| So the City Likes to Ban Things. How About These? Smoking is low on some parkgoers’ lists. But pigeons, drums, cellphones, foul language and other nuisances entered their minds. nytimes.com |
World Changing Ideas: 20 Ways to Build a Cleaner, Healthier, Smarter World (preview) What would happen if solar panels were free? What if it were possible to know everything about the world--not the Internet, but the living, physical world--in real time? What if doctors could forecast a disease years before it strikes? This is the promise of the World Changing Idea: a vision so simple yet so ambitious that its full impact is impossible to predict. Scientific American’s editorial and advisory boards have chosen projects in five general categories--Energy, Transportation, Environment, Electronics and Robotics, and Health and Medicine--that highlight the power of science and technology to improve the world. Some are in use now; others are emerging from the lab. But all of them show that innovation is the most promising elixir for what ails us. --The Editors The No-Money-Down Solar Plan [More] rss.sciam.com |
Sea Caves Reveal Rapid Rise in Ancient Ocean Levels Mallorca, Spain's largest island, is not just a desirable place for a Mediterranean vacation; it's also a treasure trove of the geologic record. That's because of coastal caves that precisely record in stone formations sea level thanks to the island's long-term geologic stability; it has been relatively unaffected by tectonics or glacial uplift or subsidence. Plus, these caves have a series of formations, known as speleothems , like stalagmites, scattered at various levels, both above and below present-day sea level, thereby offering a record in the carbonate crust left on them by the lapping waters of sea level over time. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Gulf Oil Spill Highlights the Increasing Dependence on Deep-Sea Robots The work involved in shutting down the nearly 200,000 gallons of crude oil spewing up into the Gulf of Mexico daily for the past two weeks has demanded a tremendous amount of coordination involving, among others, BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and local fishermen. But given the depth of the damaged Macondo well--1,524 meters below the Gulf's surface--the use of undersea robots is the only way to cut off the flow of escaping oil. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Playing With Fire A rebuke to a world of blunt-edged scissors, molded-plastic playground equipment and perpetual parental anxiety. nytimes.com |