Intelligence, Racial Groups, & Inheritence

I found today a very interesting survey paper of differences of IQs between different racial groups. (jump to page 16)
http://faculty.mwsu.edu/psychology/Laura.Spiller/4503_Tests/intelligence_knowns_and_unknowns.pdf

(it also has interesting section of make/female differences. in short, higher testosterone = higher spatial/movement intelligence = lower verbal abilities. math differences are complex)

interesting points:
1- Asian Americans, while they have higher SAT/GRE/Academic scores, have the same average IQ.
2- Average IQ of kids in Taiwan, USA & Japan is the same (~101-105), even though Math test scores are higher in Japan & Taiwan.
3- Asian Americans achievements, had they been those of whites, indicate an average IQ of 120, about 20 points higher than the US average. This is a testimony that hard work and discipline can increase one achievements as if they are 20 points smarter.
4- Hispanic Americans average IQ is same as the rest of the US.
5- African Americans score about 15 points below average US IQ test, BUT more recent studies show that this difference is decreasing to about single digits. much discussion is included in the paper on possible explanations.

Another interesting finding (though still controversial): Most of the intelligence is inherited from the mother, not the father.
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/men/thank_mom_for_brains.htm

Some Interesting new Technologies

Interesting news to share:

1- Solar Cells' efficiency is up to from 28% to 40% and the cost is lowered considerably (i.e. 40% of the light that falls onto the cell is turned into electrical energy)
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196602149

2- A breakthrough in nano-tubes manipulation techniques. Nano-tubes are expected to become the main material of choice for making almost any product - from blood-cell-size robots to computers to finger-tip size cameras to car bodies.
http://www.physorg.com/news84116089.html

3- Pocket Projector: a laser technology that would allow embedding a whole projector inside a cell phone.
http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/17860/

4- A new record was set for Machine Translation Quality (using the BLEU test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingual_evaluation_understudy). This goes to Meaningful Machines, a score of .65. I have to admit that the advancements in this field will still take a while to materialize in realistic usable products.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/translate_pr.html