In The News

Human Evolution Speeding Up, Study Says

John Roach December 27, 2007
Researchers can examine chromosomes and determine when genetic variations occurred. If a condition within a chromosome is both new and common throughout the population, then researchers assume that natural selection promoted the variation. “According to Charles Darwin's famous theory, evolution happens faster in big populations,” writes John Roach for National Geographic News. The world had...

Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch

James M. Manyika December 26, 2007
Businesses continue to innovate by applying technology in new ways, suggests a McKinsey Quarterly report that identifies emerging trends. Technology allows businesses to harvest talent inside and outside corporate borders – and rely on consumers for more information and innovation. “Competitive advantage will shift to companies that can master the art of breaking down and recomposing tasks,”...

Technology in India and China: Running Fast

November 16, 2007
Clocks, zero and paper – these and many other fundamental innovations emerged in Asia. Yet around the 15th century, the surge in Asian innovation tapered off. Scholars seek to explain sources for innovation and posit that leaders must provide incentives for progress; internal or external forces can give inventors a sense of purpose. Today, Asians are eager to pursue innovation through education...

Asia's Space Race

Dingli Shen November 13, 2007
Nearly four decades after the first man walked on the moon, Asia's major powers hurry in their own space race. China and Japan both recently launched spacecraft to the moon, and India has sent satellites into orbit since 1975. The latest missions and future ambitions raise eyebrows, particularly since China's January 2007 test, in which a rocket was used to destroy an old weather...

China Tightens Control of Net

Bobbie Johnson October 16, 2007
The ability of the Burmese junta to restrict access to the Internet has gained much attention, but censorship confounds millions more users throughout the world. China, with the second largest number of web users in the world, endorses a sophisticated array of misinformation techniques, including surveillance and filtering. Some human rights and pro-democracy websites are unavailable; for other...

How Russia Lost the Moon

Sergei Khrushchev October 4, 2007
Sputnik’s launch 50 years ago marks a watershed event in human innovation. The Soviets anticipated success; for them, Sputnik was another marker in their continuous progression past Western technology. However, a little more than a decade later, the Americans became the first to reach the moon. Soviet efforts in the space race, argues Khrushchev, ultimately failed because of jealousy within the...

Google Urges UN to Set Global Internet Privacy Rules

Bobbie Johnson September 21, 2007
The introduction of Google Street View – photographic images of street-level landmarks and people – sparked concern from consumers about loss of privacy and abuse of the internet. Internet users around the world are already alarmed by poor security displayed by some internet banking and other online services, so technology companies, including Google, prod international organizations such as the...