Introduction

According to the United Nations Governing Council of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP),  "our dominant economic model may thus be termed a 'brown economy." UNEP's clearly stated goal is to overturn the "brown economy" and replace it with a "green economy":

"A green economy implies the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth... These investments, both public and private, provide the mechanism for the reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes." [p. 2]

Sustainable consumption? Reconfiguring businesses, infrastructure and institutions? What do these words mean? They do not mean merely reshuffling the existing order, but rather replacing it with a completely new economic system, one that has never before been seen or used in the history of the world.

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A message encoded as artificial DNA can be stored within the genomes of multiplying bacteria and then accurately retrieved, US scientists have shown.

Their concern that all current ways of storing information, from paper to electronic memory, can easily be lost or destroyed prompted them to devise a new type of memory - within living organisms.

"A big concern is the protection of valuable information in the case of a nuclear catastrophe," says information technologist Pak Chung Wong, of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State. The laboratory was set up as a nuclear energy research institute.

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One of the most peculiar and complex natural compounds, which was discovered many years ago inside sea sponges, has become the target of an international competition of sorts. Numerous research groups around the world have attempted to synthesize the elusive chemical Palau’amine in the lab, but, for as long as 17 years, these efforts have been in vain. Finally, a group announces that the goal has been reached, putting an end to the contest. The crown goes to a team of experts at the Scripps Research Institute, who were led by expert Phil Baran, Wired reports.

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