Each week a global thinker from the worlds of philosophy, science, psychology or the arts is given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea – no matter how improbable – that they believe would change the world.

This week science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon argues that everyone should be given a barcode at birth.

“If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached – a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals.

It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is.

Having such a unique barcode would have many advantages. In war soldiers could easily differentiate legitimate targets in a population from non combatants.

This could prevent mistakes in identity, mistakes that result in the deaths of innocent bystanders. Weapons systems would record the code of the use, identifying how fired which shot and leading to more accountability in the field.

Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war.”

You can listen to Elizabeth discuss her idea with aerial warfare expertElizabeth Quintana  and war ethics authority David Rodin in more detail on the BBC World Service programme The Forum, where you can also download more 60-second ideas.

If you have a 60-second idea or would like to comment on this story, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

Source: BBC.

If you only know the late Carroll Shelby for his tuner cars, you’re missing an amazing story of how, during the mid-1960s, his little, nerd-filled race shop in Los Angeles helped Henry Ford II exercise his famous vendetta against Enzo Ferrari. Playboy editor A.J. Baime tells that story in his book, Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.

Here’s an excerpt from Baime’s book that picks up from the day Shelby American assumed responsibility for building Ford’s racing sports cars, just about one year out from the company’s 1-2-3 victory upset at Le Mans:

…

Carroll Shelby dug his fingers into his thighs. He was sitting in the back of a small private plane with a couple of Ford executives. The engine buzzed like a gnat. At the helm, a Shelby engineer was piloting the plane onto a straightaway at Riverside International Raceway. The straight was a slightly downhill strip of pavement with a bridge at the end. As the bridge approached, the ground seemed to get farther away because of the gradient. The bridge kept getting closer and Shelby was getting nervous. He was himself a pilot, and he sensed they were headed for trouble.

Were they going to fly over the bridge or under it?

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

Surveillance aircraft used by the U.S. military overseas could soon be coming to the skies above Los Angeles County.

KNX 1070′s Charles Feldman reports the Federal Aviation Administration is making it easier for local law enforcement agencies to fly unmanned drones.

The FAA has streamlined the process that would allow agencies to fly smaller, unarmed versions of the drones that hunt down terrorists in places such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has not yet applied for an application to fly drones over our skies, its Homeland Security chief Bob Osborne said drones could be in the department’s future — with some caveats.

CONTINUED at CBS Los Angeles.

This car runs on the ultimate emissions-free fuel: air.

In 2007, Mumbai, India-based Tata Motors signed a licensing deal with Motor Development International, a French design firm. The idea was to build a car that could run on compressed air. Now Tata says it has tested two cars with the engines. The next step is setting up the manufacturing plants to actually build them.

Compressed air engines aren’t a new idea. The first models were proposed more than a century ago, and they were used in the mining industry for decades before electric motors became commonplace. Even now, compressed air powers all kinds of tools, notably the pneumatic impact wrenches in auto body shops.

A compressed air car engine works in a way similar to the internal combustion version: Fuel forces pistons to turn a crankshaft and power the car. The difference is that in a compressed air engine, the pistons are moved by air and not gasoline. Researchers in Sweden have experimented with single-cylinder engines of this type.

The only problem is power. Air compression alone only gets a car moving to about 30 to 35 miles per hour. So to supplement that, the car could take in more air as it moves faster, using an onboard air compressor. The air compressor could be electric or, more likely, gasoline-powered. But even that would reduce emissions a lot, since the gasoline engine wouldn’t be running at lower speeds.

Range is also an issue. Like all vehicles, an air-powered car can drive only as far as the amount of fuel in its tank. And storing compressed air requires “fuel” tanks that are stronger than steel to contain the thousands of pounds per square inch necessary.

On the bright side, compressing air in such a tank is a lot less dangerous than natural gas or hydrogen. Then there is the issue of filling the car’s tank — most air compressors would take at least a couple of hours to do that.

Tata seems to be the only manufacturer that has committed to actually building an air-powered car. Honda unveiled an air-powered concept car in 2010, and a company called Zero Pollution Motors had promised to deliver one to the United States — but that was two years ago. (The company’s website domain is no longer in use.) If Tata is successful, it will go a long way toward reducing emissions in India — and perhaps freeing cars from fossil fuels completely.

Source: Discovery News.

As the association of Eastern European and Chinese IP addresses with cybercriminals has led to blacklisting of addresses from those countries, the crooks are moving their sites to North America — in droves.A new report from security firm Websense finds strong evidence of this alarming new trend.

“Things are getting worse, not better,” said Patrik Runald, director, security research, Websense Labs.In Canada, we found an 170% increase from last year in phishing sites being hosted on Canadian servers, making Canada number two in the world for hosted phishing sites.”But that pales in comparison to the U.S., which saw a 300% increase and is now the top country in the world for these sites, by far.

“A lot more malicious content is now based in western, first world countries today,” Runald said. “Typical suspects 2-5 years ago were in eastern Europe which is dropping off because they developed a shady reputation. So traffic to and from servers in say Ukraine, were simply blocked by some admins, and vendor security products took location into account, making traffic from these countries much more likely to be blocked. So the operators of these sites moved to countries where traffic goes commonly, like the U.S. and Canada, where it is much harder to block for security reasons.”

The same trend is also showing up with Bot networks, and with malicious URLs.Canada saw a 39% increase in Bot networks this year, which Runald said was pretty average, especially when compared to the U.S. jump of 450% in the same category.”This stat doesnt mention the scale of the Botnet being used, and we are finding that 8-12 servers is now about average,” Runald said.

Malicious website increase was also high this year — about 300% in the U.S. and 239% in Canada.

“This was an amazing jump across the board,” Runald said. “And its the most dangerous catagory because you dont have to click on anything to get infected. This is also a moving target, as are Bot networks, while phishing is more static in the way it works.”Runald said the security vendors are generally able to cope because they do have massive amounts of data to work with. Websense alone has 3.5 billion pieces of data they scan every day.

“But the fact the numbers are going up quite dramatically is a worrying trend because theres more to deal with,” he said. “This is new. In 2010 and 2011 we did not see this kind of jump.”

Runald suggested that increasing criminal penalties for these kinds of crimes could have a significant impact.

“I don’t know why we arent doing it, but to be fair, no one else is either. I don’t think we are sending the right message here. Very often, they just get a slap on the wrist and get to go home. The Feds are doing a good job in cracking down, but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to what’s going on.”

Source: eChannelLine.

Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign has a history of building road-worthy concept cars, not fragile auto show machines best left to turntables and a gentle touch. Which is how we got to ride along in Italdesign’s2012 Geneva Auto Show concept, the Brivido hybrid, over elevated and often cold and snowy Alpine passes. There’s something special about sitting warm and cozy inside this hand-built automobile, riding in a famed designer’s look at the future while outside real-world snow falls and slush beats against the wheel wells.

CONTINUED at Road & Track.

This is a triple-barreled pistol that fills your target with three times the holes as a regular pistol. Or, if you’re as terrible a shot as I imagine you are, wastes three times the ammo. Tell me before you buy one so I can buy stock in bullet manufacturers.

Details on the mad gunsmith who crafted this bizarre piece are unknown, except that it was made in Spain and appears to be a one-off creation. The fact that it only has a single trigger makes us assume the gun fires all three 6.35mm rounds at the same time, making it easy to get off 18 shots in no time.

First of all, 6.35mm rounds aren’t big enough. That’s just not nearly enough stopping power if only one bullet makes contact. No, I would go with at LEAST 7.15mm’s. “Those aren’t even real — you don’t know anything about guns.” Ha, I know the only thing I need to: I’m honest enough with myself to know I can’t be trusted owning one.

Source: Geekologie.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Lillehei Heart Institute have effectively treated muscular dystrophy in mice using human stem cells derived from a new process that — for the first time — makes the production of human muscle cells from stem cells efficient and effective.

The research, published May 4 inCell Stem Cell, outlines the strategy for the development of a rapidly dividing population of skeletal myogenic progenitor cells (muscle-forming cells) derived from induced pluripotent (iPS) cells. iPS cells have all of the potential of embryonic stem (ES) cells, but are derived by reprogramming skin cells. They can be patient-specific, which renders them unlikely to be rejected, and do not involve the destruction of embryos.

This is the first time that human stem cells have been shown to be effective in the treatment of muscular dystrophy.

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

Mozilla is first Silicon Valley entity to denounce bill.

Tech giant Mozilla has publicly slammed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which passed the House last week, labeling the legislation an “alarming” threat to privacy.

“While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security. The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation,” Mozilla, which is best known for its Firefox browser, said in a statement.

The statement is important because it marks the first time any Silicon Valley entity has denounced CISPA, with an array of powerful companies lining up in support of the legislation which passed the US House of Representatives 248 to 168 and now heads to the Senate.

Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Symantec, AT&T and Verizon have all backed the bill, with Microsoft re-affirming its support yesterday after rumors the company was getting cold feet, while Google has refused to take either side.

CISPA has been identified by many as a greater threat to privacy than SOPA, which was opposed by a deluge of major tech firms after a viral online opposition campaign, but because CISPA has received less attention, corporate giants have found it easier to stay mute.

Not only would CISPA mandate ISPs to share Internet data of users with government “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it also empowers the Department of Homeland Securityto monitor the communications of the federal courts and Congress, and intercept tax returns sent to the IRS.

The bill “gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecurity purposes,’” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has noted. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law.”

“The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government’s power,” writes TechDirt’s Leigh Beadon.

As we have documented, the Obama administration’s threat to veto the bill is little more than a crude stunt and carries no more weight than Obama’s promise to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which he signed on New Year’s Eve after the White House itself lobbied for the NDAA’s most egregious provisions to be included.

Indeed, the White House’s primary beef with the legislation appears to be the fact that it doesn’t handenough power to the Department of Homeland Security.

CISPA now moves to the Senate where it will be amalgamated with one of two other bills before heading to Obama’s desk. Don’t hold your breath on that veto.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Source: Infowars.

Because what good is being filthy rich if you can’t spend it building a giant ship that’s gonna wind up at the bottom of the Atlantic, Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer plans on having a modern, luxurious replica of the ship built in China and not my backyard despite me being the lowest bidder. Dammit Clive, I’ll do it for beer and that’s my final offer.

Palmer, one of the richest people in Australia with an estimated worth of more than $5 billion, said he had commissioned a state-owned Chinese company to construct Titanic II with the exact dimensions as the ill-fated original.
“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,” Palmer said, according to AFP.

He said Titanic II would make its maiden voyage from England to New York in late 2016.

“Titanic II will be the ultimate in comfort and luxury with on-board gymnasiums and swimming pools, libraries, high class restaurants and luxury cabins,” Palmer said.

Man, how crazy would it be if this one sunk too? I mean, curses ARE real, you know. “No, they’re not.” No? Then you won’t mind giving me a lock of your hair and some blood so I can make a voodoo doll of you? “Don’t you need a piece of clothing too?” I already have a pair of your panties. “I don’t wear panties.” *whips out thong* Then whose are THESE? “The tag says Geekologie Writer.” Haha, I thought they looked familiar.

Source: Geekologie.