CHINA RISING: If the 20th was the American century, the 21st may belong to China. Just five years into it, China has become the world�s third-largest trader, one of its fastest-growing economies, a rising military power in Northeast Asia and a global player extending its influence in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. ENERGY: Barely a dozen years ago, when China’s lamps still burned low, the country didn’t need deep-sea oil ports, massive tank farms and a brawny foreign policy to procure oil in far-flung spots. Today, China is an oil-guzzling dragon with a voracious thirst. MILITARY: The course of the 21st century will be determined in part by the relationship between China and the United States. In many ways, relations are healthier than ever. But the two nations remain potential adversaries, plotting in war games how to thwart each other. INTERNET: China pours huge resources into filtering online content, stifling anything that might threaten Communist Party rule. Each incoming user must give a name and address, then hand over identification to a clerk. Closed-circuit TV cameras monitor from overhead. Every computer terminal is loaded with software to track all activity. If a user heads toward […]
TOKYO — The rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say. Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from ‘high anxiety’ and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness. Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations. Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families. The trend is put down to Japanese companies’ attempts to globalise by adopting working practices more closely in line with US and British models. Larger numbers of temporary staff, […]
Brain scans on premature babies reveal abnormalities that might explain why so many suffer mild cognitive difficulties as they grow up. The rate of premature births in the US has increased by more than 30 per cent over the past two decades due to multiple births following IVF treatment. The scans, performed on 113 babies born at between 22 and 29 weeks, show that the more premature a baby, the slower it develops nooks and crannies in the cortex, the outer surface of the brain vital for the most advanced mental capabilities. ‘When premature babies come to us at first, their brains are very smooth, like a coffee bean, but they end up looking like walnuts,’ says David Edwards of Imperial College London, head of the scanning team that scanned the babies. Scans taken at birth revealed that the more premature the baby is, the less ‘walnutty’ its brain is (PLoS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030265). This is crucial, says Edwards, because it is the folds that give the brain the greater surface area it needs to sprout neural connections to improve mental capacity. As the infant brain matures, the growth of the surface area outpaces the overall increase […]
As pump prices soar, the push intensifies to find cheaper and greener options. After a 20-year hiatus, ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, electricity, and other potential fuels are pushing to challenge king gasoline at the pump. But the race is a tricky one. The successful fuel not only has to be cheaper than gasoline, it has to be produced in huge quantities and survive future swings in gas prices. There’s another potential hurdle: Environmentalists want alternatives with smaller greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline. So, it’s not clear that any alternative fuel will cross the finish line – let alone beat gasoline – anytime soon. Analysts worry that, in an eerie repeat of the 1980s, alternative fuels will get going just as the price of oil falls to a level where they can’t compete. Among today’s alternative-fuel contenders, the early leader is ethanol made from corn. ‘Corn ethanol is the one to beat right now,’ says Paul Gallagher, professor of economics at Iowa State University. The economics make sense. Middle East tensions and other factors have pushed the oil price higher: In June it averaged $65 a barrel. At that price, it cost $2.20 to produce a gallon of […]
Preliminary findings in mice suggest that fetal ultrasound might affect newborn brain development. In baby mice whose mothers were exposed to ultrasound for 30 minutes or longer during pregnancy, a small but significant number of nerve cells did not migrate to their proper locations in the brain, Yale University researchers reported in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ‘These results call for a further investigation in larger and slower-developing brains of non-human primates and comprehensive epidemiological studies in humans,’ the team wrote. But Dr. Pasko Rakic, chairman of the Yale department of neurobiology and leader of the study, was quick to offer parents reassurance about the safety of ultrasound — done for the proper reasons — in human pregnancies. ‘If I had a daughter and she was pregnant, I would recommend she had it for medical reasons,’ Rakic said. ‘I couldn’t agree with him more,’ said Dr. Joshua Copel, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale and spokesman for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG). He was not involved in the study. Copel stressed that, to minimize any risk, ‘ultrasound should be performed for medical reasons, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
