Population density map with more than 5 people per square mile.
Derek Watkins created a fun interactive map showing population density across the world. You can use a sliding bar to change the display. The above screenshot shows the parts of the world with more than five people per square mile. Slide the bar up to five hundred people per square mile and watch the world almost vanish…
Continue reading… “Interactive population density map”
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principle that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism.
Continue reading… “Engineered stem cells seek out and kill HIV in living mice”
This week we’re talking about fungus two ways. One that can survive exclusively on polyurethane and another that can replace Styrofoam.
Continue reading… “A future with less plastic thanks to mushrooms”
Pot holes pepper highways everywhere.
Fixing a hole in a road should be easy—but the fact that our nation’s highways are littered with potholes is testament to the fact that it’s not quite as straightforward as it sounds. But a new solution, inspired by silly putty, could make our streets much smoother in the future.
In fact, the idea—developed by students from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland—has won an engineering contest, reports Science. But prize-winning or not, the idea of mending a road with something like silly putty sounds like madness, right?
Continue reading… “The future of pothole repair is Silly Putty”
Grand Challenges create a new vision of the future.
Tom Kalil of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy gave a presentation today about Grand Challenges, such as the ones proposed by futurist Thomas Frey HERE. Kalil called them “ambitious yet achievable goals that capture the public’s imagination and that require innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology to achieve,” like NASA’s Green Flight Challenge and the Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health. I think Tom’s speech, delivered to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, does a terrific job showing why the grand challenge approach is a powerful way to tackle some pretty daunting problems. He also puts grand challenges in the context of President Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation. (By the way, it must be nice to be authorized to use the Presidential PowerPoint template.) From Tom’s speech
Continue reading… “White House’s Tom Kalil on “Grand Challenges””
Cosmic changes are coming.
When it comes to terraforming, the Universe makes man’s puny efforts to be king of the hill look pretty pathetic. Not only are we completely at the mercy of a constantly changing planet, but we’re careening through space totally vulnerable to a sea of objects and cosmic influences beyond our wildest imagination.
Yet intuitively we have the peace that all is under control in some magnificent way.
The decades long assertion that our solar system would soon enter an electrically charged life altering photon belt around the Sirius star system has been regularly dismissed as pseudo science–NASA speak for “conspiracy theory”. Despite periodical scientific validation it has been continually pushed aside by mainstream science.
Until now…
Continue reading… “Is NASA tracking the Cosmic Shift?”
CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523), is a successor, of sorts, to the loathesome SOPA legislative proposal, which was shot down in flames earlier this year. EFF’s chilling analysis of the bill shows how it could be used to give copyright enforcers carte blanche to spy on Internet users and censoring the Internet (it would also give these powers to companies and governments who’d been embarrassed by sites like Wikileaks).
Continue reading… “CISPA is SOPA 2.0”
Imidacloprid is in a lot of commonly used products.
The likely culprit in sharp worldwide declines in honeybee colonies since 2006 is imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)…
Continue reading… “Use of common pesticide, Imidacloprid, linked to Bee Colony Collapse”
If you can’t code, you are a prisoner to those who can.
Mexican entrepreneur Cristian Castillo thinks avoiding investors is important.
Castillo, co-founder of instaDM, a messaging service for Instagram, doesn’t consider himself a coder, but can hack his ideas into early-stage products.
He already has made a few apps that have gained traction…
Continue reading… “This is why entrepreneurs should learn to code”
Don’t ya just wanna cuddle em?
Imagine a tyrannosaur weighing one and a half tons, completely covered in soft, downy plumage. Even its tail is fluffy with feathers. Though we’ve known for a while that many dinosaurs were covered in feathers, a group of Chinese researchers have now provided direct evidence that gigantic, deadly tyrannosaurs might have looked a bit like wuffly birds. Three nearly complete, well-preserved fossils give us a glimpse of tyrannosaurs the way we’ve never seen them before…
Continue reading… “Hard evidence that giant tyrannosaurs were cute”
Did you know that Splenda was born as an insecticide? It’s true!
Splenda is not natural; it is a chlorinated artificial sweetener. There have been no long-term human studies on the safety of Splenda; however, issues have been raised about Splenda in a new study from Duke University.
According to the study, Splenda “suppresses beneficial bacteria and directly affects the expression of the transporter P-gp and cytochrome P-450 isozymes that are known to interfere with the bioavailability of drugs and nutrients….
Continue reading… “The insecticide now known as Splenda”
Vanilla is a hot commodity at the moment.
At our current rate of consumption, we’re driving vanilla prices sky-high. The price for a kilo of the brown stuff has jumped from $25 to $40 in a single day, which means your summer ice creams might be an even more expensive treat than usual.
Virtually all of the world’s vanilla supplies are grown in Madagascar, Mexico and India. But in the last year, Mexico’s yield has dropped by a staggering 90 per cent, reports Management Today. In fact, India’s yields are struggling too, leaving Madagascar as pretty much the sole source…
Continue reading… “A worldwide vanilla shortage is making ice cream a luxury”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.