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Tomorrow in Brief
edited by Cindy Wagner

Simulating Driver Behavior

Driver-assistance technologies are great, but too much automation in a car--too many buttons to push--can lead to driver distraction, frustration, and accidents. In the future, vehicles will have intelligent human-machine interfaces that give drivers only the most relevant information in any situation. Researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute are developing driver-assistance and information systems that can be controlled with the fewest commands possible, keeping drivers less distracted. To achieve this ideal, the researchers are working in an "empathetic vehicle" simulator with an array of cameras and sensors to record driver behavior, even the motion of eyelids drooping with fatigue. Smart cars will eventually know when not to alert you to incoming e-mail--such as when the roads are getting slippery or traffic is getting congested.

Source: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Hansastrasse 27C, Munich 80686, Germany. Web site www.fraunhofer.de.

Digital Archive of Dying Languages

Half the world's 7,000 languages may die out during the twenty-first century. A new effort to digitally record the most vulnerable languages offers hope that the cultural information embedded in them does not disappear as well. The U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities and National Science Foundation recently awarded 12 fellowships and 22 institutional grants in their joint campaign to record threatened languages before they become extinct. Digital documentation of more than 60 of the world's threatened languages is now under way, including Native American languages such as Washo, Navajo, Comanche, Apache, and Plains Indian sign language. The work could be a boon not just to future language historians, but also to contemporary anthropological and cultural research. "In this modern age of computers and our growing technological capabilities, we can preserve, assemble, analyze, and understand unprecedented riches of linguistic and cultural information," says NEH Chair Bruce L. Cole.

Source: National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia 22230. Web site www.nsf.gov.

Health Hazard from Shrinking Sea

Once the fourth-largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea has been shrinking steadily for the past 40 years. The death of the Aral will have deadly impacts on millions of people living nearby, warn health and environmental experts. As the Aral's edges recede, salt-contaminated dust is created that has grown increasingly toxic with pollution from pesticides and chemicals. One result is massive human health problems, including increases of liver, kidney, and respiratory diseases. Tuberculosis cases have increased 70% in the last decade in the former port of Muynak, and the problem will only worsen as multi-drug-resistant strains of TB increase: In Uzbekistan, a 2003 study found that 30% of new cases of TB were drug resistant, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). "Unfortunately the lack of a strategic significance of the region within the international political agenda will always keep the Aral Sea region at the bottom of the priority list," says Usman Buranov of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea.

Sources: Integrated Regional Information Networks, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations, Palais des Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. Web site www.irinnews.org. Medecins Sans Frontieres, www.doctorswithoutborders.org. International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, www.aral.uz.

AIDS Training on Trains

Ignorance of sexual health issues among rural people, plus accelerating migration into cities, equals an HIV/AIDS problem in the making in China. Though the number of Chinese living with HIV/AIDS fell between 2003 and 2005, it is believed that more people are developing clinical AIDS as the epidemic spreads from high-risk groups to the general population. The government is now taking bold steps to educate millions of rural migrants, who are typically shy about discussing sexual issues, notes a UN Population Fund report. One initiative is to turn trains and stations into "classrooms" for a captive audience--an average migrant's journey from the provinces to cities like Beijing may be 20 hours. On nine major transit hubs, rail workers are trained to distribute information and answer questions, while video screens broadcast HIV/AIDS prevention messages.

Source: United Nations Population Fund, 220 East 42nd Street, New York, New York 10017. Web site www.unfpa.org.

Cashing in on Organic Crops

Grain farmers could make more money by switching to organic crops, according to a study by U.S. Agricultural Research Service scientists and economists. The study, conducted at the Swan Lake Research Farm in Minnesota, analyzed both the economic risks and the transition effects of a switch to organic farming. Using data showing that organic crops earn more than conventional crops ($14 more per bushel for soybeans), the researchers used computer simulations to project costs, yields, and risks over a 20-year period. They found that farmers would net $50 to $60 more per acre a year by going organic.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, George Washington Carver Center, 5601 Sunnyside Avenue, Beltsville, Maryland 20705. Web site www.ars.usda.gov.

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