latest Research shows that very small changes can have very large effects in the natural environment. In an almost real-time display of emergent behaviour, the whole natural world is responding to the global rise in temperature, what makes it interesting is that there looks like orders of magnitude difference between the input, 0.6 degrees Celsius rise in average temperature, and output.

The first, from biologists at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, analysed studies covering 1,700 species over 20-100 years. They found that, on average, ranges have crept about 6 kilometres towards cooler latitudes each decade. Also, spring activities - such as frogs' mating, nest building, and tree buds bursting - have occurred about two days earlier per decade.

The second from Stanford University in California, found a strikingly similar global fingerprint for about 80% of the 1,500 species the team studied. The researchers calculate that spring has arrived an average of five days earlier per decade.

These are the results from 0.6 degrees, by the end of the century the predictions are for ten times that. Somewhere along that road however, we will run out of days per decade for spring to start earlier as it runs into the previous autumn. Long before that however, we will be dealing with emergence processes gone way wilder than we have seen in the last decade.

Don't you just love the people on the news standing amid a "100 year flood" who are filled with the "knowledge" that they wont have to deal with that for another 100 years? None of them even begin to suggest that the 100 year flood can be followed by the 150 year flood, then the 200 year flood and so on. Europe is just beginning to see that as last August's late summer floods have been followed by winter floods as the water that used to fall as snow in higher latitudes falls as rain in wider swathes. Then winter arrives (late of course) and snap freezes, killing 200 so far in Poland.

The next question is how rapidly the human race will acknowledge and adapt to its new meteorology. Don't hold your breath, we aren't that flexible. ake for example the unlovely James Taranto of the WSJ who is relentlessly bully-boy in practically every utterance, including hi literate take on the story when it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Say What?
"Animals, Plants on the March as World Heats Up"--headline, Sydney Morning Herald, Jan. 3

Nature Online has a fascinating article on ants using pine resin to disinfect their nests. We can be pretty sure that the resulting healthier nests will have given their inhabitants some kind of competitive advantage and that non resin-collecting species will have been out-competed and bred out of the gene pool. But assuming that ants are not blessed with the equivalent of the marketing department of some corporate chemical pedlar shouting about the benefits of Pine Fresh Disinfectants, how did the ants develop the deliberate strategy of seeking out the pine resin globules and building them into the structure of their nests?

Ants are supposed to be prime examples of emergent strategies, their pheromone trails to and from food leading to complex organisations that defy any other kind of thinking. But food is one thing, disinfectant is another. And it raises the question about what other materials are also built into the structures deliberately and what benefits they might confer. Look for a rash of research projects to deconstruct ants nests looking for bio-active components. And not just ants, the report also says:

Several animals dose themselves with healing plants, adds Lambrechts. Chimps eat medicinal plants, and some birds build herbs into their nests. "If we look at animal behaviour we could find chemicals for humans to use," he says.

A Norwegian court has acquitted a teenager accused by US entertainment groups of creating tools for hackers. Jon Johansen has walked away from all charges that he broke the law when he created DeCSS to remove copy protection on DVDs so that he could play them on his PC.

The Court has upheld the consumer's right to access the information they buy on whatever device they choose. One step at a time.

A Norwegian court has acquitted a teenager accused by US entertainment groups of creating tools for hackers. Jon Johansen has walked away from all charges that he broke the law when he created DeCSS to remove copy protection on DVDs so that he could play them on his PC.

The Court has upheld the consumer's right to access the information they buy on whatever device they choose.

Meanwhile in Europe its what is NOT happening that matters. Deadline Passes for European Digital Copyright Law.

Bernhard Warner, writes "a deadline for adopting a new EU law on copyright protection has passed with just two member countries signing up, dealing a blow to media and software companies beset by unauthorized duplication of their works across the Internet," The European Union proposed Copyright Directive was "designed to better protect the distribution of film, music and software across the Internet and onto digital devices such as mobile phones".