Archive for the ‘Science & Tech’ Category
China’s high-speed rail expansion leaves US behind
There was an interesting item on National Public Radio this morning about the amazing expansion of China’s high-speed rail network.
In two years’ time, China will have about 8,000 miles of high-speed rail tracks - which means it will have more than all of the rest of the world combined. NPR notes:
Soon, almost all the major cities in Eastern [...]
Katz: Why we need city-based manufacturing investment
(Video) Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution puts the case for manufacturing and innovation, based around strong metropolitan centers.
Trendy vs. real innovation
In the Financial Times on the weekend, Gillian Tett wrote about her attendance at a meeting called “Reboot America!”, organized by Daily Beast editor Tina Brown. The event was full of big names, among them economist Joseph Stiglitz, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and regulator Sheila Bair. Tett reports that a major theme was “reverence for the idea of innovation”.
She [...]
Water on the moon – yes!
In November of last year, NASA announced an amazing discovery – water on the moon. Last week, six scientists announced in Science magazine that in fact there is much more water than originally thought - about twice the concentrations that are found in the Sahara.
The Wall Street Journal outlines the important implications:
The large quantity boosts the case for a manned lunar base [...]
Environmentalism’s true misanthropic colors
Disgusting video from British green group 10:10.
Well, at least they make underlying misanthropy of environmentalism more transparent. The campaigners were forced to apologize, and are trying to remove the video from the internet.
Where is the Glenn Curtiss of today?
On the weekend I toured the Glenn Curtiss museum in Hammondsport, New York. Who was Glenn Curtiss, you ask? Well, I didn’t know either. But now I feel I should have known.
Glenn Curtis was of the country’s aviation pioneers and a founder of the aircraft industry. Our history of flight is so focused on the [...]
Thank you for exterminating the Prospect Park geese!
The New York Times reports that wildlife biologists working with the federal Agriculture Department last week gassed to death nearly 400 geese in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.
The reason for the extermination was to cull the large geese population which threaten airplane flights over the city. Prospect Park is near to both JFK and La Guardia airports. [...]
Razing Detroit: nothing but flowers?
There are those who claim that we’ve experienced too much economic growth. There are those who complain about the impact of industrialization. And there are those who say there are too many people. But, if you want to see what a world of negative growth, deindustrialization and depopulation looks like, check out what is going on in [...]
Obama: the Gulf between words and deeds
Instead of all the dithering, lofty rhetoric and tough talk, the US president should be honest about the need to keep on drilling.
Read my spiked article in full here.
Debating nuclear power
In this TED video, Stewart Brand and Mark Jacobson debate the need for nuclear power.
The over-reaction to the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 led to a near-halt of the construction of nuclear power plants in the US. Without alternative energy sources like nuclear, the US was more reliant on oil, which eventually led to [...]