World population approaches 7 billion

From Slate (7-30-10):

Forecasters Expect World Population to Reach 7 Billion Next Year

The population of the world will climb above 7 billion sometime in 2011, says the Population Reference Bureau, a research group. With 267 people being born every minute and only 108 dying, developing countries are adding more than 80 million people to the world's population every year. Carl Haub, the group's senior demographer, estimated that by 2050 the world's population will be more than 9 billion.While the news can be celebrated because it represents longer life spans, the group is concerned. A closer look at the data shows that the ratio of working-age adults to the elderly that they are called on to support is rapidly declining because of lower birthrates. It also shows that the majority of population growth is happening in the world's poorest countries, "exacerbating poverty and threatening the environment," according to William P. Butz, the president of the Population Reference Bureau. "While the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand will continue to grow because of higher birthrates and immigration, Europe, Japan and South Korea will shrink (although the recession reduced birthrates in the United States and Spain and slowed rising birthrates in Russia and Norway)," the New York Times reported. In the U.S., where people seem constantly worried by the state of Social Security and Medicare, the proportion of the gross domestic product spent on those two entitlement programs will jump from 8.4 percent this year to 14.5 percent by 2050.

Read original story in The New York Times | Friday, July 30, 2010

Warlords as allies in Afghanistan?

Click on this link to read a Washington Post (7-29-10) story about a brutal warlord who has been enlisted as an ally against the Taliban.  Do you think it is a good idea to use such people in Afghanistan?  Do we have any real choice?  Are such dilemmas a sign of a war we shouldn't be in to begin with?  Or does a realistic assessment of our dangerous world suggest that such alliances are inescapable?

Continuing controversy over proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero

Click on this link to read a New York Times column (7-27-10) by Clyde Haberman that complains about the protests regarding a proposed Islamic Center near the site of the 9-11 World Trade Center collapse.  Do you think building such a center near (not "at", as the column notes) is a bad idea?  Should it, even if so, still be permitted?

Dangers of full body radiation scanning?

Click on this link to read a New York Times column (7-27-10) by Joe Sharkey that explores the potential radiation dangers from full body scanning techniques being implemented the next 2 years in airports.

Vast enterprise of "secret" agencies formed since 911

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune/Washington Post (7-18-10) article about the huge network of secretive agencies that have been created since September 11th, 2001.  Collaboration between these many agencies is proving difficult and the amount of intelligence data being generated dwarfs the abilities of leaders to keep up with it.  Is such a vast ediface necessary in the 21st century to sustain the security of a world superpower?

Is synthetic marijuna sold as incense dangerous?

Click on this link to read a New York Times article (7-10-10) about the various forms of K2, a chemical blend of various herbs and synthetic marijuana, that are now being banned by a number of states.  Poison control centers and emergency rooms point to an uptick of distress calls traced to the use of the substances, but others argue that they are harmless.  States such as Missouri have illegalized them, but chemists are quickly inventing new formulas that elude the newly-passed laws.

Is desalinization a solution for water shortages? Australia's experience

Click on this link to read a New York Times story (7-10-10) about the pros and cons of desalinization plants as a response to droughts and over-consumption of fresh water.  Are there better solutions, such as water conservation and population reduction, or is this expensive and energy-consuming technology the most realistic solution?  Attached is a video that was included in the WorldNews site that repeated the NYT article.

Students, meet your new teacher, Mr. Robot

Click on this link to read a New York Times another article (7-11-10) about how robots are taking roles formerly played by people--in this case, providing companionship to autistic children.

Can machines become our companions?

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune (7-5-10) article about the use of robots to provide companionship to elderly people suffering from dementia and moral support for drug addicts seeking to kick the habit.

Young Women Are Addicted to Facebook

From Slate (6-7-10): Even before they go to the bathroom or brush their teeth, one of the first things one-third of women age 18-34 do in the morning when they wake up is check their Facebook account. The results of a two-month study of more than 1,600 adults released by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research on Wednesday show that "young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks," Mashable reported. The study's results go further than previous studies on the subject, finding that 57 percent of young women talk to people online more than face-to-face and 39 percent go so far as to declare themselves addicted to Facebook. More than 20 percent even check Facebook in the middle of the night. Other statistics that emerged from the study seemed a bit contradictory: 89 percent of young women advise against loading anything onto Facebook that you wouldn't want your parents to see, yet 42 percent have no problems with posting photographs of themselves drunk. Mashable sumarized the results: "Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It's not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies."

Read original story in Mashable | Wednesday, July 7, 2010

New Technology Could Allow Blind To Drive Independently

From Slate (July 2, 2010):

After years of research, the National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech hope to demonstrate by next year a prototype vehicle that would allow a blind person to drive independently. The technology, known as "nonvisual interfaces," is based on Virginia Tech's third-place entry into the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge, a competition funded by the Defense Department for driverless vehicles. It uses sensors to relay information to a blind person about his or her surroundings. "We're exploring areas that have previously been regarded as unexplorable," said Dr. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, during a press conference in Daytona Beach, Fla. "We're moving away from the theory that blindness ends the capacity of human beings to make contributions to society." Maurer has been talking about building a car for the blind since launching the research institute of his Baltimore-based organization a decade ago. "Some people thought I was crazy and they thought, 'Why do you want us to raise money for something that can't be done?' Others thought it was a great idea," he said. Advocates for the blind, who consider driving a car a goal on par with landing on the moon, acknowledge that years of testing will be required before society accepts blind drivers regardless of how good the technology is. Various options are being considered: One uses a vibrating vest to direct drivers, another uses compressed air to create a map of objects that surround a vehicle. "The results will be demonstrated next January on a modified Ford Escape sport utility vehicle at the Daytona International Speedway before the Rolex 24 race," theAssociated Press reported.

Read original story in The Associated Press | Friday, July 2, 2010

Al-Qaida Launches English-Language Magazine

From Slate (July 1, 2010):

With articles like "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" and "What to Expect in Jihad," al-Qaida is hoping that its new English-language magazine, entitled Inspire, will help to recruit English-speaking Muslims inside of the United States and Europe. Run by the al-Qaida branch in Yemen that has been linked to the failed Chrismas Day bombing, Inspire was sort of distributed online on Wednesday. Only the first few pages, which Marc Ambinder has posted as image files on theAtlantic, came through. (Uncertain that the PDF was without a virus, he refrained from posting the entire file.) The rest of the pages were infected. "AQAP's first effort to post the magazine to jihadist websites failed Wednesday, as many of the pages were contaminated with a virus," Ambinder wrote. "(I half seriously believe that U.S. cyber warriors might have had a hand in that little surprise.)" In the introduction, the magazine's editors, led by Anwar al-Awlaki, ask readers to contribute their own articles and suggestions. Al-Awlaki has inspired several recent terrorist plots through his online sermons, according to the Associated Press. A U.S.-born cleric, al-Awlaki's English language skills are far superior to most of his al-Qaida comrades. But Ambinder suggests that Western intelligence officials, and not al-Awlaki, may be behind Inspire. "It is possible, although not likely, that the magazine is a fabrication, a production of a Western intelligence agency that wants to undermine Al Qaeda by eroding confidence in its production and distribution networks," he wrote. "The U.S. is engaged in direct net-based warfare with jihadis; this sort of operation would not be too difficult to pull off."

Read original story in The Atlantic | Thursday, July 1, 2010

Flying car clears major hurdles

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald-Tribune article (July 2, 2010) about a "flying car" that has been moving to market (for about $175,000).  The car will enable someone to drive to the airport, then take off from the runway.  It may also feature a parachute that would drop safely to earth if difficulties were encountered.

Is the Web redesigning our brains? For the better?

Click on this link to read an excerpt, published in Wired (June, 2010) from The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.  Carr argues that the riot of information currently available to us is shattering our ability to concentrate and is rewiring our brain.  But is it rewiring it for the better?