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Thursday, May 29, 2003
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Dirk Laureyssens writes: The storage of knowledge is one of the mysteries in science. Knowledge and consciousness are some of the most important 'phenomena' in understanding life. So what's the mechanism behind them? This mechanism must explain: observation (collection of data), storage (brain-structure), access (memory and different brain-waves), tagging (hierarchic values or weight), repositioning of values (learning),, emotions (love, art, anger, ...), time-appreciation and planning (past, NOW, future), reasoning (abstract, semantic), intelligence, communication (reproduction/interaction), filtering (collective unconsciousness, unconsciousness, and consciousness =choice/free will). The central question is that of storage, coupling and intertwining sensed data, and self-generate tagging and priorities. (05/29/03) | |
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New York Times: Environment -- With less than a month left in the legislative session, environmentalists and others sought today to pressure Albany's political leaders to address the cleanup of the state's most polluted industrial sites. Twenty-four environmental and community groups signed an open letter to Gov. George E. Pataki; the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno; and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, calling on them to refinance the state's Superfund program, which ran out of money in March 2001. They also called for a separate cleanup program for abandoned industrial sites known as brownfields. At a news conference at the Legislative Office Building, environmentalists noted that the state Superfund program was one of the oldest in the nation, spurred by the public outcry 25 years ago over toxic wastes buried at Love Canal in Niagara Falls. "It just seems that somewhere along the way, New York lost its vision for dealing with our toxic waste legacy," said Val Washington, executive director of Environmental Advocates. "It needs to be reinvigorated." (05/28/03) | |
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SCIENCE NEWS --Honeybees kept just a bit cool when young turn into lousy dancers. That's a serious problem for adult honeybees, explains Jürgen Tautz of the Universität Würzburg in Germany. When a worker bee comes home after finding food, she does a little dance to communicate the location of her discovery. A bad dancer can leave her nest mates without clear directions or much motivation to visit her windfall. Bees that develop in incubators at the cool end of honeybees' hive temperatures didn't dance as well as bees kept at the temperature in the upper range, report Tautz and his colleagues in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Also, the chilly-pupahood bees didn't perform as well as other bees in a learning test. (05/29/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Space ministers have weighed in with a huge investment package to secure the future of Europe's launch industry. Over a billion euros of public and private money will be pumped into the sector to overhaul its manufacturing and marketing programmes. The package, agreed at a European Space Agency (Esa) meeting in Paris, will also see the Russian Soyuz rocket being offered as a launch vehicle to satellite customers, probably from 2006. "The decisions reached are among the most important in years," said Edelgard Bulmahn, the German minister who chaired the Esa meeting. ... Space ministers on Tuesday also unfroze 124 million euros in contributions to the International Space Station (ISS). And they noted the agreements to press ahead with the Galileo satellite navigation system, scheduled to be operational by 2008. Galileo is designed to girdle the globe with 30 satellites in medium Earth orbit, comprising 27 operational satellites and three reserves, plus two control centres on the ground. Ministers also took steps to tie Esa closer to the European Union. "This is a great day for Europe in general and its space community in particular," Antonio Rodota, Esa director-general, said after the meeting. (05/29/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Global warming could have a disastrous effect on birds that migrate large distances to and from Europe, say researchers. However, some "short-haul" species could benefit substantially, they add. ... Over the past two decades, scientists have noticed increases in spring temperatures in temperate areas of Europe. They wanted to try to work out whether small changes in temperature could be a significant factor in their migratory behaviour - and perhaps even a threat to certain species as a result. ... Long-distance migrants - such as those which winter south of the Sahara - are leaving earlier in the year. Dr Jenni said: "For instance, the pied flycatcher, willow warbler and garden warbler now fly south almost a week earlier." He suggested that some of these birds might be caught out by a narrowing window of opportunity to cross the Sahara. "The migration could be constrained by the onset of the dry season in the Sahel region. This region suffers serious drought conditions. "Migrant species would want to cross the region before the drought had started. "The spring arrival of these species and the start of their breeding season is also constrained - so they are losing out to species with shorter migration patterns." He added: "Global warming could be a serious threat to some long-distance migrants and one reason for the decline of such species in Europe." (05/29/03) | |
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CNN Business -- The highest-paid executives of Silicon Valley's largest companies took home $1 billion last year, according to an annual executive compensation survey. The total, which included salary, bonus and estimated stock options gains for 754 executives, was only about one-fourth of the $3.8 billion in 2001 and one-fifth of the record $4.7 billion in 2000, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday in its yearly study of area executives' pay. Thomas M. Siebel, chief executive of Siebel Systems, was first in the survey with income of $34.6 million, from exercising options he had acquired since he founded his e-business software company. Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems placed second on the list, pulling in about $25.8 million last year after cashing in $25.2 million in options. Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel, came in third with $19.4 million. Peter Calpine of Calpine Energy and John Gifford of Maxim Integrated Products rounded out the top five. (05/29/03) | |
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CNN Business -- There's no excuse for bad customer service, long queues and rude cashiers at the checkout. Some retailers know it, and they have a quick-fix: Send shoppers to the do-it-yourself aisle and let them scan, bag, and pay for their purchases themselves. While several grocery chains such as Kroger, Albertson's and A&P rolled out the self-scan checkouts a few years ago, it's only recently that U.S. mass merchandisers have also appeared keen on the concept. ... It's Keith Lichtman's second trip to the Home Depot in Long Island City. He's redoing his kitchen and bathroom and needed to buy bathroom tiles and accessories. He's a self-checkout neophyte who didn't want to suffer through the long wait at the regular checkout for just a handful of items. In five minutes Lichtman had paid for all his purchases and was walking away with bag in hand. "This was good, easy to use, and I would definitely use it again," he said. Ginger Johnson's first experience with self checkout also seemed to go smoothly."It's fun, easy to follow and it makes more sense when you're buying a few items," she said. The Long Island City store has four checkout terminals and one attendant station for a staff member. The terminal's computerized voice walks customers through the process, in either English or Spanish. Customers scan their items, put them into a bag in the bagging station, and pay with either cash or credit. NCR said a four station system with one supervisor's station costs about $100,000. (05/29/03) | |
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Andrew McKillop writes: Like it or not, the world is moving rapidly to absolute peaks in the capacity to find, prove and extract ever more oil and gas. The time to reach Peak Oil, the maximum possible production rate for ‘all liquids’, that is including heavy oil and tarsand or bitumin based oil as well as conventional crude, is probably less than 7 years depending on how world and regional demand profiles evolve. This can be understood by just a few figures. The ASPO organisation suggests that world peak oil production will be around 83 Mbd. The USA with about 285 M population consumes about 20 Mbd. When or if China, with its current 1.25 Billion population, achieved today’s rates of per capita oil consumption in the USA it would need slightly more than 80 Mbd. When or if India, with its current 1.1 Billion population and, like China experiencing explosive industrial investment and output growth, achieved the same levels of oil consumption then India would need about 70 Mbd. Together, China and India would require about 150 Mbd, if we assumed they experienced zero population growth, but continued the current and rapid expansion of their automobile, aerospace, military, consumer manufacturing and urban development sectors, and made no ‘energy transition’ away from oil. Even if the USA made that transition, and achieved a complete replacement of its current oil utilisation by non oil, or domestic-only oil and other sources, the net increase of world oil demand due to China and India attaining 2003 levels of US per capital oil demand would be some 130 Mbd. In theory, and it is pure theory, this could take place in not much more than 30 years, for example if China and India made the same progress to industrialisation and urbanization achieved by South Korea through 1965-2000. In fact, not only will China and India increase their oil intensity per capita, from levels that today are far less than one-tenth those of the USA, but for some while they will also experience continuing population growth, just like the USA. If we assume that conventional urban-industrial development in a globalised, growth economy is inevitable and unstoppable then future oil demand could in theory attain the fantastic levels suggested above – but supply certainly will not. (05/29/03) | |
6:31:06 AM 
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
5/29/2003; 6:32:27 AM.
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