From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 19/12):

Business & management:
• If the GM, Chevrolet and Ford companies go out of business, not just American jobs would be affected. A new study in Canada indicates that half a million jobs there would also be at risk in the next 6 years.
• Research published in the UK by a drugs think tank (“Working towards recovery: getting problem drug users into jobs”) suggests that anti-discrimination laws might be needed to boost the chances of job-seeking former addicts, and that firms might be more willing to employ them in return for tax breaks.

Environment & sustainability:
• 2008 is likely to rank as the 10th warmest year on record since the beginning of the instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization.
• The UK’s Public Interest Research Centre has published “Climate safety: in case of emergency…”. It’s a simple summary of the latest science that explains the science behind climate change and explains the actions needed.
• The planned Wembley City development is huge - 4,200 homes as well as retail and commercial property over an 85-acre site. Once complete the whole site will be served by a system of underground vacuum pipes that transport rubbish from strategically positioned bins to a single sorting station.
• A North Carolina, US energy company is planning to pay businesses, schools and homeowners to rent their rooftops or ground area, so that solar arrays can be installed to generate power.

Health & wellbeing:
• A nation-wide long-term study in the US reveals that trucking workers with an estimated 20 years on the job have an increased risk of lung cancer.
• Medical teams working at some of the UK’s busiest music festivals noticed that as soon as a young patient was well enough to text their friends, they were generally well enough to rejoin the action. The test could work in busy A&E units, for assessing whether a patient could be discharged.
• Unsurprisingly, US researchers have found that there is a strong link between “active transportation” such as walking, cycling or using mass transit systems, and reducing the incidence of obesity in the population.

Law & Government:
• The UN has launched “Data against natural disasters: establishing effective systems for relief, recovery, and reconstruction.” The guidelines aim to help states pre-emptively amass the data vital for effective relief operations that will enable them to avoid compounding the original catastrophe.
• The Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks will enter into force on 16 March 2009, since Australia became the 10th country to ratify the agreement adopted by member States of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization in 2006. The Treaty standardizes procedural aspects of trademark registration and licensing and takes advantage of efficiencies in using modern communications technologies.
• The Law Commission’s latest report “Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law” notes that the law is often difficult to find, and difficult to understand when it has been found.
• A series of papers for consultation on the UK government’s policy commitments set out in their White Paper, “Communities in control: real people, real power” are being released. A recent consultation paper looks at proposals to make it easier to get local leaders to hold a referendum on their leadership structure: “Changing Council Governance Arrangements: Mayors and Indirectly Elected Leaders - A Consultation”.
• A member of the UK think tank Demos, argues for updating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with a declaration of digital rights.
• The Australian government’s attempts to have ISPs block or filter over 10 000 web sites believed to hold illegal content, are running into difficulties.

People, culture & diversity:
• Freedom of expression on the Internet is not possible in more than 20 countries around the world, and for the first time, online writers have become the largest group among imprisoned journalists.
• In the UK, the “No One Left Out Strategy” is an approach to reducing rough sleeping (London has been having its rough sleeping conference this week). The Homeless Link website provides resources and examples of good practice in handling this issue, via its Rough Sleeping Portal, and lays out the 15 Actions of the strategy.
• Uncritical users may think that Google is a service providing them with greater access to information. Americans have discovered since the settlement of the 3-year lawsuit between Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Authors Guild, that their access via Google to all those books scanned from the collections of great American libraries is not that universal – even for the libraries whose books were scanned.

Science, technology & transport:
• Internet NZ has released research that concludes that utility expansion provides the best opportunity for dramatic improvement of NZ's broadband infrastructure.
• 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky. Amongst the many projects going on, Jennie McCormick of Auckland is the coordinator on the Task Group of the 100 Hours of Astronomy IYA2009 Cornerstone Project.
• In the US, a recent survey shows that consumer preferences for community design is shifting away from suburban areas and towards infill sites with better access to public transportation options.
• A referendum in Manchester has seen the rejection by voters of the proposal to bring in a congestion tax.
• A storm of protest in the UK over the blocking of access to controversial Wikipedia pages, has resulted in the block being lifted again. It has been pointed out that due to the Internet Watch Foundation blocking access, the image that they were concerned about is now getting more hits than previously.
• The latest forecast from the Pew Internet / American Life Project, “The Future of the Internet III” shows that it’s expected that major technical advances will become an everyday part of life, and the architecture of the Internet will improve. But the experts disagree on how this will impact on social tolerance, human relations and home life.
• The International Correspondence School based in Glasgow, is offering a 300-hour accredited course in ethical hacking.
• After users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer were urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw had been fixed, Microsoft rushed out a patch to fix it.
• A tidal turbine near the mouth of Strangford Lough has begun producing electricity at full capacity for the first time.
• The French government is being accused of suppressing a report on electric vehicles. The report is said to warn that the cost of all-electric cars, roughly double that of conventional cars, is not economically viable, and it points to limited driving range and performance, and unsatisfactory battery technology, as major obstacles.

LOGIS news alerts over Xmas & New Year

The post at the end of next week will be the last until the first week back, in January 2009.

We at ACLibraries hope staff have a break that is relaxing and rejuvenating (& that includes some recreational reading).

I

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 11/12):

Business & management:
• SlideRocket is a website that provides the power of a desktop presentation tool like PowerPoint to people who want to share their slide presentations across the Web, and basic access is free.
• Transparency International’s 2008 Bribe Payers Index (BPI) exposes the degree to which companies of the leading exporting nations are likely to engage in bribery when doing business abroad.
• The New Zealand Institute has today released the fourth report in its series on “Creating a global New Zealand economy”.
• NZ Wood has released a building materials carbon calculator so that people can work out the CO2 emissions or savings that can be attributed to the building materials used for a new home.

Education
• A British charity has released a report that says that faith schools in the UK educate a "disproportionately small" number of children from the poorest backgrounds, which it says contradicts the historical mission of faith schools to challenge poverty and inequality and serve the most disadvantaged in society.
• Researchers at a US university have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income children. Children from lower socio-economic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult.
• A major review of the curriculum for England's primary schools suggests that six broad "areas of learning" could replace individual subjects.
• The Open University’s podcasts are already available from Youtube and iTunesU, but are now also available from their own beta site.
• The UK’s Children’s Secretary has ordered bullying experts to draw up guidance to tackle inappropriate language, advise teachers on how to manage cases of harassment, and encourage healthy friendships between teenage boys and girls amid concerns of misogynistic attitudes linked to gang culture.

Environment & sustainability:
• A US company is planning to package sequestered carbon from golf courses participating in their program and sell the resulting carbon credits.
• The UNEP’s new Carbon and Biodiversity Demonstration Atlas pinpoints where high densities of carbon overlap with high levels of biodiversity, so that the atlas spotlights where governments and investors can deal with two crises for the price of one.
• Researchers say that the domestication of wild plants that grow in salty conditions could help reduce global food shortages. Only 1% of the world’s water is fresh, and salinisation is irreversible.
• A European Union report has recommended banning conventional incandescent light bulbs by 2012 to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
• Controversial findings in a new study show that very large earthquakes can trigger an increase in activity at nearby volcanoes.
• A leading overseas expert in green energy speaking at the annual conference of Sustainable Electricity Association NZ says NZ could easily generate all its electricity from renewable sources within twenty years with the right support from government.
• A Victoria University researcher has been working on protecting marine environments from unnecessary waste runoff.

Health & wellbeing:
• Research by US scientists shows that cancer researchers may have underestimated the power of some cancers to spread and cause new tumours, as they have found that just one skin cancer cell was often enough to generate a whole new tumour.
• It’s 40 years since the invention of the original computer mouse, but these days it’s becoming well known as a source of RSI (repetitive strain injury) or NSAP (non-specific arm pain).
• Happiness is spread through social networks and exists in clusters of close friends and neighbours, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.
• The World report on child injury prevention from WHO and UNICEF provides the first comprehensive global assessment of unintentional childhood injuries and prescribes measures to prevent them. The report shows that children from poor families, even in high-income countries, are more vulnerable to unintentional injuries.
• An allotment area in Daventry UK is more than just a place for local school children to learn about growing and eating healthy food, it can be a place to exercise.
• New research shows that diabetes and high levels of blood sugar may be linked to abnormalities in a person’s body clock and sleep patterns.
• The Youth '07 study conducted by the University of Auckland Adolescent Health Research Group has shown that youth depression and drug use are declining.

Law & Government:
• Public policy is encouraging the community ownership and management of assets in the UK. A report reviews the evidence on the scale of this activity, the benefits that arise and the factors that support it happening.
• Volunteers contribute hugely to local services during disasters, but non-professional volunteers are not always involved in the highest levels of disaster planning. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has addressed this by appointing a secretary of service and volunteering at cabinet level.
• A new Bill introduced into the UK parliament last week provides new scope for councils and businesses to work together to invest in the long-term economic prosperity of their local communities.

People, culture & diversity:
• God has a postbox and an address. All you need write is "To God, Jerusalem" and the postman in the holy city's dead-letter office will deliver it for you.

Science, technology & transport:
• An Australian company is another that is close to going into production with a small biodiesel-manufacturing unit: a transportable biodiesel processor the size of a 10ft ISO shipping container, called the BioCube. The unit has the potential to provide the fuel requirements for a community of 400 to 500 people.
• Better Place now has 400 wired parking spots, mainly in and around Tel Aviv, since it launched its initiative in June, with 10 stations recently demonstrated in a Tel Aviv mall parking lot.
• Hewlett Packard has shown in its latest green 3-year technology refresh that any business with an IT budget can find some savings especially if they look into consolidation of data services.
• A solar-powered car has travelled through 38 countries with only occasional need to plug into the local grids to power up the car’s batteries.
• For those wanting to understand Google more or search it more effectively, check out “Google: the hidden ideology of search” and “Everything you always wanted to know about Google”.
• A leading UK computer scientist who will give this year's Royal Institution Christmas lectures says that the way we control and interact with computers is set to change rapidly in the next five years.
Engineers are succeeding in research that could mean that "self-powered" devices, such as phones that charge when you speak into them, are one step closer to reality.
• New car sales in Japan are declining, and that in combination with greater environmental awareness means that the trend is away from car ownership and towards car usage, i.e. car sharing.
• In a nationwide survey, 39% of Kiwis believe that calling and texting from their mobile has reduced their need to travel.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 04/12):

Business & management:
• Concern is so high over a demographic crisis of a very low birth rate, that Japanese companies are being asked to allow married employees to spend more time at home, and the government is considering legislation to allow more family time.
• The UK Employment Tribunal has made a ruling that people trying to combine work with caring for disabled or elderly relatives will have the right to claim against employers who discriminate against them in refusing to offer flexible working.
• A UK commentator promotes co-owned businesses as more successful in providing public services than either pure public services or private sector providers. A publication called “Innovation Included: why co-owned businesses are good for public services” can be downloaded from the Employee Ownership Association website
• An Oxford University professor believes he has traced the world’s earliest example of a credit crunch – in Rome in 88BC.
• The Commerce Commission has today released guidelines to businesses that make environmental, or ‘green’, claims in their marketing.

Education
• The Serious Virtual Worlds report focuses on virtual worlds for educational uses, and explores the ‘serious’ – as opposed to leisure-based – uses of virtual worlds.

Environment & sustainability:
• The current financial crisis is causing some to call for a return to the days when lawns were less important than vegetable gardens.
• The NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development has released surveys of more than 3,500 New Zealanders' experiences with their homes, and their policy preferences. Included is a policy to improve the performance of NZ houses.

Health & wellbeing:
• A UK commentator says that long term social care and support needs to be reintegrated with, and owned by, the wider community.
• An investigation in the UK has discovered that some schools are illegally discriminating against HIV-positive children and teachers.
• Scientists have discovered how stress physically reshapes the brain and causes long-lasting harm to humans and animals.

Law & Government:
• Victoria University of Wellington’s eighth Post-Election Conference will be held on 12 December 2008 at the Legislative Council Chamber at Parliament. Politicians, political scientists and journalists will contribute.
• Stratford District Council’s Information Centre has launched a new touch-window information system. The interactive window display allows visitors to tap the street-side window menu to browse for information at any time whether or not the centre is open.
• A US commentator lists the “Seven silent crises” facing metropolitan areas in the US – although these could be applied to metropolitan areas around the world.
• In the Office of the Ombudsmen’s Annual Report to Parliament, concern is expressed that some parts of the public service have been deliberately delaying responses to Official Information requests.
• Britain’s binge drinking culture is to be curbed by giving local authorities the power to ban happy hours, all you can drink offers and other price promotions in troublesome pubs and bars. Some other innovative ideas to modify drinkers’ behaviour are also being trialled by police.
• Mapping tools provided by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo might lead some local authorities in the UK to be in breach of the Ordnance Survey’s copyright on the original maps.
• Students studying a range of different courses at UK universities are being encouraged to think about the impact of terrorism - town and country planning students are taught to think about how to mitigate the effects of bomb blasts in public spaces.

People, culture & diversity:
• Social networking sites proved their immediacy in the last week during the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, with many providing information and images much more quickly than the formal news agencies.
• An American commentator has written about the way the Bush administration has “done unspeakable violence” to the English language.
• The famous open-air booksellers in Paris may be under threat from online book dealers and tourism.
• A UK researcher’s study of the interaction between time poverty and income poverty shows that freeing lone parents from income poverty only comes at the price of deepening their existing time poverty, which is unlikely to improve their children's well-being, and that men are less likely to experience both time and income poverty than women.
• Developmental psychologists have provided evidence that children are naturally tuned to believe in gods of one sort or another.

Science, technology & transport:
• Brain scientists have succeeded in fooling people into thinking they are inside the body of another person or a plastic dummy.
• Traffic calming features used nowadays to reduce speed even include the unconventional, e.g. “psychological traffic calming” or if you are in India, sacred cows (mentioned in a recent book: Traffic: why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us) / Tom Vanderbilt.)
• The new .tel domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites, and will work either via the web or mobile phones.
• Researchers say that the impact of emissions from today’s road traffic on the global temperature in 2100 will be six times greater than that from today’s air traffic.
• In the food vs fuel debate, new research shows that perennial grasses may be a better crop to use for producing ethanol than corn.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 26/11):

Business & management:
• The third annual snapshot report of the Workplace Health and Safety Strategy for New Zealand to 2015 has been released.
• From GreenBiz.com – 5 reasons why a company should consider generating its own green energy on site.
• One Japanese company’s approach to reducing carbon emissions is to put staff in an outdoor office on the rooftop for about a third of the work year.

Education
• Educators need to master the techniques of teaching via online in virtual worlds, as today’s online learners combine online and on-the-ground learning, even across time zones.

Environment & sustainability:
• The World Meteorological Organisation’s latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin indicates that climate-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase.
• A 7-year $5 million dollar research project is to improve the understanding of the vulnerability of the Auckland region to volcanic eruptions, by looking into physical models of how the Auckland area volcanoes work, risk and hazards from the volcanoes, and the social and economic impacts of these.
• A Spanish city is generating renewable energy by using a local cemetery to set up solar panels.
• A poll in 11 countries showed that about half of the respondents wanted governments to play a major role in curbing emissions.
• The LEED green building standards used in the US have resulted in millions of dollars saved for all concerned, but a report on the impact of green building shows that green building needs to become more universal for a real impact to show.

Health & wellbeing:
• Australia’s population is at increasing risk from dengue fever and malaria in the future, as global warming increases the spread of malaria and dengue in maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.
• Sport and Recreation NZ’s report 2007/2008 Active New Zealand has been released, and shows that half the adult population are meeting the minimum recommended physical activity guidelines.

Law & Government:
• An International Standards Organisation Technical Committee meets in Wellington this week to discuss standards around preservation of digital records.
• A Russian academic and political analyst says the current financial crisis in the United States is confirming his long-held view that the country is headed for collapse and will break up into smaller pieces.
• The US National Intelligence Council is also predicting that the US will become less dominant on the world stage, in its report Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World
• A US New Jersey town is only the 2nd town to adopt a “precautionary principle” ordinance to guide its municipal policy. This means that the town “will strive to make decisions based on the least environmentally harmful alternatives in order to provide every resident with an equal right to a healthy and safe environment”.

People, culture & diversity:
• Children from a Wellington primary school have shared their beliefs with the Government and United Nations on what they think is important for young people.
• A 3-year research project (Digital Youth Research) has finished and the resulting report shows” that the stereotypical idea of the Internet as a soul-devouring, anti-social wasteland for our kids is just plain wrong”. The study’s implications for education are also considered to be significant.
• A new European Union website called Europeana, intended to be Europe's digital library, museum and archive of 3.5 million digital treasures, has been overwhelmed by users and crashed less than a day after launching, due to 10 million hits an hour.

Science, technology & transport:
• California’s Bay Area leaders are hoping to have the first electric vehicle capital of the US. The politicians have chosen Better Place to help them build a $1 billion electric vehicle infrastructure, with planning to start in 2009. At the same time, the State of Oregon is in negotiations with Nissan about developing electric cars and a car charging network there, and Portugal has announced a partnership with the Renault Nissan Alliance to deliver “zero emission mobility” from 2010.
• A report on broadcasting and changes in technology and the media shows that just over half of NZ households are receiving digital television services and that the young are spending less time watching TV and more time on the Internet than they were the last time the survey was done, just 3 years ago.
• The Pentagon has banned the use of external computer flash drives because of a virus threat officials detected.
• British researchers believe that UK transport’s contribution to climate change could be reduced by a quarter by 2020.
• A recent study of companies around the world using open source software (OSS), shows that 85% of the companies are using OSS and the rest expect to be using it within a year. The top 3 reasons for using OSS were: lower total cost of ownership, reduction in development of cost-prohibitive factors, and the ease to embark on new IT projects or software initiatives.
• Although NZ has a high penetration of Internet use and ranks high in educational use, NZ has one of the lowest penetration rates of broadband at home at 65 percent, according to the latest data from the World Internet Project.
• For those people with a Google account, access to the new SearchWiki tool will mean that they can tailor and personalise their Google searching.
• Greenpeace has released its latest Guide to Greener Electronics, a report that ranks 18 of the top electronics manufacturers in how they're addressing a range of environmental issues.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 20/11):

Business & management:
• The NZ Tourism Strategy 2015 has been awarded ‘Overall Winner’ in the prestigious Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2008, competing alongside 1,900 international nominees.
• The credit crunch in the UK is causing major problems for residents who have bought homes in a partially completed private development suburb in affluent Cambridge. The "contemporary, attractive and vibrant" suburb of 900 homes is under half completed and is now starting to look like “a rubbish dump”.
• The CEO of a learning technology company warns that the “wisdom of crowds” idea of the benefit of collaboration over individual effort has been embraced as dogma and that the results of group effort are not always better than those produced by the efforts of skilled individuals.
• Researchers at Deutsche Bank's Asset Management (DeAM) Division have published a new white paper arguing that increased spending on green infrastructure can provide enough economic stimulus to avoid a severe recession.
• The US green building industry has been less affected by the downturn in the housing industry than the conventional building industry. One advantage is that homebuyers are willing to pay more for a green home.

Education
• The Asia Pacific Managing Director of Cambridge University Press has said, "All countries in the world are looking at ways to provide education online and in a digital format. This is the trend of education in the future.”
• A Canadian education researcher has reviewed his predictions from 1998 about the future of learning, in the light of the changes over the last 10 years.
• A number of articles in the US are suggesting that the higher education industry may be the next to be seeing the end of boom times with many independent colleges choosing between shutting down, merging, or being acquired.

Environment & sustainability:
• If you’ve felt confused about whether reusable nappies are better for the environment or not, then you’re in for good news. A recent research report has shown that there can be considerable environmental benefits to using reusable nappies.
• The UK recession is having an impact on the recycling industry in the UK, and local authorities have requested government permission for Ministry of Defence land to be used to stockpile growing amounts of recyclable waste for which there is no use and no market.
• Researchers have produced a new model of the Earth’s climate that suggests that human-generated carbon dioxide emissions may prevent the onset of the next ice age.
• Some companies aren’t sure where to begin with their green initiatives, so a group of green business owners and consultants provide their favorite high-impact, low cost and easy-to-implement green initiatives.
•The world can expect energy prices to continue their generally upward spiral in the years ahead if global energy policies remain the same, according to the latest World Energy Outlook report.
• Scientists studying man-made “atmospheric brown clouds” and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere say that they are resulting in Asian cities are getting darker, glaciers melting faster and weather systems becoming more extreme.
• Greenhouse gas emissions by industrialised nations rose 2.3% from 2000 to 2006, according to new figures from the UN's climate change agency.
• 2 new books in the LOGIS collection are available: Microgeneration: low energy strategies for larger buildings / Dave Parker, and The value of parks: inspire, refresh, conserve, protect, play / [developed by Parks Forum in partnership with IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and The People and Parks Foundation ; foreword by John Landy]

Health & wellbeing:
• Diabetes NZ is concerned that the public health system is not meeting its targets for free basic annual diabetes checks and new figures show that there are now 500 NZ children between the ages of 10 and 18 with Type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease that used to only be known in adults over 45.
• A recent report in the US has shown that while the bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, contaminants in bottled water from some states exceed the industry’s own voluntary standards, and many contaminants are not legally regulated in bottled water in the US/
• Google has found that it can predict where 'flu outbreaks will take place in the USA because "certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity", and Google can estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
• Researchers have found that traffic pollution adversely affects respiratory health in asthmatic children.

Law & Government:
• The public’s attitude is moving away from the use of physical punishment of children, since the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 came into force. In a survey asking whether children should be entitled to the same protection from assault as adults, 80% of people surveyed responded positively.
• Internet identity and account theft is a global business with organised criminal groups making such details easily available online for a price.
• The Australian Senate has passed legislation that allows Australia access and property rights in its offshore waters for geological storage of CO2.
• Bhagidari is a UN award-winning system that actively encourages the participation of local citizen forums and community groups in collaboration with government officials to develop “joint ownership” of change processes. A British commentator contrasts the success of the Indian scheme with local governance in the UK.

People, culture & diversity:
• Nordic countries are still ranked top in the world for closing the gender gap between men and women, but in this year’s report from the World Economic Forum, NZ has kept its ranking of 5th.
• A report from Manchester University and the London School of Economics claims that stories and their writers can do just as much as academics and policy researchers, perhaps even more, to explain and communicate the world's problems.
• The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in October that Britain should take urgent action to stop the demonization of children, and Barnado’s has now discovered in a controversial survey of 2000 adults, that half of them are fundamentally prejudiced against the current generation of children.
• “Individualism and consumerism” have been identified as modern “social evils” in the UK, and 2 viewpoint articles discuss aspects: one article looks at why people are less happy in spite of the many liberties available to everyone, and the other looks at investing in civil society to change things.
• Ireland is introducing a citizenship test for immigrants, of which English would be the key precondition. "Increasingly throughout all the nations of the EU language of the host nation is the key requirement. Learning that language is no longer voluntary”
• One of the world’s biggest photo collections, with images from the 1750s through to the present day is being made available online by Google, in a deal with Life magazine and other archives.

Science, technology & transport:
• If you’ve seen the “invisible” moon-walking bear in the now-famous Youtube video, what you’ve been watching is a subtle road safety campaign planted by London transport officials.
• The co-founder of Second Life has made some predictions about what might be the next exciting areas in technology development.
• Loss of personal data records held on discs, laptops and USBs by corporate staff or government officials in the UK has prompted the suggestion that biometrics be used as a security measure. However, there are problems and issues with the use of biometrics for security purposes.
• A chief adviser to the UK government is suggesting that the future of broadband would be a "patchwork" of community-based networks.
• Verdiem, the producer of Edison software for cutting PC energy use, is introducing the free software to the UK market. Edison is a pared down version of Verdiem's corporate-level Surveyor software.
• There is discussion in the US about lowering speed limits to help conserve fuel. It may not work, as Purdue University researchers found few US drivers have any respect for speed limits, which they consider nothing more than vague guidelines they can ignore. Researchers attribute the attitude to a similar previous law passed in 1974.
• Popular Science has published its “Best of What’s New” list for 2008. Among the list are Honda’s hydrogen car, software that can start your PC in 20 seconds, and a machine that can power generators by using waste heat as low as 93°C (200°F).
• Microsoft will offer a free anti-virus and security solution from the second half of next year, and stop selling its OneCare security and PC management service.
• Two GPS systems to track traffic snarls that went into operation earlier this month, will be on show at the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in New York this week.
• A Scots scientist uses a remote controlled helicopter that flies over active volcanoes to gather his data, to help predict when volcanoes will erupt.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 13/11):

Business & management:
• The UN is predicting that due to the global financial crisis, there could be a food price surge in the coming year, in spite of record cereal production around the world and a recent drop in food prices.
• New graduates from the formal education system may think they’ve escaped bullying, but as some UK graduates have discovered, they may well face workplace bullies in their first job.

Education
• Paramedic students at a UK hospital are using Second Life to learn procedures they’ll need in their work, practising the skills in a safe environment before they face the real thing.
• The UK government is looking at ways to increase flexibility for students at university, increasing the possibility of part-time or interrupted study, getting employers to fund degrees and requiring universities to show what benefit they give to students. A new report suggests pick and mix degrees.
• Will the global recession force academics to attend expensive conferences in virtual worlds like Second Life?

Environment & sustainability:
• Bristol has been voted the UK’s most sustainable city by experts who looked at indicators such as environmental performance, quality of life and readiness for challenges ahead.
• A team of international scientists has demonstrated for the first time that rising temperatures in both the Arctic and the Antarctic are caused by human activity.

Health & wellbeing:
• Life expectancy figures for NZers have increased, and over the last 30 years, life expectancy for men has increased more than for women, although women are still expected to live about 4 years longer.
• 96% of NZ smokers support a ban on smoking in cars carrying pre-school children, according to research from the University of Otago in Wellington.
• The UK National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence provides “intervention guidance” documents for employers and professionals in small, medium and large organisations who have a direct or indirect role in, and responsibility for, improving health in the workplace.
• US researchers have found that obese children have the arteries of 45-year-olds and other heart defects.
• The EU drugs agency estimates that 17.5 million young Europeans between 15 and 34 used cannabis in the last year but there are "stronger signals" that its popularity is beginning to wane, especially among British school students.
• The number of under-age drinkers getting treatment for alcohol-related problems overall jumped 40% in just one year in the UK, from 2006 to 2007.
• A review on a book about the 1918 flu in the UK compares actions then with planning now. Planners today are privately admitting that if an avian flu’ epidemic broke out again, the armed forces might need to be called on to provide support.
• Researchers in Scotland have found that even small parks in the heart of our cities may protect us from strokes and heart disease, perhaps by cutting stress or boosting exercise.

Law & Government:
• The worlds top thought leaders at the Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai, say that the world needs to examine the basic operating systems that drive its economies, markets and societies and aim for a “fundamental reboot” to establish a fresh platform based on renewed confidence and trust, and on sustainability, responsibility and ethical principles.
• The UN has had difficulties in previous years getting Member States to pay their financial dues in full in a timely manner. Ban Ki Moon has paid tribute to the 31 Member States that have paid their 2008 dues in full for all sectors of the UN budgets (of which NZ is one), warning of possible cash shortfalls.
• The UK government has sponsored a competition called Show Us A Better Way, to find ideas for new products that could improve the way public information is communicated. The finalists and winner were announced this week.

People, culture & diversity:
• The 15th of November is Courage Day in NZ, the Day of the Imprisoned Writer. The day is named jointly after James Courage, whose novel A way of love was banned because he dared to express homosexuality in his writing, and his grandmother Sarah Courage whose book describing colonial life in NZ was burned by neighbours who resented comments she made about them.
• A British Rotary Club has been running the World Poohsticks Championships for years. Held on the Thames, the event attracts huge interest but the club’s members (average age almost 70) can no longer cope with running the event.

Science, technology & transport:
• A company that provides pre-purchase vehicle checks is warning that close to half the used cars offered for sale in New Zealand now have money owing or other serious issues which could potentially rebound on the new owner.
• Ernest Rutherford’s great-granddaughter Professor C Mary Fowler is a geophysicist. She is on a celebratory lecture tour of New Zealand to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the award to Rutherford of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
• American scientists have discovered a fungus that produces its own version of diesel (dubbed “mycodiesel”) as part of its natural lifecycle.
• A Texas-based company is manufacturing a completely automated mini-refinery for consumer use that can manufacture both ethanol and biodiesel, and can fit in an area about 2.8 meters square.
• Honda has developed and is testing set of robotic legs on one of its assembly lines to help reduce injuries in people spending a lot of time on their feet. The device could also be used to make it easier for the elderly or the sick to walk.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 06/11):

Business & management:
• The World Trade Organisation has released a report indicating that global trade slipped back to 6% growth in 2007, down from 8.5% in 2006.
• A report released by UK think tank Demos about the possible benefits to businesses of allowing their staff to make use of social networking websites has been released. (Note the pdf download is free as long as people comply with the Demos open access license conditions.)
• Public service employers in cities across America are forcing their employees to cover up tattoos if they want to keep their jobs, so as not to “offend some people in the community”.
• The UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has said that more effort needs to be put into gender equality for women, especially for those women living in countries affected by climate change.
• Businesses in the US selling guns and ammunition are not suffering from the economic downturn, with sales up between 8-10%. Sellers say that there are many factors involved, but one concern for buyers could be that Obama is not pro-gun and could introduce more restrictive laws.
• Price Waterhouse Coopers is suggesting that it may be only 5 years before the economies of the developing world overtake those of developed nations.

Education
• There’s a growing realization that people who study philosophy learn skills that are eminently transferable and a good fit for today’s global economy. As a result, those skills are forming the basis for strong, well-paid careers.
• How are universities likely to be impacted by current technological trends? Two publications seek to address this question.
• A university in the US commissioned a study, that has found that online education now receives wide support among US businesses, and online degrees don’t cause the concern that they used to about applicants.
• Another university conducted a study into 1st-year-student use of social networking sites to see whether there are ways to integrate sites like Facebook into university education.
• The University of Maine is offering a Masters of Business Administration and Sustainability programme.

Environment & sustainability:
• On Wired magazine’s list of 15 people that the next president should listen to, is Peter Gleick, who raises concerns about a water crisis facing the US.
• Also on the list is Mitchell Joachim who talks about redesigning cities from scratch, with the top issue for him being mobility and its inefficiencies.
• LA residents are not entirely happy with the new food recycling scheme launched in the city that wants to divert 600 tons of food waste away from landfills.
• When we think of a group of people who enthusiastically utilize the latest in technology, we don't tend to think of the Amish, but the Amish communities of America have taken to solar power in a big way.
• A new study from Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that the world's energy needs could be met entirely from renewable sources by 2090.
• Unless global computer manufacturers and computer-intensive industries start taking advantage of power-saving features and build with an eye toward energy efficiency, the global impact of IT is projected to surge by 2020, growing to eclipse the total emissions of the United Kingdom.

Health & wellbeing:
• The Ministry of Health has launched a survey to find out what adult NZers are eating, and how eating habits and diet affect health. The survey will take a year, and a report will be issued in 2010.
• New research in the UK shows that 1000s of students are being excluded from school for drinking, and that in 2006, more than 500,000 under-18s were served alcohol in bars and more than 350,000 bought alcohol in shops.

Law & Government:
• One of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created has been used to steal the details of about 500 000 bank and card accounts in countries around the world.
• Donald Trump has won local planning permission to build his controversial golf course resort north of Aberdeen.

People, culture & diversity:
• The UN has published The Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity “bringing to life” the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Science, technology & transport:
• Intel and manufacturer ASUS have launched a project asking people to say what they would like to see in a PC.
• The steel industry is working with a number of UK universities to develop a photovoltaic paint.
• Finding out how to appeal to a market of upper-income people with choices is one of the most challenging questions in transit - what does it take to get upper income people on the bus?

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 30/10):

Business & management:
• An interview with a team collaboration expert shows that the “command and control“ style of team or team leadership is not the only way to run effective teams, whether virtual or not. “Bioteaming” is a way to learn from nature's teams in terms of our organizational teams and our networks.
• There are concerns in the UK about future agricultural production, as heavy machinery, drier summers and changing growing seasons are all taking their toll on the soil.
• BSI British Standards will be managing the UK’s new standard (PAS 2050), that allows UK firms to measure the size of their goods' carbon footprints.
• “E-billing” is a green practice that customers generally prefer, and can save money for companies while improving their sustainability and environmental practices. A US survey shows that 85 percent of identity theft cases (one concern about online security) are from paper transactions like lost checkbooks and statements.
• KPMG has found that nearly three-quarters of the top 100 U.S. companies by revenue reported sustainability data this year, twice as many as three years ago.

Education
• Sex education will be compulsory in all UK schools in the future (including religious schools), starting with teaching about body parts and the fact that animals reproduce at the age of 5, puberty and intercourse at 7, and contraception and abortion from the age of 11. Effective drug and alcohol education in schools is also under review.
• Research has discovered that distance learning courses consume nearly 90% less energy and produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions than conventional campus university courses.
• Academics and educators are asking about the way students use the Internet for research. Is the vast amount of information at students' fingertips changing the way they gather and process information for the better--or for worse?
• As part of a debate over degree standards, 77% of UK academics surveyed recently say pressure on them to give better marks had increased, and 78% believed that student plagiarism was an increasing problem in their institution.
• Officials in Australia report a 66% drop in applications for naturalisation to the country, within 3 months of the introduction of basic English exam to the application process. The head of the evaluation team for the test said the level of English requires was higher than basic, and the structure of the test was flawed.

Environment & sustainability:
• Talk of greenhouse gases makes most people think of the need to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. What is not so well known, is the role that nitrogen trifluoride plays as a greenhouse gas, and the fact that its presence in the atmosphere is sharply rising.
• Companies in Australia have partnered with Better Place to have a subscription-based scheme for users to recharge their electric vehicles. Over 200 000 charging stations will be built in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.
• The U.S. Department of the Interior has decided to offer up leases for geothermal development on 190 million acres of Federal land, estimating that up to 5,540 megawatts of power could be generated from these lands by the middle of the next decade.
• The Water Footprint Network is a new global organisation formed to foster sustainable water management and help individuals and producers accurately measure use by developing standards and tools.
• Aggressively replacing the world's incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) could reduce lighting energy demand by nearly 40 percent and cut greenhouse gas emissions from day one

Law & Government:
• Amongst a number of reports released in the UK about the impacts of childhood poverty, is one that outlines the extra cost to public services of child poverty
• A UK financial journalist points out to a local council, the value of using plain English in its communication with its local community.
• Virtual worlds are sparking off their own crimes – a woman is in jail in Japan awaiting charges for data crimes after she illegally accessed login details of the man playing her husband, and killed off his character because he divorced her in the online game without warning.
• On Nov 12th, there is a Brookers Environmental Law Seminar at the Auckland District Law Society. Information about other Brookers events (they are the providers of our law databases on Citynet) is available.
• Argentina’s government is the first in the world to require that companies involved in potentially hazardous activities purchase insurance covering environmental damage to the country.
• A review of New Zealand's electoral administration is underway and is now seeking the views of the public.
• A US federal judge has ruled that homeless voters can use park benches and other places that aren't buildings as addresses on their voter registration.

People, culture & diversity:
• A survey of 10-15 year-olds in the UK has discovered that half of those surveyed said that their futures are now a major concern compared with just 30% in last year’s survey, while a third admitted to having been drunk, and drugs and bullying impact on many.

Science, technology & transport:
• Attitudes to using public transport in some US cities seem to be very different to the general attitude in NZ. In some states, people are allowed by law to carry concealed weapons, and the opinion has been expressed in Minnesota, that the new Minneapolis light rail system might not work that well because “Minnesotans' are not comfortable riding in closed vehicles with people they do not know.”
• People who have mobile phones with a good enough data transmission plan in their contract can now use video streaming technology to broadcast out on the Internet whatever they are doing – and one company is about to make it possible for people to stream their live video from their phone straight to their Facebook profile.
• Australia has already trialled an Internet content filtering system it plans to introduce, that will be mandatory for all users. Online libertarians are concerned about how the filtering could be expanded to cover controversial topics, and there’s concern that some users may believe that the opt out options provide for no content filtering, which will not be the case.
• All of which get interesting now that Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have signed a global code of conduct (known as the Global Network Initiative) promising to offer better protection for online free speech and against official intrusion in countries censoring the Internet.
• Microsoft has launched Windows 7 and its new Azure platform, described as "Windows for the cloud".
• The UK is investing in algae-based biofuels in the hope that the country can reduce automotive and aviation emissions by 2030, and cut overall emissions by 80% by 2050.
• From next month, Nissan is running a trial in Japan test an intelligent transportation system that has the primary focus of safety and improved traffic flow. The big side benefit of such systems is reduce fuel consumption and pollution.
• Cost rather than environmental factors are more important to drivers in the UK when they are purchasing more energy-efficient cars. 75% of motorists there would only purchase a low-emission car if it saved them money.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 23/10):

Business & management:
• The UN was warning last week, that the global tourism industry is already feeling the effects of the economic downturn, and is predicting an even more sharp downturn during the rest of this year.
• The ILO has published a report: World of Work Report 2008: Income inequalities in the age of financial globalization. The report shows that in spite of strong economic growth producing millions of jobs since the 1990s, the income gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically in most of the world, and can only get worse due to the global financial crisis.
• The OECD has released: Growing Unequal? Income distribution and poverty in OECD countries. The report covers all 30 countries, and a range of areas often excluded from conventional discussion about the distribution of economic resources among individuals and households.
• A leading retirement policy expert says that recent research already shows 75% of large employers operating private superannuation schemes would, in retrospect, not start one again, and that sentiment seems to be increasing.
• Job seekers are being warned to take greater care when sending their CVs to employer websites or online employment agencies. An experiment has shown how easy it is to lure people into sending CVs to a fake website, leaving them open to identity theft from the information obtained.

Education
• A UK government think tank said in a recent report, that it was vital to exploit the "mental capital" of mature adults and nation needs to invest much more in the ability of older people to make best use of their brains. Little money has gone into anything other than leisure classes, with scant evidence of how useful they are.
• 18 British universities are trialling the removal of the 200 year old degree classification scheme and its replacement with “achievement reports” that would cover more than just academic passes.

Environment & sustainability:
• The UN atomic agency says that there is growing interest in nuclear power to generate electricity. A decade ago, the popularity of nuclear power was in question, but now many countries are expanding or expressing interest in starting nuclear power generation, especially in developing countries.
• An assessment of the per capita carbon footprint of Britain’s local authorities, shows that the residents with the largest carbon footprints are the affluent ones. This produces challenges for both local and central government in implementing carbon reduction policies.

Health & wellbeing:
• An East London council plans to ban new takeaways opening within 400 meters of schools, youth centers and parks to help combat child obesity and promote healthy eating.
• The 2008 fireworks safety campaign has been launched, and as in the previous 2 years, the sale period only extends from the 2nd to the 5th of November, and the minimum age for purchasing is 18. New regulations have been introduced limiting the explosive sound levels of retail fireworks.
• Britons are again debating the issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia, after the death by assisted suicide in Switzerland, of a 23 year old UK man paralysed as a result of a rugby accident.

Law & Government:
• A website has been launched on the Internet, allowing anyone in the world to “vote” informally in another country’s presidential or parliamentary elections. Results are listed by the country of the voter, and progress can be monitored.
• Some councils in the UK are being accused of using a disability discrimination act as “an excuse” to shut down some public toilets, rather than adapting them to become accessible.

People, culture & diversity:
• The number of asylum seekers in industrialized nations rose by 9% from 2006 to 2007, and Iraqis make up the largest number of claims by far.
• The NZ Institute of Economic Research was commissioned by Family First NZ to research the fiscal value of family: The Value of Family: fiscal benefits of marriage and reducing family breakdown in New Zealand.
• A UK professor of sociology continues the discussion about modern 'social evils' on the theme of 'the absence of society'. These 'ills' are products of the withdrawal of the traditional conception of 'society' and are rooted in the way of life of today's individualised society of consumers.
• An examination of territorial behaviour among young people in disadvantaged areas of British cities shows the huge impact on teenagers and their safety and freedom, and the public policy implications of recognising territoriality as an important social force.
• Controversial new research says that cartoon violence on television can teach pre-school children to be less aggressive.
• 75 libraries in the UK closed last year, visits are steadily falling, and in the face of modern media and technology choices, budgets for children’s books are shrinking. A review has just been announced to consider how best to modernize libraries, hinting not merely at rebranding but also at a radical rethink of their contemporary purpose.
• A recent Pew Internet report shows that rather than driving people apart, mobile phones and the Internet are helping them maintain social ties, increasing family time spent together and allowing for new kinds of connectedness.

Science, technology & transport:
• Research recently published from the University of Otago shows that Hector and Maui dolphin are being killed off at a rate that can’t be sustained by the current numbers.
• Computer criminals may soon be able to work out what someone is typing by analysing the electromagnetic signals produced by every key press. Security researchers are saying that keyboards are "not safe to transmit sensitive information".
• At the same time security experts are warning that spam and virus attacks on mobile devices will rise, and that the increasing availability of financial and payment data via smartphones will be a draw for cybercriminals.
• A group in China has produced a small car that runs on power from the solar panels on its roof. The solar panels are still inefficient at transforming solar energy to electricity, but 10 of the cars have been produced for sale.
• A US company manufacturing buses has been producing them as hybrid vehicles for a while. However, they are now moving into production of buses that use a far more advanced battery system and include the use of micro turbines, meaning that the buses can spend a third of their time running on only electricity, and the rest using whichever fuel of a wide range that might be selected to save energy and costs.
• A landscaping business in Florida has planted 22 acres of land in a biofuel crop to eventually be able to save money on its annual diesel bill.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 16/10):

Business & management:
• An article from a London School of Economics publication looks at a possible new way to measure inflation, given the British public’s increasingly sceptical view about official inflation numbers reflecting the true rise in the cost of living.
• The UN Climate Change Secretariat has announced that it is on track for the Kyoto Protocol emissions trading system to go live.
• The rise of the electric car industry is going to result in an increase in niche industries needed to support it.
• Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria were announced at an international conference last week, that set standards for eco-friendly and socially responsible business operations in the industries catering to travelers.

Education
• The Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand has launched a programme for schools and is inviting them to take part. The programme aims to provide guidance for schools to recognise dyslexia, and to outline their strategy and to take action to implement the strategy.
• A new state law in Florida requires school districts to create their own full-time virtual schools, collaborate with other districts or contract with providers approved by the state, so that students could earn their public school diploma from kindergarten through to the 12th grade without physically attending school.

Environment & sustainability:
• A small community in Denmark is now a world leader in sustainable alternative energy, becoming carbon neutral in 2007 by producing 10 percent more than its 6,000 residents use each year so that it now exports energy to Norway.
• The 2009/10 funding round for the Ministry for the Environment’s Sustainable Management Fund has just opened, looking for community driven projects.
• NIWA is running trials using watercress in waterways, to see whether the plant removes nutrients from waterways, especially nitrate and phosphate.
• British Waterways, a public body in charge of waterside land, wants to add wind turbines and small-scale hydroelectric turbines along canals & rivers to generate electricity for up to 45000 homes. Money raised will be used to maintain the waterways.
• Almost 200 countries signed up to an agreement to curb loss of biodiversity by 2010, but the world’s government’s are expected by experts, to fail to reach that target.
• In the next week or so, a Spanish solar thermal storage plant will begin generating power that takes its energy from the solar collectors and stores it in molten salt, allowing the plant to continue to generate power overnight.

Health & wellbeing:
• International research highlighted by a UK foundation indicates links between higher levels of trust and better mental health in more equal societies, and greater levels of fear, distrust and poor mental health in societies with large wealth gaps.
• British researchers say that people on lengthy sick leave for psychiatric illness are twice as likely to die from cancer than healthy employees.
• Doctors have safety concerns about a growing trend amongst people like students or shift workers to use prescription drugs like Ritalin, Provigil (modafinil) or beta-blockers for non-medical reasons such as boosting alertness and brain power.
• A UCLA research team has found that using the Internet may boost the brain power of middle aged and older people.
• An EU study has found that 10% of people listening to MP3 or CD players could suffer permanent hearing loss because their music is too loud.

Law & Government:
• British councils, police authorities, fire services, universities and charities (as well as Transport for London) have been caught out by the collapse of Iceland’s banks, but while Britain has used anti-terror laws against Iceland, and had advised councils in 2004 to spread their investments across a “wide range of banks”, the government has refused to commit to guaranteeing council’s savings.
• As part of the Statistics NZ ongoing programme of making statistics freely available via their website, the new Infoshare database has been launched, providing a wide range of statistics in a time-series data format. (Some of the data sets are available down to territorial authority area, but not all.)
• The Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage will enter into force in January 2009, aiming to safeguard over 3 million shipwrecks and submerged ruins around the world.

People, culture & diversity:
• Another article from the London School of Economics publication mentioned above, highlights how attitudes about the differences between the rich and the rest have been changing.
• A UK conference on the care and conservation of cemeteries, graveyards and memorials is raising awareness that the resources to maintain this part of British heritage are tight and there are concerns that the day will come when inscriptions will no longer be legible due to gradual decay.
• Virtual worlds are already evolving to try to attract users other than gamers or the highly tech-savvy. For example, Twinity is a virtual world that allows avatars to move around inside an accurate virtual version of a real city – Berlin. London, Singapore and New York are to follow. Or you could learn something about the culture and history of China by visiting the virtual Forbidden City.

Science, technology & transport:
• ITC technologies produce a lot of greenhouse emissions in their production and use. However, it is possible for these technologies to reduce more emissions than they produce. (This article is from McKinsey Quarterly – if you aren’t on the distribution list for the journal, but still want to see a copy of this article, let the LOGIS Librarian know.)
• Robots that can think like humans still sounds like science fiction to most people, but the technology is coming closer, as recent experiments in the UK have shown.
• The Smart car has become popular in NZ cities and ads – a new electric version has been on trial in London, but there seem to be some reservations about the car’s battery performance.
• Some futurists are predicting a form of transport on electric monorail-like systems, called Personal Rapid Transit.

From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 02/10):

Business & management:
• The Harvard Business School has a working paper entitled: “The economic impacts of immigration: a survey”. While the paper looks at North European countries, there is a section on the impact of immigration on the public sector of host countries.
• A US study recently published suggests that men who hold the view that women should stay at home and look after children, will consistently out-earn more "modern-thinking" men.
• In a recent survey of US employees from some of the largest companies, 40% of workers cited "lack of recognition" as a key reason for leaving a job, and part of the problem is that workers don’t hear “thank you” often enough from customers.
• “A pair of recent studies each suggest that e-mail is the most deceptive form of communication in the workplace–even more so than more traditional kinds of written communication, like pen-and-paper.”
• “A global company that is built to last should consider its contributions to society and not just to its shareholders”, is one of the themes arising out of a World Economic Forum meeting last week.
• New research shows only 7 out of every 100 firms in NZ have measured their carbon emissions.
• 2 surveys show that consumers think that businesses should bear the heaviest load of the burden to address climate change.
• A new UNEP/ILO report says that the emerging green economy could create millions of new “green jobs”, but also warns that many of these new jobs can be "dirty, dangerous and difficult".

Education
• People are familiar with searching the Internet nowadays, but many forget that search engines like Google cannot search inside many of the resources now available – that’s the “deep web” or the “invisible web”. A US online college blog called “Our Library” has provided a list of “99 resources to research & mine the invisible web”.
• “Studentification” is a term applied in the UK to neighbourhoods in university towns where houses are left empty over the summer months, because too many properties are rented out to groups of students. An initial report has been published: Evidence gathering- Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) and possible planning responses.

Environment & sustainability:
• The European Union’s EuP Directive (Energy Using Products) was mentioned in the September issue of LG NZ Local Government. The link here is to a consolidated version (ie incorporating amendments) at March 21st 2008. The European Commission’s webpage on the directive provides more information
• A new design guide, “Resource Recovery Park Design Guide” will help with setting up resource recycling around the country, further reducing the amount of material sent to landfills.
• Cities should not be blamed so much for carbon emissions – an author writing in the latest issue of Environment & Urbanization believes that the amount of emissions cities contribute is over-estimated, and that the potential for cities to help address climate change is being overlooked because of this error. (This article is not available via the Digital Library, but a copy can be obtained via interlibrary loan. Contact the LOGIS Librarian if you would like to read a copy.)
• 2 UN agencies trying to change the throw away trend have produced the 2nd edition of a training kit for youth called “youthXchange” that includes a new chapter on how to balance the aspirations of dressing fashionably while being aware of the impact of consumption on global warming.
• The Guardian online has a section called “Future of Cities”. The section has its own RSS feed, so that you can focus on just this topic and avoid receiving the 100s of other alerts from the website.
• Should access to clean water be a human right? Some campaigners want this to become the 31st article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Elsewhere in the world, water profiteering means that the poor are forced to buy clean water, or to steal it from public mains.
• Off-shore wind farms offer several benefits over their land-based counterparts, and countries like South Korea are seriously investigating them due to fierce opposition to on-shore wind farms.
• Recent research shows that plants are unlikely to soak up more carbon dioxide from the air as the planet warms up. Plants may be likely to produce more CO2 in warmer conditions, rather than less.
• Just as kea were discovered to “worry” sheep in NZ, re-introduced Scottish sea eagles are being blamed for the loss of 200 lambs in the Northwest Highlands. At the same time, the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards is opposing a trial introduction of the European beaver to Scotland.
• The mayor of San Francisco wants the city’s biggest companies to install enough solar power arrays to generate 5 megawatts of electricity, double the city's current capacity for solar energy.

Health & wellbeing:
• The NZ Food Safety Authority has published a revised version of its most popular booklet, “Food safety in pregnancy”.
• Low levels of the stress hormone cortisol are being linked to antisocial behaviour in adolescent boys.
• A large UK and US study is to examine near-death experiences in cardiac arrest patients, to see if people with no heartbeat or brain activity can have "out of body" experiences.
• Researchers believe that exposure to smells might help make our dreams more pleasant. Smell is the only sense that doesn't 'sleep'.

Law & Government:
• Local governments in the US want to build an inclusive green economy, and have issued the “Local Government Green Jobs Pledge”.
•”Keeping culture free: The choices law and technology force us to make about the future of the Internet and the progress of cultures” will be the topic of a public lecture at the University of Auckland, by Professor Lawrence Lessig, a world-leading cyber law expert and advocate of freer copyright laws.
• The UK Improvement & Development Agency has released a series of information pages on how social enterprises can contribute to local government (a 2006 Local Government White Paper established a vision of partnership for local areas.) They also provide a section on CCTV in the UK as a means of making streets safer, reducing the fear of crime and detecting serious offences.
• A number of local councils in the UK were given permission last week to use capitalization (either by borrowing against or selling assets) to raise £455m to meet equal pay liabilities.
• Scientists say that our political views may be an integral part of our psychological makeup but although they may be able to explain why it’s so hard to change someone’s political point of view, they don’t believe their search has any political relevance.

People, culture & diversity:
• A blog on a local US newspaper’s website is helping to raise awareness and provide advocacy for a poor, rundown and dangerous part of the city.
• Is it possible to reverse the view that society today is suffering from “a decline in values”? This is one report in an ongoing discussion in the UK on turning British society around from being seen as “unkind, risk averse and untrusting”

Science, technology & transport:
• The founding editor or Wired has been reflecting on his predictions back in 1993 for the future of the Internet and the impact it would have on society.
• “Information overload” has been discussed for decades, but with the Internet “digital pollution” has become an issue that everyone has to learn how to handle.
• There will be 4 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide this year - mobile penetration stood at only 12% in 2000, growing to reach over 60% by the end of 2008.
• Mitsubishi may be introducing their electric car to NZ next year, but Hyundai will be delivering its first electric Getz in November this year.
• InternetNZ’s report “Broadband strategy options for New Zealand: Stage one – research and analysis” is available.
• Ireland’s government is announcing its new electric grid system to enable Irish drivers to move to electric cars. The Better Place software system has been assessed for adoption in Ireland. A US company has just built a solar parking array over its parking lot – which could provide re-charging for the electric cars parked in the shade below the panels.
• The first commercial wave power farm has finally been officially launched off the coast of Portugal after a delay of a year.