December 31, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
That too many people, including policy-makers and media figures “are out of their intellectual depth and easily manipulated” by the bewildering complexity of the financial-political feedback-loop is almost irrefutable, and I agree with comments in this debate it’s “a symptom of the limitations of our neural architecture”. But I don’t know if we should take the question of neural architecture in the biological sense. There’s a cultural and practical response that needs to be considered at least as strongly.
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December 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Sandia National Laboratories have achieved a landmark breakthrough in solar-voltaic power-generation technology. The snowflake-like “solar glitter” uses 100 times less material to produce the same amount of electricity as today’s standard 6-inch square solar cells. This achievement of ultra-miniaturization now has the potential to move solar-voltaic power generation to the forefront of the clean energy revolution, and help speed the transition away from carbon-based combustible fuels.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Gordon Brown plans “plan b” 2nd round of talks if Copenhagen conference fails to achieve global pact. The plan would call for a smaller number of nations to meet to agree to concrete steps to curb emissions and move their contribution to the world economy toward a green energy future.
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December 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
With the US promising to commit $100 billion over ten years to help fund mitigation efforts against the impacts of climate destabilization and China all but refusing outright to agree to any pact that requires international verification of emissions reductions and/or how international funds are spent, the technological solution remains a key priority.
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December 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Intellectual property laws designed to help protect the ability of researchers to retain compensation for major innovations have led to a uniquely problematic “innovation” in the laws themselves, where specific genes, or the informational access to them, are patented, barring individuals or their physicians from dealing directly with those genes except through the for-profit patent-holders.
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December 10, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The deepest image ever taken of the universe, using the ultra-powerful Hubble Space Telescope, known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, shows there to be 100 billion galaxies in the universe, some projecting light from a distance of 47 billion light years. A study of the Doppler redshift of galaxies speeding away from the Hubble’s vantage point has allowed astronomers to create a 3-dimensional projection of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, the deepest photograph ever taken of the observable universe.
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December 5, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Bottled water is a high environmental-impact product, which is not regulated like municipal water reserves that feed tap water, and can cost as much as 10,000 times per volume as much as tap water. Nevertheless, aggressive and often misleading marketing campaigns have made bottled water one of the most significant rising trends in American and European consumer sales.
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November 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States is trudging through the tailing winds of an economic storm that saw trillions of dollars in wealth wiped away, major financial institutions demolished, and an investment-based nationalization of the nation’s largest banks, and the mystery, according to most observers, is: where are the jobs? One after another source will say job recovery trails recovery in national economic growth by six to eighteen months.
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November 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Scientists have discovered evidence that human hearing is in part dependent on tactile cues that come not from audible sounds, but from pressure fluctuations and air-particle displacement against skin around the ear.
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November 28, 2009 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Dubai is the jewel of the Arabian peninsula, the region’s financial capital and a city of global importance. Exorbitant wealth has become something like a national sport there, and major institutions there took the position that they could outlast the global financial panic without substantial government intervention.
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November 21, 2009 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Can we expect China’s cooperation on emissions reduction? It’s clear that China has shifted its energy policy somewhat, to take account for the potential long-term strategic economic benefit of being a major source for green energy technology, know-how and to use green energy to fill out the nation’s energy supply and possibly permit exportation of energy or fuels.
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November 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
If we’re looking at a rise in overall global energy consumption as an “opportunity”, we should class all particulars of the debate in terms of the long-term viability of the energy resource to be exploited. While carbon-based commodities may see steep returns in the short term, heavy front-end investment in carbon-based fuels will reduce the long-term viability of those commodities as business models, thus curving down the benefit over time.
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October 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Amazon Kindle 2 is ideally sized for one-handed reading. In this category, it beats the traditional book, because it’s single pane is more ergonomic for the purpose of reading with one hand and seeing the text clearly at a consistent angle, than struggling to balance a side-bound traditional book.
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October 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Google Voice, an ingenious use of web-based voice communications service, allows users to combine a range of phone numbers under one standard, permanent Google phone number. Any linked phone number can be removed or replaced, and the service is free. All domestic calls inside the US are free, and sms is free. The service even converts voicemail to readable transcripts in an online inbox.
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October 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
An attractive woman, 34-ish, drives a compact station-wagon, late model, over a still-cobblestone side street in the center of Madrid. She advances slowly, toward a red light, and talks on her cell phone. She seems equally concentrated on both activities. Driving an automobile is a potentially dangerous activity, in which one’s own life or the lives of others may be at risk, while a casual conversation is not so much that. Yet she seemed to give equal weight, her body, her manner, seemed to give equal weight to both activities.
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October 3, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Water resource depletion leads not only to chronic scarcity of clean, safe drinking water for increasing numbers of people, but means arable land is harder to cultivate and to maintain. Persistent drought and accelerated desertification (the expansion of deserts into the farmed and/or built environment) are results of water resource depletion.
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October 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Clean, safe drinking water is scarce for over 3 billion people across the world. At least 1 billion literally never have access to clean, safe drinking water, putting them at constant risk of severe thirst-related ill health effects, infectious diseases or toxic contamination. Over 100 countries face either sporadic or chronic crisis-level problems related to clean water scarcity.
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October 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The phenomenon of “re-tweeting”, reposting and linking back to items already posted on the real-time updated short-message feed site Twitter, has allowed for the emergence of what sometimes turns into a global roundtable discussion, made up of short, sometimes superfluous, sometimes provocative ideas, and in many cases links to surprising but potentially effective online sources that spread a message or expand and deepen awareness of an issue.
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September 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Apple’s long-awaited tablet computer, likely to run a version of Mac OS X and to merge the touchscreen stylings of the iPhone and iPod Touch with the full functionality of the MacBook line, is expected to be aimed at revolutionizing the way print media deliver text to readers. If true, the device would again put Apple at the cutting edge of a field where Amazon, Microsoft, Sony and others, are trying to set the standards for e-book distribution and licensing.
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September 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The field of ecological research and reporting is a part of the basic human urge to engage the world through reason and a quest for understanding. It is not about seizing control of society’s urges and services and limiting the freedom of anyone, but rather about making sure we have the information we need to make the best choices, then advocating for those choices, when inertia and custom stand in the way of better health — for individuals and in the manner in which human individuals respond to their social and natural environments.
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September 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
One solution for California would be the expansion of its efforts across the region and the nation, to spur the creation of a full-scale renewable resource-based power grid, to optimize both generative capacity and distribution. The question is, now that the decision has been made to shift toward renewables, how can California go beyond the 1/3 threshold and build a strong renewable-energy export economy?
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September 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
As the “perfect storm” gathers from inchoate, deceptively non-threatening winds, we can look ahead, backward and into the mirror and ask how crisis comes, or why, if it is inevitable, if we might just fall right out of it, as we fell into it. But the answer is simple: human crisis comes from excess, from inordinate ambition, from misplaced aggression, from over-exploitation of resources, each of which generates real and problematic tension across the landscape of human experience.
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September 13, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The scope and variety of lies being told about the nature of proposed healthcare reforms in the United States are threatening to undermine the possibility for meaningful reforms that would save literally tens of thousands of lives each year. Those lies need to be dispelled, or reform will be delayed and more lives lost.
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September 9, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Cornel West: “The child crisis converges with the failure of the American public school system to accomplish a central part of the mission of schools in a democracy: to rescue children from the limitations of class and family situation, giving them access to a world of longer memory, broader imagination and stronger ambition.”
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September 8, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Is the very thing we demand of our computers the thing that will make them intolerant of our humanity, if and when they awaken to an artificial intelligence? One of the fundamental problems in achieving a state of computational agility and independence that would allow us to say a synthetic entity has acquired ‘artificial intelligence’ is the problem of autonomy. If we give real autonomy to artificially intelligent machines, can we trust them to cooperate with us, in the ways we, as human beings prefer?
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September 7, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Light and dark, however we perceive them, are not necessarily opposites, but rather more like degrees of radiant energy intensity, along a spectrum of detectability. If we think only in terms of the capacity of human vision to capture light energy, we see evidence of presence and absence, but wave energy in one form or another might be more ubiquitous than we can believe.
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September 6, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
In the wake of last year’s collapse of American credit markets, and the contagion of financial sclerosis to markets around the world, Wall Street’s major banks, which took tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money, may again be looking to securitize fixed-asset financial products.
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September 6, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Amazon’s Kindle family of e-book readers has changed the game on e-books and e-book distribution, by making an intuitive, easy to use e-paper reader into a mass-market publishing platform. Books are now sold on many websites as “Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle”, referencing the format of the book’s publication in varying editions. Now, a hacker has put a variation of Linux on a Kindle 2, raising the question as to what Amazon might do to enhance the device’s range of operative capabilities.
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September 5, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
On Wednesday, 9 September, Apple will be hosting an iTunes-centered event, to announce new features, including possibly upgraded or more dynamic iPod models. Rumors that the event could also include the much-anticipated Apple tablet computer may be premature. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the tablet may be more likely to debut at the beginning of 2010.
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September 4, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
The Mercedes B-class F-cell will be out in 2010 in the US and Europe, with an initial limited production fleet of 200 vehicles. The vehicles will be lease-only, as Mercedes works to perfect the technologies and market strategies it needs to bring the car to mass market.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Apple’s iPhone App Store is reported to be bringing in $200 million per month, roughly $2.4 billion per year. Such soaring earnings reflect that high value users place on the App Store system and its ability to deliver targeted-use software “widgets” that do one thing well. But doing just one thing is far from the goal of the App Store.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
A new innovation developed by scientists in Israel may be able to detect traces of lung cancer in human breath, by identifying molecules linked to the condition. The device would be hand-held and easy to use, and could potentially be available at any family doctor or general practitioner’s office, in the future.
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August 30, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Like the Amazon Kindle family of e-readers, the Sony Reader Touch Edition uses an e-Ink e-paper display. But it’s interface works like a touchscreen. The advance is a major improvement for the standards of design in e-paper e-book readers. The touchscreen standard may be the most significant challenge Sony has put forth for the Amazon Kindle readers, none of which uses a touchscreen interface.
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August 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States was the first nation in the world to establish a universal public education system, and has paved the way for many innovations in that area, including mandatory attendance and universal literacy as standards in law and in practice. But in a nation of more than 309 million people, there are countless ways that underfunding, personal and family misfortune, community disintegration, crime and other causes, can impede many millions from accessing the best-quality education our society has to offer.
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August 15, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Jude Ndambuki is a native Kenyan chemistry teacher in New York, who has been collecting, refurbishing and shipping used, discarded and donated computers, to Kenyan schools in order to help protect the environment, reduce the chemical contamination of landfill sites and spur technological educational resource availability for young Kenyans. He is celebrated by CNN as one of its do-gooder “heroes”, an example of someone helping to improve the lot of others.
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August 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The quest for the most fuel-efficient vehicles has entered a new phase, with major government private-sector investment in research and development for industrial-scale commercial production of a new class of gas-electric hybrid vehicles and EVs (all-electric cars). Swiss-based Solar Impulse is building the world’s first 100% solar-powered airplane, an achievement that will revolutionize the travel, industrial production, transport and fuel sectors.
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August 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The Chevrolet Volt will get 230 miles per gallon in city driving. The Volt is a plug-in hybrid not yet on the market, which will mark a technological breakthrough if it achieves the projected fuel efficiency, “changing the game” as some observers see it on automotive transport and fuel usage. If realized, the 230 mpg standard will shatter the existing paradigm for automotive fuel efficiency.
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August 11, 2009 :: l.johr :: Comments Off
Instead of going on a cruise this year or flying off to dream-like destinations, more people are choosing to tour locally. No matter what constitutes ‘local’, there are likely enough interesting and stimulating activities to last a few hours or a few days’ worth of leisurely investigation. Finding a new restaurant, park or museum will not only help boost the local economy, but it might also help to boost your spirits while saving some money.
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August 5, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Now, we face unprecedented challenges to the right of people everywhere to access information intended for public consumption. Repressive governments are building state-of-the-art censorship , tracking and filtering mechanisms (the ‘Great Firewall of China’, for example), and internet service providers (ISP) are seeking to establish profit-dr… that limit users’ access to certain websites or content-producers.
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August 5, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The north Caucasus region, Sudan’s Darfur, eastern DR Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq and North Korea, are just an example of the range of physical risks journalists are facing. How can governments and news agencies work together to ensure greater freedom and better guarantees of protection for journalists doing the most necessary and most perilous work?
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July 31, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Physicist Brian Greene explains in this rich, yet concise video, how superstring theory is giving new shape to our understanding of the universe. Dr. Greene gives an astoundingly cogent and simple explanation for how what seem to be three dimensions of space might actually be ten dimensions, with seven bound up in complex Calabi-Yau shapes that almost defy explanation.
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July 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
One day, recently, I saw a fire-engine, crawling its way through a stop light, sirens blaring, hulking its way to provide the noble service of putting out someone’s fire or performing some other rescue operation. It was pouring a dark grey exhaust from one side, looking shiny new and well cared for, but obviously lacking advanced exhaust filtering or clean-energy drive technologies.
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July 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Amazon Kindle DX is a beautiful device. Its design is user-friendly, intuitive and cohesive. It is clean-edged, minimal and thinner than many major magazines. Its format size is comfortable and makes tactile sense; it feels like something you hold in order to read, giving it a useful aesthetic kinship to books or magazines, a vast improvement on smaller e-reading devices. It is, in point of fact, far more comfortable than planting yourself in front of a computer monitor to read large amounts of text.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
DNA is an amazingly efficient memory bank for the design and scheduling of biological development. Cell DNA have their own replication systems, but human scientists who want to interfere with the content of the genome have been working to find ways to achieve artificial replication and synthesis of disparate properties, and now they may have achieved a landmark breakthrough.
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July 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Researchers have stumbled upon a surprise possible treatment for swelling of nerves in the spinal cord. It turns out that FD&C blue dye No. 1 bears certain key similarities to a compound used to treat nerve inflammation. Since there is no active immediate treatment for spinal cord injuries, and secondary inflammation often leads to long-term damage, this treatment holds great promise. The one side-effect observed: the rats’ skin turned blue.
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July 27, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Financial Times is the latest publication to weigh in on mounting expectations that Apple will release a touchscreen tablet computer this fall. There are rumors the computer maker is hoping to counter the rise of cheap netbooks with something lower-cost than their standard Macs and with a larger screen based on the model of the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The news could mean a breakthrough in personal computing standards and even portability of the workplace.
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July 20, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The US space agency NASA’s Apollo 11 mission was the first to land a human being on the surface of the Moon, on 20 July 1969. The lunar module, known as Eagle, landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon. They spent one day there, and both stepped outside the lander to explore the otherworldly environment.
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July 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The influenza A/H1N1 virus, popularly known as “swine flu” was officially declared a pandemic in June. Shortly after the pandemic declaration, it was confirmed that H1N1 was confirmed in human patients in 74 countries. In the 5 weeks since then, it has spread rapidly and is now confirmed to have caused human infection in 140 countries.
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July 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Labour party government of the United Kingdom has announced plans to establish an aggressive overhaul of national energy markets, shifting to 40% low-carbon energy sourcing, across all industries, by 2020. The energy secretary, Ed Milliband, will be given control of allocation of electricity across the energy grid, in an effort to speed the green-energy revolution to allow the UK to meet its legally-binding agreed emissions cuts of 34% by 2020.
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July 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The New Scientist magazine is reporting on an intriguing and brazen new Pentagon program that would create living “OrthopterNets”, communication networks made of insects implanted with special technologies to modulate their wingbeats. Crickets, cicadas and katydids, all use their wings to generate sounds, the patterns of which communicate information to others of their kind. The Pentagon wants to use this natural communications network to prompt the insects to emit specific sounds in the presence of specific chemicals.
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