Grass makes better ethanol

Source: Scientific American

Grass Makes Better Ethanol than Corn Does
Midwestern farms prove switchgrass could be the right crop for producing ethanol to replace gasoline

By David Biello

Open source video recorder

Source: NY Times

Novelties
What This Gadget Can Do Is Up to You
By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: January 6, 2008
The creator of a new video recorder has invited skilled users to customize or “hack” its device and share the improvements with others.

Multi-core ahead of programmers

Source: NY Times

Technology
Faster Chips Are Leaving Programmers in Their Dust
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: December 17, 2007
Newer computer chips with multiple processors require dauntingly complex software and programmers are having a hard time keeping up.

Off the cuff I'd think that living systems have the answer as anything with a brain is massively parallel.

One more quote from the article:

...He envisions modern chips that will increasingly resemble musical orchestras. Rather than having tiled arrays of identical processors, the microprocessor of the future will include many different computing cores, each built to solve a specific type of problem. A.M.D. has already announced its intent to blend both graphics and traditional processing units onto a single piece of silicon....

Whatever the answer it reasonable to me that whomever gets it right will lead the computer world and everyone else will be forced to follow.

Balance and pregnancy

Source: NY Times

Science
Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: December 12, 2007
Researchers have found evidence that evolution produced a stronger and more flexible lower spine for women.

Bigger tropics from global warming

(click on post title to go to article)
Source: National Geographic

Climate Change Pushing Tropics Farther, Faster
Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
December 3, 2007

Over the past 25 years the tropics have expanded by as much as 300 miles (500 kilometers) north and south—evidence of climate change in action, a new study says....