S.Korea sheds some Christmas light on North

SEOUL: South Korean church groups have displayed Christmas lights near the tense border with North Korea, an official said on Sunday, despite concerns about a violent response from Pyongyang.

Dozens of church leaders and followers put up the giant display -- featuring thousands of glittering light bulbs on a tree-shaped steel tower -- near the heavily-fortified border on Saturday, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

The lights on a military-controlled hill in Gimpo, west of Seoul, will be displayed until early January and can apparently be seen several kilometres away in the impoverished North suffering from chronic power shortage.

Before the South's "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea launched in 1998, the seasonal lighting displays were common.

Pyongyang repeatedly condemned them as "psychological warfare" by its capitalist neighbour aimed at spreading Christianity in the isolated communist state.

In 2004 the two Koreas agreed to halt official-level cross-border propaganda and the South stopped the Christmas border illuminations completely.

They were resumed in 2010 after North Korea shelled a frontline island, but were postponed last year in a conciliatory gesture following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

But the latest illumination has provoked fear among some local residents who staged a protest amid concerns about potential retaliation from the North, according to Yonhap news agency.

"All residents here are left to tremble in fear... as long as the light tower stays here," a group of residents said in a statement.

Before Kim's death Pyongyang warned of "unexpected consequences" if Seoul displayed Christmas lights in 2011 and vowed unspecified retaliation.

Cross-border tensions have been high since the nuclear-armed North this month staged a long-range rocket launch widely condemned as a disguised ballistic missile test by the international community.

- AFP/ck

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First day tips and tweaks for new MacBook owners

As much as new MacBook owners love to rave about their systems, no laptop -- even one with an Apple logo -- comes right out of the box ready to perform optimally.

And while it's certainly exciting to unwrap a new holiday MacBook, there are a handful of tweaks, tips, and fixes you should check out on day one that will make your MacBook easier to use. I've put together some of my personal favorites here.

There are many more I could list, and I'm sure I've left out some of your favorites, so feel free to leave your own Day One tips for new MacBook owners in the comments section.

 

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Your mobile devices could use a little holiday cheer as well. Take a look at this gathering of affordable accessories.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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Obama, Congress Waving Bye-Bye Lower Taxes?

The first family arrived in the president's idyllic home state of Hawaii early today to celebrate the holidays, but President Obama, who along with Michelle will pay tribute Sunday to the late Sen. Daniel Inouye at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, could be returning home to Washington sooner than he expected.

That's because the President didn't get his Christmas wish: a deal with Congress on the looming fiscal cliff.

Members of Congress streamed out of the Capitol Friday night with no agreement to avert the fiscal cliff -- a massive package of mandatory tax increases and federal spending cuts triggered if no deal is worked out to cut the deficit. Congress is expected to be back in session by Thursday.

It's unclear when President Obama may return from Hawaii. His limited vacation time will not be without updates on continuing talks. Staff members for both sides are expected to exchange emails and phone calls over the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner is home in Ohio. He recorded the weekly GOP address before leaving Washington, stressing the president's role in the failure to reach an agreement on the cliff.

"What the president has offered so far simply won't do anything to solve our spending problem and begin to address our nation's crippling debt," he said in the recorded address, "The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. ... The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House."

Fiscal Cliff Negotiations Halted for Christmas Watch Video

Cliffhanger: Congress Heads Home after 'Plan B' Vote Pulled from House Floor Watch Video

Fiscal Cliff: Boehner Doesn't Have Votes for Plan B Watch Video

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed the sentiment while lamenting the failure to reach a compromise.

"I'm stuck here in Washington trying to prevent my fellow Kentuckians having to shell out more money to Uncle Sam next year," he said.

McConnell is also traveling to Hawaii to attend the Inouye service Sunday.

If the White House and Congress cannot reach a deficit-cutting budget agreement by year's end, by law the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts -- the so called fiscal cliff -- will go into effect. Many economists say that will likely send the economy into a new recession.

Reports today shed light on how negotiations fell apart behind closed doors. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that when Boehner expressed his opposition to tax rate increases, the president allegedly responded, "You are asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?"

The icy exchange continued when, in reference to Boehner's offer to secure $800 billion in revenue by limiting deductions, the speaker reportedly implored the president, "What do I get?"

The president's alleged response: "You get nothing. I get that for free."

The account is perhaps the most thorough and hostile released about the series of unsuccessful talks Obama and Boehner have had in an effort to reach an agreement about the cliff.

Unable to agree to a "big deal" on taxes and entitlements, the president is now reportedly hoping to reach a "small deal" with Republicans to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Such a deal would extend unemployment benefits and set the tone for a bigger deal with Republicans down the line.

In his own weekly address, Obama called this smaller deal "an achievable goal ... that can get done in 10 days."

But though there is no definitive way to say one way or the other whether it really is an achievable goal, one thing is for certain: Republican leadership does not agree with the president on this question.

Of reaching an agreement on the fiscal cliff by the deadline, Boehner said, "How we get there, God only knows."

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Today on New Scientist: 21 December 2012

Cadaver stem cells offer new hope of life after death

Stem cells can be extracted from bone marrow five days after death to be used in life-saving treatments

Apple's patents under fire at US patent office

The tech firm is skating on thin ice with some of the patents that won it a $1 billion settlement against Samsung

Himalayan dam-building threatens endemic species

The world's highest mountains look set to become home to a huge number of dams - good news for clean energy but bad news for biodiversity

Astrophile: Black hole exposed as a dwarf in disguise

A white dwarf star caught mimicking a black hole's X-ray flashes may be the first in a new class of binary star systems

Blind juggling robot keeps a ball in the air for hours

The robot, which has no visual sensors, can juggle a ball flawlessly by analysing its trajectory

Studio sessions show how Bengalese finch stays in tune

This songbird doesn't need technological aids to stay in tune - and it's smart enough to not worry when it hears notes that are too far off to be true

Giant tooth hints at truly monumental dinosaur

A lone tooth found in Argentina may have belonged to a dinosaur even larger than those we know of, but what to call it?

Avian flu virus learns to fly without wings

A strain of bird flu that hit the Netherlands in 2003 travelled by air, a hitherto suspected by unproven route of transmission

Feedback: Are wind turbines really fans?

A tale of "disease-spreading" wind farms, the trouble with quantifying "don't know", the death of parody in the UK, and more

The link between devaluing animals and discrimination

Our feelings about other animals have important consequences for how we treat humans, say prejudice researchers Gordon Hodson and Kimberly Costello

Best videos of 2012: First motion MRI of unborn twins

Watch twins fight for space in the womb, as we reach number 6 in our countdown of the top videos of the year

2012 Flash Fiction winner: Sleep by Richard Clarke

Congratulations to Richard Clarke, who won the 2012 New Scientist Flash Fiction competition with a clever work of satire

Urban Byzantine monks gave in to temptation

They were supposed to live on an ascetic diet of mainly bread and water, but the monks in 6th-century Jerusalem were tucking into animal products

The pregnant promise of fetal medicine

As prenatal diagnosis and treatment advance, we are entering difficult ethical territory

2013 Smart Guide: Searching for human origins in Asia

Africa is where humanity began, where we took our first steps, but those interested in the latest cool stuff on our origins should now look to Asia instead

The end of the world is an opportunity, not a threat

Don't waste time bemoaning the demise of the old order; get on with building the new one

Victorian counting device gets speedy quantum makeover

A photon-based version of a 19th-century mechanical device could bring quantum computers a step closer

Did learning to fly give bats super-immunity?

When bats first took to the air, something changed in their DNA which may have triggered their incredible immunity to viruses

Van-sized space rock is a cosmic oddball

Fragments from a meteor that exploded over California in April are unusually low in amino acids, putting a twist on one theory of how life on Earth began

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Egyptians vote on divisive new constitution

CAIRO: Egyptians voted on Saturday in the final round of a referendum on a new constitution championed by President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies against fierce protests from the secular-leaning opposition.

The proposed charter is expected to be adopted after already garnering 57 percent support in the first round of the referendum a week ago.

But the slim margin and the low first-round turnout, in which fewer than one in three eligible voters cast a ballot, has emboldened the opposition, which looks likely to continue its campaign against Morsi after Saturday's voting.

Egypt has already been shaken by a month of protests, some of them violent.

On December 5, eight people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between rival demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Cairo.

On the eve of Saturday's polling, more clashes erupted in Egypt's second city Alexandria, injuring 62 people, including 12 police officers. Twelve people were arrested, as stone-throwing mobs torched vehicles, the interior ministry said.

Some 250,000 police and soldiers were deployed to provide security during the referendum. The army has also positioned tanks around the presidential palace in Cairo since early this month.

The constitution was drafted by a panel dominated by Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-orthodox Salafist groups. Christians and liberals who criticised changes they saw as weakening human and women's rights boycotted the process.

The protests began a month ago on November 22, when Morsi decreed sweeping powers putting himself above judicial review to force through the draft charter.

Although he gave up those powers weeks later under pressure from the protests, he pressed ahead with the referendum.

To do so, he split the voting over two successive Saturdays after more than half of Egypt's judges said they would not provide the statutory supervision of polling stations.

The main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, launched a last-ditch campaign to vote down the charter after deciding a boycott would be counter-productive.

But it and Egyptian human rights groups alleged the first round was marred by fraud, setting up a possible later challenge to the results.

Preliminary tallies from the final round were expected by early Sunday.

"I am voting 'yes' because Egypt needs a constitution to be stable," Mohamed Mamza, a 49-year-old driver lining up to vote in Giza, southwest Cairo, told AFP.

Nearby, another voter, Sayyed Mostafa, a 25-year-old accountant, said he was "of course voting 'no'."

He explained: "This constitution doesn't respect Egyptians. It forgets that there was a revolution in Egypt. We deserve better."

If, as expected, the new constitution is adopted, Morsi will have to call parliamentary elections within two months, to replace the Islamist-dominated assembly ordered dissolved by Egypt's top court in June.

Continued instability will imperil Egypt's economy, which has been limping along ever since the 2011 revolution that overthrew autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.

The International Monetary Fund has put on hold a $4.8-billion loan Egypt needs to stave off a currency collapse, and Germany has indefinitely postponed a plan to forgive $316 million of Egypt's debt.

National Salvation Front chief Mohamed ElBaradei, a former UN atomic energy agency chief, warned in an online video that "the country is on the verge of bankruptcy."

But he said "a solution is still possible" if Morsi is prepared for "sincere dialogue" and allows a new constitution to be drafted through a more inclusive process.

- AFP/al

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The most Twittery journalists of them all

Profile photos of the 10 most followed journalists on Twitter; do you recognize them all? The one in fifth place (top row, extreme right) isn't disgraced baseball player Manny Ramirez, but a journalist who is using a shiny Red Sox moment as his Twitter profile photo.

Which journalists have the most followers on Twitter? Not surprisingly, they are often the ones with the biggest platforms off Twitter as well. Another way of looking at it: If you've built a big brand on places such as CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, you can drive up your follower counts easily. (Keep in mind that raw follower counts only tell us part of the story. There are many journalists who have far fewer followers than the big stars, but whose tweets are more likely to be clicked on, retweeted, etc.)

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm on a quest to try and figure out what works - and what doesn't - on social media (see posts that analyzed a successful tweet; discussed new findings about engagement on Facebook; and looked at how a low-ranked tennis player raised her profile via Twitter).

So I asked Greg Galant (@gregory), co-founder of MuckRack, a startup that bills itself as "the destination for journalists on Twitter and social media" to share stats from his service. Think of MuckRack as a sort of LinkedIn for journalists (though it doesn't really compete with that platform and you have to do nothing but connect MuckRack to your Twitter account to get started). What it does is provide the most useful directory of journalists on Twitter and one of the best ways to track journalists - by media outlet, by beat or by country/city/region. It's free for journalists; PR folks and others pay $99 and up a month of it (includes a 30-day full-refund guarantee).

MuckRack's directory currently has more than 10,000 journalists spread over six countries (US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand), with the US being the most comprehensive. If you know of journalists not listed on MuckRack (including in other countries), they can add themselves and create a profile and showcase their work. Here's my profile, as a sample. Galant (who also co-founded the Shorty Awards, which I help judge), sent over the following stats, letting CNET News reveal them for the first time (these numbers are as of a few hours ago; they will change in time and as more journalists register themselves on MuckRack, especially after they see this post).

Top 10 most followed journalists (with links to their MuckRack profiles:

1. Anderson Cooper: 3,455,256


2. Piers Morgan: 3,004,433


3. Rachel Maddow: 2,434,423


4. Larry King: 2,319,449


5. Bill Simmons: 1,931,155
   
6. George Stephanopoulos: 1,814,086
   
7. Chris Hardwick: 1,757,790
   
8. David Gregory: 1,584,068
   
9. Dr. Sanjay Gupta: 1,567,922
   
10. David Pogue: 1,454,191

You will note that in the photo collection above, the fifth spot on the top row doesn't show Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons), the rockstar sports columnist and writer, but a highlight moment of his beloved Red Sox. He can get away with that, but the rest of us should use recent, clear, recognizable photos of ourselves (in 2010, I broached the subject of why your profile photo matters).

Top 10 publications with the most journalists on Twitter:

1. Associated Press: 471


2. New York Times: 463


3. Wall Street Journal: 327


4. Bloomberg News: 310


5. Guardian: 293


6. Reuters: 238


7. USA Today: 186


8. CNN: 175


9. LA Times: 174


10. Sky News: 141

Top 10 news organizations with the most people following their journalists (sum of the followers their journalists have):

1. CNN: 12,936,330 total followers


2. New York Times: 10,361,924 total followers


3. ABC News: 8,080,255 total followers


4. NBC News: 4,886,734 total followers


5. Guardian: 4,653,253 total followers


6. ESPN: 4,468,903 total followers


7. MSNBC: 3,927,080 total followers


8. Fox News: 3,248,385 total followers


9. CNBC: 2,699,308 total followers
10. BBC: 2,136,011 total followers

This list doesn't include the main news-org accounts. Galant wrote to say, "We don't track the media org main accounts. When we started, we specifically avoided them since they were mostly regurgitations of RSS feeds. Now that they're more interesting we might add them in future." If you know a sturdy list of the top news-org accounts by follower count, please let me know (@sree or sree at sree.net).

Once you start playing with MuckRack you will see the benefits of connecting with journalists within its interface. Galant, in a SoundCloud interview embedded below, explains many of its features.

But there are a couple of other reasons to spend time on MuckRack. One is that you can find journalists by specific beats, not just broad topics. For example, you can use the advanced search to find several journalists who cover dance, rather than just a broad listing of arts journalists, ditto for fracking, instead of just energy, or online education, instead of just education (some of the links will work only for registered journalists or those who've gotten the pro accounts).

Another useful, but obscure, feature is that the tweets it displays by journalists are only the ones that don't start with "@," reducing the clutter you seen when you visit a Twitter stream of someone who uses a lot of @ replies.

I also like the fact that there's a special trending list for MuckRack's journalists themselves. Considering how Twitter's worldwide, country and city trends are usually overrun with topics that are time-wasters, obscure shenanigans and Justin Bieberalia, MuckRack's list is much more newsy and relevant, though, as you can see in the comparison below, sports dominates on the weekends.

A look at trending topics on Muckrack (left) and Twitter worldwide trends.

One last list from MuckRack. These were terms that trended the most on the site this year.

Biggest Muck Rack trending terms:

1. Romney


2. #Syria


3. China


4. London


5. Santorum


6. #Egypt


7. Olympics


8. Florida


9. Christmas


10. #London2012 frequency 2061

Yes, I, too, am surprised to see "Obama" missing from the list, unless it's because journalists "split their votes" by using "POTUS" or "@BarackObama" too often. Twitter handles don't trend in both MuckRack's algorithms and in Twitter's, says Galant. "It could be that while there was a more constant amount of coverage and mentions of Obama, there where more surges of coverage for Romney and Santorum due to the primary battle," he wrote in an email.

As part of my short audio interviews on SoundCloud with entrepreneurs and other interesting folks, I asked Galant to talk about MuckRack and how journalists and PR executives can make best use of the service. You can listen to his tips (including some on how startups can get more attention) below or at this link:

What do you think of these lists? Post your comments below, please. If there's enough interest, I will publish a follow-up post, looking at the top 50 journalists on Twitter, along with the ones created an account in 2012 and got the most followers and a list of the 100 journalists to first have a Twitter account.

These and other topics will be part of the festivities at the next Social Media Weekend, which I am hosting at Columbia Journalism School, February 15-17, 2013. Last time, 500 people from 12 countries showed up in NYC. Hope to see some of you there.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit

Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

Read More..

Obama Still an 'Optimist' on Cliff Deal

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON D.C. – Ten days remain before the mandatory spending cuts and tax increases known as the “fiscal cliff” take effect, but President Obama said he is still a “hopeless optimist” that a federal budget deal can be reached before the year-end deadline that economists agree might plunge the country back into recession.

“Even though Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether those rates should go up for the wealthiest individuals, all of us – every single one of us -agrees that tax rates shouldn’t go up for the other 98 percent of Americans, which includes 97 percent of small businesses,” he said.

He added that there was “no reason” not to move forward on that aspect, and that it was “within our capacity” to resolve.

The question of whether to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000 remains at an impasse, but is only one element of nuanced legislative wrangling that has left the parties at odds.

For ABC News’ breakdown of the rhetoric versus the reality, click here.

At the White House news conference this evening, the president confirmed he had spoken today to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, although no details of the conversations were disclosed.

The talks came the same day Speaker Boehner admitted “God only knows” the solution to the gridlock, and a day after mounting pressure from within his own Republican Party forced him to pull his alternative proposal from a prospective House vote. That proposal, ”Plan B,” called for extending current tax rates for Americans making up to $1 million a year, a far wealthier threshold than Democrats have advocated.

Boehner acknowledged that even the conservative-leaning “Plan B” did not have the support necessary to pass in the Republican-dominated House, leaving a resolution to the fiscal cliff in doubt.

“In the next few days, I’ve asked leaders of Congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction,” Obama said. ”That’s an achievable goal.  That can get done in 10 days.”

Complicating matters: The halls of Congress are silent tonight. The House of Representatives began its holiday recess Thursday and Senate followed this evening.

Meanwhile, the president has his own vacation to contend with. Tonight, he was embarking for Hawaii and what is typically several weeks of Christmas vacation.

However, during the press conference the president said he would see his congressional colleagues “next week” to continue negotiations, leaving uncertain how long Obama plans to remain in the Aloha State.

The president said he hoped the time off would give leaders “some perspective.”

“Everybody can cool off; everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones,” he said. “And then I’d ask every member of Congress, while they’re back home, to think about that.  Think about the obligations we have to the people who sent us here.

“This is not simply a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t,” he added later. “There are real-world consequences to what we do here.”

Obama concluded by reiterating that neither side could walk away with “100 percent” of its demands, and that it negotiations couldn’t remain “a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t.”

Boehner’s office reacted quickly to the remarks, continuing recent Republican statements that presidential leadership was at fault for the ongoing gridlock.

“Though the president has failed to offer any solution that passes the test of balance, we remain hopeful he is finally ready to get serious about averting the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said. “The House has already acted to stop all of the looming tax hikes and replace the automatic defense cuts. It is time for the Democratic-run Senate to act, and that is what the speaker told the president tonight.”

The speaker’s office said Boehner “will return to Washington following the holiday, ready to find a solution that can pass both houses of Congress.”

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The end of the world is an opportunity, not a threat

Don't waste time bemoaning the demise of the old order; get on with building the new one

Read more: "2013 Smart Guide: 10 ideas that will shape the year"

A FEW days ago, a woman called New Scientist's subscription desk with an unusual question. Was it true that the world would end in a week's time? She was worried about her young relatives: "They don't deserve to die," she told our sympathetic, if nonplussed, representative.

Our usual response to such enquiries is to say there's about as much reason to expect the world to end this week as any other, which is to say: not much ("Countering the new horsemen of the apocalypse", New Scientist, 1 December, p 5). But surprising numbers of people think otherwise. In a recent poll by the US Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), about 2 per cent of people said they expected the world to end before 2012 does; 15 per cent - many of them evangelical Christians - said the end would come in their lifetimes.

Most of us are jokier about prophecies of doom, but still subject to deep-seated anxiety about what the future will bring. The order of things has crumbled in recent years. But we should relish, rather than fear, the challenge of rebuilding it. After all, apocalyptic thinking is also about renewal: those waiting for the world to end usually expect a better one to take its place ("The end is always nigh in the human mind", New Scientist, 4 June 2011, p 30).

There is certainly cause for concern. Struggling western economies eye the fate of Greece uneasily. Democracy's birthplace has plunged abruptly from apparent affluence to penury. Nor are its problems confined to its borders: its economic crisis is turning into a continent-wide public health problem, with long-vanquished "tropical" diseases staging a troubling comeback ("Greek crisis: How to prevent a humanitarian disaster", New Scientist, 26 May, p 6).

There's better news on the global scale - although it still has its befuddling features. The Global Burden of Disease report released last week shows life expectancies to have risen significantly around the world over the past 40 years - but we now die of different causes, from AIDS to traffic accidents. Strikingly, excess weight is now a bigger global health problem than undernutrition (see "Overeating now bigger global problem than lack of food").

And the general increase in living standards is being thrown into doubt by climate change, which is becoming more serious, more quickly, than most feared ("Climate change: It's even worse than we thought", New Scientist, 17 November, p 34). Thankfully, public acceptance of the problem seems also to be on the rise. Some 6 out of 10 people in the PRRI poll think the severity of recent natural disasters is evidence of global climate change. That's a bolder link than most scientists would make. But then again, more than a third of those polled took such disasters as evidence of the end of the world.

This is a deeply unhelpful reaction. Our species has certainly made a mess of the atmosphere, and it will take immense efforts to sort it out. But we are capable of them. It's our species that built a huge machine to test our theories of the universe's finest workings. It's also our species that this year winched a giant robot down to the surface of another planet to see what's there. And beyond sating our curiosity, it's our species that's cut the death rate in our under-5s by 60 per cent in 20 years.

So yes, the world is complicated, and the challenges we face are enormous. But we mustn't just throw up our hands in despair: all the ingenuity and determination we can muster will be needed. We have to believe that we can make the world a better place, and act to make it one. We shouldn't view the end of the old world as a threat - but as an opportunity.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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