The War Against Germs
Who: Elbert Branscomb, chief scientist for the Department of Energy's genome program (not to be confused with Celera's gene machine).
Battle Plans: Identify, decode, and archive the genomes of disease-causing microbes used for bioterrorism. The thousands of single-cell organisms already classified account for less than 1 percent of the total out there.
October Surprise: Anthrax, he says, was a wake-up call to researchers about the importance of figuring out how these organisms work.
Current Operations: The DOE's Walnut Creek, California, production facility can read 35 million DNA base pairs a day - enough to decode roughly two microbes.
Rallying The Troops: Branscomb is in talks to double the DOE's microbe-probing capacity, and he envisions the DNA decoding of microbes and other top-secret projects at national labs.
3-D Worldview
Who: John Hanke, Keyhole CEO who says it's high time for a realistic 3-D map of the world.
20,000 Feet Above Ground: Keyhole's EarthViewer 3D software - developed by Hanke and some former SGI engineers - can pan from the Himalayas to Mount Rainier in 10 seconds, using digital elevation models and 4.5 terabytes of fused satellite and aerial imagery.
Charting History: ABC and NBC have used Keyhole technology to show Afghanistan during their news broadcasts.
Universal Appeal: Like TV networks, business travelers, real estate brokers and developers, soon anyone with a PC and Net access will be able to use the app to get a bird's-eye view of any locale. A consumer version, priced at less than $200 a year, is due this winter.
Positions of Power: "We're moving the map from an abstract representation of reality to one that is interactive and realistic," says Hanke. "You can zoom into Earth at the speed of light and zoom out even faster. It makes you feel God-like - omniscient."
Furniture Mover and Shaker
Who: Caroline Schlyter, Swedish designer now hitting the US scene.
Raw Materials: 1-mm strips of laminated birch veneer that are glued together and then shaped in a machine mold to form curvy tables and chairs.
Ramping Up: Schlyter's hammering out a distribution deal with upscale retailer Design Within Reach in San Francisco while showing off her work at the Gallery of Functional Art in Santa Monica, California.
Heavy Lifting: Manufacturers said her first chair design couldn't be built. They were wrong. The Little-h chair, which sells for $2,500, was acquired by the Design Museum in London and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm for their collections.
In The Tradition Of: Schlyter's collection plays off of the work of Charles and Ray Eames, who pioneered molded mass-manufacturable furniture in the '50s, but her design approach offers a twist. Call it Eames in Wonderland.
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