Archive for the ‘Science & Tech’ Category
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 [...]
“Addicted” to gadgets?
There’s been much written lately about the impact of electronic gadgets on our everyday lives. First, there have been reviews and articles about Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Second, the New York Times ran a long feature on Monday called “Hooked on gadgets, and paying a mental price”. I [...]
On the criticisms of Obama and BP over the Gulf oil spill
In a press conference today, President Obama defended the federal government’s handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including his own response. He also announced a suspension of drilling in the Gulf, Virginia and the Arctic. Clearly, the oil spill in the Gulf has proved to be much more difficult to stop [...]
Gulf oil spill: don’t run away from risks
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the accident on the BP-owned drilling rig known as Deepwater Horizon occurred almost three weeks ago, and it has incurred a terrible toll. Eleven died, hundreds have had their economic livelihoods disrupted, and there is significant damage to the environment. BP, assisted by the US government [...]
America’s first offshore windfarm gains approval
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar yesterday gave the go-ahead to the country’s first offshore windfarm, off the coast of Cape Cod. The expansion of alternative energy sources, such as wind power, should be welcomed. The Cape Wind farm, as the Nantucket Sound project is known, has been under review and debated for the past nine years. Opposition has had [...]
Google’s 20% time for innovation
In this video, Anjali Joshi, Director of Product Management at Google, discusses the Company’s policy of allowing employees to devote 20 percent of their workweek to pursuing innovative ideas. As Joshi mentions, it is not a strict policy of time-keeping, but more of an informal policy that signals to employees that it is ok to [...]
Replace Earth Day with Human Achievement Day
I’m against Earth Day, because it elevates nature over humanity; I think it should be the other way around. Some writers who are skeptical of environmentalism have suggested alternative insights into Earth Day. John Tierney in the New York Times offers seven lessons from the 40 years of experience since the first Earth Day: It’s the climate, [...]
Anti-modernists want volcano air delays to continue
It was bad enough that an Icelandic volcano eruption sent ash into the sky to interrupt European flight travel. The situation was made worse by the risk-averse European aviation authorities who were reluctant to lift the ban, on the basis of “precautionary” or worst-case thinking, as Frank Furedi noted. And now, to add insult to injury, [...]
In defence of science and progress
In this TED talk video clip, Michael Specter, a New Yorker journalist who writes about health and science, passionately argues against those who adopt anti-scientific stances: those who, despite the evidence, reject vaccines, consider GM foods “Frankenfoods”, believe there is a link between MMR and autism, embrace alternative health, and so on. Specter argues that this is a fear-driven response [...]
Obama’s NASA plan: an “elaborate wake” for human spaceflight
Last month, President Obama announced proposals for restructuring the NASA space program, and a key plank of his new approach was to rely much more on commercial companies. As I noted earlier, this sounds more like the outsourcing of leadership. And as an article in today’s New York Times today finds, it turns out the private aerospace industry that is supposed [...]