In The News

History 1980-2000 Has Disappeared Into the Ether. Sorry

Ben Macintyre March 23, 2007
Computers, CDs, digital files and scanning have allowed vast amounts of information to be collected. But digital information can vanish with a keystroke, warns Ben Macintyre, columnist with “The Times” of London. Too many administrators and researchers take digital storage for granted and do not understand that CDs, electronic tapes and other storage modes have limited life spans. Part of the...

We Can Still Pursue an Ethical Foreign Policy

Adrian Hamilton March 22, 2007
The world expects powerful nations to intervene when the vulnerable are attacked. The reckless invasion of Iraq by the US and the UK has since complicated such worthy international goals, writes columnist Adrian Hamilton for “The Independent.” Most US and UK citizens, while opposing the Iraq war, still support intervention for other trouble spots, such as the Darfur region of Sudan. Yet the...

Malaria: GM Mosquitoes Offer New Hope for Millions

Ian Sample March 21, 2007
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have announced the development of a genetically modified mosquito that cannot transmit malaria. Malaria leads to 1 million deaths each year, mostly in developing nations. Initial experiments in cages suggest that the modified mosquitoes eventually overwhelm the ordinary mosquitoes who serve as vectors in passing malaria to humans. In developing such...

McDonald's Targets the English McLanguage

March 21, 2007
Language shapes our thoughts – and corporations rely on brand names to distinguish themselves in the marketplace. McDonald’s is the world’s largest fast-food corporation, operating in more than 100 companies – and the “Mc” brand name quickly came to represent fast and easy meals. But more than 20 years ago, “The Washington Post” coined the word “Mc Job” to represent the unskilled, unexciting, low...

Prizes, Not Patents

Joseph E. Stiglitz March 19, 2007
The pharmaceutical industry relies on patent protection for profits and claims to reinvest those profits into more research for medicines that save lives. But the system has an inherent flaw when people with infectious diseases cannot afford the life-saving drugs and companies focus most effort on the health woes of the wealthiest who can afford treatment. Economist Joseph Stiglitz recommends an...

Animals: The World's Best (and Cheapest) Biosensors

Laura H. Kahn March 19, 2007
Biodiversity is probably the best protection against any biohazard that could hit the globe. Governments invest millions in technology to detect biohazards, but cannot expect to detect every possible problem with a gadget, argues Laura Kahn in “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.” Animals and humans may be separate species, but diseases evolve and adapt, and often emerge in select animal...

Debating the Price of Global Warming

Ernesto Zedillo March 19, 2007
World opinion has targeted climate change as a priority – and citizens increasingly pressure their governments and businesses to take action, notes Ernesto Zedillo, director for the Yale Center of Globalization. A study commissioned by the UK, known as the Stern Review, “claims that lack of such action will commit the world to overall costs – due to natural disasters of increasing ferocity,...