March 26th, 2010
Both the central government and regional authorities are investing to make China the production center of the world for genomic research.
BGI is China’s premier gene-sequencing institute. It was started on the ninth day of September, at nine seconds past the ninth minute in the ninth month in 1999. This was done to promote longevity according to Chinese numerology. In 2006, the institute was lured to Shenzen, as the city advanced its plan to be the “factory of the world.” BGI’s goal is to sequence genomes at twice the speed and half the price of anyone in the world. In January, BGI purchased 128 of the world’s fastest gene-sequencers, called the Hi Seq 2000 by Ilumina. Each Hi Seq 2000 produces 25 billion pairs of sequences a day, or theoretically, 10,000 human genomes in a year. Should this pace continue, BGI’s output could surpass the entire sequencing output of the U.S. (Nature, 3/4/10)
In addition to contract research, BGI is developing its own scientific expertise and now has 220 patents to its name. The Chinese are applying the same volume explosion strategy to science, as they have applied to industrial (e.g., steel, autos, power plants, chemicals, etc.) production. The use of these discoveries will fuel advances for Chinese sunrise industries in the next decade.
Charles Hess
Tags: Genomics
Posted in China | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2010
With public schools facing extreme pressure from two sides – improving quality and spending less – can the country’s educational system as constituted survive, let alone get better?
Central Falls High School is one of Rhode Island’s poorest performing schools. To overcome that disadvantage, district superintendent Frances Gallo asked teachers to work longer days, to have lunch with students now-and-then and to devote two weeks during the summer (with pay) to increase their skills, but the union said, “No.” Gallo responded by firing all 77 of Central Falls’ teachers, its principal and all related administrators. Meanwhile, the school board for Kansas City (MO) schools, facing a projected $50 million budget deficit, voted to close 29 of the system’s 61 schools at the end of this school year. (The Week, 3/19/10)
Is local control of schools being challenged? Will schools consider new methods like the following?
According to a National Bureau of Economic Research study, Texas high-school students who earned cash for passing Advanced Placement exams showed better overall GPAs and an increased likelihood of graduating. The cost of administering the program averaged $200 a student. (Newsweek, 3/8/10)
The No Child Left Behind program has cost the government $14 billion thus far. Will studies like the one above inform the policy debate as the Obama administration begins to address the education system? In the future, could some of the money slated for No Child Left Behind go to paying students for performance?
Ken Hey and Eric Zavolinsky
Tags: No Child Left Behind
Posted in Education | No Comments »
March 15th, 2010
In 2004, we followed “The Vioxx Conundrum” as an example of the context, The Gaming of Nearly Everything. In September of that year, Merck pulled its $2.4 billion-per-year drug off the market after its own research showed the drug doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke. By 2008, Merck had agreed to fund a $4.85 billion settlement over the drug, plus it had spent more than $1.53 billion on legal costs. Merck is now within months of processing, paying or rejecting 10,000 U.S. claims.
GlaxoSmithKline could be facing similar problems. In 2007, at the FDA’s request GlaxoSmithKline agreed to conduct a six-year study of its third best selling drug, Avandia ($2.2 billion in annual revenues) and a rival drug, Actos. The ongoing study, which will involve 16,000 participants, is still enrolling patients. Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee concluded a 2-year inquiry on February 20, in which it stated that GlaxoSmithKline knew of possible heart attack risks tied to Avandia years before evidence of a link became public. In the Senate report, FDA researchers are quoted as calling the study “unethical and exploitative” since their agency allowed the trial to continue even after the agency estimated that the drug caused 83,000 heart attacks between 1999 and 2007. (Washington Post, 2/21/10; Associated Press, 3/1/10)
What will GlaxoSmithKline end up paying for 83,000 known heart attacks allegedly due to its drug?
Risa Hess
Tags: GlaxoSmithKline, Merck
Posted in Gaming | No Comments »
March 11th, 2010
Still in its infancy, augmented reality technology is quickly becoming an integral aspect of some marketing campaigns.
Adidas’ new line of sneakers comes with an augmented reality (AR) barcode on the tongue of the shoe. When held up to a webcam, the sneaker triggers a celebrity-filled virtual game world and becomes the actual controller for the video games. The December issue of Esquire magazine had an AR barcode on its cover and contained links to interactive content and ads. (Brandweek, 2/15/10)
As the technology improves and new capabilities are created, more companies will recognize the importance of offering interactivity in advertising. Expect this technology to become ubiquitous.
Eric Zavolinsky
Tags: Augmented Reality
Posted in Internet, Marketing, media | No Comments »
March 10th, 2010
Twenty-five utilities in the U.S. now provide customers with data related to their neighbors’ energy usage. According to the utilities, the implied social pressure has lowered energy consumption between two and three percent. Meanwhile, in Spain, a highly effective debt collector is using public embarrassment to get people to pay up. He wears a tuxedo and approaches debtors at their table in restaurants, while they are surrounded by friends, or he walks into their offices and casually talks to them. (The Week, 2/12/10; Christian Science Monitor, 2/12/10)
In Spain, social pressure is working where the legal system has not, and implied social pressure is working in the U.S. where extensive educational programs have not.
Ken Hey
Posted in Energy | No Comments »
March 9th, 2010
China’s high-speed rail ambitions aren’t just all talk, and there is more in service than just the oft-cited Maglev train from Shanghai’s airport.
In February, China opened a 505 km (313 mile) high-speed rail line between the nation’s important interior city of Xian and the major eastern rail-hub city of Zhengzhou. Trains travel 330 kph (205 mph) and cut the travel time from six hours to less than two. China has also opened a 664 mile (comparable to a Boston to Southern Virginia trip) high-speed line from the southern export city Guangzhou to the major interior city Wuhan, which makes the trip in just over three hours, less time than it takes for Acela to travel from Boston to New York. (China Daily, 2/6/10; New York Times, 1/13/10)
These ambitions and early successes lead us to ask several questions: 1) What companies benefit from China’s full-speed-ahead plans to build a massive high-speed rail network? 2) Where does China’s plans and capabilities leave the U.S. in terms of fast, efficient and reliable transportation infrastructure? 3) What are the social implications of this increasing mobility in China, a place of limited mobility just a few years ago?
Michael Hines
Tags: Railroad
Posted in China | No Comments »
March 8th, 2010
For the first time ever, engineers from around the world, including 131 organizations from 23 countries, cooperated online and assessed the damage situation following Haiti’s earthquake disaster. They tagged 10,797 heavily damaged and collapsed buildings. In fact, public viewing of satellite imagery through Microsoft’s Virtual Earth product tagged 4,391 buildings in one day. (Engineering News-Record, 2/15/10)
The social networking of engineers and organizations could be useful in accessing engineering talent globally, much the way “solution sites” such as Innocentive access global scientists for specific challenges. Although tagging and describing destroyed structures may be rather simplistic, increasingly sophisticated engineering work will be available on a remote basis.
Charles Hess
Tags: Haiti
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
March 5th, 2010
Despite the ballooning prevalence of digital media, it is traditional journalists at traditional news outlets that uncover and report most of the “news.”
A recent study found that 95 percent of news stories that offer new information (facts not already reported elsewhere) come from traditional media – 60 percent of which is represented by newspapers. In the study, which used Baltimore as a test city, only 4 percent of new news made its premiere on a digital-only outlet. (Los Angeles Times, 1/11/10)
There are risks and consequences for the loss of traditional journalism. Most blog news sites are uninterested in actually covering news.
Michael Hines
Tags: Newspapers
Posted in Internet, media | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
People are starting to get desperate and angry at what they perceive to be inequalities in the system and that anger is beginning to manifest itself in action.
Terry Hoskins of Moscow (OH) owed $160,000 on his $350,000 home when the RiverHills Bank began foreclosure proceedings on his house. He recently received a $170,000 offer from someone to pay off the house, but the bank refused the offer, saying it could get more money selling the home in foreclosure. About a month ago, Hoskins used a bulldozer to level the home he had built, saying he did it to “make the banks think twice before they try to take someone’s home, and if they are going to take it wrongly, the end result will be them tearing their house down like I did mine.” (WLWT, 2/19/10)
Thankfully, Hoskins didn’t go the route of A. Joseph Stack III, who flew his plane into an office building housing IRS workers, partly because of the “unthinkable atrocities” committed by big business and the government bailouts that followed, but the take away is similar. Some people are angry and taking what they perceive to be the serving of justice into their own hands.
Eric Zavolinsky
Tags: Anger, Populism
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 26th, 2010
For teens, a sense of support and connectedness is paramount to active digital lives.
The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project reported that only 8 percent of online teens have embraced Twitter. This contrasts with the overall increase in social network use of those aged 12-17 that went from 55 percent in 2006 to 65 percent in 2008 to 73 percent today. A study from FJ Metrics found that Twitters growth has slowed and only 17 percent of users updated their account in December – an all time low. (Dallas Morning News, 2/5/10; Brandweek, 2/8/10)
One 17-year-old in the article said “teenagers like to talk, and 140 characters are just not enough”. It appears that community is critically important to this cohort and that the mass “shout out” is not what many teens are looking for in their digital experience.
Charles Hess
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
