"Several U.S. fertility clinics admit they've helped couples deliberately... select an embryo for the presence of a particular disease or disability, such as deafness, in order that the child would share that characteristic with the parents."

They're planning 5 decades ahead: "[The PR firm] describes corporate social responsibility as allowing companies to "take the offensive" and that "social involvement will become the primary means for influencing public perception." "

Undercutting of historical archive research w/ overrapid digitization mandates. "Rowland of Maryland added that projects like hers... shut down when a project is over. As a result, she said, any digital project needs a permanent home,"

"there will also be "editors" who have more authority because of their background as specialists... Sanger strongly believes that the valuing of expert knowledge would attract more people from the scientific community and thus improve the overall quality"

"Slums like Kibera are the ugly face of urbanization in Africa, whose cities are increasingly overwhelmed by property crises, crime, over-population and creaking infrastructure."

"Yet a few generations from now, this period may be the most obscure since the advent of the printing press, partly because of the structure of digital files."

98% mortality; "the WHO says the misuse of anti-tuberculosis drugs is the most likely cause. ... Ordinary TB costs about £20 to treat. MDR-TB costs about £18,500 and takes 18 months... XDR-TB does not respond to any of the drugs currently available."

"Cholera may return to London, the mass migration of Africans could cause civil unrest in Europe and China's economy could crash by 2015 ... the bleak assessment yesterday by forecasters from some of the world's leading corporate users of fresh water."

"The upshot of all of this is that the Future gets divided; the cute, insulated future that Joi Ito and Cory Doctorow and you and I inhabit, and the grim meathook future that most of the world is facing..."