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Designer babies are here - part one
The first baby screened to be free of the breast cancer gene has been born in the UK. Doctors at London’s University College Hospital tested eleven embryos from a mother, and found two that did not carry the breast cancer gene, which were then implanted into the mother. Is this the future of reproduction?

Designer babies are here - part two
Paul Dirac was an early pioneer of quantum mechanics. In 1930, he correctly predicted the existence of the positron and became the youngest physicist ever to win a Nobel Prize. Here’s the thing about Dirac, though: If a pre-natal screening test for autism had existed back in his day, he never would have been born…

How The Satanic Verses changed literature — and society
“Who would dare to write a book like The Satanic Verses nowadays? And if some brave or reckless author did dare, who would publish it? The signs in both cases are that no such writer or publisher is likely to appear…”

Be careful how you handle hard times
During the Great Depression, thousands of Americans emigrated to the Soviet Union, mistakenly believing they could make better lives for themselves in Stalin’s regime. Many of them ended up victims of Stalin’s purges, and died in gulags…

Welfare for the rich
…It didn’t start with the $700-billion bailout last year. It’s been around for a long time. “Anyone familiar with political economy can quickly recognize that it makes far more sense for politicians to funnel tax dollars into the hands of powerful (not to mention rich) special interests…”

It’s the semantics, stupid
They tell us the current Great Recession could never match the Great Depression for sheer misery, when a quarter of Americans were out of work. But what’s changed since then, other than our definition of unemployment?

What’s more important: Obama or the weather?
“The waters encircling Europe, the transpeninsular rivers that penetrated it, and its topography, currents, tides, and seasonal wind patterns all determined millennia-old sailing routes, and thus the goods and beliefs transported along them.” Forget elections and wars; the real driver of history is geography and climate…

The dangers of Pakistan’s nuclear pile
“What happens or fails to happen [to Pakistan's nuclear stockpile] may prove far more likely to save or lose an American city than the billions of dollars the United States spends each year maintaining a nuclear arsenal … For sheer scariness, nothing could compete with … the dangers of Pakistan’s nuclear technology going awry. When you map WMD and terrorism, all roads intersect in Pakistan…”

The dangers of America’s nuclear pile
A series of embarrassing incidents involving US nuclear arms has weakened the US’s nuclear deterrent, says a defense panel. The result could be that America’s allies will lose faith in Washington’s nuclear umbrella, and develop nuclear weapons of their own…

Taking the fight to the negotiating table
Is Barack Obama ready to talk to Hamas? Is he ready to talk to Iran?

Russia, a future Nato ally?
Since the end of the Cold War, successive US administrations have treated Russia as either a diplomatic headache or a strategic adversary. But what if there is a third way? What if we let Russia into Nato?

Our wasteful digital ways
The energy it takes to make two searches in Google takes as much energy as boiling a kettle of water… But wait, why is this article singling out Google?

The car of the future (if you can afford the gas bill)
The Terrafugia Transition, currently under development in Massachusetts, can transform from a two-seat car into a private airplane in about fifteen seconds. It’ll be in showrooms by 2010, and it runs on unleaded…

The great life-saving rip-off
Is there still any doubt left that the US health care system isn’t providing value for money? In case there is, here’s a chart…

Foggy News
America’s list of stupid mistakes has grown frighteningly long. Why? Americans aren’t dumber than people anywhere else. So to what do we owe this collective dumbness? For answers, tune in to the news…

No talk, all action
A new trend has taken hold of international politics — a refusal to negotiate with one’s adversaries. From Gaza to Iran to Kosovo to the Ukraine gas crisis, nobody wants to talk…

Nature’s suicidal nature
The notion that nature exists in a harmonious balance has underpinned our understanding of the environment since the days of Thoreau. But what if nature isn’t in balance at all?  According to the paleontologist Peter Ward, “the natural world is a doomsday device careening from one cataclysm to another…”

And finally: Some excellent CGI work, by Mikel Uribetxeberria, of animals in improper contexts…

And finally finally: A warning on how technology can make you dumb…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Newsburger. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.