Latin American leaders, Obama to discuss ending the war on drugs

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The upcoming Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, which will be attended by many latinamerican heads of state as well as Barack Obama, is set to be an historic debate over the legalization of drugs and the end of the war on drugs. Jamie Doward writes in the Guardian…

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How Giant Gypsum Crystals form

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Giant gypsum crystals up to 11 meters long in the Cave of Crystals, Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Gypsum is a naturally occurring mineral which is often used in industrial processes and which in nature, if left alone for thousands of years, can grow into huge translucent, towering and eerie, crystals more than 10 metres tall. These are famed for their beauty in places such as the Cave of Crystals in Mexico. Nevertheless, the formation of gypsum has until now been largely unexplored…

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Now you can turn yourself into a Batman Action Figure

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Most of our childhoods were spent alternatingly dressing up like superheroes and playing with action figures in their likeness. Now you can combine the two by actually getting your own head on the body of your favorite superhero, like Batman or Superman, on one of these custom action figures.

All you’ve got to do is send Personalised Superhero Action Figures two photos of yourself—one portrait and one profile—and the company will use them to make your noggin into an action figure…

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Printable Houses and the Massive Wave of Opportunity it will bring to Our Future

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Futurist Thomas Frey: All the way back in March of 2004, working in his laboratory at the University of Southern California in San Diego, Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, was working with a new process he had invented called Contour Crafting to construct the world’s first 3D printed wall.

His goal was to use the technology for rapid home construction as a way to rebuild after natural disasters, like the devastating earthquakes that had recently occurred in his home country of Iran.

While we have still not seen our first “printed home” just yet, that will be coming very soon. Perhaps within a year. Commercial buildings will soon follow.

For an industry firmly entrenched in working with nails and screws, the prospects of replacing saws and hammers with giant printing machines seems frightening. But getting beyond this hesitancy lies the biggest construction boom in all history.

Here’s why I  think this will happen.

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Algae fuel that can replace oil will not come from nature

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Controversial genomics scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter said last week at a conference on the future of energy at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. that  biofuels made from algae that will be able to scale, and compete with oil, will have to be synthesized and will not come from nature.Venter said in an interview, “It’s pretty obvious that there’s nothing in the natural world to make the levels that are needed,” and he pointed to algae oil yield volumes needing approximately 20,000 gallons per acre equivalent of algae.

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Scrap metal transformers theme park opens in China

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Optimus Prime sent me to inform you that we have arrived.

Chinese artist Kefeng Zhu and his team of artists use heavy metal as their medium, and the results are pretty darn neat. His unofficial Transformers theme park is calledMr. Iron Robot, and it’s a big hit with kids from throughout the Zhejiang Province and beyond…

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