2050 – and immortality is within our grasp – “Britain’s leading thinker on the future offers an extraordinary vision of life in the next 45 years…”

Rewiring the Brain: Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering – “Boyden directs MIT’s Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Lab, part of the MIT Media Lab. He explains the mission of neuroengineering this way: “If we take seriously the idea that our minds are implemented in the circuits of our brains, then it becomes a top priority to understand how to engineer brains for the better.”"

How Low Can the Market Go? – “On days like today, it helps to look at the silver lining. Here it is: The farther stocks fall, the cheaper they get–and the higher the expected long-term return becomes. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a long way to go on the downside….”

Did Ancient Viruses Spur Human Evolution? A Galaxy Insight – “When the mapping of the human genome was completed in 2003, researchers discovered a shocking fact: our bodies are littered with the shards of retroviruses, fragments of the chemical code from which all genetic material is made. This discovery has created a new discipline, paleovirology, which seeks to better understand the impact of modern diseases by studying the genetic history of ancient viruses…”

The Extraordinary Microscopic World of Viruses – “Viruses are more than a hundred times smaller than bacteria and they infect all cellular structures, whether animal, plant, or human. There is a fascinating unseen microscopic world evolving around us all the time…”

A Sketchy Brain Booster: Doodling – “Good news, doodlers: What your colleagues consider a distracting, time-wasting habit may actually give you a leg up on them by helping you pay attention…”

Before Google became Google: The original setup at Stanford University – “Since it launched in 1998, Google has become one of the true giants of the Internet. These days, Google has data centers all around the world and hundreds of thousands of servers. The sheer size of Google today makes it very interesting to look back at its humble beginnings as a small research project called Backrub at Stanford University…”

Does America Need Universal Broadband? – ” Obama’s economic stimulus package allocates billions for the expansion of broadband Internet to underserved areas. But what does “broadband” and “underserved” mean to the government? In his column, Buzzword, PM senior technology editor Glenn Derene tackles those questions and explains why the U.S. needs more high-speed Internet…”

Are fuel cells poised to become a serious option for voyagers? – “Is this sailboat the beginning of a new age of fuel-cell-powered electric voyaging vessels? A company in California called HaveBlue claims to be taking the first step. HaveBlue is testing this modified Catalina 42, dubbed X/V-1 and seen on its first sail in Ventura Harbor, with the goal of an economically viable alternative to the diesel auxiliary…”

Netbook Buyers Guide – “When it comes to buying netbooks there is often little to differentiate the systems offered from different companies. Today we are going to look at some of the most popular netbooks that are currently available on Amazon.com and compare them…”

Lotus Announces “Omnivore”: A Car That Can Run on Almost Any Fuel – “Called the Omnivore, this new kind of engine takes aspects of a conventional 2-stroke, and adds a few neat tricks to that proven technology to create an engine truly flexible enough to run on almost anything, from 87 Octane to Cabo tequila to VP Nitromethane…”

The 22 most unknown FREE things anyone can have – “Conventional wisdom holds that you only get what you pay for, but the real free geek knows that with the right knowledge (and maybe a charming smile) pretty much anything, even the good stuff, can be had for less or in the best case scenarios nothing at all…”

Brit nuke subs exposed on Google Earth – “The UK’s military top brass are said to be “furious” that updated imagery on Google Earth has laid bare pretty well all of Blighty’s defence infrastructure, including Faslane nuclear sub base, the “nuclear crisis HQ” in Northwood, North London, the SAS barracks in Herefordshire, GCHQ in Cheltenham and MI6’s spook central in London…”

Ubuntu Newbie Guide: First 24 Hours With Ubuntu – “A good friend of mine, who is very computer savvy, recently bought a new computer and installed Ubuntu on it rather than Windows. Now, despite being a very smart guy when it comes to PCs and Windows, he was still a newbie to the world of Ubuntu, so he and I went through a series of questions and answers before, during, and after his Ubuntu install. I’ve turned those into a FAQ for Ubuntu noobs that should answer a fair amount of questions for the first 24 hours of a first-time Ubuntu installation…”

Unicode In 5 Minutes – “Unicode is a standard for digital processing of written characters and text. By enabling the exchange of text data internationally, it is a foundation for global software…”

WebGreeter Fails Turing Test – “Beware, if you visit WebGreeter.com a disturbing thing will happen. You will be immediately accosted by what appears to be a chatbot, but is apparently a human doing a creepy impression of a chatbot….”

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