A supervisor walking out of an employee presentation, a manager who overrides decisions without explanation, and the boss who chews out employees publicly are displaying workplace incivility. This behavior is becoming the norm as the ranks of the etiquette-challenged grow. A university professor who studied this says it can be classified as schoolyard bully behavior. In the past companies tended to ignore this behavior, but that may change as a result of this study. It found that victims of this sort of behavior tend to strike back against their employer rather than their tormentor. Some intentionally decreased the quality of their work, some decreased their work effort, some said they lost work time trying to avoid the person, over half said they lost time worrying about the person, almost as many contemplated changing jobs, and twelve percent actually changed jobs to escape the bully. The cost of replacing that individual makes this an expensive problem for employers. The study also showed 70% of workplace bullies are men, and the abuser usually is a supervisor tormenting a subordinate. The study is continuing, looking at links between incivility and violence, and how different organizational cultures may feed incivility.

Surgeons in Germany have successfully performed the first heart bypass using a robot. The system uses three surgical arms that are inserted into the chest cavity through small incisions less than a centimeter wide. One of the arms holds a miniature camera; the other two hold standard surgical instruments. The surgeon controls the robot arms with ultrasensitive handles. The facility where this was performed is one of the most modern in Germany.

Within minutes of a street protest in Bosnia-Herzegovina turning ugly, U.St. Navy surveillance planes can beam videotape of the incident back to the European offices of NATO. This surveillance technology helps NATO warn soldiers on the ground of potentially dangerous areas, and it yields some dramatic images.