Evolving Eco-system: A Network of Networks, Physica A 
Abstract: Ecology and evolution are inseparable. Motivated by some recent experiments, we have developed models of evolutionary ecology from the perspective of dynamic networks. In these models, in addition to the intra-node dynamics, which corresponds to an individual-based population dynamics of species, the entire network itself changes slowly with time to capture evolutionary processes. After a brief summary of our recent published works on these network models of eco-systems, we extend the most recent version of the model incorporating predators that wander into neighbouring spatial patches for food.
- Source: Evolving Eco-system: A Network of Networks, Debashish Chowdhury, Dietrich Stauffer, DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2004.08.051, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Article in Press, Uncorrected Proof, 2004/09/17
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Excerpts: Both Matsushita and Sony were (...) facing the same problem: escalating manufacturing costs in Japan were eroding Japan's traditional advantages in manufacturing, especially when its neighbor China was emerging as the "workshop of the world" with low cost advantage. (...) While Matsushita aggressively moved its manufacturing business to China, Sony suddenly shifted some of its production back to Japan. Matsushita's and Sony's supply-chain rebuilding strategies were diametric opposites with the same objectives - to improve their competitiveness by optimizing their critical success factors across their supply chains. Today's competition is not really company versus company, but supply chain versus supply chain. (...)
- Source: Why Giants Change Their Minds, B. Jiang - binjiang
marshall.usc.edu, W. Willette, DOI: 10.1142/S0218927504000453, Asian Case Research Journal, Jun. 2004 - Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01yahoo.com
The Interplay Of Self-Interest And Equity In Coalition Formation, Euro. J. Social Psycho.
Excerpts: In this paper we investigated the interplay of self-interest and equity concerns in coalition formation by manipulating the number of units in which the coalition payoff is made available, and by manipulating the way people are allowed to interact. Results of three experiments showed that when the coalition payoff was such that members of each possible coalition could obtain an equitable payoff share, the outcome tended to be coalitions that also maximized the payoff of its members. (...)
Effective Communication, Darwin Mag
Excerpt: "When communicated, the amount is high and consistent and carefully worded, it's just not frequent enough. The difficulty is when to communicate things. If too early, inaccurate conclusions can be drawn. If too late, complaints surface about not being in the know."
True communication obviously means getting company information from more than just the top leaders.
"To truly understand what is going on, communication with others in the organization is important," (...).
"We need to do a better job of being on the same page with each other."
Emotional Ignorance, Darwin Mag
Excerpt: Emotional intelligence is the awareness of usually unspoken wants, needs and fears in others and in oneself that can significantly influence business interactions. One further step: it connotes a facility for using that awareness to achieve favorable outcomes.
Unfortunately, IT people too often minimize the importance of emotional understanding and do so at their own risk.
Emotional intelligence is lacking when, instead of accurate awareness, perceptions are marred by misconceptions.
Have People Had Enough Of Silly Love Songs?, Alphagalileo
Excerpts: A University of Southampton academic, who is investigating love songs from the 16th century to the 1970s, claims that not only is that not the case, but also that song plays a vital role in constructing myths of romantic love. The research, (...) investigates the relationship between song and romance, tracing the different ways that songs interact with other media, such as novels and films, to articulate the prevailing social views of their time. Its particular focus is on songs that occupy an uneasy place between classical and popular music, high art and ephemera: the kind of songs we love, (...).
The First Gasp, Science
Excerpt: After popping through the birth canal and into the bright lights, babies must start breathing on their own. Before that first piercing scream, a complex genetic signaling has spent weeks getting ready for the first gulp of air. Now, scientists have finally identified the taskmaster that switches on the cellular players. Eventually, the results could help both premature babies and sick adults.
(...) the lungs begin making surfactant proteins that decrease the surface tension of the lungs' mucus lining, which is necessary to prevent the lungs from collapsing when filled with air.
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Excerpt: Studies of the lens of the eye not only could reveal ways to prevent cataracts but also might illuminate the biology of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases in which cells commit suicide.
The lens of the eye is the only transparent tissue in the human body. (...), scientists have determined that this transparency--critical for focusing light--stems in large part from the unique ability of the lens to activate a self-destruct program in its cells that aborts just before completion, leaving empty but sustainable cells that transmit visible rays.
Vision In The Deep Sea, Biol. Rev.
Excerpts: (...) changing nature of visual scenes with depth - from extended source to point source - has had a profound effect on the designs of deep-sea eyes. (...) In fishes, the retinal ganglion cells are also frequently arranged in a horizontal visual streak, an adaptation for viewing the wide flat horizon of the sea floor, and all animals living there. These and many other aspects (...) are reviewed in support of the following conclusion: it is not only the intensity of light at different depths, but also its distribution in space, which has been a major force in the evolution of deep-sea vision. (...)
- Source: Vision In The Deep Sea, E. J. Warrant - eric.warrantcob.lu.se, N. A. Locket, DOI: 10.1017/S1464793103006420, Biological Reviews, Aug. 2004
- Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01yahoo.com
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Excerpt:
MASSIVE HURRICANE with a well-developed eye, as seen from the space shuttle Atlantis in November 1994.
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A chaotic system is one that appears to behave randomly but is, in fact, governed by rules. It is also highly sensitive to initial conditions, so that seemingly insignificant, arbitrary inputs can have profound effects that lead quickly to unpredictable consequences. In the case of hurricanes, small changes in such features as the ocean's temperature, the location of the large-scale wind currents (which drive the storms' movements), or even the shape of the rain clouds spinning around the eye can strongly influence a hurricane's potential path and power.
Earth's 'Hum' Springs From Stormy Seas, NewScientist
Excerpt: They worked out the direction that the hum signal was travelling on each of 60 earthquake-free days Earth experienced in one year. Using the directions measured at the two distant networks, they could trace the seismic signal back to its source.
During January and March, the hum came mainly from the North Pacific Ocean. Then the source swapped to the southern oceans around Antarctica, before shifting north again in October. Therefore, the hum appears to follow winter in each hemisphere, when ocean storms are at their worst.
Tuning In the Planet's Hum, Science Now
Excerpt:
Feel the vibration. Large ocean waves, such as these produced by storms in the Southern Hemisphere, make Earth ring like a bell.
CREDIT: TOPEX/POSEIDON (NASA/JPL-CALTECH)
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The results support a scenario put forward last year by seismologist Toshiro Tanimoto of UC Santa Barbara, in which ocean waves with the proper timing--peak to peak periods of about 3 to 5 minutes--excite the planet's hum by creating oscillations that reach all the way to the bottom. "It's a nice piece of work," Tanimoto comments. Still, he notes, some other researchers may question whether the arrays of seismic instruments can reliably track the directions of the barely perceptible vibrations.
The Parkfield Earthquake, Finally, Science
Excerpt:
Long awaited. Today's Parkfield earthquake will be one of the best-studied temblors in history. CREDIT: USGS/EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS PROGRAM
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The anticipated quake was long overdue, but "it happened, and we caught it," (...). The complex network of instruments installed around Parkfield should make this "the most well-recorded earthquake in history," says seismologist Michael Blanpied of USGS in Reston, Virginia. There were no immediate reports of activity on the fault before the main shock, but future scrutiny of the records of seismicity, strain, magnetism, water-well levels, and strong ground motion should provide unprecedented detail of how fault ruptures get started, propagate, and stop.
Heavy Breathing on Mars?, Science Now
Excerpt: Planetary scientists probing the martian atmosphere have found that both methane and water tend to be concentrated over the same three equatorial regions of Mars. The new find further stokes talk of life on Mars.
(...) the methane is concentrated over the same three equatorial regions-(...)--where water vapor is concentrated in the lower atmosphere. Those are also three regions, Formisano says, where the U.S. Mars Odyssey orbiter has detected signs of water in the upper meter of martian soil, in the form of ice or hydrated minerals.
Biogeochemistry: Early Options In Photosynthesis, Nature
Excerpt: On page 549 of this issue, Tice and Lowe add a twist to this debate [biological vs non-biological origin of fossils, Ed.] with data from the 3,416-million-year-old rocks of the Buck Reef Chert in South Africa. They provide convincing evidence that the organic matter preserved in these rocks is of biological, not hydrothermal, origin. But they do not return to the view of an early Archaean Earth inhabited by oxygen-producing cyanobacteria. Rather, their picture is one in which non-oxygen-producing (anoxygenic) photosynthetic microbes existed in an ecosystem that was fundamentally different from that of today.
The Hidden Genetic Program of Complex Organisms, Scientific American
Excerpt: Biologists assumed that proteins alone regulate the genes of humans and other complex organisms. But an overlooked regulatory system based on RNA may hold the keys to development and evolution.
Assumptions can be dangerous, especially in science. (...)
The central dogma of molecular biology for the past half a century and more has stated that genetic information encoded in DNA is transcribed as intermediary molecules of RNA, (...). The prevailing assumption, embodied in the credo "one gene, one protein," has been that genes are generally synonymous with proteins.
Taxonomy Isn't Black And White, The Scientist
Excerpt: DNA barcoding method put to the test reveals new cryptic bird and butterfly species
[Studies using genetic barcoding methods, Ed] demonstrate that the neotropical skipper butterfly Astraptes fulgerator is actually a species complex consisting of at least 10 species.(...)
"Many fields need to draw on systematic expertise for the reliable identification of species, but these potential users have limited access to taxonomic experts. Genetic barcodes provide a kind of interface between taxonomy and the users of taxonomic data," (...).
(...) DNA barcoding itself will evolve. "It will complement rather than replace a 250-year tradition of Linnean taxonomy.
Secret Of Radiation-Proof Bugs Proposed, Nature News
Excerpt:
Deinococcus radiodurans survives extreme blasts of radiation.
© Alexander Vasilenko
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(...) a novel theory for how a tiny, tough bacterium can survive doses of radiation 2,000 times those that would fry a person. (...)
Researchers know that the bug is particularly good at patching up DNA damage wrought by radiation. (...)
By comparing bacteria with different sensitivities to radiation, the team found that the most resistant bacteria tend to store up high levels of manganese and relatively low levels of iron. By contrast, the bacteria that shrivel up at a hint of radiation have little manganese and more iron.
When Bigger Isn't Better, Science Now
Excerpt: The evolution of bigger bodies and fussier food preferences led to the demise of ancient dogs. Researchers combing the fossil record back to 50 million years have discovered that the switch to an Atkins-like diet of meat, meat, and more meat made these early carnivores susceptible to extinction. (...)
Surprisingly, the fossil record shows over and over again that once species get big, they tend to disappear. (...)
(...) once animals specialize for capturing big prey, they can't evolve back to eating smaller prey or vegetation.
Athletics: Momentous Sprint At The 2156 Olympics?, Nature
Excerpt: Women sprinters are closing the gap on men and may one day overtake them.
The remarkably strong linear trends that were first highlighted over ten years ago persist for the Olympic 100-metre sprints. There is no indication that a plateau has been reached by either male or female athletes (...).
Should these trends continue, the projections will intersect at the 2156 Olympics, when - for the first time ever - the winning women's 100-metre sprint time of 8.079 seconds will be lower than that of the men's winning time of 8.098 seconds.
Will Women Outpace Men In 2156?, Nature News
Excerpt:
Exercise experts question the prediction that women will outpace men.
© Getty
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The conventional view is that there are basic differences between male and female physiology that mean men will always maintain around a 10% advantage in strength and endurance sports. Because the new analysis ignores this, "it is flawed at a fundamental level," (...).
For example, testosterone in men tends to create more muscle and oxygen-carrying haemoglobin than women possess. And female reproductive hormones mean that women, including super-lean athletes, tend to carry around more fat for their body weight than men, and this slows them down.
Human Populations Are Tightly Interwoven, Science News
Excerpt: The most recent common ancestor of all humanity lived just a few thousand years ago, according to a computer model of our family tree. Researchers have calculated that the mystery person, from whom everyone alive today is directly descended, probably lived around 1,500 BC in eastern Asia.
(...) computer program to simulate the migration and breeding of humans across the world. By estimating how different groups intermingle, the researchers built up a picture of how tightly the world's ancestral lines are linked
Editor's Note: For the record: I think this will be shown to be a wrong conclusion.
Human Evolution: Pedigrees For All Humanity, Nature
Excerpt: At a certain point in history (the 'identical ancestors' point), people can be divided into two groups: either they are common ancestors of all present-day humans, or their lineages have died out. Being the ancestor of only some living humans is not an option. (...) In the simplest model, the fraction of 'ancestors-of-all' is about 80%, and in most estimates so far, the time back to the 'identical ancestors' point is a bit less than twice the number of generations back to the first universal ancestor.
New Evidence On The Earliest Human Presence At High Northern Latitudes In Northeast Asia, Nature
Excerpt: The timing of early human dispersal to Asia is a central issue in the study of human evolution. (...)
The lowest layer, about 1.66 million years old (Myr), provides the oldest record of stone-tool processing of animal tissues in east Asia.
(...) only slightly younger than that in western Asia. This result implies that a long yet rapid migration from Africa, possibly initiated during a phase of warm climate, enabled early human populations to inhabit northern latitudes of east Asia over a prolonged period.
- Source: New Evidence On The Earliest Human Presence At High Northern Latitudes In Northeast Asia , R. X. Zhu, R. Potts, F. Xie, K. A. Hoffman, C. L. Deng, C. D. Shi, Y. X. Pan, H. Q. Wang, R. P. Shi, Y. C. Wang, G. H. Shi, N. Q. Wu,, DOI: 10.1038/nature02829, Nature 431, 559 - 562, 04/09/30
Has The Combination Of Genetic And Fossil Evidence Solved The Riddle Of Modern Human Origins?, Evol. Anthrop.: Issues, News, & Rev.
Excerpts: Debate over the origin of modern humans continues (...). Currently, the genetic and fossil evidence is still used to support two different interpretations of the origin of modern humans. Some researchers claim that the genetic evidence is compatible with either an Out-of-Africa or a Multiregional model, while other scientists argue that the evidence supports only a Multiregional model of evolution. I argue that the fossil record and archeological evidence constrain interpretation of the genetic evidence and imply that very little, if any, admixture with Eurasian archaic hominins such as the Neanderthals occurred during the spread of modern humans out of Africa.
Modelling The Recent Common Ancestry Of All Living Humans, Nature
Excerpt: Here we show that recent common ancestors also emerge from two models incorporating substantial population substructure. One model, (...), yields explicit mathematical results through a probabilistic analysis. A more elaborate second model, designed to capture historical population dynamics in a more realistic way, is analysed computationally through Monte Carlo simulations. These analyses suggest that the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. In particular, the MRCA [most recent common ancestor, Ed.] of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models.
St. Pete Programmers Best in World at Simulation Soccer, St Petersburg Times
Excerpt: Whereas artificial intelligence programmers once poured their energies into developing programs that could master the royal game of chess, there is now a worldwide effort to produce machines that can play the more proletarian game of football.(...)
"Each virtual soccer player should make accurate passes, and make exact strikes between the goalposts," he said.
"But the most complicated task is that it should be able to make decisions depending on the situation: whether he should take the ball forward himself, pass it to a partner, or make a strike at the goal," he said.
Statistical Mechanics of Spatial Evolutionary Games, arXiv
Abstract: We discuss the long-run behavior of stochastic dynamics of many interacting players in spatial evolutionary games. In particular, we investigate the effect of the number of players and the noise level on the stochastic stability of Nash equilibria. We discuss similarities and differences between systems of interacting players maximizing their individual payoffs and particles minimizing their interaction energy. We use concepts and techniques of statistical mechanics to study game-theoretic models. In order to obtain results in the case of the so-called potential games, we analyze the thermodynamic limit of the appropriate models of interacting particles.
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Excerpt: The principles that gave rise to the Internet are now leading to a new kind of network of everyday devices, an "Internet-0" (...)
Unfortunately, a similar unification has yet to happen for the electronic infrastructure in a building. Switches, sockets and thermostats are grafted on as afterthoughts to the architecture, with functions fixed by buried wiring. Appliances and computers arrive as after-the-fact intrusions. Almost nothing talks to anything else, as evidenced by the number of devices in a typical house or office with differing opinions as to the time of day.
Clever Cars Can Read Road Signs, NewScientist
Excerpt: Eventually, GPS-based systems could entirely replace road signs, but until then, ideas like the new driver assistance system (DAS) developed at the National Information and Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) lab in Canberra may help.
DAS uses three cameras: one to scan the road ahead and a pair to monitor where the driver is looking. The road camera is mounted on the rear view mirror and a "gaze monitoring" pair are set on either side of the instrument panel on the dashboard.
Editor's Note: A simple system to reduce involuntary speeding (happened to me frequently in fast rental cars) would be to attach a transmitter to road signs that could communicate directly with the cruise control system of the car.
Video Disks Ditch Binary Storage, Nature News
Excerpt: The disk, called MODS, for Multiplexed Optical Data Storage, could easily store all 350 episodes of The Simpsons (...)
DVDs and compact disks store their information in the form of a microscopic groove pitted with tiny ledges and troughs. (...)
This is a purely binary system - (...).
They created a groove with troughs sunk at any one of 332 different angles - equivalent to counting with 332 digits instead of just 2, or spelling with 332 different letters instead of just a and b.
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Excerpt:
Abb.: A nanotube under the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. The tip moves along the axis of the tube probing with atomic spatial resolution the vibrational modes of the tube at different positions. At defects (e.g. where the diameter of the tube suddenly becomes smaller) the vibrational properties change drastically.
Image: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
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The unique electrical and mechanical properties of nanotubes are highly dependent on the absence or presence of defects on the atomic scale. Very much as the sound of a violin string degrades when the string is damaged, the vibrational motion of carbon nanotubes reflects mechanical strength or softness and depends critically on the perfection of the carbon structure on the atomic scale. To extend our knowledge about how defects influence mechanical properties it is highly desirable to be able to map the vibrational motion of atoms in the carbon nanotube.
Accelerator Physics: Electrons Hang Ten On Laser Wake, Nature
Excerpt: Electrons can be accelerated by making them surf a laser-driven plasma wave. High acceleration rates, and now the production of well-populated, high-quality beams, signal the potential of this table-top technology.(...)
Using the radiation pressure of a laser to drive a compressive oscillation in the plasma (like a sound wave, (...)), electrons have been accelerated from rest to an energy of 100 megaelectronvolts (MeV) within a distance of 1 mm - more than 5,000 times shorter than the distance required to reach that energy in a conventional accelerator.
Surf's Up for Small Accelerators, Science Now
Excerpt:
As the light pulse travels through the plasma, it pushes negatively charged electrons, creating a region of excess positive ions that trails behind the light. Other electrons then rush to that spot, forming a region of negative charge following close behind the positive one. Between these positively and negatively charged tag-along regions arises a huge wave-like electric field, known as a "wakefield," that still other electrons can surf to gain staggering amounts of energy in a very short distance.
Clones May Aid Work On Motor Neuron Disease, Nature News
Excerpt: The British scientist who created Dolly the sheep has applied for a licence to clone human embryos in the search for treatments for motor neuron disease. If approved, the research should give experts a far better picture of what happens to the dying brain cells that characterize this condition. (...)
Motor neuron disease, a range of related conditions including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, (...), causes around 1,000 deaths in Britain every year. The brain cells that govern movement gradually die off, leaving sufferers paralysed but, usually, with their intellect intact.
Drugs Delivered By Robots In The Blood, NewScientist
Excerpt: The 3 millimetre-long triangular machine was constructed by Tao Mei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and colleagues from the University of Science and Technology of China.
The craft is propelled using an external magnetic field which controls its microscopic fins. The fins are made from an alloy that contracts in response to application of the field. Applying the field quickly makes the tiny submersible paddle forwards and gradually switching the field off slowly moves the fins back to their original position.
Knock Knock Knocking On Rhythm's Neural Doors, bio.com
Excerpt: Drum the tip of a finger on a typewriter key quickly "eeeeee." Now, stop and type "e" take a moment, type "e," take another moment, type "e" again. The motion in both cases is exactly the same, performed by the same finger.
But the brain processes that make the two different streams of 'e's are utterly different, according to a study done by a University of Southern California neural specialist and colleagues.(...)
Discrete activity was much more extensive, including numerous areas on both sides of the brain, (...).
Americans Win Nobel for Research on Smell, NPR ME
Excerpt: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year goes to two Americans who have puzzled out the sense of smell. Richard Axel and Linda Buck will split $1.4 million for discovering how chemicals in the air trigger thousands of recognizably different odors.
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Excerpt: These proteins in the back of the nasal cavity bind to odorant molecules that get sucked into the nose. That triggers a biochemical cascade, ultimately generating a nerve impulse that transmits information about smell to the brain. (...)
In a landmark 1991 paper in Cell, the pair described a family of about 1000 genes that encode olfactory receptors in rats. The receptor proteins were familiar to researchers--they belonged to a large class of receptor proteins involved in cell signaling--the so-called G-protein coupled receptors.
Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science, Book Announcement, Routledge
Excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science provides complete coverage at the introductory level of the field of nonlinear science, from intuitive descriptions to mathematical concepts over a wide range of subject matters.
Comprised of 439 essays arranged alphabetically in one large volume, this Encyclopedia covers subjects such as chaos and turbulence in addition to the formation (emergence) and dynamics of coherent structure (solitons, nerve impulses, shock waves, tornados, and so on). Entries describe basic phenomena that arise in mathematics; theoretical and applied physics; chemistry; physical chemistry; electrical, chemical, and mechanical engineering; atmospheric and earth sciences; biology; economics; and neuroscience; among several others.
Open-Source Biology, Nature
Excerpt: Researchers and entrepreneurs alike should welcome a move to develop a new commons in technological innovation.
With the research community increasingly frustrated by a growing forest of patents around innovations in the biological sciences, an initiative to make research tools from the life sciences open-source deserves to acquire some traction.
The Biological Innovation for Open Society (BIOS) initiative (see page 494 ) makes a distinction between tools and applications of innovation. (...) research tools should be freely available, much as operating systems, programming languages and standards are shared by the open-source software community.
How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence, NY Times
Excerpt: The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.
The White House, though, embraced the disputed theory that the tubes were for nuclear centrifuges, an idea first championed in April 2001 by a junior analyst at the C.I.A. Senior nuclear scientists considered that notion implausible, yet in the months after 9/11, as the administration built a case for confronting Iraq, the centrifuge theory gained currency as it rose to the top of the government.
Playing With the Election Rules, NY Times
Excerpt: One of the lessons of the election mess in Florida in 2000 was that a secretary of state can deprive a large number of people of the right to vote by small manipulations of the rules. This year in Ohio and Colorado, (...), the secretaries of state have been interpreting the rules in ways that could prevent thousands of eligible Americans from voting.
(...) Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, (...) to reject registrations on paper of less than 80-pound stock - the sort used for paperback-book covers and postcards, (...).
Barriers to Student Voting, NY Times
Excerpt: In Texas this year, a county district attorney threatened to prosecute students from Prairie View A&M University if they tried to register. The students had to file a lawsuit before he withdrew the threat and apologized. A student at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., was told that he was not a "permanent resident" and had to vote from his parents' home in another state. And a Fox affiliate in Tucson recently carried a report quoting an elections official who warned, falsely, that University of Arizona students who registered from their dorms might be committing a felony.
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Excerpt: Voting may seem like a simple activity--cast ballots, then count them. Complexity arises, however, because voters must be registered and votes must be recorded in secrecy, transferred securely and counted accurately. We vote rarely, so the procedure never becomes a well-practiced routine. One race between two candidates is easy. Half a dozen races, each between several candidates, and ballot measures besides--that's harder. This complex process is so vital to our democracy that problems with it are as noteworthy as engineering faults in a nuclear power plant.
Complex Challenges: Global Terroist Networks
Playing Nuclear Keepaway, and Losing, NPR ATC
Excerpt: Matthew Bunn is a nuclear weapons expert at Harvard University. In this commentary, he says faster action is needed to keep nuclear bomb material out of terrorist hands.
See also
Loose Nukes: Temporary or Permanent, Dean LeBaron video commentary, 04/09/27
The Threat Of Nuclear Terror, Haaretz
Excerpt: That danger is increasing because of the wild proliferation of nuclear materials and know-how, as exemplified by the case of "the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb," Abdul Qadeer Khan, who sold nuclear know-how to various rogue countries like Iran, Libya and North Korea.
F.B.I. Said to Lag on Translations of Terror Tapes, NY Times
Excerpt: Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, more than 120,000 hours of potentially valuable terrorism-related recordings have not yet been translated by linguists at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and computer problems may have led the bureau to systematically erase some Qaeda recordings, according to a declassified summary of a...
Links & Snippets
Other Publications
- Phase Transition and Pattern Formation in a Model of Collective Choice Dynamics, Sitabhra Sinha, S. Raghavendra, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 04-09-028
- Automated Pattern Detection--An Algorithm for Constructing Optimally Synchronizing Multi-regular Language Filters, Carl S. McTague, James P. Crutchfield, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 04-09-027
- Distribution and Patterns of CNSs in a Caenorhabditis Gene Family, Mark Bieda, Colleen T. Webb, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 04-09-026
- Stability and Diversity in Collective Adaptation, Yuzuru Sato, Eizo Akiyama, James P. Crutchfield, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 04-08-025
- Universality in Intermediary Metabolism, Fred Cooper, Bogdan Mihaila, John Dawson, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 04-07-024
- Immunology of Multiple Sclerosis , Mireia Sospedra, Roland Martin, Annual Review of Immunology; Volume 23
- Macrophage Receptors and Immune Recognition , Philip R. Taylor, Luisa Martinez-Pomares, Martin J. Stacey, Hsi-Hsien Lin, Gordon D. Brown, Siamon Gordon, Annual Review of Immunology; Volume 23
- Area Codes, Now Divorced From Their Areas, Ian Urbina, 04/10/01, NYTimes
- Complex Dynamics Of The Formation Of Spatially Localized Standing Structures In The Vicinity Of Saddle-Node Bifurcations Of Waves In The Reaction-Diffusion Model Of Blood Clotting, E. S. Lobanova, E. E. Shnol, F. I. Ataullakhanov, 04/09/14, Phys. Rev. E 70, 032903
- Self-Organization Of Collaboration Networks, José J. Ramasco, S. N. Dorogovtsev, Romualdo Pastor-Satorras, 04/09/14, Phys. Rev. E 70, 036106
- Quantum Models Of The Mind: Are They Compatible With Environment Decoherence?, Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, Jean Faber, 04/09/15, Phys. Rev. E 70, 031902
- Fractal Aircraft Trajectories And Nonclassical Turbulent Exponents, S. Lovejoy, D. Schertzer, A. F. Tuck, 04/09/16, Phys. Rev. E 70, 036306
- Falling Paper: Navier-Stokes Solutions, Model of Fluid Forces, and Center of Mass Elevation, Umberto Pesavento1, Z. Jane Wang, 04/09/27,
Computed vorticity field along the path of a tumbling plate (in white) falling through a fluid. The plate's center of mass briefly rises as it completes its turn, in a manner similar to that of falling leaves, due to an aerodynamic force from the coupling of translational and rotational motions.
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 144501, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.144501 - Teaching Computers To Fold Proteins, Ole Winther Anders Krogh, 04/09/27, Phys. Rev. E 70, 030903(R)
- Prewar Assessment on Iraq Saw Chance of Strong Divisions, Douglas Jehl, David E. Sanger, 04/09/28, NYTimes, The administration was warned of the potential costly consequences of a U.S.-led invasion two months before the war began.
- DVDs Could Hold '100 Times More', 04/09/28,
All the episodes of The Simpsons could fit on one disk
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BBC News. - Iraq Study Sees Rebels' Attacks as Widespread, James Glanz, Thom Shanker, 04/09/29, NYTimes, Resistance to the occupation of Iraq is more widespread than the pockets of insurgency described by Iraqi officials, data shows.
- I.B.M. Supercomputer Sets World Record for Speed, John Markoff, 04/09/29, NYTimes, An I.B.M. machine has reclaimed the title of fastest supercomputer, overtaking a Japanese computer that had caused shock waves at United States government agencies when it set a computing speed record in 2002.
- The Moog Synthesizer Makes a Comeback, David Bernstein, 04/09/29, NYTimes, A growing number of contemporary musicians and techno enthusiasts have reignited interest in the Moog, which can synthesize any sound imaginable.
- Sentenced to Be Raped, Nicholas D. Kristof, 04/09/29, NYTimes, I haven't found Osama bin Laden yet, but I did come across someone even more extraordinary in a remote part of Pakistan.
- Key Part of Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional -- , 04/09/29, The Washington Post, Internet Providers' Data at Issue
- Robot Uses Whiskers To Get Around, 04/09/30, NewScientist
- Support Sought To Investigate Sluggish Pioneers, Jim Giles, 04/09/30, Nature 431, 494 - 495. Physicists study mystery of slow-moving spacecraft.
, DOI: 10.1038/431494b
- Hormone Therapy: A Dangerous Elixir?, Helen Pearson, 04/09/30, Nature 431, 500 - 501. Testosterone therapy jacks up vigour, sex drive and mental acuity — or so proponents claim. But are those who experiment with this potent sex hormone gambling with their health?
, DOI: 10.1038/431500a
- Aquaculture: Fishing For Trouble, Rex Dalton, 04/09/30, Nature 431, 502 - 504. Plans to push tuna farms out into open waters off the coast of the United States are raising an environmental alarm.
, DOI: 10.1038/431502a
- Cosmology: What is dark energy?, Lawrence M. Krauss, 04/09/30, Nature 431, 519 - 520 , DOI: 10.1038/431519b
- Phenotypic Consequences Of 1,000 Generations Of Selection At Elevated CO2 In A Green Alga , Sinéad Collins, Graham Bell, 04/09/30, Nature 431, 566 - 569 , DOI: 10.1038/nature02945
- Horrific Death Toll In Darfur Revealed, Katharine Davis, 04/10/01, NewScientist
- Invisible Gorilla Steals Ig Nobel Prize, Jeff Hecht, 04/10/01, NewScientist
- Banks Sound Alarm On Online Fraud, 04/10/01, BBC News, The banking industry warns customers with online accounts to guard against a new wave of sophisticated cyber-fraud.
- 2004 Ig Nobel Prizes Announced, 04/10/01, This year's awards honor work on country music, farting fish, and comb-over
hairdos.
Science Now
- Diatoms Deciphered, 04/10/01, Science Now,
DNA confirms the strange algae's chimeric nature
- Winning the Peace for Afghans, Nicholas D. Kristof, 04/10/02, NYTimes, Afghanistan shows real promise in the north, but is falling apart in the rural areas of the south.
- Flash, Big Bang, Wallop! What A Picture!, 04/10/02,
mage courtesy of Nasa (Cobe group)
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BBC News, Simon Singh, author of a new book about the Big Bang, explains why a picture is worth a thousand words.
- Buckyballs At Bat: Toxic Nanomaterials Get A Tune-Up, Alexandra Goho, 04/10/02, Science News, The soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules known as buckyballs are toxic to human cells, yet coating the particles can switch off their toxicity.
- Beat Goes On: Carp Heart Keeps Pace When Fish Lacks Oxygen, 04/10/02, Science News, Without oxygen, a Scandinavian fish not only can survive but also maintains a normal heartbeat for days.
- Two-Headed Memories: Collaboration Gives Recall Lift To Elderly, 04/10/02, Science News, Collaboration with a spouse improves the accuracy of older people's memories on tasks such as remembering items on a shopping list or identifying familiar landmarks on a local map.
- Oddballs, 04/10/02, Science News, Mathematicians have found that it's easier to pack spheres in some dimensions than it is in others.
- The Tree Of Life, With Tangled Roots, 04/10/02, Science News,Two ancient, rudimentary organisms merged to create the first complex cell, new data suggest.
- Forbidden Songs , Chris Summers, Dominic Bailey, 04/10/03, BBC News, Why ballads about Mexico's drug cartels are being banned
- Microchip Imperfections Could Cut Cloning, 04/10/04, NewScientist
- In Evolution, a Taste for Beauty Has a Purpose , Christopher Joyce, 04/10/04, NPR ME, An appreciation for beauty may play a vital role in evolution. Female bowerbirds, for example, choose mates based on the aesthetics of their mating dance. Human behavior is more complex, but scientists say our love of beauty has also helped us survive.
- The Brain Goes Bilingual, John Bohannon, 04/10/04,
Hardwired. The brains of those who struggle to learn a new language may have trouble processing phonetic information of unfamiliar words.
CREDIT: M. CHEE/SINGHEALTH
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Science Now - Predators Select Against High Growth Rates And Risk-Taking Behaviour In Domestic Trout Populations, P. A. Biro, M. V. Abrahams, J. R. Post, E. A. Parkinson, 2004/09/27, Alphagalileo & Proc. B (Biological Sciences)
- Is Death-Feigning Adaptive? Heritable Variation In Fitness Difference Of Death-Feigning Behaviour, T. Miyatake, K. Katayama, Y. Takeda, A. Nakashima, A. Sugita, M. Mizumoto, 2004/09/27, Alphagalileo & Proc. B (Biological Sciences)
- 'Fossil Genes' Reveal How Life Sheds Form And Function, 2004/09/27, ScienceDaily & University Of Wisconsin-Madison
- The Language Of Pain, V. Bridge - v.bridgeleeds.ac.uk, 2004/09/29, Alphagalileo & University of Leeds
- Giving Computers The Jitters Helps Explain Human Behavior, 2004/09/29, ScienceDaily & Pennsylvania State University
- Punching The Timeclock Of Life, 2004/09/29, ScienceDaily & University Of Southern California
- Brain-scanning Life's Memories Yields New Insights, 2004/09/30, ScienceDaily & Duke University
- Higher Order Complexity Of Time Series, F. Gu - fjgufudan.edu.cn, E. Shen, X. Meng, Y. Cao, Z. Cai, Aug. 2004, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, DOI: 10.1142/S021812740401093X
- Intermittent Chaotic Operation In Switching Power Converters, S. C. Wong - enscwongpolyu.edu.hk, C. K. Tse - encktsepolyu.edu.hk, K. C. Tam, Aug. 2004, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, DOI: 10.1142/S0218127404011077
- Dynamic Complexities In Ratio-Dependent Predator-Prey Ecosystem Models With Birth Pulse And Pesticide Pulse, J. Hui - jinghuimail.amss.ac.cn, L.-S. Chen - lschenmath08.math.ac.cn, Aug. 2004, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, DOI: 10.1142/S0218127404010916
- Chaos In A Nonlinear Analog Computer, K. Kiers - knkierstayloru.edu, T. Klein - kleinphysics.umn.edu, J. Kolb - jkolbdarkwing.uoregon.edu, S. Price - pricephysics.montana.edu, J. C. Sportt - sprottphysics.wisc.edu, Aug. 2004, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, DOI: 10.1142/S0218127404010898
- Vegetation Dynamics - Simulating Responses To Climatic Change, F. I. Woodward - f.i.woodwardsheffield.ac.uk, M. R. Lomas, Aug. 2004, Biological Reviews, DOI: 10.1017/S1464793103006419
- Social Influences On Mammalian Circadian Rhythms: Animal And Human Studies, R. E. Mistlberger - mistlbersfu.ca, D. J. Skene, Aug. 2004, Biological Reviews, DOI: 10.1017/S1464793103006353
- Neglected Consequences: Role Of Introduced Aquatic Species In The Spread Of Infectious Diseases, K. Levy - klevynature.berkeley.edu, Sep. 2004, EcoHealth, DOI: 10.1007/s10393-004-0005-x
- Noisy Chaotic Dynamics In Commodity Markets, C. Kyrtsou - ckyrtsokuom.gr, W. C. Labys - wlabyswvu.edu, M. Terraza - mterrazalameta.univ-montp1.fr, Sep. 2004, Empirical Economics, DOI: 10.1007/s00181-003-0180-6
- Pleistocene Migration Routes Into The Americas: Human Biological Adaptations And Environmental Constraints, R. Hall, D. Roy, D. Boling, Sep. 2004, Online 2004/07/29, Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, DOI: 10.1002/evan.20013
- Motivational Influence On The Quality Of Memories: Recall Of General Autobiographical Memories Related To Desired Attributes, S. Brunot, R. B. Sanitioso - sanitiosopsycho.univ-paris5.fr, Sep.-Oct. 2004, Online 2004/08/16, European Journal of Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.220
Webcast Announcements
ALife 9: Ninth International Conference on Artificial Life, Boston, MA, 04/09/12-15
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The 4th Intl Workshop on Meta-synthesis and Complex System, Beijing, China, 04/07/22-23
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Intl Conf on Complex Networks: Structure, Function and Processes, Kolkata, India, 04/06/27-30
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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,
04/06/14-17
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Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
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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
- World Economic Forum 2004, Davos, Switzerland
- Riding the Next Democratic Wave, Al-Thani, Khan, Vike-Freiberga, Wade, Soros, Zakaria, World Economic Forum, 04/01/25
- The Future of Global Interdependence, Kharrazi, Held, Owens, Shourie, Annan, Martin, Schwab, World Economic Forum, 04/01/25
- Why Victory Against Terrorism Demands Shared Values
- CODIS 2004, International Conference On Communications, Devices And Intelligent Systems, 2004 Calcutta, India, 04/01/09-10
- EVOLVABILITY & INTERACTION: Evolutionary Substrates of Communication, Signaling, and Perception in the Dynamics of Social Complexity, London, UK, 03/10/08-10
- The Semantic Web and Language Technology - Its Po tential and Practicalities, Bucharest, Romania, 03/07/28-08/08
- ECAL 2003, 7th European Conference on Artificial Life, Dortmund, Germany, 03/09/14-17
- New Santa Fe Institute President About His Vision for SFI's Future Role, (Video, Santa Fe, NM, 03/06/04)
- SPIE's 1st Intl Symp on Fluctuations and Noise, Santa Fe, NM, 2003/06/01-04
- NAS Sackler Colloquium on Mapping Knowledge Domains, Video/Audio Report, 03/05/11
- 13th Ann Intl Conf, Soc f Chaos Theory in Psych & Life Sciences, Boston, MA, USA, 2003/08/08-10
- CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
- Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
- Edge Videos
Conference & Call for Papers Announcements
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Charleston SC, 04/10/12-15
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Milano (Italy), 04/10/21-22
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Technology Conference, Champaign, Illinois,
04/10/21-23
- 6th Intl Conf on Electronic Commerce
ICEC'2004: Towards A New Services Landscape, Delft, The Netherlands, 04/10/25-27
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ICDM '04: The Fourth IEEE Intl Conf on Data Mining, Brighton, UK, 04/11/01-04
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International Congress of Nanotechnology and Nano World Expo,San Francisco, CA, 04/11/07-11
- Denaturing Darwin: International Conference on Evolution and Organization
, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, 04/11/12-14
- The 7th Asia-Pacific Complex Systems Conference, Queensland, Australia, 04/12/06-10
- 17th Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Queensland, Australia, 04/12/06-10
- Cellular Computing Symposium, U Warwick
(UK), 04/12/09-10
- International Conference On Computational Intelligence (Icci 2004) , Istanbul, Turkey, 04/12/15-17
- Kondratieff Waves, Warfare And World Security, NATO Advanced Research Workshop
, Covilh? Portugal, 05/02/14-17
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5th Creativity And Cognition Conference, London.UK, 05/04/12-15
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Social Intelligence and Interaction in Animals, Robots and Agents, Hatfield, UK, 05/04/12-15
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IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium
Pasadena, California, USA, 05/06/08-10
- Powders & Grains 2005, Stuttgart, Germany, 05/06/18-22
- Workshop on Complexity and Policy Analysis, Cork, Ireland, 05/06/22-24
- 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
