Need a new leg or two?
Britain's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills asked the research company Fast Future to compile a list of popular careers for 2030, The Guardian reports. In The Shape of Jobs to Come, "[s]me of the most exciting developments are expected to come in medicine, where the study predicts the creation of new limbs and organs will become a reality, meaning body-part makers will be in demand. … Rohit Talwar, chief executive of Fast Future, predicted the generation of extra limbs would be invaluable to the military, but could see more use in sport. 'If you're spending ₤80-million [$135-million]on a footballer, and for ₤2-million [$3.4-million]you can have a couple of spare legs, then you're going to do it,' he said. 'The level of medicine will probably tell you very accurately when their legs will fail, or what kind of strains they're likely to suffer from. So you might say, as a preventive measure, rather than three months' recovery let's have an artificial limb ready so we can replace their leg and have them back playing again within a few days or weeks."
Dairy rabbits
In the Netherlands, genetically modified herds of rabbits are being reared to help treat heart patients with their milk, India's Merinews.com reports. Scientists at the biotech company Pharming Group have genetically modified the rabbits, called dairy rabbits, to include a human gene and C1 inhibitor protein in their milk. Initial tests have shown a range of possible uses. If approved, the milk could become available in the market through the commercial milking of dairy rabbits.
Location privacy
"As he sat near the frosted window of a Cambridge [Mass.]coffee shop, Andrew Blumberg's academic look easily blended in with the crowd. … Yet Blumberg was acutely aware that he was a long way from anonymity, even though he knew no one there except a reporter he had just met," D.C. Denison writes for The Boston Globe. The mathematics professor listed 12 interactions, such as using an ABM, that could be used to find his whereabouts, and a half-dozen other technologies that could still be tracking him as he sat. "[H] is among a growing number of academics and technologists who are starting to raise concerns about what's being called 'location privacy,' the idea that the proliferation of mobile devices, smart cards, tracking technologies and Internet databases is creating an environment in which citizens are under a constant threat of surveillance."
No dream privacy?
"Internet users have suddenly become obsessed with what we get up to in bed," Maurice Chittenden writes in The Sunday Times of London. "It is not so much who we sleep with but what we say in our slumber that has triggered the latest online craze. The Sleep Talkin' Man, a Web page that received more than one million hits last week, goes even more public [this week]when audio recordings of Adam Lennard, 36, an advertising executive from southwest London, are broadcast for the first time. Lennard utters gibberish in his sleep at home in Richmond, but his talk of 'vampiric penguins and zombie guinea pigs,' fish with big floppy lips and custard in his pants has attracted a huge audience to a blog written by his U.S.-born wife, Karen, also 36. Such is the appeal that last week Lennard and his wife received orders for 120 T-shirts featuring quotes from his sleep."
No means no
"When it comes to choosing a mate," BBC News reports, "female toads may have more control than previously thought, say scientists. A report in the Royal Society's Biology Letters journal describes how a female cane toad inflates its body to prevent an amorous male from mating with it. This makes it difficult for the male toad to 'hold on.' … This could help ensure that the female gets to mate [with]the biggest, strongest male, which is likely to produce the healthiest offspring."
Is your octopus happy?
"To prevent Shania the octopus from becoming bored," Science News reports, "keepers at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., gave her a Mr. Potato Head filled with fish to snuggle."
Thought du jour
"Health is the first of all liberties."
- Henri Amiel (1821-81)