Complexity Digest 2008.13

27-Mar-2008

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Content

  1. A Fresh Approach To Water, Nature
    1. Water: Purification With A Pinch Of Salt, Nature
    2. Science And Technology For Water Purification In The Coming Decades, Nature
    3. Water: Water - An Enduring Mystery, Nature
  2. Improving On Haves And Have-Nots, Nature
    1. The Energy Challenge, Nature
    2. Insects And Institutions: Managing Emergent Hazards In The U.S. Southwest, J. Environ. Policy & Planning
  3. Road To Eureka! - Insight May Lie At The End Of A Chain Of Neural Reactions, Science News
    1. People Move Like Predators, Science News
    2. Human Behaviour: Punisher Pays, Nature
  4. Algorithm Finds The Network - For Genes Or The Internet, Innovations-report
    1. Researchers Create Next-Generation Software To Identify Complex Cyber Network Attacks, Innovations-report
  5. From Risk To Uncertainty, Toronto Globe and Mail
  6. A School Where STEM ["Sci, Tech, Eng, Math", Ed] Is King, Education Week
    1. Igniting Girls' Interest in Science, Science
  7. Neuroscience: Detailed Differences, Science
    1. Neuroscience: A Protoplasmic Kiss to Remember, Science
    2. Identifying Natural Images From Human Brain Activity, Nature
    3. Reconstruction Of Eye Movements During Blinks, Chaos
  8. Physiology: Brain Comes To Light, Nature
    1. US Army Toyed With Telepathic Ray Gun, New Scientist
    2. Sewer-Gas-Induced Suspended Animation Is Rapid And Reversible, Massachusetts General Hospital News Release
  9. Revealing The Paradox Of Drug Reward In Human Evolution, Proc. Biol. Sc.
    1. Drive to Complexity Seen in Animal Evolution, World Science
  10. Therapeutic Cloning Used To Treat Brain Disease, New Scientist
    1. Stanford Researchers Unmask Proteins In Telomerase, A Substance That Enables Cancer, Stanford University Medical Center News Release
    2. Gene Targeting Raises Cure Hopes, BBC News
    3. Imaging the Genetic Profile of a Tumor, Technology Review
  11. Finch Concerts: Female Bird Brain Notes Male Attention, Science News
    1. Love Code: A Twist Of Light Only Mantis Shrimp Can See, Science News
    2. New Form of Vision Discovered, Science Now
    3. Drosophila Egg-Laying Site Selection as a System to Study Simple Decision-Making Processes, Science
  12. What Does a Plant Sound Like?, ScienceNOW Daily News
    1. Computers Show How Bats Classify Plants According To Their Echoes, ScienceDaily
  13. From Dark Matter To Light - New Models Of Galaxy Formation Show The Gastro In Physics, Science News
  14. In The Beginning: More Early Clues For Life At Home, Out There, Science News
    1. Extrasolar Planets: A Whiff Of Methane, Nature
    2. Saturn's Titan Moon May Harbor Hidden Ocean of Water, Bloomberg
  15. Nanominerals, Mineral Nanoparticles, and Earth Systems, Science
  16. Replacing Wire With Laser, Sun Tries to Speed Up Data, NY Times
  17. Researchers' Push: Reinvent Computing, NY Times
  18. GraphStream: A Tool for bridging the gap between Complex Systems and Dynamic Graphs, arXiv
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. U.S. Experts Will Stage Climate War Game, UPI
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. A Fresh Approach To Water, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The water shortage that threatens humanity will have wide-ranging consequences for agriculture and energy production, requiring significant shifts in the way this precious resource is managed. (...)

    Our planet is facing a water crisis in public health: more than a billion people in developing nations lack access to safe drinking water, and more than 2 billion lack proper sanitation (see page 283). And in the near future, water shortages are likely to spread into other key sectors - notably agriculture (see page 273) and energy (see page 285).

    1. Water: Purification With A Pinch Of Salt, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Costs have come down. Even the very energy-intensive thermal plants in the Gulf region - which purify seawater by boiling and condensing - can produce fresh water at less than US$1 per cubic metre. And the desalination plant at Ashkelon in Israel, once the world's largest, produces more than 300,000 cubic metres of freshwater per day at costs of around 50 cents per cubic metre. That's 1,000 litres of drinking water for less than half the retail price of a 1-litre bottle of Evian. But on average, the technique is 3.5 times more expensive than using other sources of freshwater such as pumping from aquifers.

    2. Science And Technology For Water Purification In The Coming Decades, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: One of the most pervasive problems afflicting people throughout the world is inadequate access to clean water and sanitation. Problems with water are expected to grow worse in the coming decades, with water scarcity occurring globally, even in regions currently considered water-rich. Addressing these problems calls out for a tremendous amount of research to be conducted to identify robust new methods of purifying water at lower cost and with less energy, while at the same time minimizing the use of chemicals and impact on the environment.

    3. Water: Water - An Enduring Mystery, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Yet another theory of liquid water structure raises questions about interdisciplinarity, drug design, astrobiology, molecular biology, geochemistry and more.

      No one really understands water. It's embarrassing to admit it, but the stuff that covers two-thirds of our planet is still a mystery. Worse, the more we look, the more the problems accumulate: new techniques probing deeper into the molecular architecture of liquid water are throwing up more puzzles. (...)


  2. Improving On Haves And Have-Nots, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: All-or-nothing targets for global access to basic amenities such as drinking water and sanitation are outdated. (...)

    No one can deny the profound effects that water and sanitation can have on public health. In nineteenth-century Europe, municipalities made unprecedented investments in public drinking-water and sanitation to control outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases. (...)

    (...) inadequate drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene cause around 6% of all diseases.

    1. The Energy Challenge, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Global energy consumption is expected to grow by 50% by 2030, squeezing already scarce water resources. (...)

      This growing international water crisis is forcing governments to rethink how they value, use and manage water, especially because economic development hinges on water availability. Drinking-water supplies, agriculture, energy production and generation, mining and industry all require large quantities of water. In the future, these sectors will be competing for increasingly limited freshwater resources, making water-supply availability a major economic driver in the twenty-first century.

      • Source: The Energy Challenge, Mike Hightower, Suzanne A. Pierce, DOI: 10.1038/452285a, Nature 452, 285-286, 08/03/20

    2. Insects And Institutions: Managing Emergent Hazards In The U.S. Southwest, J. Environ. Policy & Planning Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: A range of institutional systems exist to manage and mitigate environmental problems, yet the quickly changing, ecologically surprising, and spatially complex qualities of ecological problems create new challenges for institutional learning. The rapid and nearly uncontrolled recent outbreak of West Nile Virus in the U.S. Southwest, and the associated risk of other mosquito-borne diseases, typifies these sorts of challenges. How are management authorities adapting to the changing conditions presented by mosquito-borne diseases? What bureaucratic structures condition and limit their responses? (...)

  3. Road To Eureka! - Insight May Lie At The End Of A Chain Of Neural Reactions, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Seeing The Light. New research offers a glimpse of brain activity during problem solving. iStockphoto
    Sudden bursts of insight that, with no warning, provide unexpected, novel solutions to thorny problems are the stuff of legend. Consider Archimedes, the great ancient Greek mathematician and scientist. (...)

    Findings remain preliminary, but important themes are emerging. First, distinctive forms of electrical activity in the brain precede "Aha!" moments and may pave the way to true insights. Second, sudden mental breakthroughs depend on widening the scope of one's attention from a few obvious but unsuitable choices to an extended network of possibilities. As attention expands, diverse pieces of knowledge can be connected to a taxing problem.

    1. People Move Like Predators, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A new study based on data from cell phone use shows that people's daily roaming mirrors familiar patterns - universal statistical laws that researchers have observed before in the movements of certain carnivores looking for prey.

      Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University in Boston and their collaborators sifted through 6 months' worth of text messages and call records for 100,000 users, provided by cell phone companies. By tracking which cell phone towers users were connecting to at any given time, the data allowed researchers to map individuals' movements throughout the day, as long as they went far enough to enter another tower's service area. (...)


    2. Human Behaviour: Punisher Pays, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The tendency of humans to punish perceived free-loaders, even at a cost to themselves, is an evolutionary puzzle: punishers perish, and those who benefit the most are those who have never punished at all. (...)

      Explaining why costly punishment is used at all, if not even the group seems to benefit, becomes even more of a challenge.

      The authors used a variant of the classic two-person 'prisoner's dilemma' game, in which players have a binary choice of cooperation or defection.

  4. Algorithm Finds The Network - For Genes Or The Internet, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Human diseases and social networks seem to have little in common. However, at the crux of these two lies a network, communities within the network, and farther even, substructures of the communities. In a recent paper (...) published an algorithm (a recipe of computer instructions) to automatically identify communities and their subtle structures in various networks. Many complex systems can be represented as networks, Zhang said, including the genetic networks he studies, social networks and the Internet itself. (...)

    1. Researchers Create Next-Generation Software To Identify Complex Cyber Network Attacks, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Researchers (...) have developed new software that can reduce the impact of cyber attacks by identifying the possible vulnerability paths through an organization's networks. By their very nature networks are highly interdependent and each machine's overall susceptibility to attack depends on the vulnerabilities of the other machines in the network. Attackers can take advantage of multiple vulnerabilities in unexpected ways, allowing them to incrementally penetrate a network and compromise critical systems. In order to protect an organization's networks, it is necessary to understand not only individual system vulnerabilities, but also their interdependencies. (...)

  5. From Risk To Uncertainty, Toronto Globe and Mail Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: So the rules of the game have now fundamentally changed. Our global financial system has become so staggeringly complex and opaque that we've moved from a world of risk to a world of uncertainty. In a world of risk, we can judge dangers and opportunities by using the best evidence at hand to estimate the probability of a particular outcome. But in a world of uncertainty, we can't estimate probabilities, because we don't have any clear basis for making such a judgment. In fact, we might not even know what the possible outcomes are. Surprises keep coming out of possible outcomes are. Surprises keep coming out of the blue, because we're fundamentally ignorant of our own ignorance. We're surrounded by unknown unknowns.

  6. A School Where STEM ["Sci, Tech, Eng, Math", Ed] Is King, Education Week Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A selective, specialized high school in Baltimore uses an interdisciplinary approach that enables students to experience STEM as a way of life. (...)

    Glass-covered bulletin boards also recount the triumphs of the school's "Research Superstars" three top-10 national finishers in the Intel contest over the past three school years - just a few steps from a display of interscholastic sports trophies. (...)

    The science track, however, includes the option of a research "practicum," an opportunity to conduct research for up to two years under the mentorship of a professional scientist in the area; students often enter their research projects in high school contests that can give them an edge, and possibly scholarship money, when they apply to colleges.

    1. Igniting Girls' Interest in Science, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Girls' interest, participation, and achievement in science decline as they advance in grade levels. For example, in fourth grade, the number of girls and boys who like math and science is about the same, but by eighth grade, twice as many boys as girls show an interest in these subjects. (...)

      "Magic of Chemistry" was created to ignite interest in science among girls during this critical transition period (...).

  7. Neuroscience: Detailed Differences, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Brain imaging shows that, as in other animals, the human hippocampus has regions that help us keep our memories from becoming jumbled.

    Our subjective experience might tell us that events are unprecedented, even though many situations that we encounter from day to day have prominent similarities and may only differ in important detail. To form separate memories for each day and for the many events that occur within a day, it is thus necessary to keep them distinct by somewhat ignoring the similarities and emphasizing the differences. Evidence for such a process, called "pattern separation," has been found to occur in the hippocampus (...).

    1. Neuroscience: A Protoplasmic Kiss to Remember, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: During establishment of long-term memory, protein synthesis, regulated by neurotrophins, affects the morphology of synaptic structures. (...)

      Remarkably, it is the smallest element of a neuron's architecture--the dendritic spine--where these critical structural changes occur.

      A neuron may contain many spines, branched protoplasmic extensions from dendrites that form synapses with other neurons. Spines conduct electrical signals when stimulated by connecting, presynaptic neurons (as occurs among pyramidal neurons in the mammalian hippocampus).

    2. Identifying Natural Images From Human Brain Activity, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Our results suggest that it may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone.

      Imagine a general brain-reading device that could reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience at any moment in time. This general visual decoder would have great scientific and practical use. For example, we could use the decoder to investigate differences in perception across people, to study covert mental processes such as attention, and perhaps even to access the visual content of purely mental phenomena such as dreams and imagery. The decoder would also serve as a useful benchmark of our understanding of how the brain represents sensory information.

    3. Reconstruction Of Eye Movements During Blinks, Chaos Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: In eye movement research in reading, the amount of data plays a crucial role for the validation of results. A methodological problem for the analysis of the eye movement in reading are blinks, when readers close their eyes. Blinking rate increases with increasing reading time, resulting in high data losses, especially for older adults or reading impaired subjects. We present a method, based on the symbolic sequence dynamics of the eye movements, that reconstructs the horizontal position of the eyes while the reader blinks. (...)
      • Source: Reconstruction Of Eye Movements During Blinks, M. S. Baptista, C. Bohn, R. Kliegl, R. Engbert, J. Kurths, DOI: 10.1063/1.2890843, Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, Mar. 2008, 2008/03/21
      • Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01ayahoo.com

  8. Physiology: Brain Comes To Light, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: To perceive seasons, animals compare changes in day length with the constant cycle of their inner circadian clock. At a molecular level, light signals trigger coordinated gene-expression events in the brain. (...)

    The signal response to light is integrated in the brain's hypothalamus, where it enhances the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). This leads to increased blood concentrations of luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone, both of which originate from the pituitary gland at the base of the brain.

    1. US Army Toyed With Telepathic Ray Gun, New Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A recently declassified US Army report on the biological effects of non-lethal weapons reveals outlandish plans for "ray gun" devices, which would cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people's heads. (...)

      Other ideas, like a microwave gun to "beam" words directly into people's ears, have been tested. It is claimed that the so-called "Frey Effect" - using close-range microwaves to produce audible sounds in a person's ears - has been used to project the spoken numbers 1 to 10 across a lab to volunteers'.

    2. Sewer-Gas-Induced Suspended Animation Is Rapid And Reversible, Massachusetts General Hospital News Release Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Heart rate and metabolism drop, while blood pressure and oxygen levels maintained

      Low doses of the toxic gas responsible for the unpleasant odor of rotten eggs can safely and reversibly depress both metabolism and aspects of cardiovascular function in mice, producing a suspended-animation-like state.

      (...) effects seen in earlier studies of hydrogen sulfide do not depend on a reduction in body temperature and include a substantial decrease in heart rate without a drop in blood pressure. (...)


  9. Revealing The Paradox Of Drug Reward In Human Evolution, Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Neurobiological models of drug abuse propose that drug use is initiated and maintained by rewarding feedback mechanisms. However, the most commonly used drugs are plant neurotoxins that evolved to punish, not reward, consumption by animal herbivores. Reward models therefore implicitly assume an evolutionary mismatch between recent drug-profligate environments and a relatively drug-free past in which a reward centre, incidentally vulnerable to neurotoxins, could evolve. By contrast, emerging insights from plant evolutionary ecology and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, (...) indicate that animal and hominid taxa have been exposed to plant toxins throughout their evolution. (...) We sketch some potential resolutions of the paradox, (...).

    1. Drive to Complexity Seen in Animal Evolution, World Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: In the new research, scientists (...) studied fossils of crustaceans-crabs, lobsters and their relatives. Looking back 550 million years, they sought cases of crustaceans that evolved to be­come simpler than their ancestors.

      There were hardly any cases of this, the researchers said: most organisms evolved with increasingly complex structures, suggesting some mechanism drives change in this direction.

      "If you start with the simplest possible animal body, then there's only one direction to evolve in - you have to become more complex," (...). But sooner or later, "you reach a level of complexity where it's possible to go backwards."

      Strangely, though, "hardly any crus­taceans have taken this backwards route.

  10. Therapeutic Cloning Used To Treat Brain Disease, New Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Therapeutic cloning works - in mice, at least. An international team has restored mice with a condition similar to Parkinson's disease back to health, using neurons grown in the lab that were made from their own cloned skin cells.

    This is the first time that a disease has been successfully treated using cloned cells that had been derived from the recipient animals. "It is the proof of concept," (...).


    1. Stanford Researchers Unmask Proteins In Telomerase, A Substance That Enables Cancer, Stanford University Medical Center News Release Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: One of the more intriguing workhorses of the cell, a protein conglomerate called telomerase, has in its short history been implicated in some critical areas of medicine including cancer, aging and keeping stem cells healthy. With such a resume, telomerase has been the subject of avid interest by basic scientists and pharmaceutical companies alike, so you'd think at the very least people would know what it is.

    2. Gene Targeting Raises Cure Hopes, BBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      Synthetic proteins target specific DNA sequences
      Synthetic proteins target specific DNA sequences.

      A more efficient way to shut down rogue genes raises hopes of new therapies for conditions like diabetes and HIV.

      Systematically knocking out single genes potentially gives scientists unprecedented control over the processes which cause disease.

      US and UK researchers have developed synthetic proteins which can target individual genes quickly, simply and with a high degree of success.

    3. Imaging the Genetic Profile of a Tumor, Technology Review Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      Visual cues: Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have made connections between features in magnetic resonance images of the most prevalent form of brain cancer (above) and gene-expression patterns. This information could lead doctors to the best treatments for individual patients. Credit: Michael Kuo, University of California, San Diego
      MRI scans could be used to determine which drug will work best against a brain tumor. (...)

      Then the researchers looked for connections between the ten types of tumors shown in the MRIs and the activity of seven genetic programs by studying the patients' biopsies using microarrays. These genetic programs included groups of genes associated with blood-vessel growth, cell proliferation, and other characteristic aspects of cancer biology, all of which are targeted by existing drugs. The team also looked for associations between tumor appearance and overexpression of one gene in particular, coding for epidermal growth factor receptor, a cell receptor that's overactive in many glioblastomas.

  11. Finch Concerts: Female Bird Brain Notes Male Attention, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Subtle Guy. A male zebra finch changes his song when singing to females in ways that people can barely detect. But the female finch can tell the difference. iStockphoto
    He knows she's listening. And now we know that she knows he knows.

    Using the word "know" loosely, that's a simplified version of a new analysis of zebra finches by neuroscientists at the University of California, San Francisco. (...)

    Male canaries tend to add special syllables to their courtship songs when strutting in front of a female, and females prefer the embellished songs.

    Zebra finch males go into concert mode too, mostly speeding up the song and keeping the pitch under tight control. "It's subtle," says Woolley.

    1. Love Code: A Twist Of Light Only Mantis Shrimp Can See, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      In A Different Light. Alone in the animal kingdom, mantis shrimp may use the physics phenomenon of circularly polarized light to signal their presence to - and to see - potential mates. Caldwell
      Researchers now show that mantis shrimp - which actually look more like small lobsters - can tell when light is circularly, rather than linearly, polarized. That means that the electric field twists like a corkscrew as the light ray moves. The corkscrew can twist right or left - or, in biological terms, be right- or left-handed.

    2. New Form of Vision Discovered, Science Now Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: When it comes to versatile vision, the mantis shrimp reigns supreme. Its specialized eyes can pick up several types of light, including infrared and ultraviolet, and its color vision tops ours. Now scientists report that this reef-dwelling crustacean has done itself one better: It can see a type of polarized light that no other animal is known to be able to detect. The function of this new form of vision is still a mystery, but researchers speculate that the crustacean may use it in mating displays or as a secret form of communication.

    3. Drosophila Egg-Laying Site Selection as a System to Study Simple Decision-Making Processes, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The ability to select a better option from multiple acceptable ones is important for animals to optimize their resources. The mechanisms that underlie such decision-making processes are not well understood. We found that selection of egg-laying site in Drosophila melanogaster is a suitable system to probe the neural circuit that governs simple decision-making processes. First, Drosophila females pursue active probing of the environment before depositing each egg, apparently to evaluate site quality for every egg. (...)

  12. What Does a Plant Sound Like?, ScienceNOW Daily News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can identify some plant species according to their unique sonar echoes. The experiments were meant to help biologists understand how bats find their favorite fruits or insects, but the research might also help engineers design high-speed systems to identify everything from widgets on conveyor belts to faces in crowds. (...)

    First, the team developed data sets called spectrograms by bouncing sonar signals off five kinds of plants, including spruce trees and black thorn bushes.

    1. Computers Show How Bats Classify Plants According To Their Echoes, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can imitate the bat's ability to classify plants using echolocation. The study represents a collaboration between machine learning scientists and biologists studying bat orientation. To detect plants, bats emit ultrasonic pulses and decipher the various echoes that return. Bats use plants daily as food sources and landmarks for navigation between foraging sites. Plant echoes are highly complex signals due to numerous reflections from leaves and branches. Classifying plants or other intricate objects, therefore, has been considered a troublesome task for bats and the scientific community was far from understanding how they do it. (...)

  13. From Dark Matter To Light - New Models Of Galaxy Formation Show The Gastro In Physics, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Welcome To The Web. The varying density of gas is related to the evolution of structure in the universe and the formation of galaxies. Gas density is shown (increasing with brightness) along with temperature (increasing from blue to red in color). Yellow circles indicate black holes (higher masses indicated by longer diameters). The left image models the universe at about 450 million years after the Big Bang. The early universe still shows a relatively uniform structure. At about 6 billion years (right), the universe has many black holes and a more filamentary structure. T. Di Matteo, et al.
    Again delving into gastrophysics, he and other researchers point to the unusual role that black holes may play in staving off star birth in massive galaxies. Researchers now believe that every massive galaxy houses a central, heavyweight black hole, and that these gravitational monsters wield influence far beyond their immediate surroundings.

  14. In The Beginning: More Early Clues For Life At Home, Out There, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    GASSY ORGANICS. Astronomers have detected methane in the atmosphere of the hot, Jupiter-like planet circling HD 189733, depicted here in an artist's simulation. G. Bacon/ STScI, NASA, ESA
    Astronomers have just moved closer to understanding how the raw ingredients for life may have arisen on Earth as well as on planets light-years beyond the solar system.

    One team, using the Hubble Space Telescope, has for the first time detected an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star. Although the orb can't support life, the discovery bodes well for finding organic material on more habitable exoplanets. Another team found that space rocks delivered a bigger helping of amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - to the early Earth than previously suspected.

    1. Extrasolar Planets: A Whiff Of Methane, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Investigations of planets outside our Solar System are becoming ever more sophisticated. The latest development is the discovery of a carbon-containing molecule in the atmosphere of one such extrasolar body.

    2. Saturn's Titan Moon May Harbor Hidden Ocean of Water, Bloomberg Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is covered with miles of ice and land that may slosh across a huge hidden ocean capable of supporting life, astronomers said.

      The theory explains why geological features such as dunes, lakes, channels, craters and icy volcanoes have drifted tens of miles in three years, (...).

      Titan is the only known space object besides Earth with bodies of liquid, mostly methane, on the surface, and the only moon with a dense atmosphere. The Saturn moon is covered with rich combinations of organic materials, and the presence of a liquid ocean under the ground would complete the building blocks of life (...).

  15. Nanominerals, Mineral Nanoparticles, and Earth Systems, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Minerals are more complex than previously thought because of the discovery that their chemical properties vary as a function of particle size when smaller, in at least one dimension, than a few nanometers, to perhaps as much as several tens of nanometers. These variations are most likely due, at least in part, to differences in surface and near-surface atomic structure, as well as crystal shape and surface topography as a function of size in this smallest of size regimes. It has now been established that these variations may make a difference in important geochemical and biogeochemical reactions and kinetics.

  16. Replacing Wire With Laser, Sun Tries to Speed Up Data, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems is gambling on using beams of light to connect processor chips, eliminating a bottleneck.
    In 2003, a group of Sun researchers led by Ivan Sutherland, a computer industry pioneer, reported that they were able to transmit data inside a computer much more quickly than current techniques allowed. (...)

    However, the new approach, which is based on the company's ability to accurately align chips with high precision making it possible to transmit beams of light across the surface of the chips in ultranarrow channels called wave guides, could have a much bigger impact.

  17. Researchers' Push: Reinvent Computing, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The new research agenda was motivated in part by an increasing sense that the industry is in a crisis of a sort because advanced parallel software has failed to emerge quickly. Most programmers today still write programs that solve problems in a serial fashion. (...)

    But the new research laboratories will instead seek breakthroughs in mobile computing systems. The new systems will be designed to perform tasks that today's computers have difficulty accomplishing, like recognizing human gestures and speech.

  18. GraphStream: A Tool for bridging the gap between Complex Systems and Dynamic Graphs, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The notion of complex systems is common to many domains (...) The structure of these systems as sets of interacting entities leads researchers to model them as graphs. However, their understanding requires most often to consider the dynamics of their evolution. (...) dynamic graphs seem to be a very suitable model for investigating the emergence and the conservation of some properties. GraphStream is a Java-based library whose main purpose is to help researchers and developers in their daily tasks of dynamic problem modeling and of classical graph management tasks (...)

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

    1. U.S. Experts Will Stage Climate War Game, UPI Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: U.S. foreign affairs and military experts will stage a war game this summer to study and highlight the national security threats posed by global warming.

      The exercise, being staged by a coalition of seven think tanks and other non-profits called the Climate Change Consortium, will get technical assistance from the U.S. National Laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tenn., a statement from the organizers said Tuesday.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Planetary Science: Titan's Hidden Ocean, Christophe Sotin, Gabriel Tobie, 08/03/21, Science : 1629-1630. Data from the Cassini-Huygens mission indicate that an ocean may exist beneath the solid surface of Saturn's moon Titan.
      2. Size-Driven Structural and Thermodynamic Complexity in Iron Oxides, Alexandra Navrotsky, Lena Mazeina, Juraj Majzlan, 08/03/21, Science : 1635-1638.
      3. Pattern Separation in the Human Hippocampal CA3 and Dentate Gyrus, Arnold Bakker, C. Brock Kirwan, Michael Miller, Craig E. L. Stark, 08/03/21, Science: 1640-1642. High-resolution imaging of the human brain reveals that, as seen in rodents, recognition of small differences in similar memories requires a particular region of the hippocampus.
      4. Activation of FOXO1 by Cdk1 in Cycling Cells and Postmitotic Neurons, Zengqiang Yuan, Esther B. E. Becker, Paola Merlo, Tomoko Yamada, Sara DiBacco, Yoshiyuki Konishi, Erik M. Schaefer, Azad Bonni, 08/03/21, Science : 1665-1668. A cell cycle-associated kinase phosphorylates the transcription factor FOXO1, which activates transcription of a regulator of mitosis.
      5. A Nitric Oxide-Inducible Lactate Dehydrogenase Enables Staphylococcus aureus to Resist Innate Immunity, Anthony R. Richardson, Stephen J. Libby, Ferric C. Fang, 08/03/21, Science : 1672-1676. Staphylococcus aureus is a particularly successful pathogen because it responds to antimicrobial defenses of its host by producing more lactate to maintain its redox balance.
      6. Protein Synthesis and Neurotrophin-Dependent Structural Plasticity of Single Dendritic Spines, Jun-ichi Tanaka, Yoshihiro Horiike, Masanori Matsuzaki, Takashi Miyazaki, Graham C. R. Ellis-Davies, Haruo Kasai, 08/03/21, Science: 1683-1687. Pairing of stimuli in hippocampal cells induces secretion of the growth factor BDNF, causing enlargement of individual spines and strengthening of synapses., DOI: 10.1126/science.1152864
      7. Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton, 08/03/21, Science : 1687-1688. A survey, a study of windfall spending, and a lab experiment all indicate that spending money on others results in more happiness than does spending money on oneself.
      8. Emergence Of Network Structure In Models Of Collective Evolution And Evolutionary Dynamics, H. J. Jensen, 2008/03/10, Proceedings A: Math., Phy. & Engg. Sc., DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2007.0251
      9. Toward an Ecological Theory of Concepts, Liane Gabora, Eleanor Rosch, Diederik Aerts, 2008/03/18, arXiv [Ecological Psychology, 20(1), 84-116], DOI: 0803.2567
      10. Global-Scale Predictions Of Community And Ecosystem Properties From Simple Ecological Theory, S. Jennings, F. Mélin, J. L. Blanchard, R. M. Forster, N. K. Dulvy, R. W. Wilson, 2008/03/18, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0192
      11. Like Sweets? You're More Like A Fruit Fly Than You Think...: Similarities Highlight Environment's Role In Shaping Evolution Of Taste Preferences, 2008/03/19, Innovations-report
      12. Scientists Crack Room Temperature Superconductors: Team Builds New Substance Called 'Silane', I. Thomson, 2008/03/20, vnunet.com
      13. Introspective Experiences Inform Inferences About Similar People -- But Not Dissimilar, 2008/03/20, ScienceDaily & Harvard University
      14. Skulls Of Modern Humans And Ancient Neanderthals Evolved Differently Because Of Chance, Not Natural Selection, 2008/03/20, ScienceDaily & University of California, Davis
      15. Tug Of War In The Cells: Shedding Light On Transport Mechanism, 2008/03/22, ScienceDaily & Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
      16. Fly's Tiny Brain May Hold Huge Human Benefits, 2008/03/24, ScienceDaily & University of Missouri-Columbia
      17. Predation May Defeat Spatial Spread Of Infection, I. Siekmann, H. Malchow, E. Venturino, Jan. 2008, Journal of Biological Dynamics, DOI: 10.1080/17513750801942552
      18. Forbidden Patterns In Financial Time Series, M. Zanin, Mar. 2008, 2008/03/21, Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, DOI: 10.1063/1.2841197

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. 7th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 07/10/28-11/02
      2. Reseau Nationale des Systemes Complexes , (in French), 2007
      3. World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 08/01/22-27
      4. TED Talks, TED Conferences LLC , since 2006
      5. Talking Robots: The PodCast on Robotics and AI, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 06/11/03
      6. Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Governments, and the Media 2006, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/03-05
      7. 6th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30
      8. Artificial Life X, 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Bloomington, IN, USA. 2006/06/03-07
      9. 6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
      10. Ralph Abraham on Complexity Digest, , Calcutta, India, 05/12/27
      11. An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06
      12. Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
      13. Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23
      14. Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14
      15. ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life, Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9
      16. T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), Podcast
      17. 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
      18. Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19
      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
      20. 1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7
      21. From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
      22. Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
      23. International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
      24. Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
      25. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
      26. Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
      27. Edge Videos

    3. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Nexus for Change II, Bowling Green, OH, 08/03/29-04/01
      2. 2nd Applied Neuroscience Meeting, Monterrey, Mexico, 08/04/03-06
      3. Fumee 1 - 1St Futures Meeting - Understanding Anticipatory Systems, Rovereto (Italy), 08/04/10-12
      4. 1st Intl Conf on Social Entrepreneurship & Complexity, Garden City, NY, USA, 08/04/10-12
      5. Emergence In The Physical And Biological World: A Notion In Search Of Clarification, Erice (Italy), 08/04/12-16
      6. BIO_IT World Conf & Expo, Boston, MA, 08/04/28/30
      7. Chaos And Dynamics In Biological Networks, Cargese, Corsica, France, 08/05/05-09
      8. Brittle Fracture and Plastic Slip: from the Atomistic to the Engineering Scale, Udine, Italy, 08/05/26-30
      9. CHAOS2008 Chaotic Modeling and Simulation International Conference, Chania, Crete, Greece, 08/06/03-06
      10. International Conference on Chaos, Complexity & Conflict, Omaha, NE, 08/06/05-07
      11. 4th Organization Studies Summer Workshop: "Embracing Complexity: Advancing Ecological Understanding in Organization Studies", Pissouri, Cyprus, 08/06/05-07
      12. Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Tenth Annual... Applying Systems Biology, San Francisco, CA, 08/06/09-11
      13. AUTOMATA 2008, EPSRC Workshop Cellular Automata Theory and Applications, Bristol, UK, 08/06/12-14
      14. 9th Intl Mathematica Symposium, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 08/06/20-24
      15. The 14th Intl Conf on Auditory Display (ICAD), Paris, France, 08/06/24-27
      16. The 3rd Intl Symp on Knowledge Communication and Peer Reviewing: KCPR 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      17. The 3rd Intl Symp on Knowledge Communication and Conferences: KCC 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      18. 7th Intl Summer School and Conf "Let's Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics", Maribor, Slovenia, 08/06/29-07/13
      19. The 12th World Multi-Conf on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      20. From Animals To Animats 10 - The 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'08), Osaka, Japan, 08/07/07-12
      21. Complex Systems and Social Simulations, CEU Summer University, Budapest, Hungary, 08/07/07-18
      22. 2008 Gordon Research Conf on Oscillations & Dynamic Instabilities in Chemical Systems, Waterville, ME, 08/07/13-18
      23. Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics Models, Udine, Italy, 08/07/14-18
      24. On the Edge: Healthcare in the Age of Complexity, Kansas City, MO, 08/08/03-05
      25. Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 08/08/17-21
      26. 1st Intl Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics and Synchronization (INDS'08), Klagenfurt, Austria, 08/07/18-19
      27. Scratch@MIT,Cambridge, MA, 08/07/24-26
      28. 8th Intl Conf on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems, Brighton, UK, 08/07/31-08/02
      29. Intl Conf DEscribing COmplex Systems (DECOS), Zadar, Croatia, 08/09/03-07

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. 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


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