12-year-old gives pro-environment speech at UN Earth Summit 1992

Raised in Vancouver and Toronto, Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been camping and hiking all her life. When she was 9 she started the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They were successful in many projects before 1992, when they raised enough money to go to the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Their aim was to remind the decision-makers of who their actions or inactions would ultimately affect. The goal was reached when 12 yr old Severn closed a Plenary Session with a powerful speech that received a standing ovation.

Believe it or not, what you are about to see has been filmed in 1992, yet the speech you’ll hear is now more relevant than ever.



Controversy Erupts Over Secret Cell Phone Tracking

By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

You may have been part of a scientific study and not even known it. New word is out this week that researchers used cell phone towers and call records to secretly track every step made by 100,000 people — without ever getting their permission.

The study, conducted by Boston’s Northeastern University, spawns a slew of as-of-yet unanswered questions. We’ve seen how cell phone spying techniques can let other people tap into your private world undetected, but this marks the first documented time the monitoring’s been used on such a large scale, without any authorization.

Northeastern won’t reveal where the study took place other than that it was in an “industrialized nation” and was outside of the United States — a good thing, since the actions would have been a crime in America. Organizations would have to get your permission to legally conduct this kind of research in the U.S.

The researchers pulled data from cell phone towers, logging an exact location any time a call or text came in or out, and also monitored actual records from the cell phone provider. The school won’t reveal which provider agreed to give them that information.

Northeastern says the numbers were disguised, so no one on the team could identify any individual users. That may not be enough, though, to answer all the ethical concerns. Regardless of whether one’s identifying information was attached, the data being accessed was still private information that shouldn’t have been readily available.

The research director says he never consulted with an ethics panel because his experiment involved “physics, not biology,” and it was therefore not required.

The study’s findings, for what they’re worth, were that the majority of people — more than half — rarely venture out of a six mile circle of their homes. Eighty-three percent, the study says, stayed within a 37 mile wide circle.

The study is highlighted in this week’s Nature International Journal of Science. As you’ll see, a fierce debate has already broken out in the comments section of the story, including some calls for the study’s authors to be dismissed from the university.

So, sound-off time: Did the researchers cross a line, and if so, what should happen as a result? The floor is open for discussion — though, you never know, someone might be monitoring what you say.



The future is sooner than you think

By Mark O’Neill

Doctor Ray Kurzweil is no ordinary predictor of the future. He doesn’t just make up random predictions and cross his fingers, hoping they come true. He has actually made some predictions that have been mostly spot-on.

For example, back in the 1980’s, he predicted the rapid growth of the internet in the 1990’s and a computer chess champion by 1998 (it was actually 1997 with Deep Blue so he was one year off). He also predicted a handheld device for blind people by 2008. Last Thursday night at the World Science Festival, he produced it (I tried searching for it and it may be this but I am not sure).

But now he has made three new predictions that I have found fascinating and I wonder if they will come true :

  • Within 10 years, there will be a drug that lets you eat whatever you want without gaining weight.
  • Within 20 years all our energy will come from clean sources.
  • And the best one of all – “Are you depressed by the prospect of dying? Well, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than you’re aging. And then, before the century is even half over, you can be around for the Singularity, that revolutionary transition when humans and/or machines start evolving into immortal beings with ever-improving software”.

What do you think? Do the predictions sound credible to you?

Doctor Kurzweil – visionary or dreamer? You decide.

Via New York Times

Feeling Sick? Time To Visit Doctor Google

By Mark O’Neill

Google have announced their latest project – Google Health – which is a service where you can have your entire medical history uploaded into your Google account. But before you start hyper-ventilating, Google has promised that everything in your medical records will be password-protected and therefore will not be publicly indexed in Google Search (I certainly hope not!).

The whole theory behind Google Health is that wherever you go in the world, your medical history will follow you. I mean, how many times have you relocated to another part of the country or another country altogether and your medical records have been lost? Mine have been more times than I care to remember, so Google Health wants to help people like me keep their records in the one place, fully organized and fully digitized. Never again will they go missing.

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Mastering the Costanza: Eight Steps to Beating a Lie Detector

By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Ah, the mystery of the lie detector. Can it really be beaten? George Constanza said trying to learn would be like asking Pavarotti to teach you his tricks. Well, grab your microphone and get ready. It’s time for you to hit the stage.

The basics

To beat a polygraph, you first have to understand how it works. The machine basically just monitors your body for changes. You wear devices that measure your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. An administrator asks you a series of questions, starting with “controls.” These are used to figure your body’s baseline reaction when you aren’t hiding anything. He’ll mix these in with the “relevants,” or questions related to the actual investigation. Understanding the difference is the most important step in learning to beat the machine.

Controlling the controls

A control will ask you something general that’s unrelated to the matter at hand. It’ll be broadly focused and often about a subject that causes discomfort. For example, have you ever lied to a loved one? Have you ever cheated on an exam, or stolen from an employer?

The real key to beating the lie detector is controlling your reaction to these controls. You need to produce a stronger physiological response to these questions than to the actual relevant ones. Here’s how:

  • Maintain a calm and regular breathing rate. You want to be hitting about 15 to 30 shallow breaths in and out per minute, so about three seconds per inhale or exhale.
  • When you recognize a control, immediately change that rate. The easiest way is to hold your breath once, for five seconds, after exhaling.
  • At the same time, increase your heart rate and blood pressure. You can do this by performing mental arithmetic — doing complex division in your head, trying to count backwards by sevens — or by biting slowly on the side of your tongue, hard enough to produce moderate pain. Either will work, but make sure you’ve practiced plenty so it’s not noticeable.

Relaxing on the relevants

The second part of the equation happens with the relevant questions — the ones actually going after the information they need. All you have to do when faced with these is maintain the calm and regular breathing rate you learned, and remember that you are in control. Even if your body produces a slight nervous response, it won’t be nearly as high as the excited response you created.

Passing the other tests

So you’ve mastered the polygraph itself. Now you just to make sure you pass the other subtle tests that start the minute you walk in the door. Your administrator will be watching your every move, and it’s not just the machine that can lead you to trouble.

  • Make no admissions. Regardless of what the polygraph shows, everything you say is being recorded. Don’t say anything you’ll regret.
  • Keep your answers short. Administrators are trained to watch for extra words and rambling replies. Stick to simple yes-no answers as often as possible.
  • When answering questions, stay still. Don’t change positions or shake your head, and don’t hesitate before speaking.
  • Remember that you’re always being watched. Don’t do anything that could raise suspicion. Even if you’re in a room alone — bathroom included — odds are they’re taking notes.

George Costanza said it best: It’s not a lie if you believe it. Take these tips to heart and practice them until they become second nature. Then you too will have what it takes to beat a lie detector.

World’s Most Dangerous Domains

It seems that all domains aren’t created equal. According to a new study by McAfee, sites with names ending by “.hk,” “.cn,” and “.info” are among the most dangerous ones an Internet user can visit.

The second annual McAfee “Mapping the Mal Web” report into the riskiest and safest places on the Web reveals that 19.2% of all Web sites ending in the “.hk” domain pose a security threat to Web users. China (.cn) is second this year with over 11%. By contrast Finland (.fi) replaced Ireland (.is) as the safest online destination with 0.05%, followed by Japan (.jp).

It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the “.info” top-level domain is ranked third with 11.8% of all sites ending in .info posing a security threat to their visitors.

For those interested in reading the full report, it is available on McAfee’s website right here.

Could Wikia Search be a serious rival to Google?

By Mark O’Neill

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is hoping that the Wikipedia magic will rub off on his latest project – to build a user community “wiki” search engine – unimaginatively called “Wikia Search“.

The search engine has been in existence for quite a while. I have had an beta invite to look at it and poke around at it with others, but yesterday marked the first time that anyone could participate without an invite. In fact, before today, I hadn’t taken a look at the search engine in quite a while and I was really pleasantly surprised at how far the project had come. But after putting in a few search terms, it’s clear the search engine still needs a lot of work done to it.

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Crazy Russian Office Worker Goes on Rampage

Warning: the following footage contains scenes of extreme violence and has apparently happened just a few days ago in one of Moscow’s official newspaper offices.

Edit: We just got our hands on additional footage of the scene. If anyone speaks russian here, a translation would be appreciated.