In This Issue:
Soccer-Playing Nanobots
Returning Jail Inmates to Society
Great Salt Lake Laboratory
Click of the Month: Keck Futures Initiative
What's next in THE FUTURIST

SOCCER-PLAYING NANOBOTS

The skill, dexterity, and raw athleticism of soccer players make them an excellent model to test the prowess of robots in RoboCup, an annual robot-soccer competition sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The game has shrunk to nano-scale levels, as this year’s RoboCup, open to the public, features the second annual nanosoccer games.

In an arena the size of a microchip, with "television" coverage from optical microscopes, three student teams will vie in such soccer drills as the two-millimeter dash, a slalom race between polymer posts, and nanoball-handling exercises. The competitors are from Carnegie Mellon University and the U.S. Naval Academy in the United States and the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The goal of the competition is to foster innovation in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics. RoboCup will be held May 25 to 27 at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An upcoming U.S. Open nanosoccer competition will be a precursor to the first official Nanogram League nanosoccer competition at the 2009 RoboCup in Austria.

DETAILS:NIST

RETURNING JAIL INMATES TO SOCIETY

Local jails in the United States handle 9 million individuals a year, far more than state and federal prisons handle, including many repeat offenders. Preparing them to return to their communities successfully--and to reduce recidivism--is a challenge for which most jails have limited resources to meet. A new report from the Urban Institute offers help for improving that jail-to-community transition.

Unlike prisons and penitentiaries, jails have high population turnover, with 81% of inmates incarcerated for less than a month and only 4% staying longer than six months. While this means less time that inmates are separated from families and communities, it also means less time for jails to help them overcome the problems that brought them to prison in the first place, such as drug or alcohol addiction or lack of education.

The solution, according to the Urban Institute's report, is to strengthen the partnerships between jails and their communities, such as bringing in health providers to treat the chronically ill and encouraging workforce development agencies to offer employment services and help in dealing with red tape.

"Imagine the headway against the cycle of crime and incarceration if we shifted from just processing people locally to linking ex-inmates to services and programs that already exist in the community," says Arthur Wallenstein, director of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, one of the reports' sponsors.

SOURCE: The Urban Institute
DOWNLOAD "Life after Lockup: Improving Reentry from Jail to the Community" by Amy L. Solomon et al.

GREAT SALT LAKE LABORATORY

The extreme, hypersaline ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake is being turned into a biology and chemistry laboratory, thanks to the creation of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College in Utah.

An ancient inland sea, Great Salt Lake serves human and ecological needs: It is a critical site for migratory birds as well as an important resource for industry and recreation, yet it has received little academic attention, according to director Bonnie Baxter, an associate professor of biology at Westminster.

The Institute will promote K-12 science and environmental education as well as multidisciplinary collaborative research. One current project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, will involve sequencing the genes of the lake directly from water samples.

DETAILS: Great Salt Lake Institute.

CLICK OF THE MONTH:
KECK FUTURES INITIATIVE

The goal of the National Academies' five-year-old Keck Futures Initiative is to promote interdisciplinary research and enhanced communication among researchers, the organizations that fund them, the universities that host them, and the communities they serve.

The 15 recipients splitting $1 million in research grants this year will focus on improving human health and life-span, with research topics ranging from the comparative cellular biology of aging to the use of robotics in diagnostics.

The Futures Initiative's competitive grants are intended to "provide researchers an opportunity to explore new research areas, learn new skills, and/or collaborate across disciplines, in cases where this would not otherwise be possible." The Initiative also honors journalists for communicating topics in science, engineering, medicine, and other subjects to the general public.

Coming up in the July-August issue of THE FUTURIST:

* "The 21st-Century Writer" (cover story): The Internet is forcing traditional print publishers to innovate or perish. The same might be true of the written word itself. FUTURIST Senior Editor Patrick Tucker gleans insights from cutting-edge industry thinkers, including publishing magnate and tech guru Tim O’Reilly, on how future authors and publishers need to adapt.

Plus:

* "Consumer Trends in Three Different 'Worlds'" by Andy Hines

* "Cybercrime in the Year 2025" by Gene Stephens

* "Futurizing Business Education" by Paul Bracken

* "Tribute to Sir Arthur C. Clarke" by José Luis Cordeiro

And coming up in the fall:

* "Why You Are Here": Last month we invited you to tell us a brief story about why you began thinking seriously about the future. Our goal was to share your views and experiences with others, such as prospective members. We were so impressed with your responses that we have chosen several to publish in THE FUTURIST. Visit www.wfs.org for a preview. There's still time to submit your own story to FUTURIST UPDATE’s editor, Cindy Wagner, mailto:cwagner@wfs.org, or post a comment at Hosaa's Blog: http://hosaasblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/futurists-why-are-you-here.html