Archive Page 2
Now a new device has been developed which can direct and focus streams of cells in a liquid, and even separate them out according to size. “We can take a stream of cells and focus, defocus and reflect it as if it’s a light beam,” says Robert Austin of Princeton University, who developed the device with colleagues from Princeton and Boston University, Massachusetts.
(via KurzweilAI
An audacious proposal to build a 5,000-mile electricity supergrid, stretching from Siberia to Morocco and Egypt to Iceland, would slash Europe’s CO2 emissions by a quarter, scientists say.The scheme would make the use of renewable energy, particularly wind power, so reliable and cheap that it would replace fossil fuels on an unprecedented scale, serving 1.1 billion people in 50 countries. Europe’s 1.25bn tons of annual CO2 output from electricity generation would be wiped out. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines, up to 100 times as long as the alternating current (AC) cables carried by the National Grid’s pylons, would form the system’s main arteries. While AC lines are the international standard, they leak energy. HVDC lines are three times as efficient, making them cost effective over distances above 50 miles.
(via WorldChanging)
See also: Wind Energy Could Produce 20 Percent of U.S. Electricity By 2030
Today only small numbers of Ainu remain, and they constitute one of Japan’s most marginalised groups.On Friday they will have something to celebrate.
Japan’s parliament is to adopt a resolution that, for the first time, formally recognises the Ainu as “an indigenous people with a distinct language, religion and culture”.
In a nation that has always preferred to perceive itself as ethnically homogenous, it is a highly significant move.
“This resolution has great meaning,” says Tadashi Kato, director of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido. “It has taken the Japanese government 140 years to recognise us as an indigenous people.”
(via Lupa)
First, what is RepRap?
A universal constructor is a machine that can replicate itself and - in addition - make other industrial products. Such a machine would have a number of interesting characteristics, such as being subject to Darwinian evolution, increasing in number exponentially, and being extremely low-cost.
A rapid prototyper is a machine that can manufacture objects directly (usually, though not necessarily, in plastic) under the control of a computer.
The RepRap project is working towards creating a universal constructor by using rapid prototyping, and then giving the results away free under the GNU General Public Licence to allow other investigators to work on the same idea. We are trying to prove the hypothesis: Rapid prototyping and direct writing technologies are sufficiently versatile to allow them to be used to make a von Neumann Universal Constructor.
The big news is: RepRap has replicated for the first time.
First replication announcement
WorldChanging article on fabbing
When contemplating the world’s environmental problems, it’s sometimes hard not to feel like humanity is screwed. But then you attend an event like Future Cities, a panel of sustainability experts held last night at the World Science Festival, and it seems like we might just figure out how to thrive on this planet after all.
Full Story: Wired Science Blog
The number of felons walking back through the state’s prison doors for another stay dropped to an alltime low since 2004, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said recently. Blagojevich said the repeat cycle of crimes by formers offenders was halted by statewide reforms that translated into an estimated $64 million in prison costs savings for taxpayers.Convictions among parolees went from 4,567 in 2004 to 3,742 in 2007–an 18 percent reduction, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. “The reality is that offenders who are sent to prison are most likely going to be back in our communities sooner or later. The vicious cycle of recidivism weakens communities, destroys families and puts a huge burden on the state’s finances,” the governor said.
(Thanks Jennifer!)
Week in review
Fewer Conflicts Involve Child Soldiers, Report Finds
Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists’ children
Pacific humpback whale population rises
Urban agriculture taking off
For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New Yorkers like the Wilkses are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block.
This urban agriculture movement has grown even more vigorously elsewhere. Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.
The number of conflicts in which children are used as soldiers has dropped sharply in the past four years, to 17 from 27, according to a research report released this week by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.The report, the first since 2004, in some ways reflects the now nearly universal consensus that children should not be used in combat. The concept has seeped into the consciousness of even the most hardened militias as international justice has singled out notorious figures who have abused children, like Charles Taylor of Liberia and Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.
(thanks John!)
The state of Texas should not have removed children from a polygamist sect’s ranch because it didn’t prove that they were in “imminent danger,” an appeals court ruled Thursday.In the ruling, a three-judge panel did not order that the children be returned to their families on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
Instead, the judges gave the lower court 10 days to vacate an order placing the children in state custody.
“The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger,” the judges said.
