From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 08/05):

Business & management:
• Environment ministers attending an OECD meeting have agreed that competitiveness challenges associated with the shift towards a low-carbon economy are real but manageable.
• 40% of senior news editors believe that people will be reading newspapers mostly online in a decade’s time, but 85% of them are optimistic about the futures of their newspapers.
• An Auckland and a Christchurch hotel have made it into a ranking of the world’s best hotels. The ranking is compiled on a travel site that had 160 000 opinions submitted in 2007.

Environment & sustainability:
• Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is an organisation that aims to increase the awareness of the economic, social, and environmental benefits of green roof infrastructure across North America, with 30% more green roofs installed in America last year.
• Dutch researchers have released a calculator that will let you compute a “water footprint” – for example, 140 litres of water is needed for production of a cup of coffee, 40 litres for an apple.
• The US Environmental Protection Agency says that e-waste is now the fastest-growing area of the municipal waste stream.
• A US report on factory farming, says that that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
• A report from the US National Academies of Science on desalination raises concerns about the environmental impact and cost effectiveness of the widely touted technology to convert seawater to fresh water.
• Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has started construction of a 7 kilometre square zero-carbon city, intended to house 50 000 people and include retail and light industry.
• German researchers using a new computer model are suggesting the Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase.

Health & wellbeing:
• Pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined, according to a new report from the UN.
• The Health Research Council is backing a project that has primary school children taking part in an eight-week programme, keeping a diary of what they eat and wearing a pedometer to record their activity levels. The programme is in addition to their academic study.
• Although Pacific participants in a mental health survey were less likely to drink than Maori or 'other' (mainly of European descent), for those who did drink, the prevalence of hazardous drinking was significantly higher.

Law & Government:
• The Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) in the UK is an organisation devoted to helping local councils improve their performance. The organisation says political leaders like councillors have a responsibility to engage their staff.
• 2 influential British speakers on prison and justice reform will be in NZ to attend next week’s Prison Fellowship Conference.
The consultation period for Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 has been extended to 5.00pm Friday 23 May, to allow organisations to seek input from their membership.

People, culture & diversity:
• Speakers at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, say that game design and social networks are merging into one of the most persuasive forces on the net.
• The BBC Click programme has worked out how personal details can be stolen from a person’s Facebook profile, using a data mining application.
• UN officials have stressed the role of a secure and independent media, and access to information, in empowering individuals and advancing development.
• The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has recommended that the relevant parties develop mechanisms to allow the participation of indigenous peoples in the global debate on climate change.
• The Broadcasting Standards Authority report “Seen and heard: children’s media use, exposure and response” is now available.

Science, technology & transport:
• Bicycles are promoted all over the world as a way of combating rush-hour traffic, but in London, where folding bikes on commuter trains is an increasing phenomenon, other commuters are losing their patience.
• Scientists in Europe have discovered that city road networks have similar mathematical patterns to those found in biology (eg like the veins in leaves). They believe that the results of their study could even help city planners to better predict how some street networks will evolve and to plan accordingly.
• Take care with the email address that you choose for yourself – you’re revealing more about yourself than you realise.
• London’s congestion tax has not necessarily resulted in an improvement in air pollution in the city, however an expanded “low emissions zone” that went into effect at the end of 2007 may improve air quality as it targets heavy vehicles that don’t meet pollution standards.
• Speakers at the Web 2.0 expo say that the future of the World Wide Web is going to be about mobile phones that are location aware, temporarily situated and socially connected [and they] will transform our experience of the web, the world and ourselves. • Leading figures in the web community have spoken about their hopes for the future of the web, on the 15th anniversary of the signing of the document that made web technology available to everyone free of charge.