test, If President Bush is serious about intelligence reform, he should shelve Representative Porter Goss's appointment as director of central intelligence.
- The Ecology And Genetics Of Microbial Diversity , Rees Kassen, Paul B. Rainey, Annual Review of Microbiology; Volume 58, Page 207 - 231
- Dynamical Mechanism of Anticipating Synchronization in Excitable Systems, Marzena Ciszak, Francesco Marino, Raúl Toral, Salvador Balle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 114102 (2004)
- Quantifying Self-Organization with Optimal Predictors, Cosma Rohilla Shalizi, Kristina Lisa Shalizi, Robert Haslinger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 118701 (2004)
- Entanglement Within The Quantum Trajectory Description Of Open Quantum Systems, Hyunchul Nha, H. J. Carmichael, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 120408 (2004).
A detailed mechanism for the environment-induced entanglement is given.
- Are You Undecided? Or Not?, Larry David, 04/09/16, NYTimes. I'd like to address this to the Undecideds: I'm on to you. You may be fooling everyone else with your little "undecided" act, but you're not fooling me.
- Sperm Cells "Spring" into Action , 04/09/08, Bio.com, Scientists have identified a surprising mechanical means by which cells store and release energy, a tightly wound jack-in-the-box mechanism rather than the chemical storehouse cells are known to use.
- How Cells Move Gas, 04/09/10, BioMedCentral, Study reports high-resolution structure of protein that shuttles ammonia in bacteria
- First Impressions Guide Relationships, Kelli Miller, 04/09/10, WebMD Medical News, Experts Say It Only Takes Minutes to Decide if a Relationship Will Last
- Flies With Inner Ears?, 04/09/13, BioMedCentral, Drosophila Hmx gene directs development of mouse inner ear, an organ flies don't possess
- Lens Does Away With Blurry Snaps, Jo Twist, 04/09/13, BBC News
- Raising the Pressure in Iraq, Dexter Filkins, 04/09/14, NYTimes
- Bush And Kerry Battle Over Science, Paul Reynolds, 04/09/15, BBC News. The US presidential candidates address major scientific questions put to them by the journal Nature.
- U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future, Douglas Jehl, A National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq., 04/09/16, NYTimes
- Risks of Antidepressants, 04/09/16, NYTimes, What patients, parents and doctors most need is guidance as to which antidepressants are safer and more effective than the others.
- The First Draft of Freedom, Paul Wolfowitz, 04/09/16, NYTimes. The trial of Bambang Harymurti, the chief editor of Indonesia's leading newsmagazine, has implications far beyond the courtroom in Jakarta.
- Breath of Life at the Top of the World, Mary Beckman, 04/09/16,
Tibetan high. Some Tibetan women pass on to their children a lifesaving ability to carry extra oxygen in their blood.
Credit: Cynthia Beall And Melvyn Goldstein
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Babies of Tibetan women with oxygen-rich blood have a survival advantage. Science Now
- Cell Biology: Myosins Meet Microtubules, Margaret A. Titus, 04/09/16, Nature 431, 252 - 253 A central part of the machinery of cell division is the spindle. The creation and operation of this structure seem to require a component of the cell's infrastructure not previously associated with it.
, DOI: 10.1038/431252a
- A Tunable Carbon Nanotube Electromechanical Oscillator, Vera Sazonova, Yuval Yaish, Hande Üstünel, David Roundy, Tomás A. Arias, Paul L. Mceuen, 04/09/16, Nature 431, 284 - 287, DOI: 10.1038/nature02905
- Genetic Evidence Supports Demic Diffusion Of Han Cultur, Bo Wen, Hui Li, Daru Lu, Xiufeng Song, Feng Zhang, Yungang He, Feng Li, Yang Gao, Xianyun Mao, Liang Zhang, Ji Qian, Jingze Tan, Jianzhong Jin, Wei Huang, Ranjan Deka, Bing Su, Ranajit Chakraborty, Li Jin, 04/09/16, Nature 431, 302 - 305. (...) the demic diffusion model, which involves mass movement of people (...)
, DOI: 10.1038/nature02878
- Evolution Of Open Source Networks In Industry, P. Laat, 2004, 20;4, The Information Society, DOI: 10.1080/01972240490481027
- Universal Access In Developing Countries: A Particular Focus On Bangladesh, A. S. A. Bhuiyan, 2004, 20;4, The Information Society, DOI: 10.1080/01972240490480983
- Environmental Energy And Evolutionary Rates In Flowering Plants, T. J Davies, V. Savolainen, M. W. Chase, J. Moat T. G. Barraclough, 2004/09/13, Alphagalileo & Proceedings B (Biological Sciences)
- The Graphical 'Google' For Engineers, P. Burkwood - p.burkwoodaston.ac.uk, 2004/09/14, Alphagalileo & Aston University
- Molecule Awakens And Maintains Neural Connections, 2004/09/14, ScienceDaily & Hughes Medical Institute
- Economy Of Movement, P. Ocampo - pocampoplos.org, 2004/09/14, Alphagalileo & Public Library Of Science
- Tibetan Children Are Five Times More Likely To Survive Infancy If Moms Have Oxygen-Promoting Genes, 2004/09/17, ScienceDaily National Science Foundation
- Frameworks For Conceptualising Terrorism, P. Alex, Apr.-Jun. 2004, Terrorism and Political Violence, DOI: 10.1080/09546550490483134
- The Relationship Between New Social Movement Theory And Terrorism Studies: The Role Of Leadership, Membership, Ideology And Gender, C. Gentry, Apr.-Jun. 2004, Terrorism and Political Violence, DOI: 10.1080/09546550490483422
- The St. Petersburg Paradox And The Crash Of High-Tech Stocks In 2000, G. J. Székely, D. S.t.P. Richards, Aug. 2004, The American Statistician, DOI: 10.1198/000313004X1440
- Reflections On Democracy: The Beginning Of The End Or The End Of The Beginning?, A. Sa'adah, Fall 2004, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
- Threat Inflation And The Failure Of The Marketplace Of Ideas: The Selling Of The Iraq War, C. Kaufmann, Summer 2004, International Security
- Occupational Hazards: Why Military Occupations Succeed Or Fail, D. M. Edelstein, Summer 2004, International Security
Webcast Announcements
The 4th Intl Workshop on Meta-synthesis and Complex System, Beijing, China, 04/07/22-23-
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From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
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ECC8 Experimental Chaos Conference, Florence, Italy,
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International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
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Life, a Nobel Story, Brussels, Belgium, 04/04/28
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Nonlinear Dynamics and Statistical Mechanics Days, Brussels, Belgium, 04/04/26-27
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Science Education Forum for Chinese Language Culture, Panel Discussion, Taipei, Taiwan, 04/05/01
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Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology, , Lausanne,Switzerland, 04/01/29-30
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Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
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Gabriele Leidloff, Ugly Casting 1.4 , Berlin, Germany, 04/08/19-10/08
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ICDM '04: The Fourth IEEE Intl Conf on Data Mining, Brighton, UK, 04/11/01-04
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- The 7th Asia-Pacific Complex Systems Conference, Queensland, Australia, 04/12/06-10
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- International Conference On Computational Intelligence (Icci 2004) , Istanbul, Turkey, 04/12/15-17
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5th Creativity And Cognition Conference, London.UK, 05/04/12-15
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- ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life, Canterbury, Kent, UK, 05/09/05-09
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Complexity, Science and Society Conf 2005, Liverpool, UK, 05/09/11-14
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18th International Conference on Noise and Fluctuations (ICNF 2005), Salamanca, Spain, 05/09/19-23
