New York Times science reporter Andrew Revkin has recently begun blogging on the subject of Earth’s burgeoning population. Revkin’s new blog - called Dot Earth - carries the great tagline nine billion people, one planet. It’s focused on the fact that, by the middle of this century, Earth’s population is expected to grow […]
Archive for the 'Human World' Category
The population cluster bomb
Published October 31st, 2007 in Earth, Human World and Science. 9 CommentsWill India’s population rise to 2 billion?
Published October 21st, 2007 in Bizarre, Earth and Human World. 16 CommentsThe Population Reference Bureau (PRB) of Washington D.C. released a new projection series in September - and hosted an online discussion on October 17 - about the growing population of India. The online discussion was called Will India’s Population Reach 2 Billion?
Realize that 2 billion is a mind-bogglingly large number. The global population is […]
Ethanol could harm water quality, says NRC
Published October 13th, 2007 in Plants and Human World. 7 CommentsA report released October 10, 2007 from the National Research Council says that an increase in ethanol production from corn could “significantly impact water quality and availability” if new practices and techniques are not employed.
“The harm to water quality could be considerable, and water supply problems at the regional and local levels could also arise,” […]
Bird flu update: 3 September 2007
Published September 3rd, 2007 in Earth, Animals and Human World. 7 CommentsSciDevNet has a magnificent roundup of articles on bird flu for the week of August 27-September 3. They run a similar roundup frequently (not sure if it’s every week), providing a ringside seat to those interested in watching the progress of bird flu.
Bird flu - also known as avian flu, or the H5N1 virus […]
Why do some people resist science?
Published August 7th, 2007 in Body & Mind, Human World and Science. 77 CommentsThe photo at left is from the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum - which opened in 2007 in northern Kentucky. Its exhibits depict, for example, dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. The museum’s motto is “prepare to believe.”
Meanwhile, at a May 3, 2007 political debate, three of the 10 Republican candidates for the 2008 Presidential […]
As a stargazer and lover of night skies, an innovative idea that has my vote is that of lunar-resonant streetlights. This idea - from Civil Twilight, a design collective based in San Francisco’s Mission District - calls for streetlights that could respond to the waxing and waning of the moon throughout the month. […]
LifeStraws, cells phones and small technologies in the 21st century
Published June 17th, 2007 in Innovation and Human World. 6 CommentsPeople raised in the 1950s and ’60s tend to think of technology in monumental terms: buildings soaring ever-higher, superhighways, giant Saturn V rockets lifting off toward the moon, horrific yet fascinating nuclear explosions.
But today’s technological innovators are thinking small.
One example is in June 18 Newsweek: a story called Water for the World. It’s about […]
The wombat speaks, and he’s smarter than you
Published June 11th, 2007 in Videos, Earth and Human World. 5 CommentsThe wombat speaks, and he’s smarter than you, so listen up! In less than a minute, this rapid-fire animation tells you everything you need to know about how to get along on earth for the next million years.
Or so says Jason Ables, the creator of a website called bumpercars.com.
He’s a San Francisco Bay Area based […]
A call for more “joined-up” thinking on science at G8
Published June 5th, 2007 in Human World and Science. 11 CommentsDavid Dickson - who is the director of SciDev.Net - has written a post about the need for more “joined-up” thinking on science at next week’s G8 summit in Germany.
The 33rd G8 summit will take place June 6-8 at the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm, Germany. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United […]
Altruism may be hard-wired into our brains
Published June 2nd, 2007 in Body & Mind and Human World. 16 CommentsA recent study shed light on why it feels good to give.
The study - led by Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) - was designed to discover how and where altruism originates in the brain. It used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to visualize […]