Church calls for BBC to go 'back to the future' in its public service mission (tags: religion, values))

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr4310.html
12 May 2010

The BBC’s proposed return to its core public service mission is a welcome ‘homecoming’ ...according to the Church of England’s response to the Director-General’s proposals for the future strategy of the corporation.

Noting that the term “public service” had increasingly been replaced in the BBC’s corporate language by the “rather more nebulous and management-speak version ‘public value,” the Church’s response welcomes the fact that the current proposals “keep that traditional (but nevertheless evolving) concept of public service mission firmly in mind”.

The response was issued by the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester and the Church of England’s lead spokesman on communications.

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/bbctruststrategicrev.rtf.

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UK to host "Planet under Pressure" conference 2012

The UK will host the conference, Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge, new solutions, expected to attract 2,500 of the world's leading thinkers in global change research, in London, in 2012. The four-day conference will be hosted by the UK's Royal Society, the Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) programme and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), together with the International Council for Science's (ICSU) four global environmental change research programmes.

The conference, provisionally booked for 7-10 May 2012, will take place prior to the next UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, also scheduled for that year. Presenting the latest research findings, the London conference is anticipated to provide a solid scientific foundation for the summit.

Professor Lorna Casselton, Foreign Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society, said, "It is a tribute to the quality of UK science that London has been chosen as a venue for the conference. The Royal Society is dedicated to building international links within the science community and is therefore delighted to be hosting an event that will bring together such a wide range of specialists from around the globe to address many of the big challenges of our time."

The sponsors aim to discuss the world's most pressing environmental issues - such as ensuring we have a sustainable supply of food and water, providing resilient infrastructures in our towns and cities that will withstand the pressures environmental changes will bring, and protecting people, animals and plants from hazards and diseases.

Director of Living with Environmental Change, Professor Andrew Watkinson, said, "An overarching aim of the conference will be to discuss solutions to the environmental challenges we face. We need to find ways to increase the speed with which we move to a low carbon society and ensure food, water and energy security for the billions of people across the globe in a changing world. The Living with Environmental Change partners are already addressing these critical issues, so I am very pleased that we are co-hosting the 2012 conference, which I am sure will become a catalyst for more innovative research collaborations to address the needs of society."

The conference will bring together natural, physical and social scientists, economists, engineers, health specialists and many other disciplines, along with national and international policy makers, NGOs, industry representatives, technologists, and development experts. It will offer an important forum to consolidate these relationships and discuss the future.

The conference has been initiated by ICSU's International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). Executive Director, Professor Sybil Seitzinger, said, "We need to set research priorities that fully integrate the information needs of diverse groups of people. We need to communicate a comprehensive picture of the state of the planet and its future to the institutions charged with global environmental stewardship. We will work with these institutions to help develop a planetary management approach that tackles all the challenges in a truly integrated way."

The final day of the conference will be dedicated to communicating with policymakers, industry and the public so as to help the international global (glocal) change research community connect with society at large.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411727 or 411561
Mob: 07917 086369 or 557215

Alice Henchley
Senior Press Officer
Royal Society
Tel: 020 7451 2514

Ruth Welters
Communications Specialist
Living with Environmental Change
Tel: 01603 593906
Mob: 07780 993084

Owen Gaffney
Director of communications
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
Tel: +46 86739556
Mob: +46 730208418
Skype: owengaffneyigbp

---

Notes

1. The Royal Society is an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences. Founded in 1660, the Society has three roles, as the UK academy of science, as a learned Society, and as a funding agency. It responds to individual demand with selection by merit, not by field. They celebrated their 350th anniversary in 2010, and are working to achieve five strategic priorities, to:

• Invest in future scientific leaders and in innovation
• Influence policymaking with the best scientific advice
• Invigorate science and mathematics education
• Increase access to the best science internationally
• Inspire an interest in the joy, wonder and excitement of scientific discovery

2. The Living with Environmental Change programme is a partnership of 20 UK organisations that fund, carry out and use environmental research, including the research councils, government departments, devolved administrations and delivery agencies. For more details of the partner organisations and accredited activities, see the LWEC website.

3. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is the UK's main agency for funding and managing world-class research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. It co-ordinates some of the world's most exciting research projects, tackling major issues such as climate change, environmental influences on human health, the genetic make-up of life on earth, and much more. NERC science is delivered under seven themes, namely climate system; biodiversity; sustainable use of natural resources; Earth system science; natural hazards; environment, pollution & human health; and technologies.

4. The International Council for Science (ICSU) is a non-governmental organisation representing a global membership that includes both national scientific bodies (117 members) and international scientific unions (30 members). ICSU sponsors the four leading international global environmental-change programmes:

• DIVERSITAS - an international biodiversity programme
• International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change
• International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
• World Climate Research Programme

The four Programmes form the Earth System Science Partnership.

Press release: 09/10

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2010/09-conference.asp

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Radar gets better, and with it weather forecasting is itself forecast to improve

http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-storm-chase-radar-hirsot-may12,0,2809160.story

The critical work which will lead to work improvements in U.S. tornado warnings is underway in the heart of tornado alley on the University of Oklahoma campus inside the National Weather Center building, reports wgntv.com

'Dr. Pam Heinselman from the national severe storms lab just received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists for her work on phased array radar.

"It is a doppler radar so we do get velocity info from it," she says. "But what is different is it scans storms electronically rather than mechanically. So mechanical standing radars they sit and spin around and collect data in that way. From an electronically scanning radar, you can focus the beam wherever you want."

Instead of spending four or five minutes scanning the entire area around the radar, the new generation radars will focus only on precipitation and severe weather.

There is hope that phased array can detect things like microbursts, which can be very deadly and destructive.

Regardless of how well forecasts improve, we won't be able to predict a tornado hours in advance. Weather just doesn't work that way.

But with supercomputers getting better and faster, there are hopes to eventually improve warning lead times to a half hour or more."

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Stephen Hawking: How To Build a Time Machine

All you need is a wormhole, the Large Hadron Collider or a rocket that goes really, really fast 

'Through the wormhole, the scientist can see himself as he was one minute ago. But what if our scientist uses the wormhole to shoot his earlier self? He's now dead. So who fired the shot?'

Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking. Physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions, such as: is time travel possible? Can we open a portal to the past or find a shortcut to the future? Can we ultimately use the laws of nature to become masters of time itself?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1269288/STEPHEN-HAWKING-How-build-time-machine.html#ixzz0muag2wmF

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A subway map to 2050...

Richard Watson's trends & technology time line.
Stimulating... but take with pinch of salt.
Source: Fast company

Download now or preview on posterous

trends_and_technology_timeline_2010.pdf (1598 KB)

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Future of Pharmaceuticals - A Korean Perspective

Dear Friends of Strategic Affairs Forecasting: I am pleased to forward the following 'Brief Report' from the Samsung Economic Research Institute. This is a short, high-level review of the dilemma facing the pharmaceutical industry. Much of this will not be new, but SERI's challenge to the Korean IT industry is of strategic importance to the global pharmaceutical industry. All the best, Daniel I. Shostak Strategic Affairs Forecasting safiredshos@aol.com 301 758 2106 Forecasts for Decision Makers www.strategicaffairs.net

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Industry Report
Disruptive Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry KOH You-Sang Apr. 7, 2010

Welcome to our Video Program. I'm You-Sang KOH from the Technology and Industry Department. Have you ever heard of "disruptive innovation?" The term was coined by Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, and was introduced in his book 'Innovator's Dilemma,' released in 2000. The term comes from his research on the changing landscape of competition in the electronics industry. His subsequent book, 'Innovator's Prescription,' also attracted attention with a disruptive solution for the health care industry. The professor argued that with the emergence of generic drugs and customized health care, the competition landscape in the pharmaceutical industry is going through a fundamental change. Today, we are going to talk about the fundamental changes taking place in the pharmaceutical industry. Traditionally, major pharmaceutical companies have competed against each other by inventing synthetic drugs for chronic diseases like high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia. However, this has started to change. With the patents of products that account for 42% of sales of the top ten pharmaceutical companies expiring by 2012, pharmaceutical companies are about to face fierce competition with generic drug producers. Moreover, big discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Walgreens are increasing their market share by selling generic drugs at discount prices. For example, Walgreens is selling a 90-day supply of generic drugs at US$ 12.99, a phenomenon now common in the US. The wind of change is blowing in the pharmaceutical industry. Only about 30% of new drugs are invented by major pharmaceutical companies while the remaining 70% are developed by biopharmaceutical companies. If so, what could pharmaceutical companies do to prepare for this new situation? First, pharmaceutical companies need to develop biopharmaceuticals customized for each patient. Research is under way in areas of cancer and dementia treatment where conventional medicine have not been effective. The anti-cancer drug market produced with biotechnology increased by 20% to reach US$39 billion in 2008. Sales of biopharmaceuticals such as Rituxan and Herceptin have also been growing by over 10% every year since 1998. Gleevec, a medicine for chronic leukemia patients, recorded US$ 3.7 billion in sales in 2008, with an 86% 7-year survival rate. As the development of biopharmaceuticals requires sophisticated technology and is hard to copy compared to conventional synthetic medicine, companies can dominate the market once they succeed in developing customized biopharmaceuticals. Second, pharmaceutical companies need to develop diagnostics combined with treatment. Biopharmaceuticals do not work for some patients. For example, Herceptin, for breast cancer, is effective in patients who have an excess of HER2 proteins, but these patients only account for 20% of all breast cancer patients. Furthermore, biopharmaceuticals are costly compared to synthetic drugs, and are not usually covered by insurance. This has created an obstacle to the expansion of the biopharmaceutical market. If doctors can tell whether a medicine will work for a patient in advance, it would not only relieve the cost burden of patients, but also reduce national medical costs. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 makes it mandatory to classify participants in clinical trials by genetic trait to improve the efficiency of the clinical trials from the initial stages. For these reasons, the development of diagnostics combined with treatment has become essential in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, 145 drugs are under development with diagnosis kits. Pharmaceutical companies aim to shorten the approval period of new drugs, and increase sales through this process. So far, we have talked about the changes in the pharmaceutical industry, and what direction pharmaceutical companies should take in the future. To sum up, there will be fierce competition over the development of biopharmaceuticals in areas where conventional medicines have not been effective. Furthermore, the development of diagnostics has become an essential part of new drug development. For Korea's part, it needs to work hard on developing diagnosis kits based on its capabilities in the IT industry. Why don't you set your sights on the changes in the pharmaceutical industry, and grab onto new opportunities? Thank you for watching. I'm You-Sang KOH. Copyright ⓒ 2010 Samsung Economic Research Institute. All rights reserved. View Video

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			Copyright © 2009 Samsung Economic Research Institute. All rights reserved. For questions and comments, send email to webmaster

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Energy, Environment, Education and Economics: Imagineering South Africa’s Future to 2030

Need an excuse to go to Cape Town? The World Future Society, South Africa, is hosting a 2-day conference with a line-up of futurists, professors and top experts considering the 20-year future on May 6-7. The event will be introduced by Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, and hosted by journalist Debora Patta.

For more information and registrations: http://www.wfs-sa.com/

Items on the agenda include:

• “Generating Quality Industry and Policy Foresight in Emerging Markets"
• "The Futurist’s Toolbox”, “South Africa to 2030: Reasons to Believe”
• “Critical Complexity:  Facing the future responsibly”
• "Trends in emigration from, and immigration to South Africa"
• “Key population trends for SA to 2030”
• “South African Economic Scenarios to 2030”
• “Factoring sustainability into South Africa’s future”
• “Future Security of SA”
• “The Role of the Ideal Future and How to Get There”,
• “The Future of Education in South Africa”,
• “Globalisation, Energy and South Africa’s Green Future”
• "Future Energy Needs and Challenges for South Africa: An Overview"
• “The15 Global Millennium Challenges and Introducing the SA State of the Future Index (SA-SOFI) initiative”
• “Walking Together to create a country that works for all”
• “Africa’s potential to be a world foodbasket”

Download now or preview on posterous

Future SA Conference - e-brochure UPDATED.pdf (606 KB)

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The New GOP: The Genetics of Politics

Even though public opinion polls show a general distaste for partisan divisions, a rising tide of political partisanship is sweeping into many aspects of American public life.  Witness the several recent examples of how partisanship and ideology have replaced civil discussion and pragmatism.  How many times have players from both sides of the political aisle tried to persuade the other side to think a certain way? And how many times does this actually work?  Both sides continually struggle to understand where the other is coming from…oftentimes with very little to no success.

Theorists have long speculated on how factors such as age, gender, race, marital status, education, income, home ownership, political knowledgeability and church attendance affect and influence political leanings.  But we are learning that these external factors do not play as much of a role as we once thought.

Increasingly, political positions are seen to be largely determined by biological factors.  According to John Alford (political scientist, Rice University, Houston), “Political tendencies are like being left-handed or right-handed — you’re born feeling more natural using one hand or the other.  It doesn’t mean you can’t switch — for many years lefties were taught to be righties.  But it’s not easy.”

Based on a 2008 article in the New Scientist called “Born That Way,” opinions on a long list of issues from religion in schools to nuclear power and gay rights were found to have a substantial genetic component.  Liberals and conservatives even have different patterns of brain activity.

Two groups pulling in different directions will always characterize politics.  However, if these groups are genetically hard-wired to disagree, what does this mean for the future of debate and policy analysis?

Erica Orange

Vice President

Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

200 E. 33rd Street, Ste. 9I

New York, NY 10016

212-889-7007 (office)

212-679-0628 (fax)

www.WeinerEdrichBrown.com

www.WEBonFacebook.com

http://twitter.com/WEBfuturetrends

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Nanodots breakthrough may lead to 'a library on one chip'

Check out this website I found at eurekalert.org

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Don't Talk To Aliens

From the article "Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Fear Aliens" in The Huffington Post:

World renowned scientist Stephen Hawking believes extraterrestrial life almost certainly exists -- and humans should be extremely cautious about interacting with it.

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," Hawking says in a new Discovery Channel series called Stephen Hawking's Universe. "The real challenge is to#more work out what aliens might actually be like."

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is "a little too risky". He said: "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

Previously, Hawking has argued that humans must colonize space in order to survive and thrive. "Sooner or later disasters such as an asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe us all out," he told Britain's Royal Society in a 2006 speech. "But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe."

Read more about the Discovery special in the UK Times Online, watch video here, or browse through other Hawking videos below.

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