February 23, 2008 :: jr3o :: 2 Comments
Researchers at MIT have been working for years now on a wide range of variations on the changeable visual text formats that might replace many of the backlit screens we now use to read and interact with electronic documents. ‘Electronic paper’ refers to a number of these technologies, able to reproduce encrypted files in visual text form, as if they were computer monitors, some touted as having “the look and feel” of real paper.
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February 18, 2008 :: jr3o :: 2 Comments
When John Kanzius found himself facing aggressive and debilitating chemotherapy treatment for advanced leukemia, seeing the effect the treatment had on fellow patients, he decided to find a better way. Kanzius had worked for decades with radio technology, and understood that radio waves could pass harmlessly through the body. He also knew they could heat metal even at low frequencies.
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February 17, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
For some time, we have heard speculation that the user-centered logic of the Internet medium will persuade old-guard media powers to embrace the model, and we will see a convergence of online, print, radio and televisual media, in one integrated system. Media integration will likely go far beyond that, so security has to be the watchword as technology invades personal space and our attempts at a ‘pursuit of happiness’.
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February 15, 2008 :: jr3o :: One Comment
The private investment fund Ceres, a group of institutional investors, has promised to devote $10 billion to investment in clean energy sources. The news comes as 3 of the world’s major oil companies call for coordinated policy on how to face climate change, constrain emissions, and a couple of months after 150 global corporations asked for a major boost in subsidized research into transitioning to clean energy technologies.
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February 11, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
At a meeting of European scientists, in Stockholm, Sweden, the man who coined the term ‘anthropocene’ to describe the new geological epoch in which human influence dominates natural processes, announced that the term has gained acceptance in a growing number of fields. The real import of the term, and of its increasing relevance to what science is showing about the effects of human civilization on the environment, globally, is that ecological information is increasingly vital to implementing human ambitions in a responsible and sustainable way.
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February 8, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
Ecologist and researcher Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, has issued the 3rd installment of his ‘Plan B’ books —Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (2008)—, which lay out the most vital research underlying and the most optimal means of meeting the need to transition to a sustainable economy that not only works in harmony with natural system, but also helps to reverse the excesses of the existing industrial model.
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February 8, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
A new study has shown that raindrops can be used to produce electricity. The key is the mechanical energy of the raindrops, meaning the energy contained in their motion and in the way that force is diffused when striking a given type of surface.In this case the surface is PVDF (polyvinylidene diflouride) plastic, which is able to release a charge when temporarily “deformed” by mechanical activity, such as being struck by a moving object. A sheet of PVDF just 25 micrometers thick (1,000 = 1 milimeter) receives the impact of raindrops, and the effect is the release of energy, which can be harvested and turned into electricity.
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February 7, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
A new breakthrough in propulsion technology may enable a fuel-free engine with no moving parts to use microwaves to push satellites through space and automobiles on earth. The science is complicated and controversial, but appears to be sound and takes advantage of Einstein’s landmark theory of relativity to turn contained microwaves into a propulsion system, in the form of a non-mechanical engine.
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February 7, 2008 :: jr3o :: 3 Comments
The field of Radio-Frequency IDentification is rapidly expanding, with new applications being proposed for security, commercial distribution, and tracking of goods, information and individuals, on a constant basis. The US government has proposed requiring that all new passports carry RFID chips, either for efficiency, ease of use or for security, though none of these is clearly enhanced without a massive technological upgrade, across the world.
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February 7, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
Space flora or “xflora”, a category of synthetic biochemical organism, engineered to exist in floating colonies in space, combines nano-technology with and biotechnology. While it sounds near impossible, the concept is to create organisms that can feed from their environment, even where that environment would be deadly (for chill, high radiation or lack of nutrients) to Earthborne organisms, and that can be harvested freely as future “off-Earth” human colonies or transports may require.
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February 6, 2008 :: admin :: 2 Comments
We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before. The world is facing the most severe food price inflation in history as grain and soybean prices climb to all-time highs. Wheat trading on the Chicago Board of Trade on December 17th breached the $10 per bushel level for the first time ever.
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February 5, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Among the numerous scathing criticisms leveled against the record $3.1 trillion federal budget proposal —which will be the last of the George W. Bush White House— are fiscal irresponsibility, near record deficits, and plans to cut or eliminate fully 151 federal programs, in an effort to save just $18 billion, while base Defense Dept. spending increases by 8%.
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February 4, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The ‘Davos Conversation’ is a multimedia effort to bring online public together with major policy-makers, activists and economists, to broaden the scope of debate at the World Economic Forum. The question which was used as a platform for the online forum was “what one thing would make the world a better place?”
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February 4, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
At the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, a range of ideas from international disease relief, healthcare, security, climate change, extreme poverty, and the responsibility of market incentives, took the discussions in a new direction. Fmr. US vice-president Al Gore spoke of the need for a “marriage” of policy regarding extreme poverty and the climate crisis.
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February 4, 2008 :: admin :: 14 Comments
The global climate change crisis may soon enter a new phase in terms of human society’s reaction, efforts to curb harmful activities that exacerbate the problem. The United States Dept. of the Interior is considering a proposal to list the polar bear as the first species facing extinction specifically as a side-effect of global warming.
The move would fall under the regulatory powers of the Endangered Species Act, and environmental activists believe it could be used as leverage to push for the shutting down of projects that would bring new carbon-emissions-intensive activities (like new coal-fired power plants) into use.
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