Articles of Note

This past week on the subway, I occupied myself with the latest BusinessWeek magazine. Here are the articles of note from the March 7th issue:

Rewiring the Body -- the cover article of this issue delves into the exotic new remedies for ailments that have no cure. The topic is body implants that issue a targeted and mild jolt of electricity when needed. Sounds almost diabolical -- I was expecting mad-scientists types to be interviewed -- but, when you look at the diseases they're tackling and the promises the few trials have shown, you'll see that they may be on to something here. The human body is wired for electricity, so there's got to be something there. Some of problems being tackled with new electric stimulation includes, deafness, migraine headaches, post-stroke paralysis, Parkinson's disease, chronic pain in the back or legs, bladder incontinence, epilepsy, depression and obesity.

The Coming of ZTE -- you've probably never heard of them, but they're coming. ZTE is China's No. 2 cellular-gear manufacturer, and they're about to go global. Watch out Nokia and Motorola. That companies from emerging markets will rise to challenge those of developed markets is something I had previously blogged about from a global economic perspective. Check out the previous post.

Mad Cow's Stubborn Mystery -- after over a decade of studying mad cow disease, scientists still know little about it. Mad cow disease, or the human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is caused by malformed proteins, prions, that literally eat holes in the brain, leading eventually to death -- in some people. Scientists don't know why the proteins become malformed, what triggers mutation in other proteins, and why only some people are affected by it.

The Next Generation -- where is big media heading? Digital. BusinessWeek follows the next generation of big media executives. A good read if you want to know where the pabulum for your brain will be coming from in the coming decade.