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China’s government is demanding that Japan unconditionally release the captain, whose detention was extended to Sept. 29, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on its website today. The remaining 14 members of the boat’s crew were released several days after the Chinese vessel collided with two Japanese Coast Guard ships near a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea.

“China will take strong reactionary measures if necessary and Japan will have to bear all consequences,” Ma Chaoxu, a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson, said in the statement.

China’s ties with Japan have been “seriously damaged” after Japan’s decision to extend the captain’s detention, state television reported, citing the foreign affairs ministry. The islands, known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, are claimed by both countries. Sovereignty over the area would give the holder rights to undersea gas and oil reserves.

You don’t know what “the game layer” is, let alone whether it should be built atop the world. But he has a passionate speech about a business plan, conceived when he was a college freshman, that he says will change the planet — making it more entertaining, more engaging, and giving humans a new way to interact with businesses and one another.

If you give him $750,000, he says, you can have a stake in what he believes will be a $1-billion-a-year company.

Interested? Before you answer, consider that the man displays many of the symptoms of a person having what psychologists call a hypomanic episode. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual — the occupation’s bible of mental disorders — these symptoms include grandiosity, an elevated and expansive mood, racing thoughts and little need for sleep.

“Elevated” hardly describes this guy. To keep the pace of his thoughts and conversation at manageable levels, he runs on a track every morning until he literally collapses. He can work 96 hours in a row. He plans to live in his office, crashing in a sleeping bag. He describes anything that distracts him and his future colleagues, even for minutes, as “evil.”

He is 21 years old.

So, what do you give this guy — a big check or the phone number of a really good shrink? If he is Seth Priebatsch and you are Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in Lexington, Mass., the answer is a big check.

Funded by a Department of Defense initiative dedicated to audacious challenges and intense time schedules, the Neurophotonics Research Center will develop two-way fiber optic communication between prosthetic limbs and peripheral nerves.

This connection will be key to operating realistic robotic arms, legs and hands that not only move like the real thing, but also “feel” sensations like pressure and heat.

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John Kelly, 53, is accused of interfering with an active homicide investigation and was charged with four counts of libel and obstruction of justice after he allegedly posed as a paralegal and approached the mother of a 2003 homicide victim saying he could help her sue police.

Calgary RCMP started their investigation after being contacted about the case by Calgary’s chief of police.

“In my 29 years, I’ve never heard of an individual being charged under the Criminal Code for libel charges, defamation of character,” said RCMP Supt. Randy McGinnis.

While libel itself is not rare, it is usually handled in civil court, not criminal.

Police Chief Rick Hanson said the rarity of the criminal libel charge speaks to the seriousness of the allegations.

“There are occasions when free speech does cross over and can cross over to where it’s criminal in nature, and that’s where the investigation has to take a look,” Hanson told reporters Friday.

“There’s a world of difference between the civil world and the criminal world. The RCMP and the Crown clearly felt in reviewing the facts that criminal charges were warranted.”

The lengthy ordeal and investigation took a toll on many officers who were named on the website, said Hanson.

“If you’re in policing, it’s not unusual to be the subject of criticism, that’s just the way it is. That’s something that a police officer gets used to. Most officers have a pretty thick skin,” the chief said.

“But when things transition over to where certain actions can be perceived as being criminal and there’s an investigation that leads to charges like that, that’s an entirely different thing than just being criticized.”

The website in question is still running. RCMP have no jurisdiction and can only ask the New Yorkbased Internet provider to take it down.

What makes Kelly’s site libellous, said McGinnis, are the false allegations made against two city homicide investigators.

Calgary police spokesman Kevin Brookwell said there are many websites and blogs that are critical of police and he said police don’t have a problem with people expressing their views online.

Brookwell said this website was different because it interfered with an active police investigation.

At his first court appearance Friday, Kelly’s wife said her husband would decline comment to media.

The Oxford University researcher called on the government and private companies to join forces and thoroughly investigate the effects that computer games, the internet and social networking sites such as Twitter may have on the brain.

Lady Greenfield has coined the term “mind change” to describe differences that arise in the brain as a result of spending long periods of time on a computer. Many scientists believe it is too early to know whether these changes are a cause for concern.

“We need to recognise this is an issue rather than sweeping it under the carpet,” Greenfield said. “We should acknowledge that it is bringing an unprecedented change in our lives and we have to work out whether it is for good or bad.”

…

“We have got to be very careful about what price we are paying, that the things that are being lost don’t outweigh the things gained,” Greenfield said. “Every single parent I have spoken to so far is concerned. I have yet to find a parent who says ‘I am really pleased that my kid is spending so much time in front of the computer’.”

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London and co-author of the book The Learning Brain, agreed that more research was needed to know whether technology was causing significant changes in the brain. “We know nothing at all about how the developing brain is being influenced by video games or social networking and so on.

…

Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at Tufts University in Massachusetts and author of Proust and the Squid, said that brain circuits honed by reading books and thinking about their content could be lost as people spend more time on computers.