Category : Science & Technology

Reports of Forced Abortions Fuel Push to End Chinese Law

Recent reports of women being coerced into late-term abortions by local officials have thrust China’s population control policy into the spotlight and ignited an outcry among policy advisers and scholars who are seeking to push central officials to fundamentally change or repeal a law that penalizes families for having more than one child. Pressure to alter the policy is building on other fronts as well, as economists say that China’s aging population and dwindling pool of young, cheap labor will be a significant factor in slowing the nation’s economic growth rate.

“An aging working population is resulting in a labor shortage, a less innovative and less energetic economy, and a more difficult path to industrial upgrading,” said He Yafu, a demographics analyst. China’s population of 1.3 billion is the world’s largest, and the central government still seems focused on limiting that number through the one-child policy, Mr. He said. Abolishing the one-child policy, though, might not be enough to bring the birthrate up to a “healthy” level because of other factors, he said.

Read it all and make sure you have perused this earlier article also.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, * International News & Commentary, Asia, China, Foreign Relations, Health & Medicine, Law & Legal Issues, Life Ethics, Marriage & Family, Politics in General, Science & Technology, Women

ABC's Nightline–Social Media Spurring Plastic Surgery

Triana Lavey was about to undergo a radical transformation. And she was doing it for a radical reason.

She wanted to look better online.

With the help of Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, she was changing her chin, her nose and the shape of her face.

Lavey is a 37-year-old television producer in Los Angeles. For work and socially, she spends a lot of time on Skype, Facebook and other sites. She said she didn’t like the face staring back at her from her computer screen.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Health & Medicine, Psychology, Science & Technology

(BBC) Inactivity 'killing as many as smoking'

A lack of exercise is now causing as many deaths as smoking across the world, a study suggests.

The report, published in the Lancet to coincide with the build-up to the Olympics, estimates that about a third of adults are not doing enough physical activity, causing 5.3m deaths a year.

That equates to about one in 10 deaths from diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and breast and colon cancer.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Health & Medicine, Psychology, Science & Technology

New technologies spread arrival of robots into our lives

Robots, it seems, are everywhere ”” ranging from microbots, which are tiny black dots to the naked eye, to bots that resemble bees and bats, to gigantic models.

Titan, a 9-foot rental robot, is being carted out at marketing events, even a Rihanna concert, to mingle with the masses. New York University graduate student Marko Manriquez recently built a robot that makes burritos. And scientists at University of Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku Labs designed a robot that specializes in, and wins, rock-paper-scissors games.

Experts predict that within 10 years, general-purpose robots ”” at $25,000 to $30,000 per unit ”” will perform house chores while consumers are at work; or serve as butlers at cocktail parties. “We are putting robots into people’s lives,” says Sarjoun Skaff, co-founder and chief technology officer of Bossa Nova Robotics, which is developing a robot maid modeled after The Jetsons’ Rosie for less than $5,000.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Science & Technology

[Nature] Physicists declare victory in Higgs hunt

“It’s really an incredible thing that it’s happened in my lifetime,” said Peter Higgs, the theorist after whom the boson is named, struggling not to cry in front of the crowd.

The announcement comes nearly 50 years after Higgs and four other theorists predicted the existence of the boson. The particle was originally invoked to explain why particles called W and Z bosons have mass, whereas photons ”” particles of light ”” do not. W and Z bosons mediate the weak nuclear force (which governs certain types of radioactive decay), and photons mediate the electromagnetic force. So by explaining the difference in their masses, the Higgs boson allowed physicists to unite the two forces into a single ‘electroweak’ force.

Read it all – there is a report from Reuters and the Huffington Post explains it all

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Science & Technology

[BBC News] Higgs excitement at fever pitch

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are expected to reveal on Wednesday the strongest evidence yet for the Higgs particle.

Anticipation is high and rumours have been rife about the announcement……

But why has so much time and effort been invested in detecting the boson?

“The Higgs boson gives other particles mass, which sounds simple,” Tara Shears, a particle physicist at Liverpool University, told BBC News.

“But if particles didn’t have mass, you wouldn’t have stars, you wouldn’t have galaxies, you wouldn’t even have atoms. The Universe would be entirely different.”

Read and watch it all if you wish

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Science & Technology

In One Anglican Parish, a Religious blessing for tools and gadgets

A variety of tools and gadgets will be presented at St Paul’s Anglican Church on Sunday morning to celebrate the business end of the financial year.

St Paul’s assistant priest reverend Mark Vincent said everything from shovels, trolleys, mobile phones and tablets are welcome at the ceremony.

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, * Culture-Watch, Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Provinces, Parish Ministry, Religion & Culture, Science & Technology

Simulator shows young drivers the risks of distraction

One Simple Decision, created by Virtual Driver Interactive Inc. (VDI), one of the nation’s largest driving simulator manufacturers, seeks to modify driver behavior by showing drivers what can happen if they have a crash while driving under the influence or texting while driving. It combines simulated driving and interactions with police, judges and emergency medical personnel in an intense, 20-minute experience featuring a real judge, actual sheriff’s deputies and EMTs.

Harry Mochel, now 19, of Rye, N.Y., experienced One Simple Decison about a year ago at a private driver’s education school in Rye. “I’d been driving for a little while already,” he says. “My parents had heard about it and said you should try it.”

He says he was “driving” along on the simulator. “It tells you to start texting, so I took out my phone and started texting,” he says. “I ended up crashing into a stop sign and got into a head-on collision. It’s crazy to see how easy it was.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Psychology, Science & Technology, Teens / Youth, Travel

(Techcrunch) Crowd-funded Robots Are On Their Way Says ”˜Mr China’

There’s nothing like a good conference to create opportunities for new deals, and F.ounders last week in New York was just such an event. Indeed, on the panel I ran about the international tech scene, Dimitry Grishin, the co-founder and chief executive of Russian e-mail and social networking giant Mail.ru, sat next to Liam Casey, CEO of PCH International, a man described as “Mr China” for his ability to make, ship and deliver just about any piece of hardware, including some for a well known tech brand you’re probably using right now.

This was perhaps more than fortuitous. For Grishin had that day announced his plans to invest in a personal robotics fund. Grishin Robotics will have $25 million to play with, searching for personal robotics technology and startups catering to everyday people.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Economy, Globalization, Science & Technology

(CNN Light Years Blog) A Challenger Daughter's journey to know her hero Dad

Joy [McNair] was just 18 months old in 1986 when the unthinkable happened and the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. Her father, astronaut Ronald McNair, and his six colleagues lost their lives, prompting President Reagan to call them true American heroes.

Now a 27-year-old Washington-based attorney, Joy experiences Father’s Day very much like any other day.

“I’ve never had Father’s Day to celebrate. So in a weird way it’s not something that I feel a loss for….”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Children, History, Marriage & Family, Men, Psychology, Science & Technology, Women

(New Yorker) Jonah Lehrer–Why Smart People are So Stupid

For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this [A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?] and analyzing our answers. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents””reason was our Promethean gift””Kahneman, the late Amos Tversky, and others, including Shane Frederick (who developed the bat-and-ball question), demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe.

When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. Asked about the bat and the ball, we forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort.

Although Kahneman is now widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, his work was dismissed for years. Kahneman recounts how one eminent American philosopher, after hearing about his research, quickly turned away, saying, “I am not interested in the psychology of stupidity.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Anthropology, Education, Psychology, Science & Technology, Theology

Pittsburgh's Next Comeback

Pittsburgh is beginning to restore its long-dormant reputation for innovation and entrepreneurial excellence.

It was here that high-profile entrepreneurs the likes of Andrew Carnegie and George Westinghouse built companies that came to define entire industries and generate vast wealth. But the region’s emergence as an industrial center came at a price: a large-company mentality took hold and lingered for decades, even as the foundations of its manufacturing economy began to crumble.

As recently as the 1980s, the notion of working for a large, stable company was more socially acceptable than risking failure by starting a company. That attitude has begun to change, and Pittsburgh’s entrepreneurial spirit is stirring anew. Hundreds of startups have emerged in recent years, producing everything from medical devices to data storage equipment to online shoe-fitting software.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, History, Psychology, Science & Technology, Urban/City Life and Issues

(NPR) As Drone Strikes Increase, So Do Concerns Over Their Use

Without question, drones have become the U.S. weapon of choice in the fight against terrorism. Counterterrorism officials say they’ve come to rely on the pilotless aircraft for their surveillance capability and what officials say is precision targeting. That reliance has led to greater use in the past couple of years, especially in Pakistan and Yemen.

John Bellinger, a State Department legal adviser during the George W. Bush administration, says there are increasing concerns about the frequency of drone attacks.

“We have seen the Obama administration growing more sensitive to the concern that they themselves may be accused of violating international law and more concerned about use by other countries,” he says.

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Anglican Provinces, Church of England (CoE), Defense, National Security, Military, Ethics / Moral Theology, Science & Technology, Theology

(CNET) U.S. tablet usage hits 'critical mass,' ComScore reports

In just the two years since the release of Apple’s iPad, the U.S. tablet market has reached a “critical mass,” with nearly one in four smartphone owners also using a tablet in the three-month period ending in April, according to data released by market researcher ComScore.

Tablet use among smartphone owners has more than doubled in the past year, going from 9.7 percent last year to 23.6 percent this year, ComScore found. By comparison, only 10.4 percent of feature phone owners also use a tablet, “suggesting that smartphone ownership is highly predictive of tablet adoption in the current market,” comScore said.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Science & Technology

(AP) Doctors use Facebook, Twitter, email to connect with patients

Is your doctor a technophobe? Increasingly, the answer may be no. There’s a stereotype that says doctors shun technology that might threaten patients’ privacy and their own pocketbooks. But a new breed of physicians is texting health messages to patients, tracking disease trends on Twitter, identifying medical problems on Facebook pages and communicating with patients through email.

So far, those numbers are small. Many doctors still cling to pen and paper, and are most comfortable using e-technology to communicate with each other ”” not with patients. But from the nation’s top public health agency, to medical clinics in the heartland, some physicians realize patients want more than a 15-minute office visit and callback at the end of the day.

Far from Silicon Valley and East Coast high-tech hubs, Kansas City pediatrician Natasha Burgert offers child-rearing tips on her blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, and answers patients’ questions by email and text messages.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Health & Medicine, Science & Technology

(NY Times Beliefs) Across Religions, Persistent Battles Over What the Faithful May Read

…the [recent Margaret Farley] episode raises anew the question, always lurking in the cathedral, of who decides what we’re allowed to read, and how we’re supposed to read it. In religion, who controls the books?

In the Reformation, Protestants were persecuted for making the Bible available in vernacular translations, so that laypeople, in addition to priests, could read it. But translation was just one battleground in the war over who controls religious literature. And while the battles have been particularly fierce in the Catholic Church, they are not unique to Catholicism, or Christianity.

“The papacy was not the first to begin this idea of censoring books,” said John W. O’Malley, a Jesuit priest and historian at Georgetown University. “The indices of books that were prohibited, at the universities of Paris and Louvain and so forth, started in the 16th century. It all began with printing.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Christian Life / Church Life, * Culture-Watch, Books, Church History, History, Religion & Culture, Science & Technology

Another blow for Internet security–Some LinkedIn and eHarmony users Passwords Stolen

Many of LinkedIn’s 161 million members worldwide, who use the site to form professional connections, were also bombarded Wednesday by e-mail from unfamiliar parties urging them to click on links to verify e-mail addresses. LinkedIn and eHarmony join the list of several major websites, including retailer Zappos.com, that were hacked in recent months.

Wednesday’s cyberattack on LinkedIn, which affects as many as 6.5 million users, came on the heels of a discovery that LinkedIn’s mobile app on Apple devices tracked users’ calendar events and synched them to its server without users’ knowledge, a practice that could violate Apple’s privacy regulations.

The encrypted password hash codes, which can be deciphered to uncover users’ passwords, could give the hacker access to users’ accounts once the codes are cracked, according to IDC tech industry analyst Al Hilwa.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Consumer/consumer spending, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Law & Legal Issues, Science & Technology

Mass Teen to serve year in jail for fatal texting crash; Judge calls for people to keep eyes on road

Saying he was sending a message of deterrence to Massachusetts drivers, District Court Judge Stephen Abany today imposed maximum sentences on Haverhill teen Aaron Deveau for causing a fatal crash by texting while driving.

The judge sentenced Deveau, who was 17 at the time of the crash, to concurrent sentences of 2½-years on a charge of motor vehicle homicide and 2 years for a charge of negligent operation of a motor vehicle causing serious injury while texting.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Law & Legal Issues, Science & Technology, Teens / Youth, Travel, Urban/City Life and Issues

A new Video on Transgenderism put together by TEC Reappraisers to be shown at G. Convention 2012

This is an important video because it represents the prevailing theology among the TEC elite. It is something you need to be aware of as illustrated by the fact that it is planning on being screened at General Convention 2012, and that it contains two members of the House of Bishops in its content. You, however, need to make your own decisions about whether to view it since the theology advocated will cause major dissonance–KSH.

Watch it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Anthropology, Episcopal Church (TEC), Ethics / Moral Theology, General Convention, Health & Medicine, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Politics in General, Psychology, Religion & Culture, Science & Technology, Sexuality, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion), TEC Bishops, Theology

Roger Highfield–screening unborn babies for genetic conditions comes with great responsibility

The debate about the latest advance will reopen many debates that are familiar in reproductive science. When can abortion be justified? What do we mean by “normal”, and how far from genetic norms ”“ whatever they are – does the DNA of an unborn child have to stray before a pregnancy can be terminated?

Can it be right to abort a foetus at risk of a disease that will only strike in middle age or old age? One of the pioneers of the field, Dr Dennis Lo, has said it would not be ethical to screen for like Alzheimer’s or cardiovascular illnesses. But once the technical issues have been ironed out in the next few years, that could become routine.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Anthropology, Children, Ethics / Moral Theology, Health & Medicine, Life Ethics, Marriage & Family, Science & Technology, Theology

DNA Blueprint for Fetus Built, allows potential for 1000's of Prenatal Genetic Tests

For the first time, researchers have determined virtually the entire genome of a fetus using only a blood sample from the pregnant woman and a saliva specimen from the father.

The accomplishment heralds an era in which parents might find it easier to know the complete DNA blueprint of a child months before it is born….

“It’s an extraordinary piece of technology, really quite remarkable,” said Peter Benn, professor of genetics and developmental biology at the University of Connecticut, who was not involved in the work. “What I see in this paper is a glance into the future.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Anthropology, Children, Ethics / Moral Theology, Life Ethics, Marriage & Family, Science & Technology, Theology

(Belfast Telegraph) Facebook's children ban could be lifted

Faced with slowing growth in its advertising business, Facebook is considering throwing open its social network to children, in the hope that their parents will pay for games and other content on the site.

The plan is also designed to limit the company’s legal risk over the already-widespread use of the site by minors, millions of whom might be on Facebook after lying about their age.

News that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, pictured, is considering legitimising and expanding the use of the site by children comes as Facebook shares fall further below their flotation price. The stock slipped below $27 in early trading in New York yesterday, compared to the $38 at which they were sold to new investors two-and-a-half weeks ago, as investors continued to fret about slowing advertising income from its website and the even narrower options for monetising traffic on its mobile site.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Children, Consumer/consumer spending, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Education, Marriage & Family, Science & Technology, Stock Market

Drone Strike Kills al Qaeda No. 2

A U.S. drone strike killed al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi , a U.S. official confirmed Tuesday.

Mr. al-Libi was in a house in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region that was destroyed Monday by a drone strike, intelligence officials said.

Mr. al-Libi’s death is a major blow to the terror network, which has lost a string of top leaders at the hands of the American drone program. The U.S. sees the strikes as a key weapon against al Qaeda and the insurgents, despite Pakistan’s repeated demands that the strikes stop.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, * International News & Commentary, America/U.S.A., Defense, National Security, Military, Science & Technology, Terrorism

(USA Today) Genetic testing for disease: The need to know

Children have a 50-50 chance of inheriting the rare [Huntington’s] disease from their parents. Kristen Powers told USA TODAY in April that she would want to be honest about her diagnosis with future partners and would not have children for fear of passing on the gene. She said she wants to raise awareness about an illness many families try to hide.

One way she’s doing that is by making a documentary. She has raised more than $18,000 on crowd-funding website Indiegogo to hire a video crew to document her experiences with genetic testing.

“She is going to empower an entire generation at risk of developing Huntington’s disease,” says Mary Edmondson, a psychiatrist at Duke University’s specialty Huntington’s disease clinic. “The more you can do to empower people, the more they can master the skills required to deal with the disease.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Children, Ethics / Moral Theology, Health & Medicine, Marriage & Family, Science & Technology, Theology

(NY Times Op-Ed) Preet Bharara–Asleep at the Laptop: the time to prevent Cybercrime is now

…the most important step is the most obvious and fundamental one: understanding the threat in a comprehensive, serious manner. Every member of a board or executive suite is duty bound to protect the institution against material risk, whether they currently possess particular expertise or not. And yet, how many companies have a concrete plan in place to deal with a hack? How many conduct independent audits of their cybervulnerabilities? The answer, many in my position fear, is too few.

Some say we are outgunned. But in my view, it is less a matter of being outgunned than being simply outdated ”” in our thinking and in our vision. Yes, there is an army of computer saboteurs, spies, thieves and nihilists who wish to do us harm. But we have an army, too, or at least the makings of one, which can draw from the best of law enforcement, intelligence, business and academia.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Defense, National Security, Military, Globalization, Law & Legal Issues, Police/Fire, Science & Technology

Google offers a New Tool for Chinese Users

….starting today we’ll notify users in mainland China when they enter a keyword that may cause connection issues. By prompting people to revise their queries, we hope to reduce these disruptions and improve our user experience from mainland China. Of course, if users want to press ahead with their original queries they can carry on.

In order to figure out which keywords are causing problems, a team of engineers in the U.S. reviewed the 350,000 most popular search queries in China. In their research, they looked at multiple signals to identify the disruptive queries, and from there they identified specific terms at the root of the issue.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Blogging & the Internet, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Foreign Relations, Globalization, Law & Legal Issues, Politics in General, Science & Technology

Economist–As robots grow more autonomous, society needs to develop rules to manage them

As they become smarter and more widespread, autonomous machines are bound to end up making life-or-death decisions in unpredictable situations, thus assuming””or at least appearing to assume””moral agency. Weapons systems currently have human operators “in the loop”, but as they grow more sophisticated, it will be possible to shift to “on the loop” operation, with machines carrying out orders autonomously.

As that happens, they will be presented with ethical dilemmas. Should a drone fire on a house where a target is known to be hiding, which may also be sheltering civilians? Should a driverless car swerve to avoid pedestrians if that means hitting other vehicles or endangering its occupants? Should a robot involved in disaster recovery tell people the truth about what is happening if that risks causing a panic? Such questions have led to the emergence of the field of “machine ethics”, which aims to give machines the ability to make such choices appropriately””in other words, to tell right from wrong….

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Ethics / Moral Theology, Law & Legal Issues, Politics in General, Science & Technology, Theology

Expert Issues a Cyberwar Warning

When Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of Europe’s largest antivirus company, discovered the Flame virus that is afflicting computers in Iran and the Middle East, he recognized it as a technologically sophisticated virus that only a government could create.

He also recognized that the virus, which he compares to the Stuxnet virus built by programmers employed by the United States and Israel, adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the Internet.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Blogging & the Internet, Defense, National Security, Military, Science & Technology

(CSM) Kate Otto–Is Facebook destroying our capacity for meaningful relationships?

…the universalization of a Facebook-powered world is also worrisome. For all the good that comes when we take control of our Facebook accounts and use them for proactive outreach and connection, just as much damage occurs when we allow our accounts to control us, pulling us further apart from the people who are very close by.

For me, and most others of my generation, Facebook strengthened my ability to forge countless “weak ties” at the expense of fewer, but stronger, relationships. Posting regular updates coached me to write rapidly for a faceless mass audience and craft my publicly promoted identity as if it were a brand.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, --Social Networking, Anthropology, Blogging & the Internet, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Ethics / Moral Theology, Globalization, Pastoral Theology, Psychology, Science & Technology, Theology

Twitter Dynamos, Offering Word of God’s Love

Joyce Meyer, Max Lucado and Andy Stanley were not well known inside Twitter’s offices. But they had all built loyal ranks of followers well beyond their social networks ”” they were evangelical Christian leaders whose inspirational messages of God’s love perform about 30 times as well as Twitter messages from pop culture powerhouses like Lady Gaga.

Fifteen percent of adult Internet users in the United States are on Twitter, and about half of those use the network every day, according to a report published this week by the Pew Research Center. But Twitter is always looking for ways to add new users. And so, with this new insight, the company sent a senior executive, Claire Díaz-Ortiz, on a mission: to bring more religious leaders into the Twitter fold.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Religion News & Commentary, --Social Networking, Blogging & the Internet, Evangelicals, Other Churches, Religion & Culture, Science & Technology