Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 10.

24 - November 19, 2011

ISSN: 1712-9834

Selected news items from postings to Innovation Watch in the last two weeks... functional MRI used to communicate with people in a vegetative state... scientists seek to create programmable biological cells... MIT researchers mimic neurons in a computer chip... scientists create cyborg yeast by placing genes under computer control... the European Commission cracks down on credit-rating companies... German car companies create car-sharing fleets... young Americans are saddled with a mountain of student debt... cheap web services drive labor rates to the bottom... Angela Merkel advocates European political union... China's millionaires keen to move abroad... orbiting satellites beaming solar energy to Earth could soon be technically feasible... Germany will meet its commitment to 20% renewable energy eight years ahead of schedule... the International Energy Agency paints new scenarios for energy futures... three-quarters of the world's population will be urban by 2050, 80% by 2100... More great resources ... a new book by Manuel Lima: Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information... a link to the Aid on the Edge of Chaos website on the complexity sciences and international aid... an NPR video on world population, forecast to peak at 10 billion or even potentially 15 billion by 2010... a blog post by David Pescovitz on the future of science in the next decade... David Forrest Innovation Watch

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

SCIENCE

Top Stories: Awareness Detected in People in Vegetative State (Fox News) - Scientists have used a portable device that tracks changes in brain waves to communicate with people in a vegetative state, some of whom have been locked in their bodies for more than a year. In a study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers showed it was possible to communicate with and detect awareness in people in a vegetative state using functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. Easily 'Re-Programmable Cells' Could Be Key in Creation of New Life Forms (Science Daily) - Scientists at The University of Nottingham are leading an ambitious research project to develop an in vivo biological cell-equivalent of a computer operating system. The success of the project to create a 'reprogrammable cell' could revolutionise synthetic biology and would pave the way for scientists to create completely new and useful forms of life using a relatively hassle-free approach. Professor Natalio Krasnogor of the University's School of Computer Science, who leads the Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex Systems Research Group, said: "We are looking at creating a cell's equivalent to a computer operating system in such a way that a given group of cells could be seamlessly re-programmed to perform any function without needing to modifying its hardware."

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TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories: Mimicking the Brain, in Silicon: New Computer Chip Models How Neurons Communicate (Medical Xpress) - For decades, scientists have dreamed of building computer systems that could replicate the human brain's talent for learning new tasks. MIT researchers have now taken a major step toward that goal by designing a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information. This phenomenon, known as plasticity, is believed to underlie many brain functions, including learning and memory. With about 400 transistors, the silicon chip can simulate the activity of a single brain synapse -- a connection between two neurons that allows information to flow from one to the other. 'Cyborg' Yeast Genes Run By Computer (BBC) - Scientists have succeeded in forming a "feedback loop" between a computer and a common yeast to precisely control the switching on and off of specific genes. The computer controlled flashes of light to start and stop this gene expression, "learning" how to reach and maintain a set value. The groundbreaking approach could find use in future efforts to control biological processes, such as the production of biofuel from microbes. The approach is a comparatively simple means to take control of fantastically complex biochemical processes to achieve a desired result.

BUSINESS
Top Stories: Brussels to Unveil Credit-Rating Clampdown (EU Observer) The European Commission is to unveil proposals to clamp down on the credit-ratings industry, seen as one of the key villains in the eurozone debt crisis melodrama. Internal market commissioner Michel Barnier is to propose a series of measures including a 'blackout' in the rating of troubled states in an attempt to limit the ratcheting up of market instability the EU executive accuses the sector of being responsible for when it has delivered downgrades to the credit ratings of countries. The draft law would allow the EU to temporarily ban companies such as Standard & Poor's, Fitch and Moody's from issuing ratings changes if regulators assess that such moves would exacerbate market volatility. German Automakers Embrace Car-Sharing (Der Spiegel) Buying a device that you only need for a few minutes a day doesn't seem like a particularly clever idea. And yet people usually have no alternative. After all, who rents a coffeemaker or an electric razor? But cars are a different story. A joint-use concept known as car-sharing is becoming increasingly popular, and there are many providers. Now even automakers have joined the fray. Today, anyone can cruise through the German capital in a new BMW for just a few euros. All he or she needs is a valid driver's license and a membership in the user club known as DriveNow, a joint venture by the Munich-based automaker BMW and car-rental company Sixt. The one-time membership fee is 29 Euros ($39). In return, members get an electronically readable driver's license sticker, which opens the doors of hundreds of BMWs or Minis parked on Berlin's streets.

SOCIETY
Top Stories: State of Young America: Indebted and Dubious of Attaining American Dream (Huffington Post) - Five years ago, when TiffanyAnn Johnson first embarked on her dream of a college education, her parents agreed to shoulder a majority of the costs associated with getting a degree. But soon after, the financial collapse decimated her father's mortgage business, forcing her family of four to learn to subsist on her mother's meager salary. With two college-aged children, the added cost of higher education quickly proved more than her oneincome family could afford. Johnson, 23, who graduated in 2010 from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in mass communications, took out a combination of public and private loans to pay for school. All told, she's now on the

hook for nearly $65,000. The Webs Next Big Thing: Cheap Labor (Businessweek) - For $25, Daniel H will help debug your software. Valerie asks just $20 to pick your folks up from the airport. Miss Minty, for $50, will teach you to drive a stick-shift. Those are some of the services being offered on Coffee and Power, a web site that looks to match up tasks with willing workers. Like it or not, it may be the future of work -- and pay. It's jarring how cheaply some jobs are bid. The Times says many of the people offering their services on Coffee and Power are professionals looking for money on the side. If the idea takes off, though, it raises the prospect that someone who makes a living building iPhone applications or teaching music will have to compete with the lowest possible bidder.

GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories: Merkel Seeks Political Union in 'New Europe' to End Crisis (Businessweek) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said its time to move toward closer political union in Europe to send a message to bondholders that euro-area leaders are serious about ending the sovereign debt crisis. Speaking on the eve of her Christian Democratic Union partys annual congress in the eastern German city of Leipzig, Merkel said she wants to preserve the euro with all current 17 members. "But that requires a fundamental change in our whole policy," she said. Yuan Drain as China's Rich Move West (Guardian) - China's rich appear to be increasingly keen to go west. Almost half of China's millionaires are considering moving abroad, according to a survey released recently by Hurun -- best known for publishing a Chinese rich list -- and the Bank of China. The report found that 46% of the 980 people surveyed had thought about emigrating; 14% had done so already or applied to do so. Most wanted a better education for their children. The findings chimed with research by China Merchants Bank and consultants Bain this spring which suggested that more than a quarter of those with more than 100m yuan (about GBP 10m) had moved abroad and almost half were considering it.

ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories: Orbital Solar Plants Could Help Solve Earth's Energy Crisis (Globe and Mail) - The sun's abundant energy, if harvested in space, could provide a cost-effective way to meet global power needs in as little as 30 years with seed money from governments, according to a study by an international

scientific group. Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar energy and beaming it to Earth appear "technically feasible" within a decade or two based on technologies now in the laboratory, a study group of the Paris-headquartered International Academy of Astronautics said. Roland Kupers: Germany Hits 20 Percent Renewable Energy (Cap Times) - Germany has just crossed the threshold of 20 percent renewable power -- honoring its 2020 commitment to the European Union eight years ahead of schedule. As a bonus, toward the end of the decade, the world will also thank Germany for affordable solar power -- not because the technology was invented there, but because its citizens will have paid for the critical cost-reduction phase by offering a large market. Germany's decade-long support of the rollout of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has forced the technology down the cost curve at an accelerated rate. Before 2015, it will be fully commercial for sunny South Africa, Greece, or Mexico -- and soon thereafter for Germany itself. Without Germanys energy policy, this reduction in costs would have taken far longer.

THE FUTURE
Top Stories: The Next 25 Years in Energy (IEEE Spectrum) - The latest annual energy outlook by the International Energy Agency, though not radically different from earlier editions in broad outline, nonetheless paints a very dramatic picture of the next quarter century. Like previous outlooks, this one distinguishes between a business as usual scenario and a New Policies Scenario in which governments generally try to curtail consumption of fossil fuels and promote green energy; it appears to consider the New Policies Scenario (NPS) the more likely one. Even in NPS, however, fossil fuels remain dominant for the next 25 years and renewables continue to account for only about 10 percent of total world primary energy demand, thought their share of electricity production grows sharply. Are Megacities Sustainable? (ZDNet) - More and more people are living in cities, and increasingly in megacities (cities with over 10 million inhabitants). In 1975, there were just three cities that fit the bill: New York, Tokyo and Mexico City. Today, there are at least 20 more. Many, including Shanghai, Jakarta, and So Paulo have reached supercity status (greater than 20 million). Financial Times editor David Pilling writes about how the character of cities is being rapidly redefined, noting that by 2050 three-quarters of the worlds population will be urban. By 2100, the figure will nudge up to 80% -- thats 8 billion urbanites among the UNs projected 10 billion souls on earth at the turn of the century.

Just in from the publisher...

Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information

By Manuel Lima
Read more...

A Web Resource... Aid on the Edge of Chaos - Aid on the Edge of Chaos is a blog started in October 2009 which aims to provide the latest, up-to-date information on initiatives, meetings and reports related to complexity sciences and international aid. It is hoped that the blog will provide a means for connecting up the emerging community of practitioners interested in alternatives to linear, mechanistic approaches to development.

Multimedia... 7 Billion: How Did We Get So Big So Fast? (NPR) - It was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion -- in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population, especially in the West. As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility -- and population growth -have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. U.N. forecasts suggest the world population could hit a peak of 10.1 billion by 2100 before beginning to decline. But exact numbers are hard to come by -- just small variations in fertility rates could mean a population of 15 billion by the end of the century. (2m 34s)

The Blogosphere... The Future of Science 2021: A Multiverse of Exploration (Boing Boing) - David Pescovitz "For the last year, my colleagues and I at Institute for the Future have been researching the future of science to identify big areas of science we think will have a transformative impact over the next decade. We read a lot of papers, conducted interviews, hosted an Open Science unconference, held an expert workshop with researchers from UC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, UC Davis, SETI, and private industry, and spent many weeks synthesizing what we learned. The result is this map, titled A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021."

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