CLICK OF THE MONTH:
INSTITUTE OF IDEAS
http://www.instituteofideas.com
Why do people have a morbid fascination with death and dying? Is marriage disappearing?
Should humans experiment on animals?
These are a few of the questions under consideration by members of the
Institute of Ideas, a three-year-old organization founded in London to promote
"thought-provoking discussions on some of the big issues facing humanity today."
The Institute sponsors live events such as the upcoming Roundtable
Rumbles at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (August 10-16) and panel discussions on George
Orwell at the Edinburgh Book Festival (August 13-23).
The Web site offers transcripts of conference papers and previous
discussions, such as the debate between Gregory Stock, author of REDESIGNING HUMANS,
and Francis Fukuyama, author of OUR POSTHUMAN FUTURE, on the ethics of
genetically altering our children.
REASONS NOT TO SWITCH TO HYDROGEN-FUELED CARS
Switching from gasoline-powered cars to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could be
expensive, inefficient, and environmentally dangerous, warn two separate teams of
researchers.
Hydrogen cars are being pursued because they could potentially reduce
air pollution, slow down global warming, and reduce dependence on imported oil, according
to Alex Farrell of the University of California at Berkeley and David Keith of Carnegie
Mellon. But if the hydrogen is produced from oil and coal, carbon dioxide is released that
would have to be captured and stored.
Farrell and Keith point out that technologies are already available to
improve efficiency and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases caused by automobiles
that could be applied at a fraction of the cost of switching to hydrogen.
Meanwhile, a team of Caltech researchers warns that hydrogen leaking
into the atmosphere could wind up disrupting the climate and attacking the ozone layer.
Hydrogen cars, production facilities, and transport systems might leak some hydrogen into
the atmosphere, where it could increase moisture in the stratosphere, cool the upper
atmosphere, and (indirectly) destroy ozone.
SOURCES: University of California, Berkeley:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/17_fuels.shtml
California Institute of Technology:
http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12405.html
SCIENCE magazine, http://www.sciencemag.org/
CONFERENCE VOLUME
NOW AVAILABLE
The volume of scholarly essays prepared for the World Future Society's
2003 conference may now be purchased from the Futurist Bookshelf.
The volume, 21ST CENTURY OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES: AN AGE OF
DESTRUCTION OR AN AGE OF TRANSFORMATION, was edited by historian and
futures-scholar Howard F. Didsbury Jr., and includes papers by some of
today's leading futures thinkers.
Among the outstanding authors are communitarian advocate Amitai Etzioni,
educator Donald Louria, sociologist Wendell Bell, diplomat J. Ørstrøm Møller,
technology-assessment expert Vary Coates, and many others.
ORDER 21ST CENTURY OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES (ISBN
0930242580; $29.95 reg.; $24.95 mem.): http://www.wfs.org/wfsblurbs.htm#century
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NEW TOOL FOR ASTEROID HUNTERS
Skywatchers on the lookout for rogue impactors have a new tool in their kit: a powerful
camera called Quest (Quasar Equatorial Survey) at Caltech's Mt. Palomar Observatory.
Already, Quest has discovered a near-Earth asteroid about 820 feet (250 meters) in
diameter.
"We expect the new camera to increase the efficiency of detection
of near-Earth asteroids by some three to four times that of the camera it replaced,"
says principal investigator Raymond Bambery. "This will make a major contribution to
NASA's goal of discovering more than 90% of near-Earth objects that are greater than one
kilometer in diameter by 2008."
Asteroids of that size might not do as much damage as once thought,
according to another team of researchers, from Imperial College London and the Russian
Academy of Sciences.
The team created a computer simulation to predict whether the asteroids
would explode in the atmosphere or hit the surface of the earth. In an article published
in NATURE, the researchers tentatively concluded that these larger impactors are more
likely to break up in the atmosphere than was previously thought.
SOURCES: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2003/99.cfm
Imperial College London, http://www.imperial.ac.uk/p4317.htm
WORLD'S FASTEST FUTURIST
Congratulations to Andy Hines, ideation leader for Dow Chemical, who won the
first annual 5K Run/Walk to the Future, an event organized by Police Futurists
International for the World Future Society's 2003 annual meeting in San Francisco.
Fleet-footed Hines was also one of the busier futurists at the meeting,
conducting a preconference course as well as leading two sessions.
A report on the conference will appear in the November-December issue of
THE FUTURIST, which mails to subscribers after October 6.
