[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Killer mini-robots [was Re: UK Navy denies submarine mutiny]

[Terry W. Colvin]

--- In forteana at yahoogroups.com, Andy <andy at r...> wrote:
> For some reason this isn't all over the Uk Press. One of my more colorful
> friends murmured something about the possibility that the sub had nuclear
> weapons on board, the real reason the sailors asked to get off the boat.
> 
> Andy

There was an interesting edition of "Costing the Earth" on Radio 4 
last night that was very revealing about how the british media tends 
to work, in this case in terms of environmental stories, but it can 
probably be applied to most topics.
You can listen again at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/rams/costingtheearth.ram
(requires realplayer)
Blurb:
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth.shtml >
Can You Believe It?

London will soon be a coastal resort, organic food will poison your 
children and the world's about to be over-run by an army of tiny 
robots intent on entering your brain and bending you to their evil 
will. The British media loves a good environmental scare story. In 
this week's `Costing the Earth' Alex Kirby asks if the environment 
can ever get the press treatment it deserves.

He looks back on three big environmental stories of the past decade 
concerning the food we eat, the advance of technology and the purity 
of our oceans and finds out if press coverage helped or damaged our 
health and our environment.

Shell's attempt to dump the Brent Spar oil-rig in the Atlantic Ocean 
was thwarted by a stunning Greenpeace media campaign but did the 
outcome really help keep our oceans clean?

Organic food came under assault last year from suggestions that its 
reliance on manure could hugely increase the risk of food poisoning. 
The story was nonsense but where did it come from and how did it 
reach the front page of the Daily Mail?

And what of nanotechnology, a branch of science few of us had heard 
of until Prince Charles apparently issued warnings of an army of 
killer mini-robots. Did the furore stop a promising new technology in 
its tracks or was the environment really threatened by the arrogance 
of scientists?

Alex Kirby finds the answers in `Costing the Earth'.


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
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