Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 11.

04 - February 25, 2012

ISSN: 1712-9834

Selected news items from postings to Innovation Watch in the last two weeks... scientists grow a living plant from a 32,000-year-old seed... America needs to produce a million more science and engineering graduates... nanoparticle spray turns trees into high-powered antennas... quantum dots can control brain cells... Australian mining company plans driverless long-distance trains... ultrafast trading by machines linked to the risk of financial crashes... student debt keeps first-time buyers out of the housing market... loss of manufacturing jobs to foreign competition has a long-term impact... India proposes a BRICS-led development bank for emerging nations... China plans to boost the use of rare earths in its own domestic manufacturing... scientists say coal far exceeds oil sands in climate change impact... diseases are being passed from land animals to the oceans... Japanese construction company wants to build a space elevator... futurist advocates for scenarios that are usefully provocative... More great resources ... a new book by Blake Mycoskie, founder of One for One - Start Something that Matters... a link to the BBC Future website, presenting readers with inspiring, forward-thinking... the audio clip of an All Things Considered interview on Google Glasses -- eye glasses with computing power... a blog post by David Paul the decline in US manufacturing jobs... David Forrest Innovation Watch

David Forrest advises organizations on emerging trends, and helps to develop strategies for a radically different future

SCIENCE
Top Stories: Russian Scientists Germinate Ice-Age Seed (CBC) - Scientists in Russia have made a major breakthrough in permafrost research. The team, whose work is based in Siberia, successfully germinated a flower from an ice-age seed which is about 32,000 years old. The scientists found an ancient frozen nest of Arctic ground squirrels 30 metres underground. They took some of the seeds they found in that nest and brought them back to a lab. Their attempts to try to resurrect ice-age life from the permafrost were successful -they produced a small white tundra flower from the seed. The plant is called Silene stenophylla, which is like an ice-age version of a chickweed -- a flower which lives in very dry tundra. America's Path to One Million More Science and Engineering Grads (IEEE Spectrum) - The US will need to produce over one million additional graduates with science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees over the next decade to maintain its upper hand in science and technology, according to a report released last week by the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The key to meeting that challenge, says the Council, is to inspire and retain more students in STEM fields by improving the first two years of college education. The US currently produces about 300 000 graduates with bachelor and associate degrees in STEM fields every year. China and India are said to produce many more. The quality of grads that those Asian countries produce might not match that of US grads, but the fact remains: the US needs more STEM grads to stay competitive. Forward Know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Forward it Unsubscribe Don't want to receive the newsletter? Unsubscribe

Newsletter Archive

Previous issues

TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories: Spray-on Nanoparticle Mix Turns Trees into Antennas (IEEE Spectrum) - A small company called ChamTech Operations based in Utah has developed a nanoparticle mix that can be sprayed on any vertical object -- like a tree -- and make that object act as a high-powered antenna. Not only can the sprayed-on nanoparticles make trees into antennas, but it can also extend the range of an existing antenna by a factor of 100, according to one of the principals of the company, Anthony Sutera. For instance, in RFID tags the nanoparticle spray extended the readable range of the tag from a mere five feet (1.5 meters) to 700 feet (200 m). Quantum Dots Control Brain Cells for the First Time (New Scientist) - In an unlikely marriage of quantum physics and neuroscience, tiny particles called quantum dots have been used to control brain cells for the first time. Having such control over the brain could one day provide a non-invasive treatment for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, depression and epilepsy. In the nearer term, quantum dots

could be used to treat blindness by reactivating damaged retinal cells.

BUSINESS
Top Stories: Rio Tinto Plans World-First Driverless Rail Network (PhysOrg) - Miner Rio Tinto will use driverless trains to deliver its iron ore to ports in Western Australia in what it said Monday will be the world's first automated, long-distance, heavy-haul rail network. Rio, which this month posted annual net earnings of US$5.8 billion, plans the large-scale use of automation at its mines and projects and has already said it will deploy 150 driverless trucks and use remote-controlled drills. The company currently runs 41 trains, including 9,400 iron ore cars and 148 locomotives, from mines to ports on its 1,500kilometre (930 miles) rail network. Study Links Ultrafast Machine Trading With Risk of Crash (PhysOrg) - In the United States, ultrafast trading in financial markets between 2006 and 2011 was the underlying factor for over 18,000 extreme price changes, according to a new study. Neil Johnson, a professor in the physics department of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, one of the authors of the study, thinks that a buildup of such "fractures" can destabilize the market. The speed in which the rises and falls occur might last no longer than half a second, unapparent to any human who is tracking prices. Johnson says if you blink you miss it. Flash events may happen in milliseconds and have nothing to do with a companys real value.

SOCIETY
Top Stories: Student Debt Is Stifling Home Sales (Businessweek) - Last year outstanding education debt passed credit-card debt for the first time, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, a student loan website. Totaling close to $1 trillion, Americas mounting pile of outstanding student debt is a growing drag on the housing recovery, keeping first-time home buyers on the sidelines and limiting the effectiveness of record-low interest rates. Recent college graduates carry an average debt load of more than $25,000, limiting their ability to qualify for mortgages even if they're able to land a job in a market with an unemployment rate of 9 percent for 25- to 34-year-olds. The High Price of Losing Manufacturing Jobs (PhysOrg) The disappearance of U.S. manufacturing jobs frequently leaves former manufacturing workers unemployed for years, if not permanently, while creating a drag on local economies and

raising the amount of taxpayer-borne social insurance necessary to keep workers and their families afloat. Geographically, the research shows, foreign competition has hurt many U.S. metropolitan areas -- not necessarily the ones built around heavy manufacturing in the industrial Midwest, but many areas in the South, the West and the Northeast, which once had abundant manual-labor manufacturing jobs, often involving the production of clothing, footwear, luggage, furniture and other household consumer items. Many of these jobs were held by workers without college degrees, who have since found it hard to gain new employment.

GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories: India Said to Propose BRICS Bank to Fund Emerging Nations (Businessweek) - India has proposed setting up a multilateral bank that would be exclusively funded by developing nations and finance projects in those countries, two government officials with knowledge of the matter said. The plan has been circulated to the countries in the so- called BRIC group - Brazil, Russia, India and China -- as well as to South Africa, an Indian government official said. A Brazilian government official confirmed the proposal. India's suggestion of a BRICS bank comes as emerging nations strive for greater influence in the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral bodies to match their rising economic heft. Their efforts to end the practice of naming World Bank presidents from the U.S. and the head of the IMF from Europe have so far been rebuffed, stoking frustration. China to Boost Use of Rare Earths in Manufacturing (AFP) China has called for greater use of rare earths for its own domestic manufacturing, as Beijing seeks to limit exports of the sought-after resources vital for everything from iPods to missiles. China is the world's largest producer of rare earths - 17 elements critical to manufacturing a range of high-tech products -- and its moves to dictate production and exports have raised a global outcry. Beijing aims to boost the use of rare earths in high-end manufacturing, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which helps oversee the modernisation of Chinese industry.

ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories: Climate Expert Says Coal Not Oilsands Real Threat (CBC) - In a commentary published in the prestigious journal Nature, Andrew Weaver and colleague Neil Stewart analyze how burning all global stocks of coal, oil and natural gas would

affect temperatures. Their analysis breaks out unconventional gas, such as undersea methane hydrates and shale gas produced by fracking, as well as unconventional oil sources including the oilsands. They found that if all the hydrocarbons in the oilsands were mined and consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about .36 C. That's about half the total amount of warming over the last century. When only commercially viable oilsands deposits are considered, the temperature increase is only .03 C. In contrast, the paper concludes that burning all the globe's vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase in temperature. Animal Diseases Increasingly Plague the Oceans (PhysOrg) Around the world, seals, otters and other species are increasingly infected by parasites and other diseases long common in goats, cows, cats and dogs, marine mammal experts told a major science conference. Parasites, funguses, viruses and bacteria are increasingly passed from land to sea animals because human settlements on coastlines changes water patterns through paving, filling of wetlands that are natural filters, and intensive agriculture run-off, said scientists.

THE FUTURE
Top Stories: Japanese Company Aims for Space Elevator by 2050 (Space.com) - People could be gliding up to space on hightech elevators by 2050 if a Japanese construction company's ambitious plans come to fruition. Tokyo-based Obayashi Corp. wants to build an operational space elevator by the middle of the century, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported. The device would carry passengers skyward at about 124 mph (200 kph), delivering them to a station 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth in a little more than a week. In Obayashi's vision, a cable would be stretched from a spaceport on Earth's surface up to an altitude of 60,000 miles (96,000 km), or about one-quarter of the distance between our planet and the moon. A counterweight at its end would help "anchor" the cable in space. Forensic Futurism (Open the Future) - Jamais Cascio "From jetpacks to vacations on the Moon, any discussion of futurism in broader culture very quickly turns into a listing of the various crazy things that 'futurists' (whether or not they'd call themselves that) have said over the past century. Sometimes it's an easy one-off article, sometimes it's an entire book or blog devoted the topic. Done well, it's a kind of indulgent ridicule: those futurists sure are whacky, but charmingly whacky. Anyone who has read my stuff will know that I'm not really fond of being called a 'futurist,' although it's the most widely-recognized name for what I do. I don't make predictions, and I don't talk in certainties; I'm all about trying to illuminate surprising implications of present-day processes. I don't expect that the scenarios I offer will be right, but I do

want them to be usefully provocative."

Just in from the publisher...

Start Something That Matters

By Blake Mycoskie
Read more...

A Web Resource... BBC Future - BBC Future presents readers with an inspiring, forwardthinking and global array of content -- going beyond reporting to delve deep into the personal and societal implications of topical developments in science, technology, health and environment. With a lineup of regular columns, feature reports, infographics and video, BBC Future is the new home of thought-provoking insights from leading writers and personalities in science and technology.

Multimedia... Google's Goggles: Is The Future Right Before Our Eyes? (All Things Considered) - Like flying cars and time travel, eye glasses with computing power have long been sci-fi fantasy, relegated to Terminator movies and the like. Now it appears that Google may be a few months from selling a version of their own. Google glasses -- which may be released as a "beta" product -- could put smartphone capabilities such as GPS maps, weather, time, Web streaming and more inches from your eyeball. (4m 32s) [All Things Considered]

The Blogosphere... Can Manufacturing Jobs Can Come Back? What Should We Learn From Apple and Foxconn (Huffington Post) David Paul "There is no fundamental reason that the decline in manufacturing jobs in America should be deemed inevitable and permanent. For all the talk about the number of engineers in China, the fundamental issue remains price. As a friend who is a consulting engineer who works with Apple in China has commented, 'Yeah, they have engineers, but the driver is cost, cost, cost. And the labor quality is awful. We lose a lot of product and have to stay on top of everything, but at $27 per day, you can afford a lot of management.' "

Email: future@innovationwatch.com