Harnessing the Cognitive Surplus

By James Scott-Brown

How do you spend your free time? If you were an average American, you would spend 20 hours a week watching television, and another 3 hours playing games [1]. Clay Shirky has written about how, after the Second World War, enormous changes in society occurred, so that “society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before–free time”, creating a vast “cognitive surplus” [2]. How can this surplus be effectively exploited? One approach is to take advantage of people’s leisure time and enjoyment of computer games to solve real problems, by creating games in which players complete tasks that computers cannot yet. This has been done for the problems of image tagging (the ESP Game/Google Image Labeler), locating objects in images (Peekaboom), collecting common-sense facts (Verbosity), predicting protein folding (Foldit) and improving the design of electronic circuits (funSAT). Alternatively, mundane but essential tasks can be modified to have useful side-effects (reCAPTCHA).

The work of Luis von Ahn is a good example of harnessing the human “cognitive surplus” using both approaches. He began by developing the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), which distinguishes humans from computers by asking them to complete a task, usually typing letters from a distorted image. This allows websites to prevent computer programs from automatically creating multiple accounts, sending large numbers of spam messages, or making many attempts to guess a user’s password. The initial paper describing CAPTCHA suggested that, as well as helping to distinguish between computers and humans, the tests could encourage work on improved text recognition algorithms, jokingly saying that this was ‘how lazy cryptographers do AI’; however, the time humans spent completing them was wasted [3]. A subsequent refinement, reCAPTCHA, uses the process of completing a CAPTCHA to decipher words in scanned documents that are too distorted or smudged to be recognised by a computer [4]. This is done by present- ing the user with images of two words simultaneously: an “unknown word”, and a known “control” word selected randomly from a list of more than 100,000. If a user types the control word correctly, they are assumed to be human, and their attempt at typing the unknown word is recorded. Once three people have provided the same response to the “unknown word” image, they are assumed to be correct, and their transcription is added to the list of control words. Thus, the number of transcribed words increases as reCAPTCHAs are completed. reCAPTCHA has been an enormous success: by September 2008, it was being used by more than 40,000 websites, and had transcribed over 440 million words [5].

Von Ahm has also developed a series of what he calls “Games With a Purpose” (GWAP) [6,7]. Several of them award points for agreeing with other players: in the ESP Game and popVideo, a group of players see the same image or video, and must submit keywords that could describe it; in Matchin, players are presented with a pair of images, and asked which one they prefer; in Squigl, players are shown an image and must draw an outline around a named object. Others rely on describing an object to a partner, and understanding their description: in TagTune, players describe what they hear to their partner and, based upon each other’s descriptions, guess whether they are listening to the same tune; in Verbosity one player has to describe a word by what it “is” – “is a type of”, “looks like”, “is about the same size as”, “is the opposite of” and “is a kind of” – while the other has to guess what it is [8]. By collecting human responses to questions, these games teach the computer specific facts, either about the meaning of words (Verbosity) or about particular images, videos, or pieces of music. All of them are useful in some way: tagging media with keywords allows search engines to produce more relevant results; the facts collected by Verbosity may be useful for Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing projects; and by rating how attractive images are, Matchin could lead to computer systems that select the prettiest images to present to users.

The main reason that these games are fun is that players must try to guess what other players are thinking. In the ESP game, for example, users are told which of their suggested tags matched those of their partner, which can influence their future suggestions. By adding this social interaction, boring tasks like tagging images or music are made fun. Additionally, users are actively encouraged to refer their friends to the site by bonus points. The competitive element extends beyond recruiting friends, as at the end of each game, players are told how many more points they need to match the day’s high-score, encouraging them to start another game. Players who receive specific numbers of points are awarded skill levels, and those with the highest scores appear on a leaderboard. During a game, continual encouragement to play on is provided by a sound playing (and, in some games, motivating text appearing) whenever a match occurs. Fixed time limits for each game maintain interest, forcing players to think quickly, so that the games are more challenging – and hence fun. One player apparently claimed that the ESP game was “like crack”: arguably, with its flashing lights and beeping noises, the game has more in common with a casino [9].

Both reCAPTCHA and the GWAP games are very easy to learn – it takes just seconds to read and understand the rules – which has surely contributed to their success. However, such simplicity is not essential, and many players have been attracted to the much more complicated game Foldit, in which players attempt to manipulate predicted proteins structure to produce more likely (i.e. lower energy) structures. Since it is not immediately obvious how to interpret or alter the protein structures, help is provided by a series of in-game tutorials. A separate wiki explains the relevant biochemistry, in-game controls and strategies [10]. Most of the top players in sheets). Players can thus produce better predictions of protein structures, which are important not only to the understanding of basic biological processes, but also to the rational design of drugs targeting specific proteins in disease.

So why do people choose to play these games? Perhaps they are enticed by invitations to “contribute to science” (Foldit) or claims that “You’re helping the world become a better place . . . you’re training computers to solve problems for humans all over the world” (GWAP) ‐ which the games do fulfill. When Foldit players were asked their motivation for playing, about 40% of answers referred to the scientific purpose of Foldit; 35% to a feeling of immersion in a task; 20% to a feeling of achievement; and the remainder to social involvement in the game [11]. Players of the more casual GWAP games are likely to be motivated less by the higher purpose of the games, and more by a sense of fun and com‐ petitiveness. Together, GWAP and Foldit have shown that people can be persuaded to perform useful tasks that cannot be automated, by presenting them in the context of a game, with rules, goals, and scores. In this way, otherwise idle minds can achieve what computers cannot.

References

1.US Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey 2009, Tables A-2 and 11

2. Clay Shirky. Gin, Television, and Social Surplus. Talk given by Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 conference, 2008 Apr 23. Transcript available from: http://www. herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

2. reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books [Online Homepage]. http://www. google.com/recaptcha

3. Von Ahn et al. CAPTCHA: Using Hard AI Problems For Security. Proceedings of Eurocrypt 2003; 2656:294-311

4. reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books. http://www.google.com/recaptcha

5. Von Ahn et al. reCAPTCHA: human-based character recognition via Web security measures. Science 2008; 321(5895):1465-8.

6. Gwap.com [Online Homepage]. Available from: http://gwap.com

7. Von Ahn and Dabbish. Designing Games With a Purpose. Communications of the ACM 2008; 51(8):58-67

8. This is similar to Burgener’s 20Q game, in which users train a neural network, so that it is able to distinguish between objects by asking fewer than 20 questions. 20Q.net Inc. [Online Homepage] http://20q.net

9. Thompson, Clive. For Certain Tasks, the Cortex Still Beats the CPU. Wired Magazine. Issue 15.07. Accessible from: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/ magazine/15- 07/ff_humancomp

10. Foldit wiki. [Online Homepage] http://foldit.wikia.com/wiki/FoldIt_Wiki

11. Cooper et al. “Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game.” Nature 466(7307):756. Supplementary Figure 3 shows the biochemical experience of players; Supplementary Figure 4 shows motivations for playing the game

12. CASP8 Results. Available from: http://fold.it/portal/node/729520

This article was originally published in The Science in Society Review at the University of Cambridge by The Triple Helix Inc. Follow The Triple Helix Online on Twitter and join us on Facebook

Carbon in the form of atom-thick "chicken-wire" sheets called graphene has the capacity to replace silicon circuitry.

As long as Moore’s Law holds true, every two years, computers will grow either twice as powerful or half the size. This trend, in which the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit doubles every two years, has continued since the 1950′s and is forecast to continue for another decade. However, with the limits of silicon circuitry rapidly approaching the limits of manufacturing, some new material needs to take the place of silicon in order for Moore’s Law to continue. Carbon in the form of atom-thick “chicken-wire” sheets called graphene has the capacity to fulfill this role. It conducts electricity with very little resistance or heat generation at room temperature, consuming less power than silicon while allowing for high throughput. Though graphene-based circuitry is in its infancy, it holds tremendous promise as manufacturing processes continuously improve and new techniques emerge.

The limitations of silicon have been studied extensively, especially since the turn of the new millennium when silicon chips started to encounter performance issues. Silicon is used in transistors, which act like switches in circuit-boards, changing the way current flows by opening or closing a gate through an applied electric field. As the size of the silicon transistor shrinks, the resistance to current flow increases, so more power is consumed and more heat is generated. The major contributors to this effect are tunneling currents, which can pass through the gate even if it’s closed, while the increased heat promotes thermally generated sub-threshold currents, which leak in a similar way [1]. Until recently, fabrication methods have been changed and the size of the silicon elements could shrink without reducing their overall performance. However, silicon’s limits are becoming more apparent as everyday computing technologies progress. In order to develop a very small integrated circuit-board that is also powerful enough to do computing tasks quickly, like something found in the latest smart-phones, it will be necessary to develop some way to dissipate the extra heat, and to have an adequate, portable power supply to deal with the effects of shrinking the chip.

Graphene seems to be a viable successor to silicon because it can overcome the challenges that silicon faces as computer chips shrink. It was first “discovered” in 2004 in the form of “exfoliated” flakes that could be derived from graphite. It was well-known that graphite is a form of carbon where all the atoms are arranged in sheets and all the layers are loosely interconnected, but it was believed that none of these layers could be chemically separated without them decomposing into smaller fragments of carbon. For this reason, the carbon-sheet model was kept as a toy model for materials physicists [2]. However, when it was discovered that the layers of graphite could be successfully separated micro-mechanically while remaining stable in the form of atom-thick sheets [2], interest in graphene rekindled and soon roared to life.

The interest in graphene stemmed from its unique electronic properties. One of the most striking properties is that current is conducted through the monolayer with remarkably little resistance, even at room temperature. This arises from the way that electrons behave within the hexagonal grid that makes up graphene. When modeled, the behavior of the electrons more closely resembles particles called massless Dirac fermions, which can be thought of as electrons that lost their resting mass, or as neutrinos that gained an electron’s charge [2]. This behavior leads to virtually resistance-free flow of charge through graphene, making it very appealing for the manufacture of electronic devices. Moreover, the way that graphene conducts electricity depends on how large the sheet or ribbon of graphene is: if the ribbon is wider than a micron, it acts as a good conductor, and if the ribbon is thinner, it has the properties of a semi-conductor like silicon [3]. This is useful for potential electronics because it reduces the pileup of electrons that occur at the junction between the conducting and semiconducting material in traditional circuit boards [3], further decreasing the resistance in the chip as a whole.

Another property that makes graphene very promising for use in transistors is its capacity for ballistic computing. Ballistic computing puts forward a new design for transistors that allow them to function more rapidly and effectively and with fewer “leaking” currents than traditional transistors.

This revolves around a new design for the transistor gates themselves. The traditional design for transistors used in integrated circuitry is basically an electron basin with a metal gate: halting the flow fills the basin, designating a 1, while allowing charge to flow empties the basin, signaling 0. This introduces a delay to each operation, as the basin needs time to fill and empty to transmit the appropriate signal. Ballistic transistors offer an increase in the speed and efficiency by removing the need for halting the flow of electrons, instead using their inertia for “free” sorting into 0′s and 1′s [4]. The mechanism involves placing a wedge into the flow of electrons that would separate the flow into one of two directions, each designating either “1″ or “0.” The direction of the flow is determined by an electric field upstream from the wedge that pushes the electrons slightly to one side or another [4]. The benefit of this setup is that very little energy is actually required to divert the flow from 1 to 0 or vice-versa, and since the flow is never halted, it can work at terahertz frequencies, which current transistors struggle to achieve [4]. While silicon sheets could work in this application, graphene’s pure crystal structure and high current capacity (while maintaining favorable electronic effects at room temperature) make it a better option [2].

The biggest hurdle for graphene electronics is adapting it to industrial processes. The exfoliated graphene flakes are irregular in shape and have rough edges. These are acceptable for research purposes, but regular and easily replicable shapes are necessary for industrialized processes because rough edges have a tendency to scatter the flow of electrons, introducing additional resistance to the system [2].

Recent developments have led to new ways of making variable sizes and shapes of graphene, which can be scaled to industrial proportions. The Golovchenko group at Harvard recently published a method that applied vaporized carbon to a nickel substrate where it forms a layer of variable thickness depending on the duration the vapor is present. Once the nickel cools, the carbon does not adhere to the crystalline structure and sizeable sheets of a uniform, determinate thickness are produced [5]. Walt de Heer’s group at Georgia Tech came up with a similar process, using etched silicon as the substrate. The carbon adheres to the surfaces etched into the silicon to generate graphene ribbons of a specific size with smooth edges, without any need for cutting procedures like the other methods to-date [3]. The use of silicon as a substrate also makes the process somewhat friendlier to industrialization, since most factories already have machinery for processing silicon.

Graphene holds a lot of promise for the future of electronics. Its electronic properties make it an ideal replacement for silicon as it reaches the limits of production. Graphene’s implementation in traditional and experimental electronic devices will result in electronics with smaller sizes and greater computing power. However, silicon will always remain an inexpensive and reliable material for circuitry, whereas graphene currently stands as a relatively expensive high-performance material. Eventually the industry will shift towards an all-graphene production as its price and ease-of manufacture approaches that of silicon, but this change will require a dramatic paradigm shift because the two technologies cannot be combined effectively. However, by the time Moore’s Law drives silicon to its physical limits, graphene circuitry will ideally be mature enough to extend the boundaries of computing possibilities.

References:

1. Wong PH. Device Scaling Limits of Si MOSFETs and Their Application Dependencies. Proceedings of the IEEE. 2001; 89(3):259-88.
2. Geim AK, Novoselov KS. The Rise of Graphene. Nature Materials. 2007; 6:183-99.
3. De Heer WA.  Scalable Templated Growth of Graphene Nanoribbons on SiC. Nature Nanotechnology. 2010; 5:727-31.
4. Sherwood J. Radical ‘Ballistic Computing’ Chip Bounces Electrons Like Billiards. Univ. of Rochester News. 2006 Aug 16. Available at: http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2585.
5. Golovchenko JA, Hubbard W, Garaj S. Graphene Synthesis by Ion Implantation. Applied Physics Letters. 2010; 97:183-5.
6. Image: AlexanderAIUS. Graphen. Wikimedia Commons; [uploaded 2010 Aug 26; cited 2011 Apr 28] Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graphen.jpg [Licensed under CC BY-SA]

Aleks Penev is a second-year biology and computer science major at the University of Chicago.

In some ways, this sort of wireless power technology has been “breaking into the market” for some time now.  Inductive charging stations have been sold as an elegant replacement for the clutter of wires that recharge your many electronic devices.  These nifty stations usually come in the form of a pad or some other flat surface, that inductively transmits power to receivers connected to your gadgets.  Using similar technology, Sony and Haier have recently unveiled LCD television models that are “completely wireless.”  While this does, technically, qualify as “wireless power,” the power transfer doesn’t take place over appreciable distances, which limits the number of applications for inductive power transfer.  Though we have found new and interesting ways to power our electronics, freeing us from the power cables that once leashed us to outlets, the true importance of the concept of wireless power comes not in its low grade commercial applications, but on a much larger scale – a global scale.

Microwave power beaming has emerged in the past 50 years as a viable method for power transmission [1]. Recent experiments have proven the feasibility of long range power transmission at relatively high efficiencies.  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) experiment at Goldstone in 1975 sent 34,000 watts of power across a distance of 1.5 km at an efficiency of 82% [2]. A similar project was conducted in 2008 in which power was sent over 92 miles, albeit at a lower efficiency level.  Both of these experiments used relatively low microwave frequencies, which require larger receivers and have lower transmission efficiency than higher frequencies.  Researchers at Georgia Tech are currently exploring this technology for military and commercial applications under the guidance of Professor Narayanan Komerath.  The team believes greater efficiency and transmission distances can be achieved with a higher frequency of around 220 GHz, especially if an appropriate waveguide can be designed for this application, which should cut down on propagation losses. To put that number in perspective, the millimeter wave detection system that is being used for screening in airports now operates in approximately the 24-30 GHz range.

There are certainly some significant challenges to conquer in the implementation of this technology, but the potential applications make investment in its development worthwhile. The United States Army spends millions of dollars just to transport the billions of dollars worth of fuel required to power forward bases in combat zones.  Even worse, combatants in modern wars target fuel sources, rightfully seeing them as a vital component to a successful campaign.  How can we prevent these losses?  We can cut the wires and turn off the generators.  The flexibility of wireless power transmission will allow the Army to reflect energy-bearing microwaves off of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and naval ships and send it to these forward bases.

The Air Force and the Navy can find an even more diverse set of applications for this technology.  A company called LaserMotive has already designed a system to keep UAVs in flight for days at a time by “refueling” them with surface to air power beaming [3]. If we can do this for UAVs, what is to stop us from one day powering helicopters, fighter jets, or even commercial airliners in this manner?

It’s important to look at the military applications first, as the infrastructure for this technology will have to rely on the military sector for construction due to the large amount of venture capital required. Many scientists see this as a necessary first step towards applying these designs to the commercial sector, in the form of a Space Power Grid (SPG).  Space solar power has been a dream of NASA and other groups of scientists for quite a few years now, and many of their designs have real merit.  The constraints lie in the astronomically high cost of lifting satellites into orbit, which is where the military comes in. The strategy laid out by Professor Komerath calls for a three stage deployment over 30 years.

The first stage relies on the military to develop the equipment and infrastructure necessary for power beaming. We can fully expect them to use this power beaming technology for the purposes discussed earlier, and for countless other projects that we cannot foresee at this time.  The second stage will be based around the development of stratospheric platforms that can route power from regional power plants to homes and businesses around the world.  The third and final stage will be the rise of full space solar power.  Utilizing satellite to satellite beaming, the space power grid can ensure 24 hour access to clean solar power anywhere in the world, even at night. It might be an exaggeration to say that this will completely end reliance on fossil fuels, but it certainly will help.

Many of these ideas may seem hundreds of years away from implementation, but in reality, we can expect the beginnings of such a system to come about in the next fifteen year [4, 5]. The National Space Society (NSS) and former Indian Prime Minister Dr. A.P.J. Kalam will be leading a new initiative in Space Solar Power appropriately titled the Kalam-NSS Indian-American Energy Initiative. Former Prime Minister Kalam believes a working system could be in place within fifteen years.

The development of wireless power transfer has almost endless applications, from low grade commercial charging stations to a cheaper, cleaner power source for the whole world.  While the initial investment will be extremely high for the pioneers in this field, the dividends it will return within a decade or two of implementation will be invaluable, both financially and environmentally [6]. If the system envisioned by Prime Minister Kalam and the NSS comes to fruition, the world will owe a great debt to India and the United States for taking this first step towards independence from fossil fuels and power lines.

References:

1. Rouge, Joseph. “Space‐Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security.” National Space Society. National Security Space Office, n.d. Web. 10 Nov 2010. <http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf>.

2. NASA DVD on Space Solar Power: Exploring New Frontiers for Tomorrow. National Aeronautics and Space Administration: 2002, Web. 10 Nov 2010. <http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/NASADVD/part04.htm>.

3. Nugent, T.J., and J.T. Kare. “Laser Power for UAVs: A White Paper.” LaserMotive, LLC, n.d. Web. 10 Nov 2010. <http://lasermotive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Wireless-Power-for-UAVs-March2010.pdf>.

4. Barnhard, Gary. “National Space Society Announces the Kalam-NSS Energy Initiative.” October 30, 2010.<http://blog.nss.org/?p=2214> (accessed 12/1/2010).

5. Mankins, John. “A Fresh Look at Space Solar Power: New Architectures, Concepts and Technologies.”National Space Society. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, n.d. Web. 10 Nov 2010. <http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/1997-Mankins-FreshLookAtSpaceSolarPower.pdf>.

6. Brown, Trevor. “SSP: A Spherical Architecture.” Space Review n. pag. Web. 10 Nov 2010. <http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1383/1>.

Nicholas Picon is a freshman at Georgia Tech majoring in aerospace engineering.

The Role of Technology

Technology plays a part in these growing trends. Cheating today isn’t as difficult as it once was. Rather, modern cheating methods have become more sophisticated and available for all academic fields. Many students easily find unauthorized resources through the web. Students are often finding homework answers in the form of online study groups or seeking the resource of their peers from social networking sites in order to gain knowledge about previous exams they may have taken. What is astounding is the effort that some people take to convert cheating into a business. A simple search on “academic cheating” on YouTube leads to over 3000 homemade videos on innovative methods of cheating. These short five minute videos are equipped with a title page, credits page, soundtrack, stepwise instructions and demonstrations, all the proper elements of a skillful and informative how-to video. Furthermore, it doesn’t take much effort to discover an online website offering to write your papers for a fee. Just last November, “Ed Dante” came out with an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education claiming to have helped thousands of graduate students by writing their papers, assignments, exams and even doctoral theses [2]. “Ed” claims to have written on even the most specific topics including a doctorate in cognitive psychology. By simply Google-ing his topics, “Ed” was able to teach himself the necessary knowledge needed to complete another student’s work [2].  As technology advances, these dishonest acts continue to increase in magnitude and sophistication.

Cheating: A Time Management Device?

The development of this cheating mentality has deep roots in the academic environments in which potential cheaters find themselves. Based on the Social Learning Theory proposed by Bandura, peer actions serve as strong forms of persuasion [3]. Students observe cheating among their classmates and not only can they mimic their techniques, but also develop the mindset that these practices are accepted. As students observe more events of academic dishonesty, they are progressively more convinced that it is the social norm.

But why are students compelled to cheat in the first place? Today’s college students often don’t need to cheat. Cheating is no longer only employed for basic academic survival. Rather, many students are simply cheating because they are too lazy to put in the effort that the results of cheating so easily provide. Collaborative cheating is a prime model. Not all participants in a study group equally contribute. Instead, it is far more commonplace that in a group of 10 students, only three or so put in the requisite effort to comprehend and analyze the problem at hand in order to complete an assignment. The rest are simply there to reap the benefits of these students’ hard work. Studies have found that students often cheat in “required classes”–classes that student must take in order to graduate [4]. Here, students are simply disinterested in the course’ subject matter and are thus unwilling to put in the effort to learn the material. Cheating is an easy path towards course completion, one that doesn’t require much time and effort. Students rationalize that they can better spend the save time on their major requirements while utilizing cheating as a tool to complete college requirements [5]. When taking courses actually relevant to their majors, students are more typically compelled to complete the work honestly because they are interested in the topics presented and realize that mastery of such material is fundamental to the development of their careers and their major studies.

Is Cheating a Rational Option?

Cheating is considered wrong mainly because it leaves the honest students at a disadvantage. This is one of the greatest ironies about cheating in college. The argument against cheating implicitly states that non-cheaters are the ones left behind. However, this is certainly not true. In fact, a substantial portion of cheaters are those who are disadvantaged. We all know life isn’t fair and education is certainly no exception. All of us grew up in different situations with different educational backgrounds. Some had the privilege of attending the highest ranked high schools in the nation and lived under the motivation of supportive parents. Others attended the only public schools available and dealt with family and personal issues that distracted them from their academic pursuits. When we arrive at college we come with various educational levels, fundamentally different degrees of knowledge that will affect our performance throughout all four years of college. Given these different starting points, some disadvantaged students may be compelled to cheat in order to rise to the same level as privileged students. Cheating may be one of the ways we make up for our disadvantages; it provides us with some control to compensate for the uncontrollable aspects of our lives.

But why are we so compelled to fix our disadvantages in the first place? The main reason lies in the modern world’s competitive atmosphere. The world hosts a lot more people than it once did, and we now know a lot more than we once did. Together these two factors fuel the need for progress. College students are starting to adapt the mentality of the business world [1]. This is expected, as college ultimately serves as preparation for life in the “real world”. The standards of yesterday are no match for those needed today. A perfect 4.0 GPA simply isn’t enough. You need to be active in clubs. Simply joining isn’t an option either, you must exhibit leadership; you must thrive to gain a presidential position. But let’s face it–there is just simply not enough room for all of us to succeed in such positions. Hence, due to competition for coveted positions in law, business, medicine, and other areas, students are under the pressure to succeed; they accomplish this by taking advantage of anything that can possibly give them an edge.  Cheating remains one of the easiest ways to gain that edge.

The Aftermath of Cheating

In nature, cheaters in altruistic social groups often damage the integrity of their species for personal benefit. Likewise, cheating in the academic world damages our society’s progress. Academic dishonesty ultimately minimizes knowledge in a subject matter. Without putting in the effort to complete assignments or write exams, tasks that are designed to help us to approach problems analytically, we fail to fully comprehend the course material. Consequently, when we arrive at similar problems in our careers we will be incapable of completing the task because we never developed the fundamental skills in the first place. Thus, cheating allows unqualified individuals into the career field, a situation that is damaging to our progress.

Many schools have adopted an honor code in an attempt to deter such activity. However, the mere presence of an honor code will not stop cheating; rather, the school must develop a culture that expresses the themes embedded within the code [1]. McCabe and Treviño found that the school with lowest cheating rates actually lacked an honor code [1]. However, on this campus faculty frequently and clearly stated their intolerance of cheating and the serious consequences that may result. Contrary to expectations, the school with the highest cheating rates actually possessed a 100 year long honor code. The difference between the two colleges was simply the implementation of the basis of honor codes. The college with the highest cheating rates did not effectively incorporate the beliefs of the honor code within the student body [1]. Thus, to combat cheating academic communities must be active in expressing the essentials of the honor code through clear discussions of academic dishonesty in courses and swift punishment when students are caught.

Cheating will likely remain embedded within the academic world. As long as grades and admissions remain our biggest priority, this easy approach to success will continue to prevail and will do so with inevitable consequences.

References

[1] Butterfield K, McCabe D, Treviño L. Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research. Ethics and Behavior. 2001; 11(3): 219-232.

[2] Dante, Ed. “The Shadow Scholar – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.”Home – The Chronicle of Higher Education. Web. 04 Mar. 2011. <http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/125329/>.

[3] Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

[4] Carpenter D, Finelli C, Harding T, Mayhew M, Passow H. Factors Influencing Engineering Student’s Decisions To Cheat By Type Of Assessment. Research in Higher Education. 2006; 47(6): 643-684.

[5] Klein H, Levenburg N, McKendall M, Mothersel W. Cheating During the College Years: How do Business School Students Compare? Journal of Business Ethics. 2007; 72: 197-206.

Nancy is a junior at Cornell University. Join The Triple Helix Online on Facebook. Follow The Triple Helix  Online on Twitter.

Social Networks

Terror as Coercion: The Major Stumbling Block in a New Subject for Social Network Analysis

Since the notorious events of September 11^th, 2001, the study of suicide terrorism and the strategic logic behind large-scale acts of extremism has taken off in a variety of disciplines. As readers of the national news, we receive a predominantly qualitative analysis of terrorist cells, how they are organized, recruit and sometimes cooperate. Without reference to a lot of numerical data or statistics and seemingly without the goal of precise and generalizable measurements, news casters present footage of interviews with Iraqis and Americans that get at the “why” of the issue but not exactly the “how.” Qualitative research on terrorism isn’t confined to the realm of media but extends into academia as well. In this context, a large and enlarging body of literature traces the rise and fall of various terrorist campaigns while commenting on the history of terrorism in general. Such studies are extremely beneficial to our understanding of, for instance, the transformation of an ideology into a formidable terrorist organization. However, given that terrorist groups are uniquely decentralized, diffuse, dynamic and constituted by clusters of dense networks that are otherwise isolated or weakly linked to other clusters[1], it is unreasonable to hope that qualitative methods will produce a sufficiently thorough and dependable explanation for how terrorists function or a reliable framework for predicting future terrorist attacks. Qualitative research, which requires a considerable amount of time to execute under the best of circumstances cannot fully and quickly address the “how” of terrorism and when it comes to the systematic use of terror, time is of the essence. A much more practical approach is that of social network analysis—a set of techniques, theories, models and applications that have proven themselves remarkably valuable to the studies of interaction, interdependency, sustained and truncated relational ties, opportunities for and constraints upon individual action, and structures of the social, economic and political sort.

Social network analysis conceives of relationships, contacts, affiliations, friendships and other web-like structures in terms of “nodes” and “edges,” best defined by the below graphic[2]:

In this example, which depicts a pattern of email communication among employees of Hewlett Packard, the nodes (red dots) represent the individual employees and the edges (gray lines) between them represent their email exchanges. It is easy to see how we might map a terrorist network in this way, allowing nodes to represent terrorist suspects and edges instances contact between them. It is also easy to see how the resulting graph would aid our understanding of how terrorist organizations operate and solve problems, as well as how disaggregated (or centralized!) they really are.

In addition to possessing the attributes described above, the study of terrorism also lends itself to social or dynamic network analysis since it is associated with massive volumes of information that need to be synthesized and disseminated in an efficient way. According to Patrick Keefe, when still engaged in wiretapping, the National Security Agency intercepted some 650 million communications on a daily basis. Furthermore, the National Counterterrorism Center’s database of suspected terrorists currently contains over 325,000 names.[3] Network analysis can help to make sense of this wealth of data by giving it a form and shape that can be more easily appreciated than an interminable list of names and dates.

However, in light of these statistics and intimidatingly large numbers, it is no surprise that productive network analysis is often hindered by an overabundance of information, the bulk of which is frequently extraneous and of limited relevance. Valdis Krebs, the first person to diagram the network of terrorist cells associated with the 9/11 hijackings, notes that the nodes (people, potential terrorists) present in the existing body of information often have “fuzzy boundaries” between them, making it difficult to determine who and who not to include in the mapping of a particular terrorist network.[4] False leads are inevitable but not always immediately apparent and therefore represent a debilitating time waster.[5] The question is, then, how can this profusion of information be gathered, managed and propagated in an efficient way? Assuming we can surmount some major roadblocks—such as this baffling quantity of data—the answer may be contained in the relatively new but burgeoning field of social network analysis.

The Next Generation of the Web: Semantics

As many readers of this article will already know, as the number of pages grows in the World Wide Web, so do the number of search engines, portals and directories, all of which are designed to facilitate the location of useful information. Indeed, much of the information amassed and used by government officials has its origins in the Internet. So what if there was a way to organize and integrate all of this feedback into a single model while also selectively removing unusable or worthless data?  This may in fact be feasible through a tool called the Semantic Web, a group of methods and technologies that allows users to build vocabularies or “ontologies” that enrich data with additional meaning and therefore increase opportunities for effective use of said data.[6] Put succinctly, the purpose of the Semantic Web—an intelligent technique for information categorization, extraction and search—is to make the Web “smarter” and better able to perform useful services for users by adding semantic annotation to Web documents and other resources so that knowledge, rather than unstructured material, is consistently accessed. Through Semantic Web methods and technologies, machines can understand the semantics, the meaning of information, text and data and subsequently create connections for those who take advantage of it, thereby relieving them (at least partially) of the laborious task of consolidating and making sense of various bits and pieces of dispersed information.

Traditional Web portals, those with which the average Internet user is most familiar, are websites that collect information and links to pages and usually operate around a specific theme or topic. Semantic Web portals instead “collect URIs of files on the Semantic Web, and allow users to interact with…statements,” statements being carefully crafted descriptions of URIs that are eventually translated into Resource Description Framework (RDF) graphs in which each resource is represented by a node and each statement—conveying a property—represents an edge. For example, we could take the sentence “Wali Zazi is the father of Najibullah Zazi” (the two were arrested in 2009 for conspiring to execute domestic terrorism) and endow it with machine-readable meaning. With the help of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and an RDF graph, the Semantic Web would identify “Wali Zazi” as the sentence’s subject, “is the father of” as the sentence’s property, and “Najibullah Zazi” as the sentence’s object. In order to more fully comprehend the names in the sentence and the relationship between them, the Semantic Web would use uniform resource indicators or URIs—series of characters that identify names or resources on the Internet and generally begin with “http”—to associate each element of the sentence with a resource describing its nature, a resource that might not necessarily be a part of the Web. For example, it might associate “Wali Zazi” and “Najibullah Zazi” with a list of suspected terrorists that is not accessible by Web to the general public. After this and many other such meaning-enriched sentences have been entered into the RDF graph, our hypothetical machine can start drawing inferences, eventually making connections between the Zazi men and others who may have helped them to develop their terrorism scheme. A significant implication of this structure is that it allows users of a given RDF graph to navigate through it based on their personal interests, following statements to relevant information that reflects individual objectives and areas of curiosity. In plainer language, although the Semantic Web cannot make computers self-aware, intelligent or sensible, it can make the Web “readable” to machines so that they are able to find and, to a certain degree, decipher information.

Consider the following example: You want to buy “The Lord of the Rings” boxed set online but you have a few specifications: You want widescreen DVDs and you want only those with the extended versions and bonus material. You are willing to buy a used set but only if the quality of the DVDs is still classifiably excellent and while you don’t want to wait too long for delivery, you also don’t want to pay an excessive amount for shipping. Rather than asking you to compare the items available at Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, DVDEmpire.com, etc., the Semantic Web would allow you to input your preferences into a computerized agent that, in addition to searching the Web and finding the best option for you, could also record the amount you spent in the financial software on your computer and mark your computer calendar with the date your DVDs should arrive.[7]

The above is but a synopsis of the constituent elements behind and capabilities of the Semantic Web, whose attributes cannot be fully explored here. Rather, applying the basic knowledge presented, the remainder of this essay will try to demonstrate its potential usefulness for ongoing analyses of terrorist networks.

The Consequences of the Semantic Web for Terrorist Network Analysis

Today, for better or for worse, the U.S. government and its various representatives in the intelligence community are constantly monitoring travelers’ behavior in a surreptitious but large-scale search for mal-intentioned voyagers. Regardless of whether it is consistent with the Constitution, analysts have access to information about what individuals are denied entry into what countries, where suspects stay when they are in transit, the origin of those who visit them at their hotels, etc. Sometimes, by following the movements of two or more suspects simultaneously, they try to determine if collaboration is at work. Semantic Web technologies can facilitate these related processes of pursuit and decision-making by allowing analysts to draw on stored information about the individual suspects in question, such as where they have traveled in the past, if ever they have been in the same location, if they have in common an affiliation with a specific (religious) organization, and so on. Here, the results of initial behavioral scrutiny are essentially input factors into the Semantic Web, which instantaneously links them to relevant available files, allowing analysts to engineer a comprehensive picture of what is going on and to respond to it in a suitable and timely manner without being delayed by the distractions of superfluous information.

The careful plotting of a terrorist network or organization is no modest task but instead requires an onerous series of steps, including collecting data, harmonizing data, and accurately pinpointing relationships between data points. As this process is continually repeated for the sake of completeness, irrelevant data is inevitably accumulated in discouragingly large quantities. Google, the most prominent and most used of traditional search engines, only exacerbates this crisis of immaterial information through its PageRank link analysis algorithm, an approximation of citation importance on the Web that assigns a numerical weighting to hyperlinks for the purpose of determining their relative importance in comparison with other links. PageRank is, essentially, a vote, by all the other pages on the Web, about how important a page is, where a link to a page counts as a vote of support. In the end, the more times a page is linked to and the more times it is linked to by frequently cited pages, the greater its numerical weighting and the more likely it is to appear at the top of search results. Inevitably, this algorithm will consider any frequently or habitually cited page as “relevant,” regardless of whether that page’s content truly reflects, from the user’s perspective, the query that caused it to surface. A Google search for “Abu al Zarqawi,” a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and “Israel,” into which Zarqawi has been accused of smuggling terrorists, generates approximately 148,000 results; however, only a handful of these, scattered throughout, offer information about the connection between Zarqawi and Israel. Most are Web pages that include both the words “Zarqawi” and “Israel” in them, but only coincidentally. The Semantic Web, by contrast, is more discriminatory and would allow researchers to endow the search phrase “Zarqawi+Israel” or “Zarqawi and Israel” with a specific meaning—perhaps related to Zarqawi’s smuggling activity in Israel—so that only the most appropriate information is retrieved and entered into the Web portal.

Additionally, standard search engines can only return data formatted in words and numbers, despite the fact that images, pictures and photographs often convey linkages as well. Fortunately for intelligence case officers, the Semantic Web makes it possible to associate notes, theories and other facts and messages with these forms of information so that no stone is left unturned. For instance, terrorists sometimes communicate through graffiti on the walls and building sides of urban spaces in a way that signifies a “secrete cable of ‘others’ who could strike without warning.”[8] Images of this crafty means of interchange could undoubtedly be helpful as intelligence officers shadow prospective human threats and establish their relationship to other terrorist network insiders.

The Semantic Web is also valuable when aliases, pseudonyms, monikers and other kinds of assumed names come into play. MSNBC.com provides a list of basic information on at-large al Qaeda operatives, including their nicknames when these are known. Some on the list, such as Ayman al Zawahiri, have upwards of twelve known aliases. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed boasts more than 15. Others, including Midhat Mursi, have only one but these can be drastically different from the individuals’ actual names (Mursi’s is Abu Khabab). What is more, MSNBC accentuates that some of its spellings/transliterations “may vary from what has been published elsewhere since different Arab countries use different spellings of even the most common names,”[9] compelling us to acknowledge that illicit activity has probably gone unnoticed in the past because of the failure of traditional search instruments to encode the relationship between, for example, Uday and Oday or Khaddafy and Ghaddafi. A Google search using “Ghaddafi” does not return results with the name “Khaddafy”—a fairly common alternative spelling—nor does it offer the latter as a suggestion for a related search. The Semantic Web represents a way in which to equate multiple alternative spellings and/or to recognize aliases such as “The Doctor” or “The Manager,” making it less easy to unintentionally overlook constructive information.

In the end, a terrorist network is the outcome of hundreds of personal connections. Understanding the relationships and links between the members of this category of network is critical to preemptively deterring terrorist plans or at least to interrupting them. Thankfully, the Semantic Web gives us a way in which to exhaustively describe these relationships, using our knowledge of various members’ hometowns, workplaces, residences, communal affiliations, involvement in certain events, etc. An excellent example of the Semantic Web in action comes from a dataset known as Profiles in Terror (PIT). Developed at University of Maryland, College Park, this resource contains counter-terrorism intelligence information collected from various publicly available real-world sources such as federal court indictments and news reports.[10]

This diagram[11], generated using a PIT demo, acts as a visual representation for the arguments presented above. As we can see, it contains both events (Passover Massacre, Taher calls Sayyed, Driver recruited, etc.) and names (Mohammed Taher, etc.) so that a complete or near complete picture is revealed to the analyst, unlike in the case of conventional Web portals, whose graphs simply cannot contain such a range of information.

The Obstacles that Remain: Making the Web a More Understandable (Mine-able) Place

At the foundation of the Semantic Web are machine-understandable Web pages (this characteristic is essential since it allows for the creation of expansive portals of highly applicable, congruous information). Continuing with our example of terrorism, we may want to extract from various Web pages newspaper articles, video clips, etc. about terrorist activity. These resources and the information contained in them must undergo a process of data mining, during which patterns are extracted from data, so that they become sensible to the machines directly responsible for pulling together and coherently arranging information and therefore indirectly responsible for informing analysts of potential terrorist threats.

Yet establishing a robust Web mining capacity in the context of the Semantic Web is not without its challenges. As noted by Syed Ahsan and Abad Shah, employing the technology behind data mining is difficult when it comes to matters of terrorism because much of the information pertaining to it exists in disparate databases scattered among numerous federal, provincial and local entities that often cannot or simply do not swap knowledge.[12] Nonetheless, the inadequacy of traditional Web portals as compared to the Semantic Web has been fully exposed and unless maximum efficiency and accuracy are not the goals of the CIA and U.S. Government, a concerted effort must be made to make the transition. Rather than forsake the possibilities inherent in the Semantic Web, we should work to achieve greater intergovernmental transparency and correspondence.

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[2] David Easley and John Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World, Cambridge University Press (2010), p. 3, http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/.

[3] Patrick Keefe, “Can Network Theory Thwart Terrorists?,” The New York Times Magazine, March 12, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/magazine/312wwln_essay.html?_r=1.

[4] Valdis Krebs, “Uncloaking Terrorist Networks,” First Monday, vol. 7, no. 4 (April 2002), http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/941/863.

[5] Robert Baer quoted in Jennifer Goldbeck, Aaron Mannes and James Hendler, “Semantic Web Technologies for Terrorist Network Analysis.”

[6] “Semantic Web,” W3C, http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/.

[7] Tracy V. Wilson, “How Semantic Web Works,” How Stuff Works: A Discovery Company.

[8] Rene Larche, “Global Terrorism Issues and Developments,” Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2008, p. 37.

[9] “Al-Qaida Leaders, Associates,” MSNBC.com.

[10] Lise Getoor, Prithviraj Sen and Bin Zhao, “Entity and Relationship Labeling in Affiliation Networks,” Conference on Machine Learning, 2006.

[11] profilesinterror.mindswap.org

[12] Syed Ahsan and Abad Shah, “Data Mining, Semantic Web and Advanced Information Technologies for Fighting Terrorism,” IEEEXplore, 2008, p. 3. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4547644&userType=inst&tag=1.

Continued unregulated expansion of green energy is sure to strain these two limited resources. Land is an especially precious commodity, as many forms of green energy, especially solar and biomass, rely on huge tracts of land in order to be viable. Water is a just as important a commodity. All thermoelectric electricity generators, including solar, fossil, and nuclear, require water in some form, though it usually serves as a coolant.

It is important to note that current energy sources aren’t more efficient in terms of land and water use. Electricity generated from coal uses a lot of land and water. An above average size coal mine in the United States takes about 15,000 acres [1]. In addition, coal mining strips the land of its native vegetation, and causes deforestation. In the Jaintia Hills region of India, for example, the amount of forested area had dropped by 50% in 30 years by 2007, while the amount of land devoted to coal mining jumped 350% [2]. Current water use in thermoelectric plants that process fossil fuels can vary anywhere from 0.3-0.8 gallons per kilowatt-hour, but this is only for plants that have a re-circulating cooling system. For the once-through cooling systems that older plants use, the water usage can range anywhere from 7.5-50 gallons per kilowatt-hour. Currently, many plants are being upgraded so that they are more water efficient [3].

However, the problem here is that renewable energy also requires a large commitment of land and water resources, if not larger than traditional energy sources. One example is electricity generated from photovoltaic solar panels. Photovoltaic solar plants require vast amounts of land to operate. In addition, they must be built in specific regions in order to achieve maximum efficiency. The best area for these power plants is in the Southwest, as there is little to no cloud cover in the relatively arid region, so the greatest amount of solar radiation hits in that area for the greatest amount of time each year. However, large photovoltaic cell power plants use up to 180 acres [4]. The principle problem is that photovoltaic power plants are much less efficient than coal. While coal produces roughly 5,376,000 kWh per acre, the most efficient photovoltaic power plant to be built in the Mojave Desert, the AV Solar Ranch One, will only produce 285,714 kWh per acre. Therefore, in order for solar energy to completely replace coal energy as the primary source of electricity, solar energy will have to take up around 19 times the land area currently used for coal mining, and this is the best case scenario, when solar energy generation is most efficient. It’s also important that coal mining does up heave a lot of land, but the land can be reclaimed for other uses once the coal is extracted from the area [2]. Photovoltaic power plants will take up the land indefinitely, causing long term damage to the area.

Another type of solar energy power plant, the solar tower, has the same shortfalls as photovoltaic plants. They work by using mirrors to reflect sunlight onto one solar tower, which uses the heat generated to create steam from water, thus turning turbines. Solar towers must also be built in arid regions for maximum efficiency, which not only disturbs the land, but also drains the water from the region. Arid regions are already devoid of water, and the solar tower requires water to generate the steam power. Therefore, because of the scarcity of water in these regions, it must be brought in from other areas [4]. Water resources are already strained in the area, and groundwater is quickly disappearing. Although exact numbers for groundwater depletion have not been measured, the United States Geological Survey estimates that around the western border of the Mojave Desert, the primary location for solar plants, has experienced a 75 foot decline in groundwater levels since 1902. The eastern border is much worse off, with groundwater levels dropping roughly 150-200 feet since 1902 [5]. This causes a large amount of strain on water resources in the area, and the states bordering the Mojave Desert to the west and east, California and Colorado, are already facing a water crisis. The continued expansion of solar tower power plants is sure to cause a large amount of stress on water resources in the region in future years.

However, the renewable energy source that relies most heavily on land and water is biomass. Biomass is usually generated from either the same land as that used in agriculture, or competes with it. The problem with biomass energy comes from the vast amounts of land that it requires, and the competing interests that it poses. Land use in biomass energy has been extensively studied, especially in small regions such as Hawaii. The problem presented by the production of biomass energy is amplified in small regions, as there must be a careful balance maintained between land used for biomass energy, for agriculture, and for natural biospheres such as forests or swamps [6]. For example, the federal ethanol subsidies enacted in the United States created a complex tradeoff where farmers had to divide their limited land for corn production into corn used for ethanol and corn used for food. This division of land led to an increase in food prices of roughly 5% for wheat and 7% for corn [7]. Competing interests because of limited land causes catastrophic results for the vast majority of citizens, who rely on low food prices every day for sustenance. Agriculture already uses most of the land that can be used for biomass energy, so an increase in the biomass energy demand must result in an expansion of land use. Unfortunately, this results in either deforestation or wetland draining, as these are the main methods through which land is reclaimed [8]. These actions result in a huge loss of biodiversity, as well as loss of some of the most important carbon sinks left in the world. Conversion of forests or wetlands into farm land on a global scale contributes a yearly net increase of about 1.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is roughly a fourth of the carbon dioxide generated from fossil fuel combustion each year [8]. It is also clear that any expansion of biomass production requires a greater use of water. Agriculture already accounts for 33% of the water use in the United States [9], and increasing biomass production means increasing water use. This is a huge problem, as areas such as California and Colorado are experiencing a water crisis, where their water reservoirs are quickly drying up. In these areas, attempting to devote more land to agriculture means a greater strain on water supplies, which is ultimately unsustainable [5].

With the limitations of renewable energy clear, there is imminent need for a solution. Land and water use is intrinsically tied with the development of all of these forms of renewable energy. The solution, then, becomes controlling the development of each renewable energy source so a balance is struck between reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting vital resources.

The first issue to tackle is the impending water crisis. While an overarching plan of water distribution must come on a national level, conserving existing water supplies is incredibly important. A vital imperative for both local and national governments is to ensure that water delivery methods do not leak and are in good repair. Although this may sound rather banal and obvious, the fact remains that several billion gallons of drinking water are lost each day because of leaky pipes in America alone [1]. It is imperative that this most basic of problems in the water supply is fixed.

Yet the growing scarcity of water requires further action beyond fixing local water pipes. There must be a greater focus on management of water resources. One easy way to force greater oversight of water resources is to simply raise its price. This would force greater water conservation. Total water usage in the United States amounts to 410,000 million gallons per day, with about 49% being used for thermoelectric power and 33% for agriculture [9]. A boom in the use of solar power or in biomass production would result in a greater demand for already scarce water in America. This boom must be controlled, at the very least by forcing companies to conserve more water as they expand their business.

The land usage crisis poses a separate yet equally as important issue. The amount of potential land for renewable energy development is extremely limited, and much of this land is federally owned. The federal government owns a total of 650 million acres of land, but less than half of it is even suitable for renewable energy development, and development is only commercially viable on only a quarter of federal lands [10]. The first step is to temporarily freeze any further land reclamation activity, or at least severely limit it. The next step is to create a tax on land reclamation, similar to a carbon tax. This tax would be calculated based on the net increase in carbon dioxide emissions, the loss of biodiversity, and possibly other factors as well. This would create an economic disincentive for increased land use. Although this might have the effect of severely limiting the expansion of some forms of renewable energy such as biomass, it would also force companies to focus their efforts on discovering more land-friendly forms of biomass energy. This is an extremely daunting task, but wasteful land usage will only spell disaster for renewable energy.

The limitations of renewable energy are still omnipresent, and as the nation moves to embrace renewable energy, the growing scarcity of water and land are important issues that must be considered. Although alternative energy is being marketed as a sort of panacea for the problems of climate change and energy dependence, an idealistic view of alternative energy will only lead to neglect of the conservation of resources.  By then, it may already be too late.

References

1. http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/sites/default/files/RC2009_full_report.pdf.
2. Sarma, K, Kushwaha, S.P.S. “Coal Mining Impact on Land Use/Land Cover in Jaintia Hills District of Meghalaya, India Using Remote Sensing and Gis Technique.” Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University School of Environment Management. 2005.
3. The Energy Foundation. “The Last Straw: Water Use by Power Plants in the Arid West.” 2003.
4. Ren21. “Renewables: Global Status Report 2009 Update.” 2009.
5. Konikow L, Kendy E. “Groundwater depletion: A global problem.” Hydrogeology Journal. 2005 American Society of Civil Engineers. “2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.” 2009.
6. G. G. Marten, o. Babar, L. Christanty, P. Kasturi, O. Lewis, C. Mulcock and I. Willington, “Environmental considerations for biomass energy development: Hawaii case study”, East-West Environment and Policy Institute Report No 9, HI, USA, 1981.
7. Mitchell, Donald. “A Note on Rising Food Prices.” The World Bank.
8. Watson, Robert T, et al. IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change And Forestry. IPCC. 2000.
9. Kenny, J.F., Barber, N.L., Hutson, S.S., Linsey, K.S., Lovelace, J.K., and Maupin, M.A., 2009, Estimated use of water in the United States in 2005: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1344, 52 p.
10. U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of the Interior. “Assessing the Potential for Renewable Energy on Public Lands”. 2003.

Allan is a first-year at the University of Chicago.

For the 2009 season, the FIA allowed constructors to use a technology called the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) as one of several measures to increase the frequency of overtakes and thus enhance the intensity of the sport. The development of this technology also placed the sport in a stance of greater environmental responsibility, as the hybrid technology pioneered in Formula 1 would facilitate the development of more efficient regenerative braking systems in the automotive industry [2]. The maximum performance of KERS systems was strictly restricted by the FIA to a boost of 60kW, with no more than 300kJ on board at any time [3]. Aware of the potential of this technology, teams in the 2009 season contributed impressive development in the technology of regenerative brake systems. The KERS systems developed for 2009 were able to provide up to seven seconds of boost per lap – a significant on-track advantage and a promising leap forward for the hybrid technology.

The idea of harnessing kinetic energy released through braking has been around for over a century. The principle is easy to understand – the kinetic energy of a moving vehicle is converted to heat energy by friction. This heat energy is usually dissipated from the brake rotors and pads and essentially wasted. KERS technology stores this kinetic energy mechanically, using a flywheel, or chemically, using a battery or supercapacitor. However alien this technology may seem, it is already being used in Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive, which stores energy in the batteries of its hybrid cars upon deceleration [4]. KERS in Formula 1 goes a step further, increasing the efficiency of such a system by using a battery optimized for fast storage and retrieval or a lightweight flywheel.

The first implementation of this technology was developed by an engineer named Jon Hilton, who heard the president of the FIA, Max Mosley, announce that Formula One would pursue regenerative brake systems at the British Grand Prix in 2006. Hilton and his design partner, Doug Cross, formed Flybrid Systems LLC in 2007. With funding directly from the partners’ pockets, Hilton and Cross were able to fully manufacture a mechanical KERS system in just 12 months [5].

The Flybrid system consists of a flywheel connected to the transmission of the car via a continuously variable transmission (CVT) supplied by Torotrak. When braking, the gear ratio is changed so as to speed up the flywheel as the car decelerates. In order to release this energy, the gear ratio is then changed to slow the flywheel and transfer that additional power to the transmission. On paper, this process is extremely simple; however, when spinning a 5 kilogram flywheel at 65,000 rpm, friction and heat become major obstacles. The since-patented F1 Flybrid system had the chamber housing the flywheel in a near-perfect vacuum at a pressure of 1 x 10^-7 bar and used ceramic bearings to minimize friction [6].

Even in a hermetically-sealed vacuum environment, it is difficult to imagine that a flywheel could spin indefinitely and have any meaningful kinetic energy left over after a few turns. In the Flybrid system, however, friction was minimized to the degree that over the course of a full minute, the losses in the rotational speed of the flywheel equate to roughly 2%. Given that the 95^th percentile stop time for an average car is 55 seconds, the losses in power are minimal.  The simplicity of the Flybrid system, in addition to its efficiency in conserving energy in a mechanical state, allows the Flybrid KERS to have its extraordinary performance at the cost of only 25 kilograms [5]. Like Flybrid, competitor companies Torotrak and Xtrac are also developing mechanical CVT/Flywheel-based KERS devices for use in Formula One and beyond.

Electro-chemical means of kinetic energy storage were meanwhile explored by Zytec – the company which developed the McLaren F1 KERS device [7]. McLaren F1’s KERS device was rumored to be most advanced in the 2009 Formula One season, and though Zytec’s contract with McLaren was revealed, the details of the system are largely unknown [8]. Another team, Renault F1, also used a similar KERS system made jointly by automotive giant Magneti Morelli and SAFT, a cutting-edge French battery solution company. It features an electric motor-generator unit (MGU) coupled with a lithium-ion battery and boasts round-trip efficiency of up to 70%, which is very impressive considering the inherent conversion from mechanical to electrical to chemical energy and back [9]. While creating its KERS device, the Williams Formula 1 team actually purchased a company called Automotive Hybrid Power Limited, now known as Williams Hybrid Power, which is also investigating means of electrical energy storage for consumer automobiles, city transportation, and rapid transit systems [10, 11].

Currently, Flybrid is collaborating with Magneti Morelli and it has already produced a 27-kilogram electric KERS device for the automotive industry, though its original mechanical KERS device is more developed and is expected to be sold in volume in 2013.  The original Flybrid KERS device promises fuel savings and CO₂ reductions of up to 30% while maintaining a design-life of 250000 miles [5]. The benefits of such systems for consumer automobiles would be enormous, yielding increases in fuel economy of ten miles per gallon or more, and could be easily implemented.

For the trucking industry, the benefits of regenerative braking are even more pronounced, and especially impactful in the United States, where trucking accounts for roughly 70% of total freight tonnage per year.  In 2008, the trucking industry generated nearly 750 billion dollars in revenue while wasting as much as 170 billion dollars consuming 55.1 billion gallons of fuel [12].  KERS technology has the potential to reduce that number by 30%, leading to a dramatic decrease in the cost of living for average Americans and an increase in revenue for the United States economy.

Aware of the global potential of regenerative braking, FIA has determined to take advantage of the competition in Formula One to pursue even more functional solutions for the consumer automotive market.  Former president of the FIA, Max Mosley, states:

“Formula One would benefit from systems with more capacity than the present, (for example maxima of: 2MJ stored, 150KW in, 100KW out) but still very small and very light, as is essential in Formula One,” explained Mosley. “These figures are theoretically possible with mechanical devices, but not feasible in the foreseeable future using batteries and/or capacitors [13].

Expanding on these small and light systems will depend on an initiative by the automotive industry to implement KERS technology, but given the stance of the FIA, the technology is sure to raise some eyebrows in the upcoming years.  As competition amongst the F1 constructors returns to KERS in 2011, we may expect to see even greater development in regenerative brake technology in the near future.

References:

1. 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Qualifying Day [image on the Internet]. 2010 [cited 2010 Nov. 20]. Available from: http://www.formula1.com/gallery/race/2009/823/general/saturday.html

2. Evans P. Formula 1 – News Index. Formula 1 – The Official Formula 1 Website [homepage on the Internet]. 2009 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/1/8813.html.

3. Fédération Internationale De L’Automobile . Formula One Technical Regulations [homepage on the Internet]. 2010 [updated 2010 June 23, cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/4ADA53A7369DCE8EC12576C700535E67/$FILE/1-2010%20TECHNICAL%20REGULATIONS%2023-06-2010.pdf.

4. Toyota. Hybrid Synergy Drive:  Regenerative Braking [homepage on the Internet]. 2010 [cited 2010 Nov. 20]. Available from: http://www.hybridsynergydrive.com/en/regenerative_braking.html.

5. Flybrid Systems. Original F1System – Flybrid Systems. Home – Flybrid Systems [homepage on the Internet]. 2010 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.flybridsystems.com/F1System.html.

6. Armstrong-Wilson C. F1 KERS: Flybrid F1 Racecar Engineering. Racecar Engineering News: Motorsport Technology Explained [homepage on the Internet]. 2008 [cited 2010 Nov 20]. Available from: http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/182017/f1-kers-flybrid.html.

7. F1Technical. Zytek Revealed as McLaren’s KERS Supplier. Formula One Uncovered! [homepage on Internet]. 2009 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.f1technical.net/news/13046.

8. Collins S. McLaren F1 KERS Revealed. Racecar Engineering News: Motorsport Technology Explained [homepage on the Internet]. 2009 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/people/254890/williams-f1-hybrid-kers.html.

9. Racecar Engineering. The Basics of F1 KERS F1 Racecar Engineering.  Racecar Engineering News: Motorsport Technology Explained [homepage on the Internet]. 2009 [cited 2010 Oct 24]. Available from: http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/316137/the-basics-of-f1-kers.html.

10. Williams Hybrid Power. Williams Hybrid Power – Mobile Applications. Williams Hybrid Power – Home [homepage on the Internet]. 2010 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.williamshybridpower.com/applications/mobile.

11. Collins S. Williams F1 Hybrid KERS. Racecar Engineering News: Motorsport Technology Explained [homepage on the Internet]. 2008 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/people/254890/williams-f1-hybrid-kers.html.

12. American Trucking Associations. Trucking Industry Facts 2010 [homepage on the Internet]. 2010 [cited 20 Nov. 2010]. Available from: http://www.cargotrans.com/pdf/dyk201001.pdf.

13. Formula1. Formula 1 – News Index. Formula 1 – The Official Formula 1 Website [homepage on the Internet]. 2009 [cited 2010 Oct. 24]. Available from: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/1/8813.html.

Andrey Kossev is a student at Georgia Tech.

While the World Wide Web does make the task of connecting with other politically like-minded individuals more effortless, the Internet inevitably fractures mass movements at an early stage. Remote and essentially anonymous, the nature of the Web encourages users to interact in a fundamentally abnormal way (as opposed to the way they would in face-to-face exchanges). The psychoanalytic concept of “transference”—the process whereby emotions are displaced from one person to another—is particularly relevant to understanding the qualities of online relationships. As noted by John Suler in his hypertext book, The Psychology of Cyberspace, because the experience of the other person is often limited to text, there is a tendency for the user to project a variety of wishes, fantasies and fears onto the ambiguous and imperceptible figure at the other end of cyberspace (Suler 1998).

Related to this phenomenon of unconscious feeling-displacement is an experience called the “disinhibition effect,” a term used to describe uncharacteristic impulsivity, contempt for social conventions and a general lack of personal restraint. With specific regard to the Internet, the sensation of disinhibition is amplified through the anonymity and status neutralization afforded one by the web. When the effects of transference and disinhibition combine, uncensored web-based conflicts are easily brought to extremes. Simply consider the innumerable Facebook group discussion boards overrun by banal but heated arguments full of ad hominem and imprudently worded attacks. With the absence of visual and auditory cues, individuals perceive their Internet communications as occurring primarily in their heads and therefore make remarks publicly that they would ordinarily only think to themselves. Essentially, the Internet induces anomie and erodes social capital by enabling users to retreat into an artificial and unexamined world that has become a substitute for concrete social interactions (DiMaggio 2001). This effect predictably makes enforcement of ideological conformity more difficult than when individuals are forced to assemble in the streets.

What does this mean for the Middle East, where Facebook, Twitter and other forms of new media have been hailed as innovative and effective ways of circumventing suppression? It means that what appears to be legitimate social activism is actually a potentially divisive force as well as a low-cost way of avoiding more open forms of protest. Facebook and its messaging service cousins threaten to estrange not only members within a group but also entire groups from members of the outside world who are engaging in more aggressive forms of activism. The majority of Internet-powered campaigns depend on the assumption that raising awareness is enough to resolve an issue, an unproblematic expectation for some local causes such as gay marriage but a completely hazardous one when it comes to questions of genocide, authoritarian regimes, etc. Indeed, interactive digital media is making it extremely difficult for many Pan-Arab initiatives, such as a recent attempt to liberate an incarcerated Egyptian dissident through translation and publication of his blogs, to elicit direct action from inhabitants of the Middle East. This dilemma is epitomized on the aforementioned campaign’s website, which features a sign reading, “Don’t Donate. Take Action.” (Evgeny 2009). As further affirmation of the disconnect between residents of cyberspace and reality, dissidents in Egypt complain that Facebook-literate citizens, extolled for bringing Egypt’s political currents and opposition figures into greater profile, give Egyptians the impression that physical unity is extraneous. A vibrant, computer-based civil society has come to displace tangible civil society to the extent that those experienced with communication technologies no longer feel it imperative to coordinate or migrate offline (Shapiro 2009).

Moreover, while interactive media is generally impervious to government resistance, autocratic regimes can easily follow Facebook activity and can even more easily distinguish, and consequently apprehend, specific protestors. As stated before, autocratic regimes’ overwhelmingly efficient response to this perceived new danger (in the form of arrests, blocks on Facebook and positioning of law enforcement at possible congregation sites) means that those Facebook-ing and Twitter-ing from home seldom or never take to the streets to execute their proposals. Furthermore, the West is apparently not sympathetic to Facebook activists as it has barely acknowledged these fresh and ill-treated oppositional voices and has certainly not pressed for their release from various prisons, which presently hold a growing number of individuals considered delinquent only because they engaged in visible dialogue.

While the role of digital new media in contributing to the emergence of a reawakened regional Arab consciousness and national identity is limited, information technologies do have their distinct advantages. Development, communications and culture researcher Dr. Loubna Skalli observes that the Internet is a driver of sociopolitical transformations that have allowed women to contribute to and participate in civic and political endeavors. Through the diverse apparatuses of new media, which do not discriminate on the basis of gender, women are finally redefining the public sphere by disseminating alternative knowledge about women, citizenship and political participation and by creating trangressive spaces (Skalli 2006). Ultimately, while micro-blogging and social networking services alone may not subdue autocratic regimes, they at least create heterogeneity among their society’s political participants and present a voice to segments of society once inaudible.

Works Cited

DiMaggio, Paul. “Social Implications of the Internet.” Annual Review of Sociology, no. 27             (2001): 307-336.

Morozov, Evgeny. “It Feels Like Activism.” Newsweek. 29 6 2009.

Skalli, Loubna. “Communicating Gender in the Public Sphere: Women and Information    Technologies in the MENA.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, no. 2 (2006).

Shapiro, Samantha. “Revolution, Facebook-Style.” The New York Times Magazine. 22 1 2009.

Suler, John. The Psychology of Cyberspace. http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html: 1998.

How significant of a role does technological superiority assume in the determination of victory? Though the study of Russia provides an interesting case in military history, it is no anomaly. War is a chaotic system, infinitely complex in its variables and conditions, but analysis of recent and historical conflicts suggest that some factors play larger roles than others in the decisiveness of war.  The advancement of weapons changes how wars are fought, but leadership, training, moral, and most importantly, political strategy dictate how wars are won.

First, a empirical perspective of wars must be considered. Before the 1700′s, wars were fought in the classical sense: seemingly infinite battalions marched in parallel columns in the fog of cannon shots, musket balls, and gunpowder smoke. In this sense, battles were truly fought as chess games, such that commanders would spend hours mobilizing, organizing, and detaching men, cavalry, and artillery into massive segments to be slowly but surely dealt out on the battlefield. By a consequence of this nature of warfare, strong leadership was absolutely critical. As described by Robert K. Massie, the popular American historian and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, in his book on Tzar Peter of Russia, hundreds of thousands of men needed to be coordinated and precisely timed with the rest of the army to deliver a decisive attack [1]. Organization became the crux of combat, the current mode of warfare required extensive management and logistics [1]. However, what happens if the invention of a weapon with a higher rate of fire, such as a machine gun, comes about? Suddenly this idea of concentrating men in a slow moving column is rendered utterly useless.

The early 1700′s rested on the bridge between two technologically different stages of war. The first and arguably most important weaponry advancement resulted from the introduction of flintlock rifles. This invention made the rifle more reliable and quicker to reload. Therefore, a typical rifleman could nearly double his rate of fire: “As a smaller number of men could now deliver the same volume of fire, the sizes of battalions were reduced to make them easier to handle. Command became quicker, easier, and more responsive” [1]. In a matter of years the mode of warfare changed completely, generals had to rethink doctrine and soldiers had to rework tactics. Nonetheless, it is evident that this advancement did not help predict the outcome of any battle; it only revised how the battle would be fought. As George Raudzens, a professor of history at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, states in his paper,

“[advances in weapons] brought huge changes in the nature and methods of war, but little advantage to innovators since their competitors quickly imitated each new weapon…. The point remains, however, that the new gunpowder arms did little to change battle outcomes. Even at the point of introduction, where the innovative side had a monopoly, the decisiveness of impact was at best modest.” [2]

Better weapons give no one any specific advantage past an acute period of transition. So then what happens during this stage of imbalance? Feudal Russia again provides an excellent example of the competitor in technological lag. Despite such critical advancements in the early 1700s, “only the Russians and Turks continued to issue old, heavy matchlock muskets, to the detriment of their infantry firepower”[1].

In the Great Northern War, a Russian army, one again severely under-armed with pikes and matchlock muskets, faced off against a superior Swedish force. King Charles XII of Sweden had the most modern and well equipped army in all of Europe. These glaring discrepancies help illustrate the factors to which Robert K. Massie attributes Russian victory in the face of technological inferiority: leadership and training [1]. Tzar Peter’s risky decision to lure the enemy into the cold winter of Russia and sever their supply lines reflects dominance in strategy over strength, brains over brawn. In one fell swoop, just one mistake by the Swedish command, Charles’ great army was defeated. This is only one of many instances in history where the underdog bested his opponent so quickly through means other than attrition. Napoleon was famous for winning battles against opponents four times in size through sheer manipulation of geography and maneuver. In World War II (WWII) General Zhukov of the Soviet Union accomplished a similar feat by surrounding and starving the mechanized German 6^th Army in the Russian winter.

From the onset of war there is never any ability to predict a victor, mathematics cannot measure the abstract qualities of courage, wit, and luck. George Raudzens notes that “scholarly writers more often emphasize the context in which such technology must fit and recognize weapons as parts of a system of armaments and institutions rather than isolated devices” [2]. The fact is that throughout the history of warfare “there is indeed insufficient evidence to demonstrate that improved military technology has increased casualties or won battles” because solely analyzing the weapon does little to bring light to the bigger picture [2].

Understandably, wars cannot be boiled down to simple factors that determine a single outcome like flipping a coin. Alastair Smith, from the political science department at Washington University, defines war as “a dynamically evolving process” where the conditions are examined in “the decision to fight, effort levels, choice of military strategy, negotiation position, and domestic support” as a whole [3]. Both Raudzen and Smith agree that a large field of variables influence the tide of battle and no single item can determinately decide the outcome. This idea is never more critical than now when the United States is engaged in a new type of warfare where the opponent is always under-armed, outnumbered, and unorganized. Assuming technological superiority as a means for victory is dangerous.

One school of thought divides warfare in four “generations”: linear (Napoleonic columns), attrition (WWII mass sieges), maneuver (Blitzkrieg), and insurgency (War in Iraq) [4]. Whether or not the idea of concise and clear generations exists, the current conflict America faces is one of asymmetrical battles with insurgents. The War in Iraq is therefore reliant on the social and political realm, i.e. “winning the hearts and minds of the people”, because insurgents are not a state to be negotiated with but more of an ideology to influence. Focus should be directed to manipulation of political will rather than pure attrition, a “generation” of warfare the US military has been stuck in since WWII [4]. Insurgency is only another mode of warfare that America has only recently dealt with, and radical changes in doctrine are necessary for our military to respond to the evolving nature of war around the world.

In the early hours of March 20, 2003, the First Marine Division raced across the southern border of Iraq in armor-plated vehicles, determined to capture the southern oil fields in less than 48 hours. Moving at a speed that outpaced both the enemy and the remainder of the invasion force, General Mattis and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld embraced the doctrine of maneuver warfare, an American blitzkrieg that would conquer the country in a matter of days rather than months [5]. A country-wide siege supported by rapid mechanized units, computer guided cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) completely destroyed the Baath Party and Saddam’s regime. However, even though victory had been proclaimed for the Allied forces, sporadic fighting continues to this day. The invasion was successful, but occupation and restoring order remains a headache for the American and Iraqi governments. Why can the military not quickly and effectively respond to decentralized guerilla attacks?

Sean Gourley, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University with a Ph.D. specializing in networks and complexity, has analyzed large volumes of statistical data from attacks in Iraq and has discovered a mathematical relationship between frequency of attacks and fatality rate. Supposedly the structure of an insurgency can be defined by a ratio, which determines coalescence or fragmentation of a given political group. This number can decrease, indicating a more cohesive force with more organized attacks and political influence, or increase, suggesting higher fragmentation but weaker attacks [6]. Moreover, these fluctuations in violence and insurgency strength are affected by changes in political climate, not the result of battles. Gourley’s evidence implies events such as Iraqi elections and the US decision to implement a surge acted as turning points in the war [6]. Neither the million-dollar missiles nor the cutting technology America built can help win a psychosocial and political war.

There is, however, still one mode of warfare that seems to elude conforming to the thesis. Nuclear warfare, and indeed any weapon of mass destruction, has the unique property of assured annihilation. Regardless of leadership, training, or skill, a thermonuclear device will render any opponent incapacitated; the factors of time and effort disappear altogether. Instead, this topic broaches the more abstract ideas of game theory and psychology. What political stakes and ethical consequences will one gamble with when deciding to push the button? If anything nuclear warfare represents the most pure form of strategy, a game where battles have been simplified into single, definitive moves and generals and politicians evaluate the cost of victory.

In all of human history nations have strived to be the best armed and have superior technology. The Shang Dynasty had crossbows, the Assyrians had iron, and the Germans had Panzer tanks. Famous wars are identified with the emergence of a new weapon or technology, yet we often ignore the larger factors that military historians attribute to the cause of success. The Shang Dynasty was a military bureaucracy that armed even slaves for battle, the Assyrians utilized the Tigris River next to their cities to acquire expedience in the invasion of opposing regions, and Germany was the first to develop and implement maneuver warfare. The US has focused too strongly on one form of warfare that favors the cult of technology and thus has a hard time seeing how the opponent’s battle is changing.

The advantage of better technology is of no more value than training, cohesion, strategy, or geography. The time before the enemy adopts the newer weapon is almost negligible. Even in the case where technological imbalance is permanent, such as the conflict in Middle East, the will of the combatant can overcome the gap. The most important example comes from the Vietnam Era, where in 1968 the Viet Cong attacked US forces on multiple fronts and overran the embassy in Saigon. The offensive was considered a complete tactical failure, the Viet Cong were repelled swiftly and order was restored, yet American media televised the pandemonium to the world. Soon the war lost popular support in America and the withdrawal of US troops was inevitable: a political victory for the Viet Cong. Politics, not weapons, shifted the tide of war. After all, as explained in On War, written by General Carl von Clausewitz, the most widely influential military theorist, war is a function of the political realm: it remains independent of technology and science, and every conflict is an extension of politics [7].

Better weapons do change warfare, drastically. From the Great Northern War to the War on Terrorism, the modus operandi of armies evolved into an entirely new beast with different strategy and tactics. With every new technological advancement there is a corresponding change in training, cohesion, strategy, geography, etc. But although one tends to approach war in the most logical fashion possible, it must be accepted that there are an overwhelming number of factors and probabilities of which we cannot possible aggregate. Scholars from political science departments to the Society for Military History agree that wars are multifaceted organisms that grow and are inherently as complex as the humans that fight them.

References:

1.  Massie RK. Peter The Great: His Life and World. New York: Ballantine Books; 1980.

2.  Raudzens G. War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technological Determinism in Military History. Journal of Military History. 1990; 54 (4): 403-34.

3.  Smith A. Fighting Battles, Winning Wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 1998; 42 (3): 301-20.

4.  Dr. Bunker RJ. Generations, Waves, and Epochs: Modes of Warfare and the RPMA. Airpower Journal. Spring 1996; 10 (1): 1-9.

5.  Wright E. Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War. New York City, New York: Berkley Publishing Group; 2004.

6.  Dr. Gourley S. “The Mathematics of War.” TED2009 Conference. Long Beach, CA: TED; Feb 2009.

7.  General Clausewitz CV. On War. Radford, Virginia: Wilder Publications; 2008.

Alex Kessler is a student at Georgia Tech.

“We’ve got a revolution going on in our understanding of the lunar surface” [1].

Recent discoveries from the three space missions of Chandrayaan-1, Cassini, and Deep Impact and the presence of hydrogen ions on the moon have confirmed the presence of a large supply of water and other resources like hydrogen and methane on the moon [1,2,3]. Not only would these lunar resources provide fuel and water for refueling and use on earth but they would also provide the means to create a self-sustaining agricultural base. Both processes would have dramatic improvements upon space research, living conditions, and the economy.

Multiple explorations of the surface of the moon have found direct evidence of water. In October 2009, the Chandrayaan-1, equipped with an imaging spectrometer that allows scientists to determine exactly what chemicals are in an image, was sent to the moon [1]. After mapping the moon, Carle Pieters, chief scientist of the exploration, discovered large areas of hydroxyl and water, which was later confirmed through similar means by the Cassini-Huygen and Deep Impact missions. These three missions found three different sources of water in different locations: water in volcanic glass from the moon’s interior, surface water, and buried water at the poles [1].

Further proof of water on the moon exists in the form of hydrogen ions. Tests show that lunar soil consists of many hydrogen ions from the sun, carried by solar wind. It is speculated that these ions knock loose oxygen atoms with “dangling bonds,” free radicals, while bombarding the surface of the moon. The hydrogen ions attach to the oxygen atoms to form hydrated minerals, hydroxyl ions, or water [1]. In 1977, Everett Gibson of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Johnson Space Center confirmed this theory through a series of laboratory tests, in which heated moon rocks released water and hydroxyl [1,2].

Following the footsteps of the Lunar Prospector, in October 2009, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) crashed into the crater Cabeus [2,3]. A satellite following the LCROSS observed the impact from directly overhead before crashing four minutes later. Days later, Tony Colaprete and his team revealed to the public their findings: the spectra of the impact showed clear signs of water [1]. It is now certain that at least one percent of the material was ice. Further research revealed a large amount of other materials in the explosion plume: carbon dioxide, ammonia, sulphur dioxide, methane, and ethylene [1,2].

The evidence of water and useful materials for space propulsion are a great impetus for creating a resource center on the moon. As Larry Taylor of the University of Tennessee states, the availability of water on the moon would allow the moon to be inhabited without support from Earth. Essentially, the moon could become a “gas station” in the sky. The large quantities of water, which can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, and the frozen methane detected by LCROSS and Chandrayaan-1 are important propellants for further space travel [1]. These materials would be far cheaper to mine on the moon than to be delivered from Earth. Delivering materials to the moon from Earth costs approximately 100,000 dollars per pound, not including the price of the item itself. Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas speculates “there are 600 million tonnes of water in the moon’s north polar region, which would be enough to launch one space shuttle a day for 2000 years.” Not only does having a “gas station” on the moon lower the cost and increase the range of space travel, but it also provides more resources for life on Earth by creating a self-sufficient extra-terrestrial entity.

Due to the water, oxygen, hydrogen, methane, and other elements existing on the moon, it is plausible to use the moon as an agricultural colony. Although the moon differs from the Earth, these differences do not inhibit plant growth. First, the difference in the moon’s gravity does not affect plants, proven by Judith Croxdale’s study on potato tubers in 1997. Second, plants’ stable cell walls and resilient structure, along with their short growing time, make them resilient to cancers due to radiation. Lunar agriculture has to be grown in soilless systems, because soil is extremely expensive to import. The problem with hydroponics, nutrient film, and ebb and flow methods of growing plants is the constant need of a large supply of water. Thus, the optimal method is aeroponics, in which the plants are periodically sprayed with a mister that keeps the roots moist [4]. Since aeroponics saves the water from being locked into soil or hydroponic tubs, the water can be reused for rocket fuel, life support, and shielding from cosmic rays. The correct atmosphere for the plants could generally be created through materials existing on the moon, such as carbon dioxide.

As shown by recent space explorations such as the Chandrayaan-1 and LCROSS, the moon has many important resources for sustaining life. The many resources of the moon can be harnessed to create a lunar refueling system, providing propellant for future space travels, while reducing cost and increasing flight distance. More importantly, these resources can be harnessed in creating effective lunar agriculture and a sustainable base. The ability to create a “reliable and sustainable closed-loop lunar agriculture facility” allows humanity to spread from the planet Earth to other bases. Creating a sustainable base on the moon may be costly at first due to a lack of supplies, but once self-sufficient, it would become the foundation for future business, infrastructure, and industry on the moon. Furthermore, it provides another venue of survival in the event of existential risks present on Earth including nuclear warfare, asteroid collision, and overpopulation. Thus, the discovery of water on the moon would provide future generations the ability to create sustainable extraterrestrial bases in order to provide resources, create a new infrastructure, and ensure human survival.

References:

1. Mackenzie, Dana. “Liquid Asset: Lunar Water.” Science Reference Center. http://puffin.harker.org:2092//?vid=2&hid=106&sid=d44a7f7c-8e01-40c3-a99c-f0f71e2f0b9e%40sessionmgr111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=sch&AN=49099145 (accessed October 26, 2010).
2. Kingston University. “Finding Water on the Moon Has Major Implications for Human Space Exploration.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com//‌/‌/‌.htm (accessed October 26, 2010).
3. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Moon Water.” NASA Science. http://science.nasa.gov/news/at-nasa/‌/_moonwater/‌(accessed October 26, 2010).
4. Conerly, Peter. The New Moon Race: Lunar Agriculture. 2009. http://docs.google.com/?a=v&q=cache:1qFGVTCVElMJ:www.wpi.edu//project//project-043009-170151//Thenewmoonrace.pdf+lunar+agriculture&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiP8FAbsS_Pb05P4tKHYWEh7BluX0pUwIWDlVlWVdjAktA-B8tv (accessed November 9, 2010).

Brandon Yang is a freshman at the Harker School in California

*          *          *

Over the course of human history, weapons used in war have generally striven to inflict more damage faster from farther away.  The medieval ages saw the development of the trebuchet, designed to knock down castle walls from afar, reducing the need for soldiers to risk their lives by scaling the castle walls.  The last century saw the development of machine guns, tanks, and effective indirect artillery, all of which contributed to the destruction caused by the World Wars, among others.  However, each of these weapons, though employing some degree of automation, still required the input of a human operator in the process of activation.  With the rise and development of drone warfare, this aspect is being phased out.  Autonomous drone warfare poses a plethora of legal and ethical issues that may change the very nature of our current society’s view of war.

Drones are vehicles that are either autonomous or controlled by a remote operator (teleoperated) with no human crew within the vehicle.  These may operate on air, land, or sea for research, military, or recreational purposes [1].  While remote-controlled vehicles have been present for almost a century, they have been used mainly in target practice or observation roles in the military.  From the 1960s to the 1990s, unmanned aerial vehicles were used by militaries in military reconnaissance roles, identifying enemy positions without risking a human life to pilot the aircraft.  However, the most publicized and controversial use of drones has occurred in the last decade in the United States’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When one thinks of a robot assassin, the first thing that comes to mind is the humanoid, metallic skeleton of the Terminator of Arnold Schwarzenegger fame.  In reality, this is not so.  The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is a teleoperated unmanned aerial vehicle (shaped very much like a conventional aircraft) utilized by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  While originally conceived as a reconnaissance vehicle, it was retrofitted with laser-guided Hellfire missiles in February 2001 in a CIA plot to assassinate Osama Bin Laden.  Since then, Predators have been used as missile launching platforms in the assassination, strike, and close air support roles.  Predators and similar drones operated by the US military are designed to find enemies with a suite of advanced sensors and then destroy them with laser-guided missiles and bombs [2].  Drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan can be launched in an airbase near an area of operation.  However, they are controlled by humans from airbases in the US through unencrypted satellite links.  Similar drones are programmed before launch to carry out a series of tasks and then autonomously perform them before returning to base.

Drone warfare may end up “sanitising” the act of killing.  Artillery has the ability to kill from many kilometres away, and statistics from World War II shows that most casualties were inflicted by artillery crews, who were detached from fighting and therefore able to perform their job efficiently with little remorse as compared to other soldiers.  Drone operators are often an entire world’s distance away from the drones they operate and the people they kill, operating their drones with video-game like controls and communicating with friendly forces over a long-distance radio.  Would a soldier manning a drone be more inclined to use deadly force because of his/her physical detachment from combat?  When the military is largely composed of robotic ground vehicles with weapons attached, human losses in combat would be minimal, possibly desensitizing society to the costs and effects of war.  Current drones record everything they see, and many clips circulating on the internet consist of footage of drones killing or observing intense combat situations.  These clips have been set to music and posted on YouTube and other websites, potentially causing society to view war and bloodshed as entertainment.

Ethical issues also arise in using a machine that can kill without the input of a human operator.  Almost every weapon used in war needs a human controller to decide when or when not to engage a target.  Current development of drones includes autonomous sentry guns (such as Samsung’s recent sentry gun designed to protect the North Korean-South Korean Demilitarized Zone) and aircraft (the Boeing X-45 unmanned combat aerial vehicle) that can engage and destroy targets without the intervention of a human operator.  The closest possible analogue to autonomous drone warfare is the land mine, which is often victim-operated; that is, the victim of the land mine sets it off.  However, due to the indiscriminate nature of land mines, many nations have already signed the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty, which bans victim-operated land mines [3].  It is as of yet unknown how autonomous drones, which have software to distinguish between enemies and civilians, will fare.

The current laws of war are vague in relation to drone combatants.   Because of their special attributes, drones are regularly operated in Pakistani’s autonomous tribal regions, as they have no human personnel onboard to violate national sovereignty.  Drones are considered military materiél, yet they function in a manner similar to an independent combatant.  One interpretation of international law would classify drones as soldiers who would be subject to international law and capable of violating national sovereignty, while an alternate interpretation regards them as simply munitions fired by a human combatant.  Currently, many CIA-operated drones are operated by civilian, non-uniformed personnel in Langley, Virginia.  In the shaky eyes of the Fourth Geneva Convention [4], these operators could either be considered unlawful combatants or noncombatants.  If drones cause civilian casualties (as has occurred repeatedly in Pakistan), no precedent or rule exists for the placement of responsibility.  And when a glitch causes a malfunction in an autonomous drone that causes civilian casualties, who should be held responsible – the military who deployed the drone or the company that built it?  Currently, UAVs such as the Predator are controlled through unencrypted satellite links.  It is theoretically possible for a third party group to “hijack” a drone by using a similar satellite link and possibly carry out war crimes with the equipment of the nation that originally owned the drone. In such a scenario, it is difficult to prove that a drone was really hijacked and even more difficult to trace the hijacker.  Such questions become extremely important when determining who would be held responsible for illegal actions committed by an autonomous drone.

It is also important to consider how drone warfare affects the current political distribution of power.  In the past, manpower has been a significant determining factor in the power of a military or a nation.  With drones, it is theoretically possible for a small group of people to possess a larger or more powerful military force than a nation state, replacing soldiers with autonomous drones.  Military power would therefore be determined less by traditional markers such as manpower or morale, but by technological and financial capacity.  Additionally, as technology advances, technology required to build relatively simple drones would become less expensive, allowing a terrorist organization to employ low-cost drones to inflict substantial damage with minimal risk of life to the operator.  The most basic example of this philosophy is a RC car filled with explosives, strapped to a camera, and operated by a laptop.  Suicide bombers have already been employed as a popular means of waging asymmetrical warfare, but the availability of cheap, effective, and widespread drone technology would tip the balance of power firmly in the direction of insurgents.  As conventional and unconventional military powers begin to employ drones in greater numbers, one cannot ignore the possibility of a future where all wars are conducted through robots against other robots, stripping armed conflict of any human cost and significance [5].

Potential economic implications of increasing automation in warfare may lead to the growth of the military-industrial complex [6].  Unlike human soldiers who are recruited into armed forces, robots are manufactured.  Current military equipment is usually designed and manufactured by private companies that are contracted by government.  If more and more humans are replaced by drones, more and more drones would probably have to be purchased from and manufactured by private companies.  This shift in defense spending could very well increase the size of the military-industrial complex.  Defense industries would not only receive more money from drone purchases, but would thereby become even more important in the security of nations.  It is conceivably possible that drone producers would be able to field their own armies of drones, as they control the means of producing them.  Currently, it is nigh guaranteed that defense contractors would gain more power and influence through the increased use of drones.

The issues of drones in the world with regards to war, power, and military force have not been addressed by conventions and laws formulated in the previous century.  Currently, many military powerhouses (Russia, China, India, etc.) all possess and operate military drones, making the issues of drone warfare causes for international concern as more groups and nations acquire and deploy drones in combat.  Laws pertaining to war and warriors are inadequate in relation to the issue of drone warfare.  If the characteristics and responsibilities of drones are not clearly established in new law, then they must be determined by precedent, giving free reign to militaries to operate within the legal dead areas of warfare with little heed to the actual consequences of using so many drones to replace humans in war.  Drone warfare’s newly impersonal qualities may change our view of war or change the world’s balance of power as we know it.  Action must be taken to address these problems.

References

1.  Streich, M. (2010, March 12). Drone Warfare in the 21st Century. Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/drone-warfare-in-the-21st-century-a212583.

2.  RQ-1 Predator MAE UAV [Fact Sheet]. (n.d.). Retrieved from GlobalSecurity.org website: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/predator.htm.

3.   International Humanitarian Law- Ottawa Treaty, 1997. (1997, September 18). Retrieved from http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/580.

4.  The Laws of War. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/lawwar.asp

5.  PW Singer on military robots and the future of war [Video file]. (2009, April). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html.

6.  Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex. [Video file]. (2006, August 4). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY.

Peter is a senior at the Harker School in California

Agricultural Research Service, USDA.

INTRODUCTION

More than ten million farmers planted 252 million acres of genetically-modified (GM) crops in 2006 [1]. From 1996 to 2000, acreage of GM crops globally increased 25-fold [2]. The prevalence and rapid growth of GM crops are accredited to the benefits it provides. Biotechnology companies alter the DNA of crops, either by removing or inserting genes from other species, to alter the genetic makeup of the crop. Previously, farmers enhanced crops through breeding techniques. Today, scientists engineer plants to immunize them against viruses, herbicides, and pesticides, withstand inclement weather, increase nutritional value, and increase crop production [1]. Some people hail GM foods as the solution to world hunger and other global issues; however, these foods pose a significant danger to our health, safety, global economy, and environment.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Genetically-modified foods can decrease malnutrition in countries and fight world hunger. With the increase of yield, farmers could sell more crops to the world. Biotechnology companies alter the genetic make-up of crops to enhance their nutritional value with antioxidants and vitamins. For example, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Institute for Plant Sciences modified a rice strain with an increased amount of vitamin A from daffodils [2]. The malnourished in developing countries can obtain more nutrients through GM foods as the enhanced nutritional value and high yield of these crops can be extremely beneficial to countries where food is scarce. In addition, vaccines can be inserted into GM foods as scientists have already implanted a highly effective Hepatitis B vaccine into edible plants for third world countries [3]. This could prevent diseases and viruses from spreading in developing countries. Thus, GM foods provide a solution to many of today’s global problems.

Though GM foods are modified to increase nutrition, the long-term effects are unknown. The Center for Food Safety states that the consumption of GM foods may lead to “higher risks of toxicity, allergenicity, antibiotic resistance, immune-suppression, and cancer” [4]. After a Japanese chemical company, Showa Denko, introduced L-tryptophan, a genetically-modified, over-the-counter dietary supplement, 37 Americans died in 1989 of Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome upon consuming it [8]. In 1999, studies done by the renowned scientist Dr. Arpad Putzai, revealed that the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus, a promoter that helps transcribe new genes, was the most likely cause of the organ damage and viral infections in rats that were fed potatoes with the promoter. Putzai emphasized that GM foods do not undergo sufficient testing before they are sold, and advised people to beware of GM foods on a British television program. In addition, he argued that the long-term effects of GM foods might be harmful upon discovering that the rats experienced the ill-effects after a time corresponding to ten human years. Dr. Putzai’s research was met with a fierce backlash from biotechnology companies because the report exposed risks related with their products [8]. These studies indicate that GM organisms often produce unintended, and sometimes fatal, effects.

When inserting a gene into an organism, scientists introduce the gene with an antibiotic resistance marker that helps determine if the inserted gene is successfully implemented. Some scientists warn that immunizing organisms against viruses with antibiotics will carry over to an antibiotic resistance to bacteria, thus creating an antibiotic-resistant bacterium [3]. Also, some people fear that the consumption of GM foods may cause allergic reactions. For instance, if a gene from a peanut is introduced in a banana, then consumption of the banana may cause an allergic reaction. Cross-contamination between two crops could also trigger allergic reactions in some humans that consume it. One such disaster was avoided in 1996, when a company proposed to insert a gene from a Brazil nut into soybean. A group of researchers in Nebraska notified the company that the new strain could have ill-effects on some humans with allergies, even though the company had claimed that the strain had no ill-effects during their animal testing [8].

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labels GM foods as GRAS (Genetically Recognized As Safe). In other words, the FDA believes that GM foods are not different than non-GM foods [2]. Thus, no additional evaluation or labeling is necessary for GM foods before their distribution. However, consumer organizations argue that GM foods need labeling. Additionally, the health hazards of GM foods are mostly unknown because biotechnology companies do not allow independent researchers to publish studies done on GM seeds [5]. In order to obtain the seeds, scientists must sign an agreement to only publish studies in peer-review journals that have been approved by the company [5]. These companies essentially produce consumer propaganda, putting public health at risk. Thus, the health and safety risks associated with GM foods are significant enough to prevent it from becoming the solution to global problems and must be assessed.

ENVIRONMENT

GM foods can reduce the need for chemical use if pesticides are fused into the crops. Decreasing the use of pesticides and herbicides prevents agricultural waste run-off. Monsanto, a biotechnology company, developed soybeans resistant to a certain herbicide [2]. Thus, farmers can save money since they need to apply the herbicide only once to eliminate weeds. As a result, GM foods can reduce the use of pesticides and the residual pesticide levels in the environment, which prevents water contamination and decreasing biodiversity. Thus, GM foods can positively affect the environment.

However, the production of GM foods inflates a variety of environmental concerns. GM crops can be so productive that they can overwork the soil and require vast amounts of resources, like water, to survive [6]. GM crops can also become pests if they grow uncontrollably. In land where space is limited, the uncontrollable GM crop could spread over other crops and decrease biodiversity. By Darwin’s theory of natural selection, crops that are genetically modified to resist herbicides and pesticides would create “superbugs” and “superweeds” that are immune to any toxic chemicals. Even if a pesticide or herbicide is made, it is probable that the toxin would kill beneficial insects, like bees, and hurt the soil. Cross-contamination between GM crops and weeds can also create unmanageable weeds and bugs. Indeed, instead of benefitting a farm, GM foods can destroy one.

The introduction of GM plants may have negative effects on plant-dependent insects. Corn that was genetically modified to resist the pesticide, Bacillus Thuringiensis, caused death among monarch butterflies that fed from milkweeds that caught the corn’s pollen [6]. Studies have shown that GM foods cause various health ailments in animals, such as stomach-lining erosion and dramatic changes in body weight [6]. Therefore, GM crops can directly and indirectly affect animals and plants and can destroy agriculture from an environmental standpoint. The negative effects that GM crops have on the environment are equally as important as the potential benefits.

ECONOMY AND POLITICS

Though GM foods can boost the agricultural economy, they can also have negative impacts. Since biotechnology companies are often monopolies, the price of seeds could extend beyond the reach of farmers [2]. Small farmers in developing countries are tempted to purchase GM seeds because of their numerous benefits. However, purchasing GM seeds makes them dependent on the companies. This destabilizes local economies because farmers will have to increase the price of their crops to compensate for the high price of the seeds. Furthermore, biotechnology companies might gain too much control over crop production in developing countries and hinder their growth in the future.

There have been patent disputes between biotechnology companies and farmers. Farmers have been accused of patent infringement for cultivating crops that cross-pollinated with GM crops. Monsanto, a biotechnology company, proposed to invest in genetic use restriction technology (GURT). V-GURT, a type of GURT, produces GM seeds that become sterile after one harvest [2]. Though it prevents cross-pollination of regular and GM crops, this technology would make farmers completely dependent on biotechnology companies. In addition, farmers often store seeds from previous harvests for the next year. However, with V-GURT, farmers would have to purchase seeds from biotechnology companies annually, creating an enormous financial burden for them. After a long debate, Monsanto agreed to end its research on V-GURT [8]. Still, biotechnology companies seem more interested in profiting than participating in a global solution.

CONCLUSION

Though GM foods may solve many global issues, there are obstacles that need to be overcome before they can be commercially produced. Otherwise, the production of GM foods will result in a multitude of problems. Additionally, the malevolence of biotechnology companies makes resolving these obstacles difficult. For GM foods to be more beneficial, solutions to the health, safety, economical, and environmental problems must be addressed.

References:

1. U.S. Department of Energy Genome Programs. “What are Genetically Modified (GM) Foods?” U.S. Department of Energy Genome Programs. Accessed October 24, 2010. Last modified November 5, 2008. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/gmfood.shtml
2. Whitman, Deborah B. “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” CSA. Accessed October 24, 2010. Last modified April 2000. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php.
3. Thanavala, Yasmin, Hugh S. Mason, Charles J. Arntzen, Yu Fang Yang, Liz Richter, and Qingxian Kong. “Oral Immunization with Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Expressed in Transgenic Plants.” Proceedings of the National Academy of
   Sciences of the United States of America 98, no. 20 (September 2005): 11539-44. Accessed December 5, 2010. http://puffin.harker.org:2076/stable/3056750.
4. Center for Food Safety. “Genetically Engineered Crops.” Center for Food Safety. Accessed October 24, 2010. Last modified 2011. http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/campaign/genetically-engineered-food/crops/.
5. Scientifc American. “A Seedy Practice.” Scientific American, August 2009, 28.
6. Botkin, and Keller. Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet. 7th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Inc, 2009.
7. Dona, Artemis, and Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis. “Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods.” Critical Review in Food Science and Nutrition 49, no. 2 (February 2009): 164-175. Accessed October 24, 2010. doi:10.1080/10408390701855993
8. Cummins, Ronnie. “Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods and Crops: Why We Need A Global Moratorium.” Organic Consumers Association. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/whymoratorium.cfm (accessed October 24, 2010).

Divyahans Gupta is a freshman at the Harker School in California