As a futurist, I view the financial crisis that exploded last week from a high level, long term perspective.  The macro forces that are reshaping our world must be considered when such a crisis occurs.  In addition this particular crisis will force us to reevaluate long held economic ideals that may no longer have validity in their purest forms.

It is important to state that there are many traceable causes to this crisis. It is these particulars that politicians and those that need to blame something or someone will focus on as a way to justify a point of view or to seek retribution.  There will be much argument about who is to blame and what needs to be done to protect the U.S. and global financial system from further meltdown.  This is an important discussion to have, as long as there is perspective and an honest desire to right the ship rather than to just be right.

There have been financial crises in the past that can be looked at for guidance and for reassurance.  Guidance in how to handle what now confronts us, and reassurance that we can and will weather this crisis.  The Great Depression has been mentioned a lot this past week, as it was the specter of such a calamity that provoked the actions made by the Fed and the Treasury Department .  This was due in part to the fact that Ben Bernanke is regarded as an authority on this historical economic event.  Perhaps a more …

One of Salvador Dali’s greatest paintings is called “The Persistence of Memory”.  Last week the results of a new study were published in Science magazine that conclusively prove the physical nature of that persistence.  In what other scientists have called a ‘foundational study’ a team of researchers from America and Israel have discovered and documented the physical nature of memory.

In the study, the researchers threaded tiny electrodes into the brains of 13 people with severe epilepsy.  Evidently this implanting of electrodes is standard procedure as it allows doctors to pinpoint the brain activity that cause epileptic seizures.  These patients watched 5 to 10 second film clips.  The researchers recorded the firing activity of about 100 neurons per person, all of which were concentrated in and around the hippocampus, a part of the brain know to be critical for memory.

The researchers identified single cells that became highly active during some videos and quiet during others.  More than half the recorded cells hummed with activity in response to at least …

Last week the Internationale Funkausstellung was held in Berlin.  This is the largest consumer electronics convention in Europe, equaling and perhaps surpassing the CES show that occurs every January in Las Vegas.  One of the central themes behind major new product launches was the Internet and the central role it is now beginning to play in the wirelessly networked home.

This has been something that has interested me for years and a subject about which I have written here and here in this blog.  As recently as five years ago, the topic of convergence was a speculative, hot one in media and technology circles.  The convergence discussed then was would there be convergence of the computer and the television?  Would people ever fully accept viewing television content on the computer?   Well we now have the answer to that loud and clear:  yes! Even Steven Jobs doubted this would happen.  He famously said that the profound difference between computers and televisions was that people leaned forward when interacting with computers and leaned back when watching television and that therefore this content convergence would not happen.  Well it did.

Now this convergence is combining with wireless connectivity to begin to change the connection of technology in the home.  The long predicted vision of technologists and futurists of the home of the future where everything is connected and can be monitored and controlled is now beginning.

Sony introduced plug-in adapters to allow some of its Bravia television sets to connect wirelessly to the …

It was two years ago that I first wrote about ocean dead zones. These are areas of the ocean that, due to a lack of oxygen, no longer sustain any life.  While dead zones can happen naturally, they usually are caused by the results of human activity.  A primary cause is nitrogen-rich nutrients from agricultural fertilizers that flow into coastal waters from rivers and streams.

Last week there was a report published in the Journal of Science that stated that the number of these ocean dead zones around the world has doubled every decade since the 1960s.  There are now some 400 coastal areas that periodically or perpetually become dead due to oxygen starved bottom waters.

While the size of these dead zones is small relative to the total surface of the oceans, they account for a significant percentage of ocean waters that support commercial shellfish and fish species.  This is due to the fact that these zones occur in areas that have historically been prime fishing grounds since these grounds are close to dense human populations.

In recent years there have been consistent dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, the Baltic Sea, the coastal areas of China and even the Kattegat Sea where the Norwegian lobster industry has been decimated..  There is now a regular dead zone off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that was mentioned in the column two years ago.

The developing problem with these dead zones is that over time entire species are killed …