"You could do it, and we couldn't tell."

Mail-Order Molecules Brew a Terrorism Debate

Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology And Cognitive Science

An NSF/DOC-sponsored report; pre-publication edition released in June 2002

Sections include: Motivation and outlook; Expanding human cognition and communication; Expanding human physical performance; Enhancing group and societal outcomes; National security; Unifying science and education.

The integration and synergy of nano-bio-info-cogno originate from the nanoscale. These converging technologies remap the main societal paths, towards more functional and coarser pathways instead of the less organized and finer mesh we have now, and with an increased focus on people. New patterns are envisioned in working habits, in economic activity, and in human civilization.

... A vast opportunity is created by the convergence of sciences and technologies starting with integration from the nanoscale, having immense individual, societal and historical implications for human development. ... Technology will increasingly dominate the world, as population, resource exploitation, and potential social conflict grow. Therefore, the success of this convergent technologies priority area is crucial to the future of humanity.

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance

Neil Gershenfeld, MIT Media Lab: "Science fact is rapidly outstripping science fiction."

See the article for comments from Paul Saffo, Bruce Sterling, William Shatner, Stewart Brand, and others.

This article falsely awards the concept of a fax machine to Philip K. Dick. In fact, the fax machine was invented and demonstrated in 1843.

Blinded by Science

Nature is providing free, unrestricted access to an important new paper about 'Toumai', an ancient human skull found in Africa.

From NYT Week In Review: The known history of human origins took a vaulting leap back in time: French scientists announced that a seven-million-year-old skull found in the central African country of Chad is the oldest member of the human family yet discovered, by as much as a million years.

Paleontologists think this is the most important fossil find in decades. The skull comes from a region beyond the usual track of fossil hunters and affords a glimpse into the little-known period when human precursors and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor. One surprise is the skull's mosaic of apelike and advanced characteristics, suggesting a pattern of evolution more tangled than the usual linear family trees.

From Nature: At between 6 and 7 million years old, this skull is the earliest known record of the human family. Discovered in Chad in Central Africa, the new find, nicknamed 'Toumaï', comes from the crucial yet little-known interval when the human lineage was becoming distinct from that of chimpanzees. Because of this, the new find will galvanize the field of human origins like no other in living memory -- perhaps not since 1925, when Raymond Dart described the first 'ape-man', Australopithecus africanus, transforming our ideas about human origins forever. A lifetime later, Toumaï raises the stakes once again and the consequences cannot yet be guessed. Dart's classic paper was published in Nature, as have most of the milestones in human origins and evolution. To celebrate the new find, we are proud to offer a selection of ten of the very best from Nature's archives, including Dart's classic paper.

Toumai, the face of the deep | Focus on human origins | _Nature_

What kinds of scientific contributions might come about in response to your book? And when do you think we might see them?

Questions for Stephen Wolfram: Complexity Made Simple

Lanier: A while back I was asked to help Steven Spielberg brainstorm a science fiction movie he intended to make based on the Philip K. Dick short story "Minority Report". A team of "futurists" would imagine what the world might be like in fifty years, and I would be one of the two scientist/technologists on the team.

DJ Spooky: Sonar is one of the largest festivals of electronic music in Europe. Aside from the U.S.'s "Burning Man" Festival that occurs in August, it's one of the main places that international DJ culture can explore the outter limits of mix culture. But that's an understatement. To put it bluntly: it's THE festival that determines the taste and style of the currents of electronic that flow through the world's underground and avant-garde music in the early 21st century.

Review of _Linked_: We all know our world is held together through a vast network of connections, and we're all coming to realize that it's becoming more connected and interdependent with every passing day. The question is how? In what ways are we altering our lives with this network, and how do we deal with the negative aspects of the overwhelming connectivity?

Enter Albert-László Barabási and his new book, Linked: The New Science of Networks. Underneath our online world of seemingly random connections, the cells of our bodies and our social ties lies a network of hubs and ever-growing links with surprisingly not-random patterns.

On a related note, DJ Spooky has an excellent new CD (released in late May) called "Modern Mantra" that fans of drum and bass, hip-hop, ambient, dub, jazz, and other good music will enjoy. (Spooky has a copy of Douglas Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach_ on his bookshelf!)

Jaron Lanier, DJ Spooky and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in 21C Magazine

New visualization techniques could help. Philip Ball discovers, among other things, how to plot a seven-dimensional graph.

Oh, yeah. Welcome to the future. How tame of Spielberg to limit the visual content on computer displays in "Minority Report" to a measly four dimensions.

Rudy Rucker should be impressed.

(Subscription required.)

Data visualization: Picture this | Nature, 04 July 2002 [PDF]

We have discovered that solutions of caffeine are effective in killing or repelling slugs and snails ... Because caffeine is a natural product, it has potential as an environmentally acceptable alternative toxicant for the control of slugs and snails on food crops.

Here's the Nature paper. Subscription required.

Pest Control: Caffeine as a repellent for slugs and snails

... Researchers say they do not know how caffeine kills slugs and snails, but that it appears to work as a neurotoxin, as slugs sprayed directly with caffeine display uncoordinated writhing, kind of like somebody who has had one too many double espressos.

Killer Java

The observations of Albert-Laszlo Barabasi about networks have broad applications in business. In an interview, he explained a few of the implications.

How One Decision Affects Many Players