In Dusty Archives, a Theory of Affluence, NY Times 
Excerpts: For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence. Historians and economists have long struggled to understand how this transition occurred and why it took place only in some countries. A scholar who has spent the last 20 years scanning medieval English archives has now emerged with startling answers for both questions.
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Excerpts:
 Level design: A tool included in the video game Big Kahuna Reef inspired users to create so many levels that a sequel was released with more than 700 levels designed by amateurs. Credit: Reflexive Entertainment |
MIT researcher Mitchel Resnick led a team that created another tool for at-home game creators: a simple programming language called Scratch. Although the tool is intended for children, MIT graduate student Andres Monroy-Hernandez, who works with Resnick, says that 30 to 40 percent of the users are adults. Scratch is designed to encourage users to borrow from one another's games and collaborate, and Monroy-Hernandez says that he has often seen groups of disparate ages and abilities working together on games.
Complex IT Will Kill Your Business, CIO
Excerpts: The problem is that a lot of organizations have built unnecessary complexity into their business, and this complexity is beginning to act like reinforced concrete. It's a barrier to change.(...) The second point relates to IT. In many ways, IT reflects the complexity that's been built into business. Unnecessary complexity in the business has resulted in a lot of unnecessary complexity in IT. That's slowing down the cycle times in IT. The cycle times in IT are increasingly much slower and out of sync with the cycle times required by the business to stay competitive. (...)
Scientific Publishing - U.S. Output Flattens, and NSF Wonders Why, Science
Excerpts: Despite the continued expansion of the peer-reviewed literature, the total output of U.S. scientists stopped growing in the early 1990s and hasn't budged since then. The pattern, which cuts across all disciplines, reverses decades of steady expansion and leaves NSF officials scratching their heads for an explanation. (...) The trend is especially surprising given the growth in funding, personnel, and other research inputs over the 1988-2003 period being analyzed, he notes.
Knowledge Networks In The Age Of The Semantic Web, Briefings Bioinfo.
Excerpts: The Web has become the major medium for various communities to share their knowledge. To this end, it provides an optimal environment for knowledge networks. The web offers global connectivity that is virtually instantaneous, and whose resources and documents can easily be indexed for easy searching. In the coupled realms of biomedical research and healthcare, this has become especially important where today many thousands of communities already exist that connect across academia, hospitals and industry. (...) With the new standards and technologies of the Semantic Web, effective utilization of knowledge networks will expand profoundly, fostering new levels of innovation and knowledge.
Information Feedback and Mass Media Effects in Cultural Dynamics, JASSS
Excerpts: We study the effects of different forms of information feedback associated with mass media on an agent-agent based model of the dynamics of cultural dissemination. (...) Our results generalize previous findings showing that cultural diversity builds up by increasing the strength of the mass media influence. (...)
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Excerpts:
 These images show the software being used for presurgical planning on a brain tumor. The software integrated conventional anatomical MRI images with fMRI and DTI images to allow the neurosurgeons to visualize the spatial relationship between the tumor lesions and important functioning structures that may be at risk of being damaged during surgical procedures. The 3-D images (upper middle and left, lower left) can be manipulated. The three 2D panels show axial (upper right panel), sagittal (lower middle panel), and coronal (lower right panel) slices and reveal the locations of the lesion and activation areas. These slices are synchronized with those in the 3D panels. Users can navigate through orthogonal planes in all sections, allowing neurosurgeons to obtain comprehensive perspective regarding the spatial relationships among structures of concern. |
Imaging software combines data from several imaging technologies to create an interactive 3-D map of the brain.
Who's Minding the Mind?, NY Times
Excerpts: In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people's judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee. The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee - and asked for a hand with the cup.
Neurology: An Awakening, Nature
Excerpts: Neuroscientists and engineers are developing ways to help patients overcome paralysis and stroke. But what about mental function itself? Can medical intervention restore consciousness? Jean-Paul Sartre wrote: "In one sense choice is possible, but what is not possible is not to choose." To the neurologist, however, gaining consciousness is a decision of the unconscious brain to make choices. Philosophers and scientists may argue about the definition of consciousness, but neurologists have little trouble identifying its absence. Now, physicians are beginning to understand how it can be restored in some patients with severe brain damage.
- Source: Neurology: An Awakening, Michael N. Shadlen, Roozbeh Kiani, DOI: 10.1038/448539a, Nature 448, 539-540, 07/08/02
For The First Time, Patterns Of Excitation Waves Found In Brain's Visual Processing Center, ScienceDaily
Excerpts: Neuroscientists have long believed that vision is processed in the brain along circuits made up of neurons, similar to the way telephone signals are transferred through separate wires from one station to another. (...) discovered that visual information is also processed in a different way, like propagating waves oscillating back and forth among brain areas. (...). Just as the stadium wave is coordinated and travels through the crowd, a collective pattern emerges from the activities of millions of neurons in the visual areas, he said, explaining, "It simply makes sense that brain function is the result of large numbers of neurons working together." (...)
We Never Really Talk Anymore, NY Times
Excerpts: Koko has a sign language vocabulary of at least 1,000 words. She can recognize about 2,000 spoken words. And people pay attention. Once when she had a bad tooth, Koko signed the word for pain and pointed to her mouth and a medical team was rushed in immediately. The rest of us mammals can only envy her. In a new book called "The First Word" Christine Kenneally catalogs the complex debate over language and includes one particularly revealing experiment in which scientists put two male apes who knew sign language together.
The Evolution Of The Social Brain: Anthropoid Primates Contrast With Other Vertebrates, Proc. Biol. Sc.
Excerpts: The social brain hypothesis argues that large brains have arisen over evolutionary time as a response to the social and ecological conflicts inherent in group living. (...) using comparative data from birds and four mammalian orders (...) show that, across all non-primate taxa, relative brain size is principally related to pairbonding, but with enduring stable relationships in primates. We argue that this reflects the cognitive demands of the behavioural coordination and synchrony that is necessary to maintain stable pairbonded relationships. (...) We suggest that, among vertebrates in general, pairbonding represents a qualitative shift from loose aggregations of individuals to complex negotiated relationships, (...).
The Complex Structure Of Hunter-Gatherer Social Networks, Proc. Biol. Sc.
Excerpts: In nature, many different types of complex system form hierarchical, self-similar or fractal-like structures that have evolved to maximize internal efficiency. In this paper, we ask whether hunter-gatherer societies show similar structural properties. We use fractal network theory to analyse the statistical structure of 1189 social groups in 339 hunter-gatherer societies from a published compilation of ethnographies. We show that population structure is indeed self-similar or fractal-like with the number of individuals or groups belonging to each successively higher level of organization exhibiting a constant ratio close to 4. (...) this remarkable self-similarity holds both within and across cultures and continents. (...)
Optimization in Networks, Chaos
Abstract: The recent surge in the network modeling of complex systems has set the stage for a new era in the study of fundamental and applied aspects of optimization in collective behavior. This Focus Issue presents an extended view of the state of the art in this field and includes articles from a large variety of domains in which optimization manifests itself, including physical, biological, social, and technological networked systems
- Source: Optimization in Networks, Adilson E. Motter, Zoltan Toroczkai, DOI: 10.1063/1.2751266, Chaos 17, 026101, 2007/06/28
Evolution of Complex Modular Biological Networks, arXiv
Excerpt: Biological networks have evolved to be highly functional within uncertain environments while remaining extremely adaptable. One of the main contributors to the robustness and evolvability of biological networks is believed to be their modularity of function, with modules defined as sets of genes that are strongly interconnected but whose function is separable from those of other modules. Here, we investigate the in-silico evolution of modularity and robustness in complex artificial metabolic networks that encode an increasing amount of information about their environment while acquiring ubiquitous features of biological, social, and engineering networks, such as scale-free edge distribution, small-world property, and fault-tolerance.
Fossils in Kenya Challenge Linear Evolution, NY Times
Excerpts:  Koobi Fora Research Project/F. Spoor
The field site near Ileret, east of Lake Turkana, Kenya, where the Homo erectus skull was found. |
Scientists who dated and analyzed the specimens - a 1.44-million-year-old Homo habilis and a 1.55-million-year-old Homo erectus found in 2000 - said their findings challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other. Instead, they apparently lived side by side in eastern Africa for almost half a million years.
If this interpretation is correct, the early evolution of the genus Homo is left even more shrouded in mystery than before. It means that both habilis and erectus must have originated from a common ancestor between two million and three million years ago, a time when fossil hunters had drawn a virtual blank.
Evolution and Group Selection, Science
Excerpts: I worry that some psychologists, unfamiliar with evolutionary biology, will be misled by J. Haidt's account of "The new synthesis in moral psychology" (Reviews, 18 May, p. 998). Haidt claims that whereas "[human group selection was essentially declared off-limits in 1966," it is now accepted that "groups that develop norms, practices, and institutions that elicit more group-beneficial behavior can grow, attract new members, and replace less cooperative groups" (p. 1001).
The Evolution of Altruism in Spatially Structured Populations, JASSS
Excerpt: The evolution of altruism in humans is still an unresolved puzzle. Helping other individuals is often kinship-based or reciprocal. Several examples show, however, that altruism goes beyond kinship and reciprocity and people are willing to support unrelated others even when this is at a cost and they receive nothing in exchange. Here we examine the evolution of this "pure" altruism with a focus on altruistic teaching. (...)
A Healthy World Needs Lots of Species, News@Nature
Excerpt: "The work suggests that for a fully functioning ecosystem, with many functions, the maximum number of species must be conserved," says Petchey. "All biodiversity is essential, and none is redundant. This finding has great potential to affect policy, because humanity relies on many essential services from ecosystems."
Reciprocal Relationships And Potential Feedbacks Between Biodiversity And Disturbance, Ecol. Lett.
Excerpt: Two major foci of ecological research involve reciprocal views of the relationship between biodiversity and disturbance: disturbance determines community diversity or diversity determines realized disturbance severity. Here, we present an initial attempt to synthesize these two approaches in order to understand whether feedbacks occur, and what their effects on patterns of diversity might be. (...) To explore how feedbacks between diversity and disturbance might operate to alter expected patterns of diversity in nature, we develop and then evaluate a conceptual model that decomposes the relationships into component parts, considering sequentially the effect of diversity on disturbance severity, (...).
Cancer: Broken Genes In Solid Tumours, Nature
Excerpts: Mutations that cause portions of two genes to fuse together and form a hybrid gene are frequent in blood-related cancers. New findings implicate one such fusion gene in the most common type of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the main cause of cancer deaths throughout the world, with an annual fatality of more than 1 million. Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for about 80% of all lung cancer cases. On page 561 of this issue, Soda et al. report their discovery of a gene associated with human NSCLC.
Court Rejects the Right to Use Drugs Being Tested, NY Times
Excerpts: A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that patients with terminal illnesses do not have a constitutional right to use medicines that have not yet won regulatory approval. The 8-to-2 decision by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit came in a closely watched and emotional case that pitted desperate patients willing to try unproven, even risky, therapies against those arguing that drugs should be proved safe and effective before they are made available.
Bioengineers Devise 'Dimmer Swith' To Regulate Gene Expression In Mammal Cells, Science Daily
Excerpts: Three Boston University biomedical engineers have created a genetic dimmer switch that can be used to turn on, shut off, or partially activate a gene's function. Professor James Collins, Professor Charles Cantor and doctoral candidate Tara Deans invented the switch, which can be tuned to produce large or small quantities of protein, or none at all. This switch helps advance the field of synthetic biology, which rests on the premise that complex biological systems can be built by arranging components or standard parts, as an electrician would to build an electric light switch.
Immunology: A Slimy Start for Immunity?, Science
Excerpts: Even slime molds get sick. Although these gooey soil dwellers, which straddle the boundary between single-celled and multi-celled creatures, gobble up bacteria as food, they can also be laid low by microbial attacks. On page 678, however, researchers report that slime molds deploy cells that combat pathogens, a discovery implying that specialized immune cells preceded the advent of multicellular organisms.
Activated Immune System Attacks Brain After Stroke, Innovations-report
Excerpts: Research recently presented to an academic audience at LifeSciences 2007, shows that the body's own natural defences can actually worsen the brain damage caused by a stroke. (...) suggests a way in which an immune system that has already been activated by an infection elsewhere in the body can target the vulnerability of the brain following a stroke. The team's findings, which have been viewed to date only by an academic audience, may have important implications for the elderly, who are most at risk of stroke and frequently suffer from infection and other conditions, such as atherosclerosis, that stimulate the immune system. (...)
Genomic Biology: The Epigenomic Era Opens, Nature
Excerpts: Readout of information from the genome depends on intricate regulation of how DNA is packaged by proteins. The great endeavour to reveal how this packaging operates pan-genomically is now under way. A new era is opening for biologists involved in understanding cellular systems. It is exemplified by papers by Mikkelsen et al. (page 553 of this issue) and Barski et al. (published in Cell) - they describe the kind of unprecedented insights that are emerging from investigations of how a single mammalian genome can be regulated to produce different cell types.
Microbiology: The Inside Story, Nature
Excerpts: The human intestine is home to trillions of bacteria. Investigation of the colonization of the infant gut by these microorganisms is a prelude to understanding how they may act in both health and disease. At birth, babies emerge from a sterile environment into one that is laden with microbes. The infant's intestine then rapidly becomes home to one of the densest populations of bacteria on Earth. Writing in PLoS Biology, Palmer et al.1 report the most comprehensive analysis to date of the bacteria that first take up residence in the human intestine.
Flatworms' Starring Role In Stem-Cell Research, Nature
Excerpts: Biologists hope insight into cell differentiation and communication will transfer to humans. Tiny channels provide corridors of communication between adult stem cells and their differentiated neighbours, a study has found. The finding could be an important step towards determining how to control the development of adult stem-cell identity, but there's a catch - it was discovered in the planarian flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea.
The flatworms, best known for their regenerative prowess and cross-eyed charm, maintain a supply of stem cells to regrow tissue lost to anything from daily wear-and-tear to full decapitation
Eight-Million-Year-Old Bug Is Alive And Growing, New Scientist
Excerpts: An 8-million-year-old bacterium that was extracted from the oldest known ice on Earth is now growing in a laboratory, claim researchers. If confirmed, this means ancient bacteria and viruses will come back to life as ice melts due to global warming. This is nothing to worry about, say experts, because the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease.
'Sunshade' For Global Warming Could Cause Drought, New Scientist
Excerpts: Pumping sulphur particles into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of a large volcanic eruption has been proposed as a last-ditch solution to combating climate change - but doing so would cause problems of its own, including potentially catastrophic drought, say researchers. (...) (...) failing to correctly deploy or maintain such a scheme would result in sudden warming - which would be worse than the long-term warming that had been avoided because of its swiftness. (...)
After this, a marked decrease in rainfall and run-off in the year after the Pinatubo eruption was clear.
Climate Change: Aerosols Heat Up, Nature
Excerpts: Solid particles suspended in the atmosphere have long played second fiddle to greenhouse gases as agents of climate change. A study of atmospheric heating over the Indian Ocean could provoke a rethink. In the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released earlier this year, the effect on climate of aerosols - small, suspended particles of varying composition, size and shape - since the start of the industrial era was estimated to be about 20% of that of greenhouse gases.
Tunneling Electrons Do Math, PhysOrg.com
Excerpts: Using a novel computing paradigm involving counting single electrons, computer engineers have designed nano-sized circuitry that allows tunneling electrons to perform mathematical division calculations. "(...) Our circuits basically compute analog values. However, due to the discreteness of electrons (if the circuit is designed properly, an electron tunnels or not and electrons are localized on either side of the junction) we end up with digitized values; that is, the number of electrons present in a reservoir is the represented value.¡¨ (...)
Putting Electronics In A Spin, BBC News
Excerpts:  Spintronics harnesses the spin of particles such as electrons |
"If you think about the spin of a particle, such as an electron, it can point up or down or at any superposition of the two; partially up or partially down," said Professor Awschalom. Each of these different "superpositions" can represent an almost infinite number of combinations of ones and zeros.
"You can store an almost infinite number of bits of information in one particle space," he added.
This almost limitless number of possibilities would also pave the way for advanced computer processing, such as is needed in quantum computing.
Scientists Train Nano 'Building Blocks' To Take On New Shapes, Science Daily
Excerpts:  Transmission electron microscopy images of one-dimensional assembled structures created by a research team from the University of Delaware and the University of Washington in St. Louis. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Delaware) |
Researchers from the University of Delaware and Washington University in St. Louis have figured out how to train synthetic polymer molecules to behave--to literally "self-assemble" --and form into long, multicompartment cylinders 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, with potential uses in radiology, signal communication and the delivery of therapeutic drugs in the human body. (...) "In our case, we took one block that loves water, and another part that does not. So when you put them in solution, the water-hating blocks try to get away from the water, and that's how you get different shapes, called micelles, to form."
Materials Science: Exploiting Wrinkle Formation, Science
Excerpts: Wrinkle formation due to age or stretched skin is seen by many as a nuisance to be avoided, often at great financial expense, rather than as a natural phenomenon to be exploited. Skin wrinkling is just one of many natural processes that involve the formation of wrinkles. For example, plums or apples wrinkle as they become old and dehydrated, fingerprint patterns are a form of wrinkles that appear as early as 10 weeks into a pregnancy, and Earth's crust wrinkles in response to plate tectonics (1).
Astronomy: Where Are the Invisible Galaxies?, Science
Excerpts: The questions have been foisted upon astronomers by cosmologists and their understanding of how the universe blossomed from the big bang. According to the increasingly refined theory, 85% of the matter in the universe is not the ordinary matter that makes up stars and galaxies, planets and people. Rather, it is elusive dark matter that so far has revealed itself only through its gravity. As the infant universe grew, the dark matter condensed into enormous filaments and clumps, or "halos." These weighty objects pulled in hydrogen gas, which formed stars and galaxies.
Seeing Through Dark Matter, Science
Excerpts: The universe appears to be dominated by invisible components that astronomers call dark matter and dark energy. The astronomical evidence implicating dark matter has been apparent for a generation (1): The rotational speeds of objects in extragalactic systems exceed what can be explained by the visible mass of stars and gas. This discrepancy has led to the inference that there is more mass than meets the eye. However, this inference requires that Newton's law of gravitational force be extrapolated well beyond where it was established. In addition, laboratory searches for dark matter have yet to bear fruit.
Breathalysing Car: "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't let you drive...", vnunet.com
Excerpts: Boffins (...) are developing a concept car that can monitor whether a driver is drunk or tired. The car's technology will use sensors to detect alcohol in the sweat and odour of a driver, as well as checking awareness levels. (...) A monitoring system will also check to see if the car is staying inside its lane and a camera mounted at eye level scans the driver's eyes for signs of tiredness. In the event of a driver being deemed unfit to drive, a warning will sound, car seat belts will tighten and in extreme cases the ignition will lock (...).
First Armed Robots on Patrol in Iraq, Wired
Excerpts: Robots have been roaming the streets of Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time -- the first time in any warzone -- the machines are carrying guns. After years of development, three "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system" (SWORDS) robots have deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns.? The 'bots "haven't fired their weapons yet," Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, tells DANGER ROOM.? "But that'll be happening soon."
Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
Why Terrorists Aren't Soldiers, NY Times
Excerpts: Treating terrorists as combatants is a mistake for two reasons. First, it dignifies criminality by according terrorist killers the status of soldiers. Under the law of war, military service members receive several privileges. They are permitted to kill the enemy and are immune from prosecution for doing so. They must, however, carefully distinguish between combatant and civilian and ensure that harm to civilians is limited.
Critics have rightly pointed out that traditional categories of combatant and civilian are muddled in a struggle against terrorists. In a traditional war, combatants and civilians are relatively easy to distinguish.
Links & Snippets
Other Publications
- California's Attack Of The Jumbo Squid, An invasion of ferocious, pack-feeding 2-metre-long squid is devouring local fish populations - global warming and overfishing may be responsible
- Graph Theoretical Analysis Of Complex Networks In The Brain, Cornelis J Stam, Jaap C Reijneveld, 07/07/05, Nonlinear Biomedical Physics 2007, 1:3
- Stochastic Nonlinear Dynamics Pattern Formation And Growth Models, Leonid P Yaroslavsky, 07/07/05, Nonlinear Biomedical Physics 2007, 1:4
- Editorial: Why Nonlinear Biomedical Physics?, Zbigniew Czernicki, Wlodzimierz Klonowski, Larry Liebovitch, 07/07/05, Nonlinear Biomedical Physics 2007, 1:1
- Synchronized Dynamics Of Cortical Neurons With Time-Delay Feedback, Alexandra S. Landsman, Ira B. Schwartz, 07/07/05, Nonlinear Biomedical Physics 2007, 1:2
- Regulation of Spontaneous Intestinal Tumorigenesis Through the Adaptor Protein MyD88, Seth Rakoff-Nahoum, Ruslan Medzhitov, 07/07/06, Science : Vol. 317. no. 5834, pp. 124 - 127 Inflammation is increasingly recognized as an important component of tumorigenesis, although the mechanisms and pathways involved are not well understood., DOI: 10.1126/science.1140488
- NEUROSCIENCE: Autism's Cause May Reside in Abnormalities at the Synapse, Ken Garber, 07/07/13, Science : 190-191. New genetic evidence is leading researchers to home in on the cleft separating neurons as the site where the disorder may originate
- U.S. Weather Forecasting: Satellite Kicks Up a Storm Looking Out for Hurricanes, Eli Kintisch, 07/07/20, Science: 309. An 8-year-old NASA weather satellite sits improbably at the center of the latest scientific storm raging in Washington, D.C. (...) loss of the craft's sensors could degrade 3-day hurricane track forecasts by 16%, (...).
- Genetic Diversity in Honey Bee Colonies Enhances Productivity and Fitness, Heather R. Mattila, Thomas D. Seeley, 07/07/20, Science : 362-364. Honey bee hives with genetically diverse members stored more food and thus survived better than those with members from a single male founder.
- Queen Pheromone Blocks Aversive Learning in Young Worker Bees, Vanina Vergoz, Haley A. Schreurs, Alison R. Mercer, 07/07/20, Science : 384-386. A pheromone produced by honey bee queens prevents aversive learning in workers, possibly to prevent the queen's attendants from forming an aversion to their mother.
- Noise Robustness of the Nonlocality of Entangled Quantum States, Mafalda L. Almeida, Stefano Pironio, Jonathan Barrett, Geza Toth, Antonio Acin, 07/07/23, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 040403, We study the nonlocal properties of states resulting from the mixture of an arbitrary entangled state of two d-dimensional systems and completely depolarized noise, with respective weights p and 1-p.
- Rectified Momentum Transport for a Kicked Bose-Einstein Condensate, Mark Sadgrove, Munekazu Horikoshi, Tetsuo Sekimura, Ken'ichi Nakagawa, 07/07/25
- Search Technologies for the Internet, Monika Henzinger, 07/07/27, Science : 468-471. About 20% of the world's population uses the Web, and a large majority thereof uses Web search engines to find information.
- Single-Atom Single-Photon Quantum Interface, Tatjana Wilk, Simon C. Webster, Axel Kuhn, Gerhard Rempe, 07/07/27, Science : 488-490. A sequence of laser pulses targeted on a single atom trapped in a cavity can generate a source of entangled photon pairs. A major challenge for a scalable quantum computing architecture is the faithful transfer of information from one node to another., DOI: 10.1126/science.1143835
- Defusing the Childhood Vocabulary Explosion, 07/08/03, Science : 631. Toddlers express a burst of new words as a result of their parallel acquisition of words of varying complexity, not because they acquire a new cognitive skill.
- Quantum Hall Effect in a Gate-Controlled p-n Junction of Graphene, J. R. Williams, L. DiCarlo, C. M. Marcus, 07/08/03, Science : 638-641. In graphene sheets with different areas containing either electron or hole carriers, the conductance at the junctions between regions is quantized., DOI: 10.1126/science.1144657
- Cylindrical Block Copolymer Micelles and Co-Micelles of Controlled Length and Architecture, Xiaosong Wang, Gerald Guerin, Hai Wang, Yishan Wang, Ian Manners, Mitchell A. Winnik, 07/08/03, Science : 644-647. A chemical system mimics living polymerization by adding block copolymers to the end of polymeric strands, forming cylindrical micelles with different lengths and functions.
- Block Copolymer Assembly via Kinetic Control, Honggang Cui, Zhiyun Chen, Sheng Zhong, Karen L. Wooley, Darrin J. Pochan, 07/08/03, Science: 647-650. Controlling the electrostatic interactions of charged polymer building blocks in water yields complex flat structures with internal patterns that can be used as templates.
- Capillary Wrinkling of Floating Thin Polymer Films, Jiangshui Huang, Megan Juszkiewicz, Wim H. de Jeu, Enrique Cerda, Todd Emrick, Narayanan Menon, Thomas P. Russell, 07/08/03, Science : 650-653. A drop of water placed on a free-floating thin polymer film produces a pattern of wrinkles that can be used to determine its elastic modulus and thickness.
- Monitoring of Blood Vessels and Tissues by a Population of Monocytes with Patrolling Behavior, Cedric Auffray, Darin Fogg, Meriem Garfa, Gaelle Elain, Olivier Join-Lambert, Samer Kayal, Sabine Sarnacki, Ana Cumano, Gregoire Lauvau, Frederic Geissmann, 07/08/03, Science : 666-670. Immune cells that reside in endothelial tissues remain attached to the walls of blood
- Regulation of Homeostatic Chemokine Expression and Cell Trafficking During Immune Responses, Scott N. Mueller, Karoline A. Hosiawa-Meagher, Bogumila T. Konieczny, Brandon M. Sullivan, Martin F. Bachmann, Richard M. Locksley, Rafi Ahmed, Mehrdad Matloubian, 07/08/03, Science : 670-674. During the immune response to a pathogen, lymph nodes temporarily block the entry of new immune cells, thereby optimizing the ongoing immune reaction.
- Immune-like Phagocyte Activity in the Social Amoeba, Guokai Chen, Olga Zhuchenko, Adam Kuspa, 07/08/03, Science : 678-681. The sluglike assemblies formed by social amoebae contain specialized cells that function like the phagocytes of animal immune systems, suggesting an evolutionary connection.
- Beethoven's Final Sonatas Blossom in Complex Simplicity, Anne Midgette, 07/08/07, NYTimes, The last 3 of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas did not sound easy when Mitsuko Uchida played them on Sunday afternoon at the final concert of this year's Caramoor International Music Festival.
- The Complex Structure Of Hunter-Gatherer Social Networks, M. J. Hamilton, B. T. Milne, R. S. Walker, O. Burger, J. H. Brown, 2007/07/03, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0564
- Miniaturized Orb-Weaving Spiders: Behavioural Precision Is Not Limited By Small Size, W. G. Eberhard, 2007/07/03, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0675
- Raising The Level: Orangutans Use Water As A Tool, N. Mendes, D. Hanus, J. Call, 2007/07/03, Biological Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0198
- The Complex Structure Of Hunter-Gatherer Social Networks, M. J. Hamilton, B. T. Milne, R. S. Walker, O. Burger, J. H. Brown, 2007/07/03, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0564
- Gates No Longer World's Richest Man: Mexican Upstart Steals Crown, I. Thomson, 2007/07/04, vnunet.com
- Human Antibodies That Block Human And Animal SARS Viruses Identified, 2007/07/04, Innovations-report
- Insects To Solve Crimes, 2007/07/05, Innovations-report
- Happy, Sad, Angry Or Astonished? Software Tells It All, 2007/07/06, ScienceDaily & Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
- Brain Pathway Of Depression In Rats Discovered, 2007/07/06, ScienceDaily & Stanford University Medical Center
- How Pain Distracts The Brain, 2007/07/06, ScienceDaily & Cell Press
- Robotic Arm Inspired By Elephants, 2007/07/06, ScienceDaily & Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
- Electronic 'Crowd Behavior' Revealed In Semiconductors, 2007/07/06, ScienceDaily & National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Amoebae Control Cheating By Keeping It In The Family: Study Shows Social Amoeba's Association With Kin Controls Single-Celled Cheaters, 2007/07/09, Innovations-report
- No Evidence For Decline In Reading, 2007/07/10, Innovations-report
- When Individual Behaviour Matters: Homogeneous And Network Models In Epidemiology, S. Bansal, B. T. Grenfell, L. A. Meyers, 2007/07/19, Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2007.1100
- The Evolution Of The Social Brain: Anthropoid Primates Contrast With Other Vertebrates, S. Shultz, R. I. M. Dunbar, 2007/07/25, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0693
- Shrink And Share: Humanity's Present And Future Ecological Footprint, J. Kitzes, M. Wackernage, J. Loh, A. Peller, S. Goldfinger, D. Cheng, K. Tea, 2007/07/25, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2164
- Americans Admit To Email Addiction: US Users Are Checking Email Around The Clock, C. James, 2007/07/27, vnunet.com
- Why Do People Love Horror Movies? They Enjoy Being Scared, 2007/07/27, ScienceDaily & University of Chicago
- Learning A Second Language: Is It All In Your Head?, 2007/07/27, ScienceDaily & Northwestern University
- Scientists Unveil The 'Face' Of A New Memory, 2007/07/29, ScienceDaily & University of California - Irvine
- Nature's Weapon Against Nerve Agents, 2007/07/30, Innovations-report
- Electronic Eggs Used To Help Save Threatened African Bird, 2007/07/30, ScienceDaily & Smithsonian National Zoological Park
- Molecular Chaos Observed For The First Time, 2007/07/31, ScienceDaily & Association for Psychological Science
- Fractal Bird Nest Distribution Produces Scale-Free Colony Sizes, R. Jovani, J. L. Tella, 2007/07/31, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0527
- Optimal Annual Routines: Behaviour In The Context Of Physiology And Ecology, J. M. McNamara, A. I. Houston, 2007/08/02, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2141
- Taming The Anthrax Threat, 2007/08/03, Innovations-report
- Plants And Stress: Key Players On The Thin Line Between Life And Death Revealed, 2007/08/03, ScienceDaily & VIB, Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology
- Hearing Skills Of Barn Owls Could Map Way To Find Problems In Humans, 2007/08/03, ScienceDaily & University of Oregon
- Music Moves Brain To Pay Attention, Study Finds, 2007/08/05, ScienceDaily & Stanford University Medical Center
- Teachers' Job Satisfaction Rises, 2007/08/06, Innovations-report
- On The Relationship Between Fractal Dimension And Encounters In Three-Dimensional Trajectories, M. Uttieri, D. Cianelli, J. R. Strickler, E. Zambianchi, Aug. 2007, online 2007/03/24, Journal of Theoretical Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.03.026
- On Market Forces And Human Evolution, G. S.-Paul, Aug. 2007, online 2007/03/24, Journal of Theoretical Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.03.021
- Agree To Reform? The Political Economy Of Conditionality Variation In International Monetary Fund Lending, 1983-1997, S. Kang - sjkang07
mofat.go.kr, Aug. 2007, online 2007/06/15, European Journal of Political Research, DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2007.00711.x - Consciousness And Computers, N. Holmes, Jul. 2007, Computer Mag., IEEE, DOI: 10.1162/biot.2007.2.1.23
- How To Innervate A Simple Gut: Familiar Themes And Unique Aspects In The Formation Of The Insect Enteric Nervous System, P. F. Copenhaver - copenhavohsu.edu, Jul. 2007, Online 2007/04/09, Developmental Dynamics, DOI: 10.1002/dvdy.21138
- Deterministic Chance?, J. Schaffer, Jun. 2007, online 2007/05/18, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, DOI: 10.1093/bjps/axm002
Webcast Announcements
-
Reseau Nationale des Systemes Complexes , (in French), 2007
- World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 07/01/24-28
-
TED Talks, TED Conferences LLC , since 2006
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Talking Robots: The PodCast on Robotics and AI, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 06/11/03
-
Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Governments, and the Media 2006, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/03-05
- 6th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30
-
Artificial Life X,
10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Bloomington, IN, USA. 2006/06/03-07
-
6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
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Ralph Abraham on Complexity Digest, , Calcutta, India, 05/12/27
- An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06
-
Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
-
Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23
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Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14
-
ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life,
Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9
-
T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), Podcast
- North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity 2005 Conference, Virtual Conference Network, St. Pete's Beach, Florida, 05/06/09-11
- Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19
- Nonlinearity, Fluctuations, and Complexity, with a celebration of the 65th birthday of Gregoire Nicolis. , Complexity Session, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, 05/03/16
-
1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7
-
From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
-
Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
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International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
-
Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
- CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
- Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
- Edge Videos
Conference Announcements
-
ICS PIF Summer School 2007 - First French Complex Systems Summer School, Paris, 07/07/30-08/26
-
2nd Summer school
"Achievements and Applications of contemporary
Mathematics, Informatics and Physics",
Kyiv, 07/08/08-19
-
2007 Intl Joint Conf on Neural Networks,
Orlando, Fl, 07/08/12-17
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Natural Complexity: Data and Theory in Dialogue, Cambridge, UK, 07/08/13-17
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2nd Intl Summer School on Collective Intelligence and Evolution, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 07/08/20-24
-
ECAL 2oo7 - 9th European Conference on Artificial Life
, Lisbon, Portugal, 07/09/10-14
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Itl. Conf. on Applications in Nonlinear Dynamics, Poipu Beach, Koloa (Kauai), Hawaii, 07/09/24-27
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3rd Edition of the Econophysics Colloquium, Ancona, 07/09/27-29
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European Conference on Complex Systems 2007 (ECCS'07) , Dresden, Germany, 07/10/01-05
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Processes Of Emergence Of Systems And Systemic Properties.
Towards A General Theory Of Emergence.
, Castel Ivano (Trento), 07/10/18-20
Intl Conf on Complex Systems 2007
, 07/10/28-11/02, Boston, MA, USA
-
2007 IEEE/WIC/ACM Intl Joint Conf on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT'07), Silicon Valley, USA, 07/11/02-05
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Theory In Cognitive Neuroscience,
Wildbad Kreuth (Bavaria), Germany, 07/11/04-07
-
7th Intl Conf on Epigenetic Robotics:
Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems
, Piscataway, NJ, 07/11/05-07
-
KSS 2007 - 8th Intl Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, 07/11/05-07
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NetLogo Workshop at Agent 2007 Conference,
Evanston, IL, USA, 07/11/12-14
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Australia New Zealand Systems Conference 2007
"Systemic development: Local solutions in a global environment", Auckland, New Zealand, 07/12/02-05
-
The 3rd Indian Intl Conf on Artificial Intelligence
(IICAI-07), Pune, INDIA, 07/12/17-19
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19th European Meeting On Cybernetics And Systems Research, (EMCSR 2008), Vienna, Austria, 08/03/25-28
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Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 07/08/17-21
Other Announcements
- News notes on
Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE)
for July 2007 are now available on-line, 07/08/04
-
National Humanities Center Launches Humanities/Sciences Website, 07/04, As part of its ongoing "Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity: The Human & The Humanities" project (ASC), the National Humanities Center makes public a new website for the initiative which significantly expands the potential pool of humanists and scientists engaged in the exploration and examination of topics surrounding the question of human being.
