Complexity Digest 2007.39

12-Oct-2007

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Content

  1. The Role of Leadership in Emergent, Self-organization, The Leadership Quarterly
    1. Leadership and the Choice of Order: Complexity and Hierarchical Perspectives Near the Edge of Chaos, The Leadership Quarterly
  2. Going With the Flow, Duke Magazine
    1. Biophysics: Going with the Flow, Science
  3. Gene Networks and Natural Selection: Is There a Network Biology?, SFI Working Papers
    1. Multifunctionality and Robustness Tradeoffs in Model Genetic Circuits, SFI Working Papers
  4. Stem Cell Team Wins 2007 Nobel For Medicine, Reuters
    1. Physics of Hard Drives Wins Nobel, NY Times
  5. Human-Animal Cybrids - Biologist Ian Wilmut Talks About His Cloning Plans For The Future., Technology Review
    1. Top 10 Forecasts 2008 And Beyond, The Futurist
  6. String Tightening As A Self-Organizing Phenomenon, Neural Networks
  7. Reconciling Complexity With Stability In Naturally Assembling Food Webs, Nature
    1. Governing Fisheries As Complex Adaptive Systems, Marine Policy#ref_journal Marine Policy, Article in Press, Corrected Proof
  8. I Am Creating Artificial Life, Declares US Gene Pioneer - Scientist Has Made Synthetic Chromosome, The Guardian
  9. Chimpanzees Are Rational Maximizers in an Ultimatum Game, Science
    1. How Baboons Think (Yes, Think), NY Times
  10. The More They're Used, The Less Words Change, CBC News
  11. New Prosthetic Devices Will Convert Brain Signals Into Action, ScienceDaily
    1. MIT Develops Brain-To-Machine Algorithm, cnet News
    2. Engineers Study Brain Folding In Higher Mammals, ScienceDaily
  12. Google And IBM Partner To Push Cloud Computing, InformationWeek
    1. Google and I.B.M. Join in 'Cloud Computing' Research, NY Times
    2. Tech Trends: Crowdsourcing - Got A Big Job? The Web May Be Able To Help, CBC News
    3. Free the Avatars, NY Times
  13. Stochastic Fluctuations In Epidemics On Networks, Interface
  14. Darpa Hatches Plan For Insect Cyborgs To Fly Reconnaissance, EE Times
    1. Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs., Washington Post
  15. Plant Biology: At Long Last, Pathologists Hear Plants' Cry For Help, Science
  16. Minimum Telomere Length Defined For Healthy Cells - Mechanism For Chromosome Corruption Also Revealed., Nature
    1. In the Battle Against Cancer, Researchers Find Hope in a Toxic Wasteland, NY Times
    2. Nanosensor Detection of an Immunoregulatory Tryptophan Influx/Kynurenine Efflux Cycle, PLoS Biology
  17. Algorithms To Reanimate The Heart, Innovations-report
    1. Neuroscience: A Local Route To Pain Relief, Nature
  18. Are Mirrors The Best Way To Deflect Asteroids?, New Scientist
    1. New Plastic Is Strong As Steel, Transparent, PhysOrg.com
    2. Atomic Physics: Cold Meeting At A Junction, Nature
    3. Water Doesn't Mind The Gap - Gravity-Defying Liquid Bridge Makes A Splash., Nature
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. U.S. Intelligence Officials Will Probe Leak of Bin Laden Video, Washington Post
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. The Role of Leadership in Emergent, Self-organization, The Leadership Quarterly Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: As complex systems, organizations exist far from equilibrium where the ongoing interaction of system components leads to emergent and self-organizing behavior. What, then, is the role of leadership in systems where change often emerges in unexpected ways? In this paper, we build on the work of Marion and Uhl-Bien who suggest that in complex systems leaders enable rather than control the future. While traditional views of leadership focus on the leader's responsibility for determining and directing the future through heavy reliance on control mechanisms, we offer empirical support for a different view of leadership based on a complexity perspective of organizations. Our findings show that as enablers, leaders disrupt existing patterns of behavior, encourage novelty, and make sense of emerging events for others. The results of our qualitative study include a set of research propositions as well as a discussion of the implications for managers and researchers.

    1. Leadership and the Choice of Order: Complexity and Hierarchical Perspectives Near the Edge of Chaos, The Leadership Quarterly Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: This conceptual article critically examines the view that, in complex adaptive systems (CAS), organizations are moved toward the edge of chaos and will exhibit Òorder for freeÓ behaviors. Will organizations naturally self-organize to seek greater fitness? We suggest that, as hierarchies, organizations may be collectively led to establish a dynamic system where bottom-up structuration emerges to increase the long-term viability of the organization. Thus, it is our contention that while there is order for free, a desired order is not. To examine if a desired order for free emerges calls for analyses emphasizing the interplay among leadership, organization hierarchy, and CAS perspectives where these are systematically compared and contrasted. Based on such compare and contrast interplay, we argue that leadership researchers can help foster the evolution of a new type of dynamic emergent hierarchy that yields a sustained desired order across time.

  2. Going With the Flow, Duke Magazine Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Vascularized design: Rectilinear representation of optimal flow in areas as various as biological tissues and microelectronics. Red and blue channels alternately collect from and discharge into the yellow interstices
    Basketball, a flow system in its own way, is always with him, Bejan says; at Duke's faculty club, he can be seen practicing the flow of the game, dribbling, pivoting, and shooting. When, in his schoolboy days, his basketball coach was asked about producing a great shooter, he would reply that his interest was in producing a great passer. The game fundamentally is about moving the ball, and that imperative involves, moment by moment, choosing the more efficient scoring path. ¡§My coach taught that when you see a good opening, pass the ball. Or, if you don't see the opening, give it to a guy who knows how to dribble.


    1. Biophysics: Going with the Flow, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The field of rheology--the study of the deformation and flow of polymers, colloids, or emulsions--long had to content itself with macroscopic experiments, because the microstructures that produce the rheological response were beyond the reach of experimental tools. But now, new tools borrowed from biophysics allow these microscopic substructures to be probed directly, as illustrated by a recent use of optical tweezers to study the dynamics of entangled polymers. Another recent study exemplifies borrowing in the reverse direction: the use of a microrheological tool to study the actin filament network of a cell.

  3. Gene Networks and Natural Selection: Is There a Network Biology?, SFI Working Papers Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Can qualitative information about large molecular networks inside cells teach us fundamentally new biology? In other words, is there a network biology (distinct from a network physics or network chemistry)? The answer to this question is important, because molecular networks are bridges between individual molecules, the lowest level of biological organization, and whole organisms. To find out whether large molecular networks can teach us new biology, we first need to answer a very basic question: Does natural selection influence the structure of biological networks, and if so, how? (...)

    1. Multifunctionality and Robustness Tradeoffs in Model Genetic Circuits, SFI Working Papers Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: Most cellular systems, from macromolecules to genetic networks, have more than one function. Examples involving networks include the transcriptional regulation circuits formed by Hox genes and the Drosophila segmentation genes, which function in both early and later developmental events. Does the need to carry out more than one function severely constrain network architecture? Does it imply robustness tradeoffs between functions? That is, if one function is highly robust to mutations, are other functions highly sensitive, and vice versa? Little available evidence speaks to these questions. We address them with a general model of transcriptional regulation networks. (...)

  4. Stem Cell Team Wins 2007 Nobel For Medicine, Reuters Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Microscopic view of undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells is seen in this undated handout photo. Stem cell researchers Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies won the 2007 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for their work on gene changes in mice using embryonic cells, Sweden's Karolinska Institute said on Monday. REUTERS/ Handout/University of Wisconsin
    The prize awarders said the discoveries made by the three have led to a new branch of medicine known as gene targeting.

    This enables certain genes to be turned off "allowing scientists to establish the roles of individual genes in health and disease".

    Almost every aspect of mammal physiology can be studied by gene targeting, the institute said.

    1. Physics of Hard Drives Wins Nobel, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Two physicists, one French and one German, who discovered how to manipulate the magnetic and electrical properties of thin layers of atoms in order to store vast amounts of data on the tiny disks in iPods and other wonders of modern life, were named as winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics today. (...)

      Each working independently in 1988, Dr. Fert, 69, and Dr. Gruenberg, 68, discovered an effect known as giant magnetoresistance, in which tiny changes in a magnetic field can produce huge changes in electrical resistance.

  5. Human-Animal Cybrids - Biologist Ian Wilmut Talks About His Cloning Plans For The Future., Technology Review Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Over the past year, a major ethical debate has raged in the United Kingdom over whether scientists should be allowed to use animal eggs in their attempts to create cloned human embryonic stem cells. Scientists say that these cells could lead to the development of the first-ever human-cell models of complex genetic diseases and, eventually, new tissue-replacement therapies. Lack of human eggs has presented an enormous obstacle: eggs are collected via a lengthy and potentially painful and risky procedure that few women are willing to undergo.

    1. Top 10 Forecasts 2008 And Beyond, The Futurist Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:

      1. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025

      2. Fashion will go wired as technologies and tastes converge to revolutionize the textile industry.

      3. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States

      4. Counterfeiting of currency will proliferate, driving the move toward a cashless society.

      5. The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event.

      6. Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century.

      7. World population by 2050 may grow larger than previously expected, due in part to healthier, longer-living people.

      8. The number of Africans imperiled by floods will grow 70-fold by 2080.

      9. Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic.

      10. More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities


  6. String Tightening As A Self-Organizing Phenomenon, Neural Networks Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: The phenomenon of self-organization has been of special interest to the neural network community throughout the last couple of decades. In this paper, we study a variant of the self- organizing map (SOM) that models the phenomenon of self-organization of the particles forming a string when the string is tightened from one or both of its ends. The proposed variant, called the string tightening self-organizing neural network (STON), can be used to solve certain practical problems, such as computation of shortest homotopic paths, smoothing paths to avoid sharp turns, computation of convex hull, etc. (...)

  7. Reconciling Complexity With Stability In Naturally Assembling Food Webs, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Understanding how complex food webs assemble through time is fundamental both for ecological theory and for the development of sustainable strategies of ecosystem conservation and restoration. The build-up of complexity in communities is theoretically difficult, because in random-pattern models complexity leads to instability. There is growing evidence, however, that nonrandom patterns in the strengths of the interactions between predators and prey strongly enhance system stability. Here we show how such patterns explain stability in naturally assembling communities.

    1. Governing Fisheries As Complex Adaptive Systems, Marine Policy#ref_journal Marine Policy, Article in Press, Corrected Proof Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: Fisheries are complex human-in-nature systems. The conventional approach to fisheries systems has been to treat them as predictable and controllable. As complex systems they are neither of the two and have to be approached differently. Complex systems often exhibit the capacity to self-organize or adapt, even without outside influence. If this is true of fisheries, it should lead to a radically different approach to management of fisheries systems that places much emphasis on enabling self-organization, learning and adaptation. Conceptual and practical frameworks for enabling activities are needed.

  8. I Am Creating Artificial Life, Declares US Gene Pioneer - Scientist Has Made Synthetic Chromosome, The Guardian Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Breakthrough could combat global warming

    The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up. The wholly synthetically reconstructed chromosome, which the team have christened Mycoplasma laboratorium, has been watermarked with inks for easy recognition.

    It is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form. The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species.

  9. Chimpanzees Are Rational Maximizers in an Ultimatum Game, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Traditional models of economic decision-making assume that people are self-interested rational maximizers. Empirical research has demonstrated, however, that people will take into account the interests of others and are sensitive to norms of cooperation and fairness. In one of the most robust tests of this finding, the ultimatum game, individuals will reject a proposed division of a monetary windfall, at a cost to themselves, if they perceive it as unfair. Here we show that in an ultimatum game, humans' closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), are rational maximizers and are not sensitive to fairness.

    1. How Baboons Think (Yes, Think), NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      At the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana, Barbara grooms her older sister, Amazon, while another sister, Domino, and her baby watch.
      Through ingenious playback experiments performed by themselves and colleagues, the researchers say they have worked out many aspects of what baboons use their minds for, along with their limitations.

      Reading a baboon's mind affords an excellent grasp of the dynamics of baboon society. But more than that, it bears on the evolution of the human mind and the nature of human existence. As Darwin jotted down in a notebook of 1838, "He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke."

  10. The More They're Used, The Less Words Change, CBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The difference in how often words are used across the Indo-European languages can be used to predict how quickly they will change, according to researchers Mark Pagel from the Santa Fe Institute and Quentin Atkinson and Andrew Meade from the school of biological sciences at the University of Reading.

    Common words can show the pace of change between the languages.

    For example, while Greek speakers say "ovpa," Germans say "schwanz" and the French "queue" to describe a tail, all of them use a related form of "two" for the number.

  11. New Prosthetic Devices Will Convert Brain Signals Into Action, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm to help create prosthetic devices that convert brain signals into action in patients who have been paralyzed or had limbs amputated. The technique, (...) unifies seemingly disparate approaches taken by experimental groups that prototype these neural prosthetic devices in animals or humans. "The work represents an important advance in our understanding of how to construct algorithms in neural prosthetic devices for people who cannot move to act or speak," said (...). Neural prosthetic devices represent an engineer's approach to treating paralysis and amputation. Here, electronics are used to monitor the neural signals that reflect an individual's intentions (...).

    1. MIT Develops Brain-To-Machine Algorithm, cnet News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Scientists are making progress on neural devices that can translate the thoughts of a paralyzed person into driving action for a prosthetic device.

      Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Wednesday that they've developed an algorithm for a neural prosthetic aid that can link an individual's brain activity to the person's intentions; and then translate that intention into movement. (...)

      MIT said that it has developed a unified algorithm that can work within the parameters of these different approaches. Lakshminarayan "Ram" Srinivasan, lead author of a paper on the subject, said MIT's new graphical models are applicable no matter what measurement technique is used.

    2. Engineers Study Brain Folding In Higher Mammals, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are finding common ground between the shaping of the brain and the heart during embryonic development. (...) are examining mechanical and developmental processes that occur in the folding of the brain's surface, or cortex, which gives the higher mammalian brain more surface area (and hence more intellectual capacity) than a brain of comparable volume with a smooth surface. Folding is very important in human brain development because some of the worst neurological problems such as schizophrenia, autism and lissenchephaly (smoothness of the cortex, found with severe retardation) are associated with abnormal brain folding. (...)

  12. Google And IBM Partner To Push Cloud Computing, InformationWeek Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: To prepare students "to harness the potential of modern computing systems," the companies will provide universities with hardware, software, and services to advance training in large-scale distributed computing. (...)

    Large-scale distributed computing, also known as cloud computing, has been touted as the future for years now. In a July 2003 paper, Microsoft researcher Jim Gray -- who was reported missing at sea earlier this year -- noted that IBM and Microsoft were pushing Internet-scale distributed computing as a new model.

    Sun Microsystems(SUNW) has also long been an advocate of what it calls grid computing.

    1. Google and I.B.M. Join in 'Cloud Computing' Research, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Even the nation's elite universities do not provide the technical training needed for the kind of powerful and highly complex computing Google is famous for, say computer scientists. So Google and I.B.M. are announcing today a major research initiative to address that shortcoming.

      The two companies are investing to build large data centers that students can tap into over the Internet to program and research remotely, which is called "cloud computing."

    2. Tech Trends: Crowdsourcing - Got A Big Job? The Web May Be Able To Help, CBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: It's called crowdsourcing. The idea is to use the internet to get large numbers of people to help with a task.

      They may do it for money - usually not much - or out of interest or simply because it's fun. (...)

      The trick is that some of those people live in countries where U.S. dollars go a long way. Crowdsourcing can be a way of farming out work to lower-paid overseas workers. Others earn the satisfaction of contributing to a cause they feel strongly about, such as the The Scientist's YouTube video project.

    3. Free the Avatars, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Virtual worlds may be freewheeling environments where cyber-behavior is unconstrained by many terrestrial mores. But they are also gated communities, and the gates keep the digital denizens locked inside.

      IBM and Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, think it's time to free the avatars. At the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo at San Jose, Calif., the two companies are announcing plans to develop open standards that will allow avatars to roam from one virtual community to the next.

  13. Stochastic Fluctuations In Epidemics On Networks, Interface Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The effects of demographic stochasticity on the long-term behaviour of endemic infectious diseases have been considered for long as a necessary addition to an underlying deterministic theory. The latter would explain the regular behaviour of recurrent epidemics and the former the superimposed noise of observed incidence patterns. Recently, a stochastic theory based on a mechanism of resonance with internal noise has shifted the role of stochasticity (...), by showing that the major dynamic patterns found in the incidence data can be explained as resonant fluctuations, (...). Here we elaborate on that approach, by adding (...) 'mixing network' through which infection may propagate. (...)

  14. Darpa Hatches Plan For Insect Cyborgs To Fly Reconnaissance, EE Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Cyborg insects with embedded microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) will run remotely controlled reconnaissance missions for the military, if its '"HI-MEMS" program succeeds. Hybrid-Insect MEMS--a program hatched earlier this year at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa)--aims to harness insects the way horses were harnessed by the cavalry. (...)

    "Michigan is focusing on horned beetles, while MIT and Boyce Thompson are working with large moths," said Darpa spokesman Jan Walker. "The program's first major milestone is scheduled for January 2008, when the contractors have to demonstrate controlled, tethered flight of the insect."

    1. Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs., Washington Post Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      Gallery DragonSpies Robotic fliers have been used by the military since World War II, but in the past decade their numbers and level of sophistication have increased enormously.
      Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

      "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

      Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

      "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

  15. Plant Biology: At Long Last, Pathologists Hear Plants' Cry For Help, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A sick plant has something in common with an athlete who slathers on stinky sports balms. Both are counting on the salutary effects of methyl salicylate, the pungent oil of wintergreen. This compound turns out to be a long-sought distress call that rouses plant resistance against disease, researchers report on page 113. "Finally, we've been able to identify a signal that activates this plant-wide defense," says co-author and plant pathologist Daniel Klessig of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, New York.

  16. Minimum Telomere Length Defined For Healthy Cells - Mechanism For Chromosome Corruption Also Revealed., Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: In addition to the steady loss associated with ageing, random mutations can cause large stochastic deletions that dramatically shrink telomeres in young, healthy cells. Baird's team focused on such cells from fetal human lung cultures whose telomeres had shrunk to the threshold length of less than 77 base pairs long. "These were normal human cells that had long, functional telomeres," says Baird. "You wouldn't expect any telomeric problems."

    The critical telomere length was 12.8 repeats (of six base pairs) long, they found - any shorter and the chromosomes began to fuse together at their ends (...).

    1. In the Battle Against Cancer, Researchers Find Hope in a Toxic Wasteland, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      Lynn Donaldson for The New York Times The Berkeley Pit is a mile and a half wide and was one of the world's largest copper mines until 1982. The pit filled with water with high levels of arsenic, aluminum, cadmium and zinc.
      Microbes react to harsh conditions in the Berkeley Pit by switching on genes that otherwise lay dormant or by evolving through mutation and natural selection, Mr. Stierle said. Either way, they produce new chemical compounds, which the Stierles hope may benefit human health. (...)

      Then there is Penicillium rubrum, which is fuzzy and green like bread mold. "It's sweet, it grows, and this little guy produces large amounts of interesting compounds," she said. "It's one of the loveliest microbes we've ever worked with."

    2. Nanosensor Detection of an Immunoregulatory Tryptophan Influx/Kynurenine Efflux Cycle, PLoS Biology Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Mammalian cells rely on cellular uptake of the essential amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan sequestration by up-regulation of the key enzyme for tryptophan degradation, indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), e.g., in cancer and inflammation, is thought to suppress the immune response via T cell starvation. Additionally, the excreted tryptophan catabolites (kynurenines) induce apoptosis of lymphocytes. Whereas tryptophan transport systems have been identified, the molecular nature of kynurenine export remains unknown.

  17. Algorithms To Reanimate The Heart, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: When an adult suffers a cardiorespiratory arrest the rapid application of an electrical discharge with a defibrillator can avoid sudden death in many cases. Nevertheless, defibrillation also has its impediment or enemy: time. For every minute that passes from the moment of the attack, the possibilities of survival drop by 10%. This is why, in order to avoid avoidable deaths, more and more easy-to-handle, automatic defibrillators are being designed, sold and installed. (...) The main elements of these devices are based on algorithms that help undertake a study and diagnosis of the electrical signals from the heart. The defibrillator reads the patient's heartbeat (...).

    1. Neuroscience: A Local Route To Pain Relief, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Local anaesthetics stop pain, but block all other sensations too. In rats, one molecular delivery vehicle makes an unusual local anaesthetic specific for pain - provided a little spice is added to the mix first. (...)

      To those in the know, an anaesthetic seems the last place to look for an analgesic effect. When you are numbed for the dentist's drill, the anaesthetic used blocks all the voltage-gated sodium channels in a nerve. These are proteins that conduct action potentials in nerve axons by timing, with submillisecond precision, the flow of current in the form of sodium ions across cell membranes.

  18. Are Mirrors The Best Way To Deflect Asteroids?, New Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    A swarm of mirror-bearing spacecraft could deflect an asteroid by focusing sunlight on its surface (Illustration: M Vasile et al, University of Glasgow)
    Focusing sunlight onto an asteroid with space-based mirrors is the best way to deflect Earth-bound space rocks, a new study finds. The mirrors beat out nuclear blasts and "gravity tractors" in the study, which compared nine different deflection methods. (...)

    The method that came out on top was a swarm of mirror-carrying spacecraft. The spacecraft would be launched from Earth to hover near the asteroid and concentrate sunlight onto a point on the asteroid's surface.


    1. New Plastic Is Strong As Steel, Transparent, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that's as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.

      It's made of layers of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry with white glue.

      Engineering professor Nicholas Kotov almost dubbed it "plastic steel," but the new material isn't quite stretchy enough to earn that name. Nevertheless, he says its further development could lead to lighter, stronger armor for soldiers or police and their vehicles.

    2. Atomic Physics: Cold Meeting At A Junction, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The Josephson effect is a macroscopic manifestation of quantum mechanics usually seen in superconductors. Observation of this effect in a gas of ultracold atoms demonstrates the underlying unity of solid and gaseous systems

    3. Water Doesn't Mind The Gap - Gravity-Defying Liquid Bridge Makes A Splash., Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:

      It could be the world's longest liquid bridge: researchers have coaxed water into leaping a 25-millimetre gap between two regular glass beakers in a gravity-defying stunt. The engineering feat could involve a hitherto unknown microstructure of water, the researchers say. (...)

      Fuchs's team applied up to 25,000 volts across electrodes placed in two beakers filled nearly to the brim with distilled water. Within a millisecond, water crawled up to the edge of one beaker and, in a burst of sparks, leapt across the gap between them.

  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. U.S. Intelligence Officials Will Probe Leak of Bin Laden Video, Washington Post Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: U.S. intelligence officials will investigate allegations that the government improperly leaked a secretly obtained Osama bin Laden video, alerting al-Qaeda to a security gap in the terrorist group's internal communications network that it was able to shut, an intelligence spokesman said yesterday. (...)

      SITE is one of several small, commercial intelligence firms that specialize in intercepting al-Qaeda's internet communications, often by clandestine means. SITE founder Rita Katz told The Post that her company covertly obtained an early copy of a bin Laden video message in early September, (...)

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Fluctuating Superconductivity In Organic Molecular Metals Close To The Mott Transition, Moon-Sun Nam, Arzhang Ardavan, Stephen J. Blundell & John A. Schlueter, 07/10/04, Nature 449, 584-587, DOI: 10.1038/nature06182
      2. Shields Down: A Cancer-Fighting Gene Declines In Old Age, 07/10/06, Science News, Decline of an important anti-cancer gene could contribute to increased cancer risk among the elderly.
      3. Lonely White Cells, 07/10/06, Science News, In chronically lonely people, white blood cells show abnormal gene activity that may affect health through immune responses.
      4. Receiver Bias For Exaggerated Signals In Honeybees And Its Implications For The Evolution Of Floral Displays, D. Naug, H. S. Arathi, 2007/10/02, Biological Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0436
      5. China Makes Half Of All Mobile Phones: Growth Continues Despite Lack Of Local 3G Market, S. Burns, 2007/10/04, vnunet.com
      6. War More Traumatic Than Tsunami, 2007/10/04, Innovations-report
      7. Mathematicians Defy Gravity, 2007/10/05, Innovations-report
      8. Researchers: No Faking It, Crocodile Tears Are Real, 2007/10/05, Innovations-report
      9. Brain's 'Social Enforcer' Centers Identified, 2007/10/05, ScienceDaily & Cell Press
      10. Why Emotionally Charged Events Are So Memorable, 2007/10/07, ScienceDaily & Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
      11. Memory Processes Restored In Mice With Mental Impairment, 2007/10/07, ScienceDaily & University of California, Irvine
      12. Mortality Of American Troops In The Iraq War, E. Buzzell, Sep. 2007, online 2007/09/05, Population and Development Review, DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00185.x
      13. Should We Allow Terrorists To Terrify Us?, D. W. Benn, Sep. 2007, online 2007/10/01, International Affairs, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00667.x
      14. The Hospitality Of War, A. Danchev, Sep. 2007, online 2007/10/01, International Affairs, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00666.x

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Reseau Nationale des Systemes Complexes , (in French), 2007
      2. World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 07/01/24-28
      3. TED Talks, TED Conferences LLC , since 2006
      4. Talking Robots: The PodCast on Robotics and AI, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 06/11/03
      5. Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Governments, and the Media 2006, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/03-05
      6. 6th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30
      7. Artificial Life X, 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Bloomington, IN, USA. 2006/06/03-07
      8. 6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
      9. Ralph Abraham on Complexity Digest, , Calcutta, India, 05/12/27
      10. An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06
      11. Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
      12. Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23
      13. Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14
      14. ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life, Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9
      15. T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), Podcast
      16. 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
      17. Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19
      18. 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
      19. 1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7
      20. From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
      21. Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
      22. International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
      23. Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
      24. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
      25. Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
      26. Edge Videos

    3. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Processes Of Emergence Of Systems And Systemic Properties. Towards A General Theory Of Emergence. , Castel Ivano (Trento), 07/10/18-20
      2. 2nd Annual Conf on The Physics, Chemistry and Biology of Water, West Dover, Vermont. 07/10/18-21
      3. Smithsonian conference, Creating a Sustainable Future in a Complex World, Washington, DC, 07/10/27
      4. Intl Conf on Complex Systems 2007, Boston, MA, USA, 07/10/28-11/02
      5. The Huntsville Simulation Conference 2007, Huntsville, Alabama, 07/10/30-11/01
      6. 2007 IEEE/WIC/ACM Intl Joint Conf on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT'07), Silicon Valley, USA, 07/11/02-05
      7. Theory In Cognitive Neuroscience, Wildbad Kreuth (Bavaria), Germany, 07/11/04-07
      8. 7th Intl Conf on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems , Piscataway, NJ, 07/11/05-07
      9. KSS 2007 - 8th Intl Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, 07/11/05-07
      10. NetLogo Workshop at Agent 2007 Conference, Evanston, IL, USA, 07/11/12-14
      11. Australia New Zealand Systems Conference 2007 "Systemic development: Local solutions in a global environment", Auckland, New Zealand, 07/12/02-05
      12. The 3rd Indian Intl Conf on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI-07), Pune, INDIA, 07/12/17-19
      13. The 1st Conf on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI-08), Memphis, Tennessee, USA, 08/03/01-03
      14. The 3rd International Nonlinear Sciences Conference (INSC), Tokyo, Japan, 08/03/13-15
      15. 19th European Meeting On Cybernetics And Systems Research, (EMCSR 2008), Vienna, Austria, 08/03/25-28
      16. 2nd KES Intl Symp on Agent and Multi-Agent Systems : Technologies and Applications, Incheon, Korea, 08/03/26-28
      17. 1st Intl Conf on Social Entrepreneurship & Complexity, Garden City, NY, USA, 08/04/10-12
      18. The 12th World Multi-Conf on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      19. From Animals To Animats 10 - The 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'08), Osaka, Japan, 08/07/07-12
      20. Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 08/08/17-21

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. " Wolfram Research is Now the Official Math Brain Trust for the Hit CBS Series NUMB3RS. 07/10/05
      2. A short notice from Dean LeBaron

        Dear ComDig Readers,

        Our editor, Dr. Gottfried Mayer, is affectionately esteemed by many of you -- as readers, you know he devotes himself unselfishly to widening our knowledge of complexity science. He was recently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer and given a timetable of a very few years. Knowing Gottfried, you can imagine that, in addition to the customary processes of chemotherapy, he would explore other frontier therapies, especially those arising out of interdisciplinary applications of complexity. These are expensive ... if he can find them.

        Many of you have sent your good wishes and indicated your desire to assist. With Gottfried's permission, I am posting this note with information, below, about how to send contributions to him. Please indicate the source since Gottfried will want to express his warm gratitude.

        I know that Gottfried, the good scientist that he is, will explain from time to time what he is doing and what the results are ... and we will follow his progress with great interest and hope.

        Dean LeBaron
        Publisher, Complexity Digest

        Bank Information:

        If your contribution is made by check:
        Please mail the check, payable to "Gottfried Mayer", to:
        Manufacturers & Traders Trust
        2080 Western Avenue
        20 Mall
        Guilderland, NY 12084 USA
        (on the back of the check, please write: "For Deposit Only: Account # 983 338 3814")

        If your contribution is made by wire:
        Manufacturers & Traders Trust
        2080 Western Avenue
        20 Mall

        Guilderland, NY 12084 USA
        SWIFT Code# MANTUS33
        UID: 209 791
        ABA routing # 022 00 00 46 [for US wire transfers]
        Account # 983 338 3814
        Ref. Gottfried Mayer

      3. Intl Master of Science in Methods For Management Of Complex Systems - Academic Year 2007-2008, Institute for Advanced Study, Pavia, Italy, 08/01/01
      4. News notes on Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) for July 2007 are now available on-line, 07/08/04
      5. 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.

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