So-called brain-machine interface devices already being used to allow paralyzed people to move computer cursors or control artificial limbs could one day connect soldiers' brains directly to military technology such as drones and weapons, the report said. "Since the human brain can process images, such as targets, much faster than the subject is consciously aware of, a neurally interfaced weapons system could provide significant advantages over other system control methods in terms of speed and accuracy," the report said.

A U.S. researcher who took part in the study acknowledged he was uncomfortable knowing neuroscience could be used by the military. "As a scientist I dislike that someone might be hurt by my work," Vince Clark, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico, told the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. "I want to reduce suffering, to make the world a better place, but there are people in the world with different intentions, and I don't know how to deal with that. "If I stop my work, the people who might be helped won't be helped. Almost any technology has a defense application." Sad but true.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig said they were able to sequence the genome from a small fragment of a human finger bone discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. Denisovans, along with their cousins the Neanderthals, are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. The DNA sequencing confirmed the relationship of Denisovans to Neanderthals and to present-day humans, an institute release reported.

Researchers said the first complete genome sequence of an archaic human group will be a step forward in the study of extinct forms of humans. "We hope that biologists will be able to use this genome to discover genetic changes that were important for the development of modern human culture and technology, and enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world, starting around 100,000 years ago," Svante Paabo at the Max Planck institute said.

GPUs were initially designed for the single function of executing graphics programs and are capable of executing many individual functions very quickly. The CPU, or the "brains" of a computer, have less computational power but are better able to perform more complex tasks. "Chip manufacturers are now creating processors that have a 'fused architecture,' meaning that they include CPUs and GPUs on a single chip," researcher Huiyang Zhou said. "This approach decreases manufacturing costs and makes computers more energy efficient. However, the CPU cores and GPU cores still work almost exclusively on separate functions. They rarely collaborate to execute any given program, so they aren't as efficient as they could be."

"Our approach is to allow the GPU cores to execute computational functions, and have CPU cores pre-fetch the data the GPUs will need from off-chip main memory," Zhou said. "This is more efficient because it allows CPUs and GPUs to do what they are good at. GPUs are good at performing computations. CPUs are good at making decisions and flexible data retrieval."

The researchers said the new approach can improve fused processor performance by an average of 21.4 percent.

No comment or expectation has been provided as to when we may see such innovations in our computer devices.

The complaint is not about the intent, for we all loath piracy, but rather the intent to make intermediaries responsible for the actions of those that contribute to the site and the broader concern that it sets a precedent for additional intrusion into and attempts to control over content in general. There can be no doubt that this is not a matter of minor concern and has led to many large and small players to take collective action.

"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in a statement Monday. "While we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world."

It has been reported that Internet search giant Google said it would join the protest by linking to anti-SOPA information on the firm's United States home page. Other sites announcing plans to join the protest include Wordpress, TwitPic, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The White House weighed in on the issue last weekend, calling for Congress to go back to the drawing board and saying any new legislation must target specific lawbreakers rather than broadly punishing Internet intermediaries. Asked about the administration's position, White House press secretary Jay Carney said: "It's a serious problem that requires serious legislative responses. But we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cyber security risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative, global Internet."

A U.S. based Internet tracking organization claims that the sizes of web sites are showing a sharp increase. A study of top sites by the HTTP Archive in San Francisco found the average Web page is now about 965 kilobytes in size, up 33 percent from 2010 when the average site page was 726 kilobytes.

User demands for more images and interactivity as well as the tools used to track what happens when people visit a site are likely causes for the increase, experts said. Large pages could take too long to load, leaving people frustrated and likely to go elsewhere, freelance Web developer Anna Debenham told the BBC. However, there are ways to shrink the size of a Web page and ensure it loaded quickly, she said. "There's always room for some optimization," she said, but added many Web developers are self-taught and relatively few are well-versed in techniques to reduce page sizes. Slimmed-down Web pages will become more and more necessary as more people browse the Web on mobile devices, she said. "We've had a bit of a lull where we all thought everyone was using fast broadband," she said. "But now we are almost back to where we were with dial-up because mobile speeds are so slow."

Imperial College London scientists have successfully constructed logic gates, which process information in devices such as computers and microprocessors, out of harmless gut bacteria and DNA, ScienceDaily.com reported. "Logic gates are the fundamental building blocks in silicon circuitry that our entire digital age is based on. Without them, we could not process digital information," bioengineering Professor Richard Kitney said. "Now that we have demonstrated that we can replicate these parts using bacteria and DNA, we hope that our work could lead to a new generation of biological processors, whose applications in information processing could be as important as their electronic equivalents."

The researchers say their logic gates could someday lead to microscopic biological computers such as sensors that could swim inside arteries delivering drugs to precise locations within the body.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

It is fair to say that policymakers continue to struggle to find ways to manage the present economic challenges while preparing their economies to perform well in an increasingly complex global landscape. The Global Competitiveness Report offers a unique tool in addressing some of the key issues.

The findings outlined in this year’s report indicate that Switzerland tops the overall rankings. Singapore is in second place overtaking Sweden. Northern and Western European countries dominate the top 10 with Sweden (3rd), Finland (4th), Germany (6th), the Netherlands (7th), Denmark (8th) and the United Kingdom (10th). Japan remains the second-ranked Asian economy at 9th place, despite falling three places since last year. Australia lies in 20th position 4 places down on last year.

 I have attached a summary of the rankings provided for public use by the The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012

One possible use for the product could be reconstructing soldiers' faces disfigured by blast injuries. Researchers advise that the composite nature of the material helps the body accept it. "Implanted biological materials can mimic the texture of soft tissue, but are usually broken down by the body too fast, while synthetic materials tend to be more permanent but can be rejected by the immune system and typically don't meld well with surrounding natural tissue," researcher Jennifer Elisseeff said. "Our composite material has the best of both worlds, with the biological component enhancing compatibility with the body and the synthetic component contributing to durability." The compound consists of hyaluronic acid, a natural component in skin that gives it elasticity, and polyethylene glycol, a synthetic molecule used successfully as surgical glue in operations and known not to cause severe immune reactions.

The researchers cautioned that although the material is "promising," it is not yet ready for widespread clinical use. "We still have to evaluate the persistence and safety of our material in other types of human tissues, like muscle or less fatty regions under the skin of the face, so we can optimize it for specific procedures," Elisseeff said.

Scientists have long wondered if the physically stronger Neanderthals, who possessed the gene for language, were a separate species or could have interbred with modern humans.

Neanderthal man left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago to evolve in areas that are now mainly referred to as France, Spain, Germany and Russia. They are thought to have survived in the region until about 30,000 years ago when they died out. Early modern humans are believed to have left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. The new study suggests the two lived in close association and did interbreed.

When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, a small piece of the sequence of DNA called a haplotype was found to be present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. "There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals," said Nick Patterson of MIT and Harvard University, a major researcher in human ancestry who was not involved in the Montreal study. "This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details."

In 2004, China's State Council, the country's highest governing body, approved a 12,000-kilometer (7,200 mile) high-speed rail system to weave together major Chinese cities by 2020. Leaders revised that plan in 2008 to reach 16,000 kilometres. China spent heavily on its high-speed rail network and has achieved its targets well within the expected time lines. The new network spanned 8,358 kilometres at the end of 2010 and is expected to exceed 13,000 kilometres by 2012. The total plan to spam some 16,000 kilometres is due for completion by 2020.

The 818-mile Beijing-Shanghai line is a landmark project, whose "technology is advanced, its quality reliable and safety guaranteed," according to Vice Minister of Railways Hu Yadong.

The railway ministry has said the trains would run between 250 and 300 kilometres per hour on the new link, which is designed for a maximum speed of 380 kph. Under the new speeds, the fastest travel time will be about 4 hours and 48 minutes.

The speed is in line with a nationwide directive made public in April that said all high-speed trains must run slower than previously announced - no faster than 300 kph - for safety.

Despite the slower speeds, urban areas within 300-400 kilometres of Beijing and Shanghai "will become kind of suburbs to the big cities" because it will be possible to do a return trip in one day.

Many of China's public works projects have been mired in corruption and the country's top leadership has been cracking down on the problem. China's high-speed rail system, highly praised around the world, has not come cheap. Some reports have estimated the cost running into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The high speed lines according to Premier Wen Jiabao are seen as "improving the modern transport system... and satisfying people's travelling needs."

"It could play a transformational role in shaping the future economic dynamics in coastal China... by creating more spillover effects to regions lying along the sprawling high-speed railway line," Ren Xianfang, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, told AFP

One-way ticket prices will cost 410-1,750 yuan ($63-$270) subject to further adjustments, vice rail minister Hu Yadong said this month, compared with about 1,300 yuan for a flight.

Some industry observers have noted that the new lines could be "destructive” for the airline industry. Airlines have reportedly slashed some ticket prices by up to 65 percent to bring the cost below the cost of the cheapest rail pass. In addition the expected rail reliability is also expected to put pressure on the airlines to keep more on their schedule

The $70 million Robotics Initiative, announced by President Barack Obama (June 2011), aims to concentrate military and technological minds across a sector that is deemed to be fragmented and poorly uncoordinated. The White House said the initiative would give top priority to developing robotics that could be deployed both for civilian and security uses. "You might not know this, but one of my responsibilities as commander in chief is to keep an eye on robots," Obama said Friday (June 24 2011) in a speech at the Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center. "And I'm pleased to report that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful. At least for now." The president said the initiative would aim "to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people."

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was involved in framing the new initiative, listed several reasons to make robotics a priority. It said robotics could address a broad range of national needs such as advanced manufacturing, logistics, services, transportation, homeland security, defense, medicine, healthcare, space exploration, environmental monitoring and agriculture.

According to the report, the Obama administration has authorized the State Department to spend $70 million, by the end of the year, on systems that would allow text and video to be shared electronically before it eventually reaches the Internet.

Various methods have already been created and more are being developed, some of which use cellphones and portable wireless hubs that can be carried in a suitcase. Among others, the governments of China, Syria and Egypt have used censorship to shut down Web sites or the entire Internet to stop dissident activity, while in Afghanistan, militants freeze communications to hamper the government. In an e-mail to the Times, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said as valuable as the Internet can be, alternate systems need to be developed to detour censorship. "We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," Clinton wrote. "So we're focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world."