Blogs

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG632/

By: David E. Mosher, Beth E. Lachman, Michael D. Greenberg, Tiffany Nichols, Brian Rosen, Henry H. WillisRecent experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans have highlighted the importance of environmental considerations. These range from protecting soldier health and disposing of hazardous waste to building water supply systems and other activities that help achieve national goals in the post-conflict phase of contingency operations. The Army has become increasingly involved with environmental issues in every contingency operation and must be better prepared to deal with them. This study assesses whether existing policy, doctrine, and guidance adequately address environmental activities in post-conflict military operations and reconstruction. [Complete PDF attached select Read More link]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.d...

October 17, 2008 (Computerworld) The ability of malware writers to consistently stay ahead of those seeking to stop them has been a constant factor in the security industry over the past several years.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081017-rna-based-logic-gates-comp...

Researchers have been experimenting for some time with the idea that biology can be harnessed to perform computations. Biological systems can amplify and sample a large collection of molecules simultaneously, and they can register states that are far more subtle and complex than the binary ones handled by standard computers. Although there are no clear cases where a biological computer will outperform standard silicon, a biological computer may be useful for detecting the state of other biological systems, and it may find uses in diagnostics or environmental sensing. A potential step forward for biological computing was just reported in Science, where researchers describe logic gates built from RNA, a chemical the helps run the basic metabolism of the cell.

[Editors Note: Dancing plants were popularized by the Japanese toy company Takara in the 80's and 90's. Korea has taken this to a whole new level of biomimicry by creating robotic plants that not only dance and respond to their environment but perform many of the biological functions of real plants]

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/2...

No, it's not really in the same cosmological category, but "Black Silicon" certainly sounds like it should be.

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/10/12/sion...

SiOnyx Brings “Black Silicon” into the Light; Material Could Upend Solar, Imaging Industries

Wade Roush 10/12/08

[Editors Note: In an age of increasingly sophisticated technology-based cyber crime it is all too easy to forget that the key to success of many if not most cyber exploits is what hackers call "social engineering". Extracting passwords or other sensitive information through seemingly innocuous conversations, crafting web pages, email scams, and phishing schemes that mimic or manipulate reality in ways that pray on the weaknesses of individual psychology.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-me...
By Steve Connor, Science Editor, The Independant

Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/hun...

British scientists have discovered hundreds more methane "plumes" bubbling up from the Arctic seabed, in an area to the west of the Norwegian island of Svalbard. It is the second time in a week that scientists have reported methane emissions from the Arctic.

Methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and the latest findings from two separate teams of scientists suggest it is being released in significant amounts from within the Arctic Circle.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v83011u31...

[Editors Note: This could be an interesting exercise to track. I have followed Jane McGonigal's work, especially her pioneering blends of street theater, flash mobs, online role play, and alternate reality gaming.]

http://www.iftf.org/node/2302

Chronicle the dark world of 2019. Then help us figure out how to fix it.

On September 22nd 2008, the Institute For the Future will launch the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game: Superstruct.