2025: the end of US dominance

The United States’ leading intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an increasingly unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured, and some states are in danger of being “taken over and run by criminal networks”.

The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, represents sobering reading in Barack Obama’s intray as he prepares to take office in January. The country he inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to “call the shots” alone, as its power over an increasingly multipolar world begins to wane.

Source: Guardian.

UPDATE: “Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.”, RIA Novosti.

Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap

From the makers of the artificial medicine – Placebo, Substitute Materials.

Whole brain emulation (WBE) is the possible future one-to-one modelling of the function of the human brain. It represents a formidable engineering and research problem, yet one which appears to have a well-defined goal and could, it would seem, be achieved by extrapolations of current technology. Since the implications of successful WBE are potentially very large the Future of Humanity Institute hosted a workshop in Oxford on 26-27 May, 2007. Invited experts from areas such as computational neuroscience, brain-scanning technology, computing, and neurobiology presented their findings and discussed the possibilities, problems and milestones that would have to be reached before WBE becomes feasible. The result of the workshop is the following roadmap (FHI’s third report).

Authored by Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford. Download the report here.

US, Russia competing for Asian nanotech alliances?

US-Japan young scientists symposium on nano-mechanics related systems
A joint US-Japan nanotechnology meeting was held on 8 October 2008 at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS). This one-day meeting is a part of one-week visit of US team to several Japanese institutions, including University of Tokyo (6 October), AIST (Tsukuba, 7 October), NIMS (8 October), Kyoto University (10 October) and Osaka University (11 October).

Source: NanoNet Japan.

Russia and China Signs Agreement on Strategic Collaboration in the Field of Nanotechnology
The signing of the agreement took place during the visit to Russia of Wen Tszyabao, Chairman of State Council of China. Anatoly Chubais, Director General of RUSNANO, and Tsao Tszenlin, Deputy Minister for science and technology signed the document.

Source: NanoChina.

Also: Impressive developments in proteomics for fighting infectious disease at Berkley Labs.