Growing up in Peoria, Ill., in the 1950s, Lance Rodewald caught ‘measles and mumps and probably German measles,’ and though he doesn’t remember suffering through any of them, his wife, Patricia, assures him they were all ‘absolutely miserable’ experiences. She knows because she had them, too. Infectious diseases were a midcentury rite of passage. But as Rodewald grew up, he watched those childhood terrors retreat. Doctors started vaccinating widely in the ’60s and ’70s, and by the time he was old enough to have kids of his own, it seemed the only common illness left for American parents to worry about was chickenpox. Scientists developed a vaccine for that as well. But even after his kids made it safely to adolescence, Rodewald, 52, didn’t assume that the era of infectious disease in kids in the United States was over. As a pediatrician and director of the Centers for Disease Control’s National Immunization Program, he had looked at the data-and seen that ‘all these diseases are just a plane ride away.’ Or, in the case of the mumps, which is now tearing through the heartland for the first time in decades, nine plane rides away. That’s how many connecting […]
TOYOTA CITY, Japan — Satoshi Ogiso doesn’t look or act like a brash automobile executive. With an ill-fitting suit and spiky hairdo, his hands flutter bashfully across his face as he talks of ‘difficulties,’ ‘challenges’ and ‘problems.’ The 45-year-old engineer refuses to brag about his accomplishments. But as chief engineer of the hybrid Prius, Ogiso has helped Toyota revolutionize the auto industry. By making huge long-term investments in gas-saving technologies that U.S. automakers pooh-poohed, Toyota has proved that corporate environmental consciousness can be wildly profitable. ‘What has made this revolution possible is that Toyota is a company with a focus on technology, because we think innovation is the future of our company,’ Ogiso said in an interview. ‘So we cannot fall behind. We are trying very hard, and it is very difficult.’ Ogiso’s humility is typical of Toyota. Its world headquarters in Toyota City, a quiet industrial city 150 miles southwest of Tokyo, has a deceptively modest demeanor: The nondescript, 13-story building looks like it might house a midsize insurance firm in any American suburb. But Toyota is expected to overtake the nearly bankrupt General Motors this year as the world’s largest automaker. While GM […]
MONTEREY, California — The record Atlantic hurricane season last year can be attributed to global warming, several top experts, including a leading U.S. government storm researcher, said on Monday. ‘The hurricanes we are seeing are indeed a direct result of climate change and it’s no longer something we’ll see in the future, it’s happening now,’ said Greg Holland, a division director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Holland told a packed hall at the American Meteorological Society’s 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology that the wind and warmer water conditions that fuel storms that form in the Caribbean are ‘increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There seems to be no other conclusion you can logically draw.’ His conclusion will be debated throughout the week-long conference, as other researchers present opposing papers that say changing wind and temperature conditions in the tropics are due to natural events, not the accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions clouding the Earth. Many of the experts gathered in the coastal city of Monterey, California, are federal employees. The Bush administration contends global warming is an unproven theory. While many of the conference’s 500 scientists seem to agree […]
BERLIN — Internet users around the world send an estimated 60 billion emails every day and many of these are spam or scam attempts, business leaders said on Tuesday. Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Kai-Uwe Ricke said cyber criminals were growing more active and sophisticated, and the vast email traffic meant industry, government and Internet users had to be vigilant and work together. ‘This figure was new for me as well — worldwide there are around 60 billion emails sent every day,’ Telekom Chief Executive Kai-Uwe Ricke told an Internet security conference. ‘A large percent of it is spam,’ Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer added. German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned of the recent growth in ‘phishing’ — fishing for passwords, often via fake emails that especially target online banking. ‘In 2005, the attempts at phishing (globally) dramatically increased, by 300 percent compared with the previous year,’ he said. ‘According to international estimates, phishing is successful with up to 5 percent of all Internet users.’ He said this success rate caused inestimable economic damage worldwide. Internet security firm Symantec Corp registered some 8 million phishing attempts last year. Germany’s BKA federal crime office said this […]
Beijing’s desire for a Saudi-fed strategic oil reserve in China underlines the Asian nation’s drive to secure crude supplies amid rocketing energy prices, analysts here said. However, they added that any deal between the two nations was unlikely to put pressure on global crude inventories. Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed a proposal to set up an oil stockpile in China during a weekend visit to Saudi Arabia, a Chinese official said Sunday. China plans to fill the first of its strategic oil reserve facilities by the year end, a senior planning official said in March, adding that three other reserves would be ready in 2007-2008. China had planned to begin accumulating oil reserves, which are to be used in the event of an emergency, last year. However with oil prices soaring to record high points — New York crude matched its record high of 75.35 dollars per barrel on Monday — China has been forced to delay its plan by almost two years. China knows it cannot delay for ever with its energy demand accelerating owing to the country’s economic boom. Consumption of oil in China is forecast to jump 6.0 percent this year […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
