Impact Lab – Page 1430 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Culture, Current Events, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, Medical Breakthrough

Becoming The Wal-Mart of Weed

January 25, 2011

Big Plans for the Future Growth of Marijuana

Dhar Mann, 26, and Derek Peterson, 36, are the owners of the weGrow marijuana superstore in Oakland, California. The 15,000 square-foot weGrow is just their first hit though. Mann and Peterson are also shooting a reality show pilot, training medical pot growers, and manufacturing high-end grow gear. They say they’re in contract on 75 franchise stores in 5 states and are considering an IPO. According to Mann, their vision is to become the “Wal-Mart of Weed.”

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Economy, Globalism, government, Science & Technology News

China Planning World’s Largest Mega-City with 42 Million People

January 24, 2011

China planning to merge nine cities to create the world’s largest mega city.

China is planning to create the world’s biggest mega city by merging nine cities to create a metropolis twice the size of Wales with a population of 42 million. City planners in south China have laid out an ambitious plan to merge together the nine cities that lie around the Pearl River Delta.

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Alternative Transportation, bicycle, Great New Product, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

PiCycle – An Electric Bike That Streams Critical Data to Your Smartphone

January 24, 2011

PiCycle

The PiCycle is a clean, modern, hybrid/electric bike designed by Marcus Hays, the founder of PiMobility. It’s fast, quiet, dependable and can give you enough torque to keep up with motor vehicles in the city. It’s also equipped with PiFi, an embedded wireless technology that streams critical data to the PiCycle owner’s smart phone or iPod Touch via a native application. PiMobility can monitor battery health, battery charging frequency, battery cycle life, motor and controller experience and more. This also means that PiMobility can provide theft recovery services and more importantly, if something does go wrong with the PiCycle, take preventative measures such as shipping the replacement parts long before anyone has to trudge down to their local repair facility seeking services.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Health & Fitness, Latest Trend, Report, Science & Technology News

Cost Of Heart Disease in U.S. Will Triple by 2030

January 24, 2011

Patient in ICU after suffering second heart attack.

The costs of heart disease in the United States will triple between now and 2030, to more than $800 billion a year, a report commissioned by the American Heart Association predicted on Monday.

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Analysis, Economy, Globalism, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

China’s Economy Overtook the U.S. in 2010 to Become Number One

January 24, 2011

China’s economy overtook the U.S. in 2010.

Some time in 2010, the Chinese economy overtook that of the United States. In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms – that is, adjusting for the different costs of living in the two countries – the size of China’s economy was $14.8 trillion in 2010, compared to the US economy’s $14.6 trillion.

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Big Problems, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Fashion, Health & Fitness, Human Behavior

BottomsUp: Padded Underwear For Men

January 24, 2011

Canadian company BottomsUp offers a line of padded underwear for men that gives the illusion of a rounder, fuller butt.

Men, does “flat butt” syndrom bum you out? Well, there’s an uplifting news: now you can get off your duff and don a pair of padded underpants to give your booty more bounce.

The padded underpants in the spotlight are manufactured by a Canadian company appropriately dubbed BottomsUp, which operates under the motto: “Building a Better Bottom.”

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Breakthrough Thinking, Games, Great New Product, Human Behavior, New Inventions, New Viewpoints

Scrabble + Rubik’s Cube = The Scruble Cube

January 24, 2011

Now THAT’S a puzzle!

When kids say fun and games, most parents are not happy. They are not happy that the learning progression is not in process during such activities, and their stand seems much justified. But that is, except in the case of two indoor games. One is the famous board game- Scrabble. Scrabble has been highly popular for decades now. Its bundles of fun for the children and the parents are happy as it helps build a voracious vocabulary. Yet another is the Rubik’s Cube. In the 1980s, people who could solve the Rubik’s Cube were considered geniuses and the faster they could do it, the better. Now what if these two were clubbed together ?

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Animals, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Food, Health & Fitness, Human Behavior, Latest Trend

Giant Leafcutter Ants: Toasted and Ready to Eat

January 24, 2011

Yummy?

What is the weirdest thing that ever went into your mouth? If you have no bizarre reply to this question, you may want to try these Giant Toasted Leafcutter Ants or in scientific terms, the Atta Laevigata…

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Business, Food, government, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

New Traceability Rule Represents Major Adjustment for U.S. Food Industry

January 24, 2011

Where does your food come from?

In response to a new federal food safety law and growing consumer interest, vast amounts of new data are being generated about the complicated path that food takes from field to supermarket shelf.

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Analysis, Education, New Viewpoints

Take Better Photographs by Studying an Egg

January 24, 2011

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM7CcUrUD2g&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Understanding the way light falls on a subject and what it means for the final product is critical to taking good photos. This clever teaching technique uses an egg to help you hone your eye for good lighting.

Photographer Joe Edelman thinks you need to get back to basics to learn good photography lighting. How back to basics? Prepare to hit up your fridge for an egg and grab a flashlight.

Check out the video above to see how you can studying lighting using nothing more than an egg (or other small egg-like object) and a simple light source. For more photography tips check out the full article about beauty photography and technique at the link after the jump…

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Architecture, Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, New Viewpoints

Blobitecture – The Rise of Organic Architecture

January 24, 2011

Blobitecture example in Selfridges, Birmingham UK

Yet what is blobitecture? It is a term for an architectural school in which organic shapes are the aim, bulging, cellular, amoeba-like buildings its expression. Although the term did not appear in print until 2002, blob architecture had been used as an expression in architectural circles since the middle of the previous decade. Notably it was the New York Times which first brought it to greater attention, as part of William Safire’s On Language column. (Pics)

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