Brian Gongol
A pair of studies indicates that skin cells could be made as useful as stem cells -- capable of turning into the hundreds of different types of cells used throughout the body. That's both fascinating news and potentially world-changing science.
It turns out that there's something in the human brain -- at least the male ones -- that doesn't just like to be rewarded, but wants to be rewarded better than others. Makes one wonder whether that has anything to do with how people get along in the workplace.
Jamaica is planning to reach developed-nation status within 25 years. This is different from those Communist five-year plans of Stalin and Mao...it's a project to thoughtfully move the whole country forward. There's a big difference between a dictator disrupting millions of lives in a "Great Leap Forward" and a thoughtful project by a country the size of Iowa to make sure that its government is doing its best to provide the things its people will need over the coming two or three decades. Especially in light of the huge humanitarian disaster in Bangladesh following a single typhoon, we as Americans probably ought to be enthusiastic about any country that tries to move itself out of poverty.
The US dollar just isn't buying much on the world market -- and while that tends to be bad for people who want to import foreign goods, it tends to help those who are exporting American products. A case in point: The CEO at Airbus is worried that the weak dollar could kill his company, because American airlines can't afford to buy as many European-built airplanes as they used to.
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission says that "Chinese espionage in the United States, which now comprises the single greatest threat to U.S. technology, is straining the U.S. counterintelligence establishment."
Tony Blair has shown some good sense as a Mideast diplomat, proposing to find economic solutions to poverty in the Palestinian territories, which will probably be the very best way to reduce violence in that part of the world.
Take a peek at the updated Future Scale. New items since the last update include Florida's population approaching the 30 million mark (around 2030) and India producing its first fighter aircraft (around 2060).
Keywords in this show:
airplanes •
Bangladesh •
biotechnology •
Blair, Tony •
brain •
China •
development •
disasters •
dollar •
espionage •
exchange rates •
future •
intellectual property •
Jamaica •
manufacturing •
Middle East •
neuroscience •
Palestinian territories •
rewards •
stem cells