#Antibiotics: Light-sensitive drugs to tackle hardy bugs The voices warning of the demise of our antibiotic defences are getting louder.
With common pathogens such as E coli and the pneumonia bug K. pneumoniae developing resistance to our antibiotics of last resort, leading pharmacologists, clinicians and epidemiologists say we risk being cast back to a time
when even routine surgery put Victorians at risk of fatal infection. It's no mystery
Complacent over-prescription of antibiotics by doctors, and their reckless, profligate use in livestock rearing, has provided ample opportunity for resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria to proliferate through natural selection.
The solution is less obvious. An imminent and widespread outbreak of responsible antibiotic use seems unlikely.
so that they no longer accumulate in the environment where they encourage the emergence of resistant bugs?
A team at the University of Groningen has demonstrated a way to switch off antibiotic agents after just a few hours using warmth or sunlight.
it might no longer work. Light-switchable drugs have been explored in other fields such as cancer therapy, but not for antibiotics.
Organic chemist Ben Feringa at Groningen and his co-workers used an existing light-switchable unit called azobenzene,
The double bond prevents the benzene group at each end from rotating around the axle linking them.
Crucially, heat and light can temporarily loosen up the bond between the nitrogen atoms, allowing them to rotate.
Not only could this innovation prevent accumulation of active antibiotics in the environment, but it might also help to reduce side effects.
when swallowed, they tend to attack the"friendly#bacteria in the gut as well as pathogens. Drugs equipped with activation switches could be administered orally
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#Edge-of-space planes to free-up congested skies Making predictions about the future of aviation is dangerous;
000 in today's money and nobody predicted the transatlantic passenger liner would ever be replaced.
Airships were supposed to be the way of the future, not aircraft. Experts believed the aviation industry would die because of environmental concerns and falling passenger numbers.
But despite these concerns it has collapsed not. In some sectors, business and leisure travel are booming.
New generations of aircraft like the Boeing 787 and the Airbus a380 are far more efficient than older aircraft#70%more fuel efficient than aircraft of 40 years ago, according to the International air transport association (IATA.
Transport's impact on the environment is lessening, and nowhere will the impact be greater than in aviation.
It is too late to turn our backs on air travel, so how do we make it more efficient,
Plane designs will make more use of carbon composites and, in the future, carbon nanofibres. Air traffic control and airport management will also be revolutionised as digital technology makes aircraft easier to manage.
This could result in long-haul travel which is markedly more efficient. Lighter aircraft can be bigger and carry more freight and passengers.
In the case of freighters, this means no crew#so there is an extra weight saving by getting rid of the life support systems and the windows.
#but automated air traffic could double the capacity of the flight paths around the world and only airport capacity would constrain us.
British aerospace flew an aircraft remotely to Inverness in Scotland this summer in a Civil aviation Authority-supported experiment.
and spray crops is regulated already and sanctioned in both North and South america. Another will be the fuel itself.
which behaves very like the kerosene that the jet engines of today use. Jet engine efficiency#has come on in leaps and bounds,
but the fuels they use are still polluting hydrocarbons which come out of the ground. Butanol can be produced by bacteria in biomass
and if an economically efficient method can be found to industrialise that process then your flight of the future could literally be fuelled by alcohol.
The US, for instance, currently has some of the most antiquated air traffic management in the developed world
as a result of Congress failing to back reforms proposed by the Federal Aviation Authority#after a very famous air traffic controllers strike more than 25 years ago.#
New forms of air traffic management, using digitised TV and mobile signals bounced off aircraft will replace the 1940s-era radar system still in use by#air traffic control,
and allow planes to land more efficiently, using less fuel in the process. Although no air traffic system is using such signals at the moment,
the Technology Strategy Board of the UK government is now funding an experiment to look at the practicalities of using the BBC's Freeview#a free-to-air DIGITAL TV signal#for just such a purpose.
But the rise in wind farms has unintended its own effects. Air traffic control systems are being interfered with, both offshore and across moors and hills.
The movement of the turbine blades creates, essentially, a phantom signal that even modern radars find hard to differentiate from a real moving aircraft.
In places such as Scotland, where the projections for wind farms are amongst the densest in the world,
this could cause problems for existing flight paths. As the need for wind power increases, a solution will have to be found.
Jet-rocket hybrideventually, mankind will see long distance travel-London to Sydney, for example-taking place outside the Earth's atmosphere.
#In countries such as Britain and Japan, there is research into engines and rival vehicles which could make space travel a long-haul passenger's reality.
In the UK, a company called Skylon has attracted just#60m ($110m) of government funding to develop a futuristic type of engine known as a"reaction engine#.#
##This could behave like a very efficient jet engine in the atmosphere, but also be able to function outside the atmosphere like a rocket.
a vehicle could circumnavigate the world in a couple of hours. However, these flights are likely to run from dedicated spaceports
The futuristic visions of the 1950s and 60s imagined neighbourhood airports and helicopters in our back gardens-but space travel is more likely.
The harsh reality of economics in a world with a huge demand for fuel have has meant it is too expensive to fight gravity
and the atmosphere to blast off for the work commute.##Our composite wing vehicles, instead, will take us to the edge of space, efficiently,
and allow us to glide effortlessly to our destinations, continents away. Will Whitehorn has recently been made a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Societyif you would like to comment on this article
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#Gurgaon: From fields to global tech hub The farmers'children in dusty Darbaripur no longer want to work the land.
For them, software engineering is the new occupation of choice. It's not surprising. Their paddy fields have given rise to India's latest technology hub#tall glass buildings dot the skyline,
the hundreds of offices inside brightly light up Gurgaon. It's 7am in the morning. Buffaloes graze nearby,
and farmers settle down to their traditional clay hookahs. There's very little left of their ancestral village.
Karan Singh is a 47-year-old farmer whose life#like the other farmers in his village#used to depend on erratic monsoons.
Then property prices soared. He sold his farmland and became an overnight millionaire.""There are no farms left here for us to remain farmers,
#he says.""Our hope is that our future generation will also be employed as software engineers in the offices that have sprung up here.
Given good education and the right facilities, our children are also capable of achieving anything.#
#The dream is farfetched not as as it seems. Located just outside India's national capital, Delhi,
the high-rise homes and offices in India's so-called"Millenium City#are the product of two decades of the country's rapid economic growth.
Hundreds of software companies and call centres have set up shop here. The private sector is championing the India dream#it accounts for 87%of the total investments worth $72 billion USD (4. 5 lakh crore rupees) that were attracted by the state (as of June 2012), according to the Associated
Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. Overnight change Gurgaon is becoming one of India's most important cities.
Its proximity to Delhi means that companies have access to political decision makers. The diversity of companies here#ranging from every major telecom player to automobile manufacturer to banking company means that the talent pool is diverse and with valuable experience.
Many experts in India feel that Silicon valley succeeded because of the kind of crossroads it provided for technical, creative minds with the right financial and marketing input.
Gurgaon seems to be at a similar cusp now. Unlike Bangalore or Mumbai, real estate is not a problem here;
the city was started by developers so there is an abundance of high-quality office and residential spaces.
So, in the 1990s, when multinational companies looked for office space to house thousands of employees in call centres in India,
Gurgaon became an obvious choice. Other suburbs such as Faridabad were placed also well, but a single decision changed Gurgaon's fortunes overnight.
Indian real estate company DLF persuaded Jack Welch#then the chief executive of General electric (GE)# to set up a facility here,
and in 1997 it became the first US company to outsource software work to India.
Genpact's story best illustrates Gurgaon's success. The company began as a call centre within General electric,
and most of that work happens from Gurgaon. The total global and domestic outsourcing market opportunity for India is expected to grow threefold from $500bn in 2008 to $1. 5tn by 2020, according to India Brand Equity,
Headstrong had valued clients such as Goldman sachs and Morgan stanley, and expertise in consulting for sectors such as asset management, derivatives, wealth management and mortgages.
Increasingly the lines are blurring between outsourcing and IT services for most companies. While existing outsourcing business is doing well
"Large amounts of customer data need to be mined so that companies can make sense of it All the answer lies in not just analysing data
but actually using the derived insights to deliver a process that can bring in profits.##From cars to Marsgurgaon seems especially well-placed to lead big data analytics in the country.
Kulshreshtha says there's a global lack of talent trained in both quantitative disciplines like economics, mathematics,
and statistics but who are trained also sufficiently in software and computing.""Here, we have universities that supply us with millions of such candidates,
and we have people with management talent to add to it, #he says. His company has positioned itself as a firm that wants to solve client problems using a process lab. Technology alone can't solve problems,
but if you use technology in combination with talent who can analyse it, you can offer more complete solutions
and rework processes to profit from it, #Kulshreshtha says. It's a good model to replicate,
says Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice-president of industry body the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom)."
"Companies are able to profit more. You are able to hire domain experts and offer clients much more than customer services.#
#These companies include Siemens Industry Software. With design centres around India, they make software used for everything from designing car parts to building vehicles sent into space.
In a Gurgaon business park, a room of engineers train on computer-aided design, fashioning a tool to be used in an automobile.
Behind them are huge posters of the Curiosity rover on Mars. Nasa's Jet propulsion laboratory used a portfolio of design software made by Siemens to digitally design,
simulate and assemble the vehicle before any physical prototypes were built. There's a little bit of India in every single one of those products
says Suman Bose, Managing director of Siemens Industry Software. While the company has extensive R&d labs across the country,
the decision-making happens in Gurgaon. From being a hub of low-end call centres, the city is now emerging as headquarters to most Indian and international companies in the world.
Some of the major international companies located here include Coca-cola, Pepsi, IBM, American express, Agilent, Microsoft, and Bank of america."
"You can attract better management talent in Gurgaon, #says Bose.""You can give them a desirable kind of living atmosphere, at not-so exorbitant prices.
With the overall lifestyle Gurgaon is becoming one of the most attractive destinations for middle-to-senior management talent in the country.#
#Basic needs But Gurgaon is not without its problems. Look outside the world-class offices and luxury homes,
and little works#not the sanitation, the power supply, or even the public transport. Every company is like a self-contained island.
They have backups for everything#water, electricity and food. With no reliable public transport available, Genpact provides cabs to take over 10,000 employees back home.
It's a fully fledged operation, with control rooms to monitor traffic, GPS tracking and security guards to ensure safety.
The company says it has to take on the responsibilities of the government. A lot of investment is needed as a result."
"I would say that all this would add on 10 to 15%to the cost, #says Vidya Srinivasan,
who heads infrastructure and logistics at Genpact.""For example in China, we don't need to be worried about power backup
or transport#it's just taken care of. Or even in Philippines, which is closer to India,
India's information technology and business process outsourcing sector contributes 8%to the national output.""Despite the lack of municipal facilities, companies are still pouring into Gurgaon
The energy in Gurgaon is palpable, #Bhasin says.""As in Silicon valley, these things tend to work on themselves and regenerate.
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and my notebook dusted. I am as clean as I am ever likely to be.
All this preparation has made me slightly paranoid and for good reason. I am about to enter the large clean room at Ball aerospace in Boulder,
Colorado where the mirrors for the $8. 7 billion James webb space telescope (JWST) are being built and tested.
Within it are several tent-like structures#clean rooms within the clean room. On tables inside these, sit some of the 18 individual hexagonal mirrors that make up the massive 21ft (6. 5m) diameter primary mirror of this new space telescope."
as we peer through a window into one of the super-clean clean rooms.""Each of these is made of solid beryllium
"A piece of paper is about 100,000 nanometres thick, #says Barto.""We need to move those mirrors about five nanometres at a time.#
#It's like adjusting the wing mirrors on a car. The actuators allow the mirrors to be tipped and tilted,
only these ones can also adjust the curvature of the surface. The fact that the mirrors can be tweaked so precisely means that,
only last year there was still talk in Congress of withdrawing Nasa's funding for the mission.
"We've put in all this energy and time. But we'd love to see it leave!#
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#Taiwan's struggle to become an innovation leader It has a population that is half that of Spain's crammed into a land mass one-fiftieth the size of Mexico.
Yet Taiwan still manages to make nine out of 10 of the world's laptop computers.
In fact, profits are down in the island's tech sector, competition is growing and consumers increasingly want devices that are being made elsewhere.
But with a tradition of making things to order for foreign companies and a hierarchical corporate culture, a new generation of start-up innovators is facing an uphill battle."
#says Huang Deray, former director of Hsinchu Science Park, home to 400 hi-tech companies and a world leader in semiconductor manufacturing."
you must think of what's the next product you should make to help you earn money three to four years from now,
#Taiwan first transformed itself from a labour-intensive economy to a hi-tech powerhouse during the 1980s.
You may not have heard of the companies Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Pegatron, Wistron and Inventec, but together they make more than 90%of the laptops sold worldwide,
including those sold by top brands such as Apple and Dell. Yet making devices at low cost for others has become less profitable than it was,
Revenues for Taiwan's hi-tech sector more broadly are largely flat compared to double-digit growth a decade ago, according to Helen Chiang, a Taipei-based market researcher at tech consultancy IDC."
PC shipments worldwide fell from 363 million in 2011 to 352 million last year, with further declines in the first half of this year.
Taiwanese PC makers have shifted their attentions to tablets; however, they do not enjoy the same dominance of this market as they do for laptops.
Small marketmeanwhile smart phone sales are growing rapidly. HTC, Taiwan's only manufacturer and its best-known brand, was once the number two vendor in the US.
Its handsets do not have the features to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung in advanced economies.
Neither are they cheap enough to compete with increasingly popular low-cost Chinese brands, such as Huawei and Xiaomi.
There is a growing realisation in Taiwan that the future success of its technology export-dependent economy will depend on its ability to innovate.
companies may not make money if they do not do well overseas. This can lead to an unwillingness to take risks.
and manufacturing hardware means it lacks expertise in software development, which generates a growing proportion of tech industry revenues.
Some say a much bigger problem is that Taiwan lacks a culture of catering to consumers,
seem to work against innovation. Many parents put pressure on their children to seek stability after education,
rather than exploring and pursuing their interests. The government's largely hands-off approach means many companies are owned family.
Until 2009 he was earning around double the average wage of a tech engineer at a company that designs integrated circuits.
#Being the one in his family who had to clean the many windows in their four-storey home inspired him to design a window cleaning robot called the Hobot.
for instance finding ways to make integrated circuits based on specifications created by overseas companies. They're not really inventing something new.#
This means investments from venture capitalists are taxed even if companies have yet to make a profit. Red tape and protectionism also make it difficult for tech companies to hire foreign talent,
which they need to tap markets in the US, China and or Southeast asia. Breaking outin its favour, the island has a population that is keen to buy the latest products,
making it a good testing ground of consumer acceptance of new gadgets such as netbooks and phablets.
mobile internet, such as apps and games, and internet advertising are all growing rapidly. Yet it may be that the decline of Taiwan's traditional hi-tech companies contains within it the seeds of a solution, with a growing number of people breaking out to set up their own companies.
Mr Lin's tech incubator appworks provides office space for around 40 start-ups. He says the number of start-ups in Taiwan has doubled at least in the past three years to several thousand.
which has developed an app that helps people search for and watch television programmes shows and music videos on their smart phones.
It has accumulated more than two million downloads. Another is software start-up Goodlife. Its portal collects information on daily discounts from local restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses.
Founded in 2010, it's now one of the top 130 websites in Taiwan and its fan page has more than 500,000 members."
"It's hard to run a software start-up in Taiwan, #says cofounder Brenda Chen.""It's hard to make money.
Why do it? It's like a dream. I felt no one was doing this, but there was a need.
I really liked to compare prices, to see where I can get things cheaper. I used to go on Google search on companies'websites,
and spend a lot of time doing that. Now, I can easily find discounts and coupons.##It's this kind of energy that leads people like Mr Lin to believe Taiwan can make the transition to an innovation-based economy."
"We have a lot going for us, #he says. He and others say the island's strong tech manufacturing background,#large talent pool,
and increasingly confident and energetic start-up sector#will#help it#to overcome the challenges and obstacles before it.
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#Solar-power vehicles pushing boundaries of possibility The promise of fleets of clean, green transport powered by solar energy has for decades just been that:
a promise. But a new wave of vehicles is pushing the limits of what's possible.
The Solar impulse plane has crossed just successfully the US in five stages#from San francisco to New york. And the world's largest solar-powered boat, the Turanor Planet Solar,
and construction methods, says the team, such as electrolytes that increase the energy density of batteries. Not to mention competitions like the World Solar Challenge,
But for now, here's a selection of the fastest, highest and furthest vehicles have gone,
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#Israel: Boot camp for start-up success Rothschild Boulevard has always been one of the grandest streets in Tel aviv, with its broad tree-lined central promenade and elegant Bauhaus architecture.
The cafes, kiosks and benches teem with young entrepreneurs who seem to survive on a diet of caffeine and wi-fi. Of Israel's 5, 000 tech companies,
city planners have counted 600 start-ups in the single square mile around Rothschild. Israel has more companies on Nasdaq than any country beside the US and China,
and it attracts more venture funding per capita than anywhere in the world. Its tech sector employs 230
Just off the southern end of the boulevard is the Shalom Meir Tower#once the tallest building in the middle East.
A lift door in the corner of the mezzanine leads to a municipal library on the seventh floor that had been forgotten by all but its ageing clientele.
lectures by business experts, networking#not to mention a great view over the city's beach. The pattern is repeated all the way down Rothschild,
"The military gives them their technological experience, managerial experience and networks,#says Warner.""For the average person, the greatest barrier to being an entrepreneur is'Where the hell do I start?
That's the experience the army gives them. It's understanding how you actually build a product,
which is the same as managing a project in the army.##Big data pioneersinside the HQ of the Mamram, the Israel Defence forces (IDF) technical support unit in nearby Ramat Gan, computer training course commander Capt.
H (her full name is classified) says new recruits on a six-month intensive programming course study from dawn till night
and are taught programming skills, teamwork, project management and#most importantly how to be creative. It's like a school for start-ups."
"When you do a degree in computer science you study the technical things, she says. You study how to write a code, mathematics.
We don't focus on that. We focus on how to work in a team. How to understand what your client needs
and make software that fits his demands. How to write good code that you will be able to debug
and maintain. Tal Marian, founder of the Techloft, a commercial shared workspace just off Rothschild, says the results of the military training are obvious."
"Some of the military units work like a civilian organisation, says Marian. They encourage entrepreneurship, the feeling that if you come up with a good idea that answers a real need of that unit's mission,
you will get the funding and manpower and the time you need. After years of helping to solve the nation's major security threats, the challenges of gaming and mobile apps pale by comparison,
he adds. Sometimes, the military technology connection is obvious. The miniaturised camera and power pack in the Given Imaging camera pill is based on equipment in the nose of a military drone,
for example. Israel raced a decade ahead in the management and use of large data sets#or big data#that drive many consumer apps because of expertise#developed by Unit 8200, the intelligence-gathering arm that is now the largest unit in the IDF.
IBM has spent nearly $1bn(#640m) on four Israeli companies that all developed big data storage solutions:
Storwize, XIV, Diligent and Filex. Earlier this year, Google acquired the mapping app Waze for more than $1 bn.
The founders of Waze received their technical training in Israeli military intelligence. The giant Israeli tech firms Nice, Comverse and Check point were created all by Unit 8200 alumni
or based on technology originally developed by the unit. Youthful exuberanceacross the boulevard, Yaron Tal is Chief Technical Officer of 6scan,
a website security start-up he#founded with ex-army buddies. A white-hat hacker (one that works for non-malicious motives),
since the age of 12, he was running his own web security consultancy by the age of 17,
before being headhunted for Matzov, the#army's cybersecurity unit.""Entrepreneurs in Israel are unique, #he says."
"Their approach to problems is different to others because the army is a huge incubator for innovation and entrepreneurship.
The army gave us a few million dollars at the age of 18 and asked us to build technology
and systems that address problems that only people 10 or 20 years older are dealing with in other parts of the world.
That kind of pressure and challenge really brings a lot of things out of you.##Tal skipped university to work at a start-up before launching his own,
but another important driver of the tech scene is the fact that Israeli university students pay only about $3, 100(#2, 000) a year in tuition fees.
They emerge from military service and three years of studying with zero debt, eager to take a year off to pursue their dreams.
That youthful exuberance, combined with the rigorous military training in technology and project management, has found a natural home among cafes running down the centre of Rothschild.
Recruiting to 6scan became easy after they opened an office on the boulevard according to Tal."
"The street is full of start-ups. We talk together, help each other. There are no big companies here,
which is great. We live very near the office. We love the vibe, the place, the other start-ups, the restaurants.
It's easier to bring developers to the company when you say it's in Rothschild
even though we don't have much money to offer. We offer them equity and a good place to spend each day.#
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