Why sun-grown cannabis will make the marijuana industry greener and richer

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The future of cannabis cultivation isn’t in massive grow facilities with high-tech lights and complex temperature control systems. It’s out in the open air, according to proponents of the sun-grown movement.

The sun-grown movement is being led by companies like Flow Kana, who consider outdoor cultivation essential to the sustainability of the cannabis industry. Embracing the small, independent farm system infrastructure that exists in California, the company works with craft farmers to help scale their product and extend the range of distribution.

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There’s new evidence giving cash to the poor is more transformative than we thought

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When it comes to poverty alleviation in the developing world, cash transfer schemes have been at the center of a difficult debate. For years, donor agencies and governments were urged to integrate the poor into their economies by providing them with a basic amount of cash. Yet those programs have been dogged by controversies, with critics arguing they encourage dependency, negatively impact labor, and pit community members against each other.

Using evidence collected in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa over a decade, a new paper dispels some of these common misperceptions about unconditional cash transfers in Africa. The research was conducted through the Transfer Project, a multi-partner initiative that includes the UN agencies for children and food, national governments besides national and international researchers. Unconditional cash transfers, or UCT, are different from universal basic income in that they are time-bound and are given to poor households who make spending decisions consistent with their needs.

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Novameat’s 3D-printed ‘steak’ looks gross, but could it save the planet?

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Does your mouth water at the prospect of a nice juicy steak? How about a nice juicy 3D-printed steak, made using a paste composed of vegetable-based materials like rice, peas, and seaweed? That’s what a new Spanish startup, Novameat, is working hard to bring to market.

“I developed the first 3D-printed plant-based beefsteak while I was working as a postdoc researcher in tissue engineering, and assistant professor at the UPC university in Barcelona,” founder Giuseppe Scionti told Digital Trends. “I was lucky … because this city is a great hub for both 3D printing companies and world-renowned restaurants.”

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Virgin Trains USA to start running through Florida

Brightline’s Miami-West Palm Beach link will be rebranded in 2019

Sir Richard Branson is extending his rail empire across the Atlantic. Virgin Group has announced that it will take a minority share in Brightline, a start-up train operator in Florida.

Brightline launched express services earlier this year from Miami via Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, with an extension to Orlando under construction and plans for a line to Tampa. It also intends to build a link between Las Vegas and southern California.

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The world’s largest floating solar plant is finally online

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This massive power plant is taking energy to a whole new level.

The world’s largest floating solar power plant is now online in China. Built by Sungrow, a supplier of PV inverter systems, the 40MW plant is now afloat in water four to 10 meters deep, and successfully linked to Huainan, China’s grid. The placement was chosen in large part because the area was previously the location of coal mining operations; and, as a result, the water there is now mineralized and mostly useless. The lake itself was only formed after years of mining operations, the surrounding land collapsed and created a cavity that was filled with rainwater.

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Chinese facial recognition system confuses bus ad with a jaywalker

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It illustrates one of the many issues with China’s surveillance culture.

There are many criticisms you can level at China’s growing reliance on facial recognition, including its absolute faith in technology: what happens if there’s a false positive? Unfortunately, we just saw an example of that in action. Police in the city of Ningbo have taken corrective action after the facial recognition system at a crosswalk mistakenly accused famous businesswoman Dong Mingzhu of jaywalking because she appeared in an ad on a passing bus. As with any other detected offender in the area, it posted both Dong’s name (incorrectly displaying her surname as “Ju”) and government ID.

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Singapore wants to add face-recognition surveillance to 110,000 lamp posts

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Singapore may be turning its island state into a surveillance state.

The nation plans to install cameras equipped with facial recognition technology to all 110,000 lamp posts around the city, making it easier than ever for the country to keep tabs on its citizens and visitors, Reuters reports. The so-called “Lamppost-as-a-Platform” pilot project will allow the government to “perform crowd analytics” and support anti-terror operations through “various kinds of sensors on the lampposts, including cameras that can support backend facial recognition capabilities,” according to a government spokesperson who spoke to Reuters.

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Marijuana is getting cheaper. For some states, that’s a problem.

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Bags of marijuana sit on shelves in a building at the Los Suenos Farms facility in Avondale, Colorado, on Feb. 25, 2016. (Matthew Staver / Bloomberg)

Wholesale marijuana prices in Colorado have fallen by a third in just the past 12 months, continuing a price crash that began soon after the drug was legalized. Although this implies that some marijuana entrepreneurs are going to go bankrupt, the bigger financial hit will be felt by states that tax marijuana based on its price.

Marijuana prices are collapsing in Colorado and in other legalization states (e.g., Oregon, where the price can go as low as $100 per pound) because a legal business is dramatically cheaper to operate than an illegal one. Because states generally set their marijuana tax rates as a percentage of price, their revenue per sale sinks in direct proportion to the fall in marijuana prices. Ironically, in a bid for more tax revenue per marijuana sale, Colorado increased its marijuana tax rate from 10 percent to 15 percent last year, only to see the anticipated added tax revenue wiped out by falling prices in a year’s time.

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Naked 3d body scanner is like a wellness center at home

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The full-body scanner helps you keep tabs on your body’s fat composition without visiting a wellness coach.

In recent years, health and wellness has become increasingly connected to technology, with a bevy of health-forward products entering the market. These devices include everything from smart watches that do double duty as fitness and heart rate monitors to a smart mirror that transforms your wall into a home gym instructor to entire smart home automation systems. So it may come as no surprise that the home is increasingly the beneficiary of technology that formerly was only available at doctor’s offices, high-end spas, and wellness retreats.

Now, the next step in the convergence of technology and wellness is the Naked 3D Fitness Tracker, the world’s first 3D body scanner designed for the home. Gone are the days when health-conscious individuals had to settle for counting calories, pounds, and steps. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth-enabled mirror, designed by Naked Labs, allows users to receive up-to-the-minute information about their bodies—including body fat and fat mass—that enable them to make better choices about their health. Moreover, the data isn’t a single number; because it’s scanning your entire body, the system lets you see exactly how your body’s mass is distributed.

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