Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap (2020)
14 May, 2020
This is part 1 of a series where I’ll look at the future costs of clean energy and mobility technologies. This is a refresh of and expansion of my 2015 series on the future of solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles. Tune back in for…
R e a d M o r e
The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be the Most Disruptive Yet
2 Apr, 2019
Building new solar, wind, and storage is about to be cheaper than operating existing coal and gas power plants. That will change everything. When the history of how humanity turned the corner on climate change is written, we’ll look back and see that clean energy –…
R e a d M o r eClean Technology is Disrupting Fossil Fuels Faster Than Ever
18 Sep, 2018
The best news in the global fight against climate change is the pace at which clean technology is advancing. That technology is on a path to disrupt fossil fuel electricity, oil, the automotive industry as solar and wind power, batteries, self-driving cars used by the…
R e a d M o r eYes, Blockchain Can Help Us Solve Climate Change – Why I Joined Nori
10 Sep, 2018
Over the last two years, as both an angel investor and a public speaker on energy and climate, I’ve looked at least a few dozen startups and proposals on how to use blockchain or new crypto coins in energy or climate. I’ve passed on all of…
R e a d M o r eSolar doesn’t need a “breakthrough”. It’s a breakthrough on it’s own.
4 Jan, 2018
Yesterday, Tyler Cowan, who I’m a major fan of, wrote a piece for Bloomberg View arguing that solar needs more R&D for a true green energy breakthrough. This logic mirrors that of Bill Gates, the Breakthrough Institute, and others who, over the years, have argued…
R e a d M o r eClean Energy Disruption – Video from South Africa
13 Nov, 2017
I spoke at the SingularityU South Africa Summit earlier this year, about the way that solar, wind, storage, and electric vehicles are disrupting the $6 Trillion a year energy industry worldwide, and the opportunities for South Africa and the whole of the African continent. It was…
R e a d M o r eDon’t Let the Terrorists Win – White Supremacy Edition
14 Aug, 2017
“Don’t let the terrorists win.” We said that a lot after 9/11, and have for the last 16 years. As air travel became absurdly cumbersome, as civil liberties were eroded, as people were arbitrarily blacklisted or detained without room for appeal – we said the…
R e a d M o r eWhy Trump Won’t be Impeached Any Time Soon
16 Jun, 2017
I see any impeachment of Trump before 2019 as extremely unlikely. Here’s why. First, for context, I believe the GOP as a party would be better off with a swift impeachment and resignation than a protracted scandal. Interestingly, even as partisan debate dominates headlines, analysts…
R e a d M o r eHealthcare Improvements Republicans Could Make
25 Mar, 2017
Here are some things the GOP could productively do on healthcare, that have little or nothing to do with repealing the ACA: 1. Price transparency and consistency. Require all providers (hospitals, doctors, etc..) to clearly publish their prices by service and by diagnosis in advance,…
R e a d M o r eOur Future Cyborg Brains: My Keynote at XTech 2017
22 Mar, 2017
I had a fantastic time keynoting the XTech Experiential Technology conference last week. Thanks very much Zack Lynch and Adam Gazzaley for the invitation. I talked about the science that inspired my Nexus novels, and what it might mean for society. You can check out…
R e a d M o r eTo Fight Climate Change in the Trump Era, Focus on the States
20 Nov, 2016
Summary: Focus on the states. Advocate for clean energy. (This is a follow-up to my post on pushing for progress at the state level.) Short Version If you read nothing else in this post, follow these three steps: Note: Say “Clean Energy” instead of “Climate Change“…
R e a d M o r eTrump Isn’t Hitler. The US isn’t 1930s Germany
11 Nov, 2016
Trump isn’t Hitler. And, more importantly, the US is a far different place than Germany in the 1930s. We’re a 240-year-old nation, not a 14-year old republic reeling from WWI. Our institutions are more solid and stable. They can’t be swept away in the way…
R e a d M o r eWe Can Push For Progress at the State Level
10 Nov, 2016
Donald Trump won. The GOP has the Senate and the House. They’re likely to retain the Senate in 2018. Trump will get to appoint at least one, and probably multiple Supreme Court justices, with a (presumably) friendly Senate. Yet we live in a republic. And…
R e a d M o r eNew Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected
21 Sep, 2016
The price of solar power – in the very sunniest locations in particular – is plunging faster than I expected. I’ve been talking for years now about the exponential decline of solar power prices. I’ve often been called a wide-eyed optimist. Here’s what those projections…
R e a d M o r eWind Power Blowing More Reliably Than Ever
17 Aug, 2016
New wind turbines produce power more steadily – with less up and down intermittency – than ever before. As I wrote in August of last year, NREL believes that next-generation wind turbines can reach a capacity factor of 60%. That is up from a capacity…
R e a d M o r eHow Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?
12 Apr, 2016
This is part 5 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 2 looked at the declining cost and rising reliability of wind power. Part 3 looked at…
R e a d M o r eAPEX Wins the Philip K. Dick Award!
26 Mar, 2016
Tonight, in Seattle, I was in the crowd when my novel Apex won the Philip. K Dick Award. .@Ramez Naam reading from Apex at the Philip K. Dick Awards ceremony. pic.twitter.com/eY6ilrDsMl — CC Finlay (@ccfinlay) March 26, 2016 Apex is the third and final book of…
R e a d M o r eWhy I’m Starting the First AngelList Cleantech Syndicate
22 Feb, 2016
I’ve been writing and speaking about the incredible pace of solar, wind, and storage for years. I’ve been quietly investing in startups in that space as well. Today I’m taking a new step: I’m launching an AngelList Syndicate specifically focused on investing in clean energy…
R e a d M o r eMy Carbon Price Presentation to the Washington Legislature
21 Feb, 2016
On Friday Feb 19th I testified before the Washington House Environment Committee on the topic of carbon pricing, both from the point of view of a member of the executive committee of CarbonWA (I-732) and as a concerned citizen. You can watch the full testimony (including…
R e a d M o r eRenewables are Disruptive to Fossil Fuels
18 Feb, 2016
A shorter version of this post first appeared at the Marginal Revolution blog. Cleantech, and specifically renewables like solar and wind (and their fellow traveler energy storage) are disruptive to fossil fuels. Over the last 5 years, the price of new wind power in the US…
R e a d M o r eWin Copies of All Six Philip K. Dick Award Finalists
9 Feb, 2016
I’m up for the Philip K. Dick Award, which pleases me to no end, since Dick wrote some excellent, mind-bending, ground-breaking sci-fi about the nature of memory, identity, and much else. It also pleases me to no end that, on most sci-fi award slates, the authors…
R e a d M o r eHow Far Can Renewables Go? Pretty Darn Far
31 Jan, 2016
This is part 4 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 2 looked at the declining cost and rising reliability of wind power. Part 3 looked at…
R e a d M o r eHow to Think About the Paris Climate Deal
13 Dec, 2015
Over the weekend, the world agreed to a new climate deal. Brad Plumer explains it well. Reactions range from celebration to dismissal of it as a fraud. It’s rare to see James Hansen (a tireless campaigner for addressing climate change) and Bjorn Lomborg (one of the…
R e a d M o r eDid the One Child Policy Matter? Probably Not.
30 Oct, 2015
China’s one-child policy is ending. The policy, started in 1979-80, was aimed at slowing population growth, which was much more of a concern in the late 70s than it is now. China’s one-child policy was also horribly coercive. Men bursting in and forcing miscarriages. Forced abortions…
R e a d M o r eHow Cheap Can Energy Storage Get? Pretty Darn Cheap
14 Oct, 2015
This is part 3 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 2 looked at the declining cost and rising reliability of wind power. Part 3, below, talks…
R e a d M o r eHunger is at an all-time low. We can drive it even lower.
9 Sep, 2015
A few observations on hunger, extracted from the latest FAO report on The State of Food Insecurity, 2015 1. The percent of humanity that’s hungry is at an all-time low. According to FAO, 11.3% of the world is undernourished. Most of that hunger is concentrated in…
R e a d M o r eHow Steady Can Wind Power Blow?
30 Aug, 2015
This is part 2 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 3 looks at how cheap energy storage can get (pretty darn cheap). Part 4 looks at…
R e a d M o r eHow Cheap Can Solar Get? Very Cheap Indeed
10 Aug, 2015
This is part 1 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 2 looks at the dropping price and increasing reliability of wind power. Part 3 looks at how cheap energy storage can get (pretty darn cheap). Part 4 looks…
R e a d M o r eNew Solar Capacity Factor in the US is Now ~30%
9 Aug, 2015
The capacity factor of new utility scale solar deployed in the US in 2010 was 24%. By 2012 it had risen to roughly 30%. The rising capacity factor of new solar projects is part of why the cost of electricity from new solar is dropping…
R e a d M o r eCitizens Led on Gay Marriage and Pot. We Can on Climate Change Too.
15 Jul, 2015
A decade ago, it was nearly inconceivable that in 2015, gay marriage would be legal across the US and marijuana fully legal in four states plus the District of Columbia. Yet it happened. It happened because citizens who wanted change led, from the bottom up,…
R e a d M o r eSolar Cost Less than Half of What EIA Projected
30 Jun, 2015
Skeptics of renewables sometimes cite data from EIA (The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration) or from the IEA (the OECD’s International Energy Agency). The IEA has a long history of underestimating solar and wind that I think is starting to be understood. The US…
R e a d M o r eSolar: The First 1% Was the Hardest
18 Jun, 2015
Solar power now provides roughly 1% of the world’s electricity. It took 40 years to reach that milestone. But, as they say in tech, the first 1% is the hardest. You can see why in this chart below. As solar prices drop, installation rate rises.…
R e a d M o r eWhat’s the EROI of Solar?
4 Jun, 2015
There’s a graph making rounds lately showing the comparative EROIs of different electricity production methods. (EROI is Energy Return On Investment – how much energy we get back if we spend 1 unit of energy. For solar this means – how much more energy does…
R e a d M o r eThe Ultimate Interface: Your Brain
15 May, 2015
A shorter version of this article first appeared at TechCrunch. The final frontier of digital technology is integrating into your own brain. DARPA wants to go there. Scientists want to go there. Entrepreneurs want to go there. And increasingly, it looks like it’s possible. You’ve…
R e a d M o r eThe Singularity is Further Than it Appears
12 May, 2015
This is an updated cross-post of a post I originally made at Charlie Stross’s blog. Are we headed for a Singularity? Is AI a Threat? tl;dr: Not anytime soon. Lack of incentives means very little strong AI work is happening. And even if we did…
R e a d M o r eTesla Battery Economics: On the Path to Disruption
30 Apr, 2015
Update: The Tesla battery is better than I thought for homes. And at utility scale, it’s deeply disruptive. Elon Musk announced Tesla’s home / business battery today. tl;dr: It’ll get enthusiastic early adopters to buy. The economics are almost there to make it cost effective for a wide market.…
R e a d M o r eWhy I’m Wearing an Eye Patch
29 Apr, 2015
Choose from among the following: A) I like costumes. B) I really wanted to look like Samuel L Jackson. C) It’s an interesting (and humbling) learning experience, walking around with one eye. D) The left half of my face is paralyzed. If you chose E,…
R e a d M o r eChina Isn’t the Reason Solar is Cheap. Innovation Is.
28 Apr, 2015
“The only reason solar is so cheap is because China is dumping cells.” I hear this a lot. So let me correct it. Here is the price, as of February 2015, of solar modules, per watt sold in Europe. SE Asia (Malaysia, mostly) is cheapest.…
R e a d M o r eSolar + Wind, More Than the Sum of Their Parts
28 Apr, 2015
David Roberts has an amazing first post in his new job at Vox, on why a solar future is inevitable. Clearly I’m bullish on solar. My own reasons are that: 1. Solar is plunging in price far faster than any other energy source. 2. Solar…
R e a d M o r eThe Prime Minister of Singapore is a Coder
26 Apr, 2015
Amazing. I know nothing of his politics or skills as a leader. But this surprised me. Can we import this guy? Elect more engineers, scientists, and developers to office in the United States? Full transcript of this speech here. Hat tip: Jon Evans, Alec Muffett
R e a d M o r eWhy Energy Storage is About to Get Big – and Cheap
14 Apr, 2015
tl;dr: Storage of electricity in large quantities is reaching an inflection point, poised to give a big boost to renewables, to disrupt business models across the electrical industry, and to tap into a market that will eventually top many of tens of billions of dollars…
R e a d M o r eHow Much Land Would it Take to Power the US via Solar?
8 Apr, 2015
I’ve seen some pieces in the media lately questioning this, so allow me to point to some facts based on real-world data. tl;dr: We’ll probably never power the world entirely on solar, but if we did, it would take a rather small fraction of the…
R e a d M o r eA Simple Suggestion for the Hugo Awards
6 Apr, 2015
If you haven’t followed the Hugo Awards, some context. A slate of nominees backed by a voting block is dominating this year’s awards, so much so that the slate has every single nomination in some categories – like Best Short Story, Best Novella, and Best…
R e a d M o r e2014 Was a Good Year: Better Than You Remember
21 Dec, 2014
Eric Garner. Michael Brown. The Sony hack and surrender to fear. 2014 seems to be ending on a crappy note. My twitter feed is full of people expressing good riddance to the year. 2014 was better than that. I want to take a moment to…
R e a d M o r eThe Patents Argument Against GMOs Just Ended With the First Off-Patent GMO
12 Dec, 2014
I argued in my 2013 book, The Infinite Resource, that the “seeds shouldn’t be patented” argument against GMOs and specifically against Monsanto was invalid for a very specific reason: Patents end. As I wrote then, the patents for Monsanto’s first commercial genetically modified crop, Roundup Ready…
R e a d M o r eToday I Spoke at the Allen Institute for Brain Science
29 Oct, 2014
Today I gave a talk at the Allen Institute for Brain Science – “Neuroscience in the Year 2100: The View from Science Fiction.” Much of that, of course, comes from the research and decade-long interest that led to Nexus. It was an incredible honor for me, as…
R e a d M o r eSolar and Wind Plunging Below Fossil Fuel Prices
5 Oct, 2014
Asset management firm Lazard has a fascinating new analysis of renewable and other energy prices out. There are a huge number of insights in this, from an outside analyst whose primary interest is financial. (Those are, in my mind, the most objective analysts in this…
R e a d M o r eThe Learning Curve for Energy Storage
30 Sep, 2014
Energy storage prices are dropping fast. If you follow me, you’ve seen me write about this before. Energy storage prices have in fact been dropping exponentially for at least 25 years. Here’s a new piece of analysis – a model that uses a 20% learning…
R e a d M o r eThe Renewable Energy Revolution
29 Sep, 2014
Transforming the world’s energy supply will take decades. It is a very tall order. But it’s starting. The price of renewables – and energy storage – continues to plunge, putting them on a path to being cheaper than any other form of energy within the…
R e a d M o r eVideo: Brain Implants to Link and Augment Human Minds (The Science of Nexus)
21 Sep, 2014
Here’s video of my Le Web Paris talk, on Linking Human Minds. This is all about the current science of sending sights, sounds, and sensations in and out of human brains, and the frontiers of augmenting and transferring memory and intelligence. Le Web did a…
R e a d M o r eThe Best Books Threaten the Powerful – My Video Message on Banned Books Week
19 Sep, 2014
My old friend Derek Wolfgram asked me to record a video message for Banned Books Week, on behalf of the California Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee. So here are some thoughts about the global brain, censorship as brain damage, and why the books that are…
R e a d M o r eActually: You ARE the Customer, Not the Product
18 Sep, 2014
Don’t believe the hype. You’re the customer, whether you pay directly or by seeing ads. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “On the internet, if you’re not paying for something, then you’re not the customer. You’re the product.” This meme, and its various…
R e a d M o r eThe Campbell Award – and Why I’m Optimistic About the Future of SF
17 Aug, 2014
Sofia Samatar has won the Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer! Huge congratulations, Sofia! Her victory makes everything about the post below, written before I knew the outcome, even more true: — This has been a challenging year for SF. It’s a year we’ve…
R e a d M o r eNexus is a Finalist for the Endeavour Award!
23 Jul, 2014
I’ve just found out that Nexus is a finalist for the 2014 Endeavour Award, for the best SF or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author in the previous year. Wonderful! The full list of finalists is: King of Swords by Dave Duncan (47North) Meaning of Luff by…
R e a d M o r eNexus and Cory Doctorow’s Homeland Tie for the Prometheus Award
13 Jul, 2014
My novel Nexus and Cory Doctorow’s novel Homeland have tied for the Prometheus Award! The award is given to the best pro-freedom science fiction novel of the year. I love the Prometheus Award because it’s focused on a particular criteria: Science fiction novels that both examine…
R e a d M o r ePolitical Polarization: Seek First to Understand
12 Jun, 2014
America is now more politically polarized than at any point in the last 20 years. This isn’t just Congress – this is the American people. That polarization shows up in beliefs about politics, about everyday life, and even in where conservatives and liberals live. And…
R e a d M o r eCan We Beat the Surveillance State? My Keynote at CFP 2014
10 Jun, 2014
I was honored to be one of the keynote speakers at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2014 Conference this year. My talk gave an overview of the surveillance state we’re building today, and then used lessons from the past to show how incredibly dangerous that…
R e a d M o r eReducing Carbon Emissions Will Be Cheaper Than Expected – It Always Is
2 Jun, 2014
With the announcement of EPA’s proposed cuts to carbon emissions from existing powerplants, there’s already tremendous argument about how much they’ll cost. Some will argue that they’ll destroy the economy. How has that argument worked out in the past? To those claiming new climate regulations…
R e a d M o r eNominated for the Campbell, Clarke, Prometheus, and Kitschie!
23 Apr, 2014
I’m up for some awards, and on those lists with some fantastic people. 1) The Campbell Award On Saturday the finalists for the Hugo Awards and Campbell Award for 2014 were announced. So now I can reveal that I’m a finalist for the Campbell Award…
R e a d M o r eIs the US an Oligarchy? Not So Fast.
17 Apr, 2014
There’s a new study out which, press outlets are telling me, shows that the United States is now an oligarchy, ruled by the rich and powerful, and perhaps that the US has been sliding in this direction for decades. You can see coverage of it…
R e a d M o r eCarbon Prices Drive Clean Energy Innovation
11 Mar, 2014
I want to point out something I see commonly missed. Carbon prices accelerate innovation that brings down the price of green energy. So do renewable energy portfolio standards, green energy subsidies, and a whole swath of other climate policies. They do this by increasing the scale of…
R e a d M o r eWhat’s Limiting the Impact of GMOs on Global Food Security?
26 Feb, 2014
My friend Jon Foley, who I have a great deal of respect for, has a piece up arguing that GMOs have failed to improve global food security because they fall into a trap of reductionist thinking. With due respect to Jon, I see this a…
R e a d M o r ePublishing – We’re All On the Same Side
19 Feb, 2014
There’s been a vigorous and at times antagonistic conversation about publishing and self- vs. traditional- publishing routes going on lately. I’ve been resisting joining in too much, both because I have a book on deadline, and because I have friends on both sides of this…
R e a d M o r ePresident’s Proposed NSA Reforms are Insufficient
17 Jan, 2014
Today President Obama announced a set of proposed reforms to the NSA. They are woefully insufficient. Congress and the courts need to act. Here’s a storify of my tweets on the topic. [<a href=”//storify.com/ramez/what-s-missing-from-obama-s-nsa-reforms” target=”_blank”>View the story “What’s Missing from Obama’s NSA Reforms” on Storify</a>]
R e a d M o r eTEDx Talk: Linking Human Minds
13 Jan, 2014
Video of my TEDxRainier talk, on Linking Human Brains, is now up. This is all about the current science of sending sights, sounds, and sensations in and out of human brains amid rapid advancements in digital connectivity that span global industries. I delved into the…
R e a d M o r eThe Shrinking Dominance of the Big Dogs in Tech
12 Jan, 2014
“In 1981, the top ten technology companies represented 95% of the global IT market cap. Today, that share has fallen to 26% and the ratio continues to fall.” Microsoft, IBM, DEC, HP, and so on were once titans. Apple, Google, and Facebook may be…
R e a d M o r eNexus and Crux: A Double Kindle Daily Deal
4 Jan, 2014
My sci-fi thrillers Nexus and Crux are BOTH Kindle Daily Deals today, marked down to just $1.99 each. These are books that have been praised by NPR, Wired, the Wall Street Journal, BoingBoing, Ars Technica, Charlie Stross, Alastair Reynolds, Cory Doctorow, and many many more.…
R e a d M o r eNexus on Sale for $2.99 on Kindle – One of NPR’s Best Books of 2013
28 Dec, 2013
Amazon currently has Nexus – recently named one of the Best Books of 2013 by NPR – on sale for just $2.99 on Kindle. Not sure how long this will last. And for those who prefer fantasy romance novels, you can check out the Best…
R e a d M o r eArctic Sea Ice: Less in November 2013 than Summers Before 2006
26 Dec, 2013
(This is a correction of a previous post that stated that there was less Arctic sea ice in December than in any summer before 2007. That post used a PIOMAS anamoly graph, which was not appropriate.) The Arctic is melting. That's a problem. Ice reflects 90% of…
R e a d M o r eNexus: One of NPR’s Best Books of 2013!
4 Dec, 2013
I'm delighted to find that NPR has named Nexus as one of their Best Books of 2013. It's on both the Science Fiction / Fantasy list and the Mystery / Thriller list. On the SFF list it's up there with books by some of my favorite…
R e a d M o r eDecoupling Growth From Energy and Carbon
14 Nov, 2013
Is it possible to grow an economy without increasing pollution? Without increasing resource use? As I've posted, Americans already use less oil and less water than in previous decades. Here's a more macro-scale view – US per-capita GDP over the last 40 years (up to…
R e a d M o r eThe Ozone Layer Success Story
14 Nov, 2013
The most powerful success story I know of in global environmentalism is the ozone layer. It took the signing of an international agreement over the fierce objections of industry and paid skeptics but we dramatically reduced emissions of CFCs, the coolant chemicals that were destroying the ozone layer.…
R e a d M o r eLess Water, Less Oil
14 Nov, 2013
Here in the US, we consume less oil per person and less water per person than we have in decades. Oil consumption per person per year, from the IEA. (The last bullet point is their projection for 2030): Water withdrawals per person, from the Pacific…
R e a d M o r eDo We Eat Oil? Farms Are More Energy Efficient Than Ever
14 Nov, 2013
A common refrain one hears about modern farming in the US is that it's too energy intensive. However, data from the USDA shows that US farms use only half as much energy per unit of farm output as they did in 1950. That includes energy…
R e a d M o r eCan We Feed the World?
14 Nov, 2013
By 2050, the FAO projects that we’ll need to increase global food production by 70% to meet rising food demand. Most of that, as Jon Foley has noted, is not from population growth, but rather from increasingly meat rich diets in the developing world. Perhaps…
R e a d M o r eSolar Power Prices Dropping Faster Than Ever
14 Nov, 2013
In 2011, I wrote a piece for Scientific American on the exponential price decline in solar power. I haven't had a chance to fully update that piece, but two quick notes. First, the price decline in solar cost per watt has, if anything, accelerated since then.…
R e a d M o r eThe Sunlight is Where the Energy Poverty Is
14 Nov, 2013
The future world energy system will undoubtedly be a mix of many different energy technologies – nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and some fossil fuels for decades and decades to come. Yet I’m particularly optimistic about solar. One reason is its incredible price trajectory, a trait…
R e a d M o r eIncome, Energy Use, and Life Expectancy
14 Nov, 2013
One of the best indicators of human well-being is life expectancy. High life expectancy often means low infant mortality and typically correlates with ample access to food, medicine, shelter, and education, as well as low levels of disease and violence. Interestingly, during an economic development…
R e a d M o r eLife Satisfaction and Income
14 Nov, 2013
There’s a persistant meme that greater income has no impact on happiness. I see this brought up most frequently in conversations about international development – should we really view economic development in China or India as a positive thing? Will it really lead to greater…
R e a d M o r eEnergy Storage Gets Exponentially Cheaper Too
25 Sep, 2013
At MIT Technology Review today was an article on Sun Catalytix’s new flow battery intended for grid-scale storage, which Sun Catalytix believes will drop grid-scale storage prices in half. As the article notes, several other storage technology companies are also working on driving down the…
R e a d M o r eVideo: Wiring the Brain: The Real Science of Nexus
24 Sep, 2013
I spoke last night at University Book Store on the science of sending sight, sound, and more in and out of the human brain – the real life science behind my novels Nexus and Crux. For those who couldn't make it, you can check out…
R e a d M o r eSuperBugs kill 23,000, sicken 2 million, and cost at least $1 billion in the US each year
16 Sep, 2013
According to the CDC’s recent report on drug-resistant pathogens in the United States, drug-resistant germs caused numerous deaths, illnesses, and excess medical costs in 2012. Therefore, seeking appropriate medical care, such as rehabs in Huntington Beach, is crucial for those struggling with addiction. They offer…
R e a d M o r eMIT: Air pollution Causes 200,000 Early Deaths per Year in the US
10 Sep, 2013
A new report out from MIT's Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment finds the health impact of air pollution (all of it from fossil fuel burning) is even higher than previously believed: The group tracked ground-level emissions from sources such as industrial smokestacks, vehicle tailpipes,…
R e a d M o r eVideos of My Talks & Media Appearances
8 Sep, 2013
Just as with my articles I've done a poor job linking on this site to videos of my talks and media appearances around the web when they've happened. I recently had to pull together a CV as part of a nomination for another talk, which means…
R e a d M o r ePieces I’ve Written Around the Web
8 Sep, 2013
Over the last few months (and a bit over the past few years) I wrote a number of pieces around the web, primarily on energy, sustainability, genetically modified foods, and economic growth. I did a poor job of linking to them on my own site.…
R e a d M o r eUS Teen Birth Rate Hits All Time Low
8 Sep, 2013
The CDC reported on Friday that teens in the US are having children at their lowest rate ever in the 73 years the statistic has been tracked. The rate of births to mothers aged 15-19 has dropped roughly in half since 1990. You can see…
R e a d M o r ePRISM Overstated, NSA Surveillance Still Problematic
8 Jun, 2013
I was quick to tweet and post on Facebook about the Guardian and the Washington Post’s stories about the NSA’s PRISM program – a program described as giving the NSA access to the data of hundreds of millions of internet users via direct access to…
R e a d M o r eThe Race to Save The Planet
20 May, 2013
This week, if you buy my new book on innovating to save the planet, I’ll donate the proceeds to the Environmental Defense Fund. Five years ago I decided that I needed to understand the state of the environment and my responsibilities as a human being. …
R e a d M o r eThe Evidence on GMO Safety
28 Apr, 2013
This page started as a followup to an appearance I made on NBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show in April of 2013, speaking about GMOs. You can see the video at the show’s website or embedded below. See also: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Or if…
R e a d M o r eFREE Copy of Nexus for Worldcon Attendees
15 Jan, 2013
If you attended Worldcon 2012 (Chicon) or are registered for Worldcon 2013 (LoneStarCon) or Worldcon 2014 (LonCon), I will send you a FREE electronic copy of Nexus. Just drop me an email to get it. If you read it and love it, I hope you’ll consider…
R e a d M o r eAwesome Press for NEXUS – Here’s a Roundup
19 Dec, 2012
Wow. It’s been an awesome few days. I’ve been reading people calling Nexus “Good. Scary good.”, “hell of a read”, “superb”, “brilliant”. Wow! The response to Nexus has been totally amazing. I’m thrilled and honored! Because I’m having a hard time keeping track myself, here’s a…
R e a d M o r eNexus is Here!
18 Dec, 2012
Awesome reviews are coming in today for Nexus: Wired says “Good. Scary good… stop reading now and have a great time reading a bleeding edge technical thriller that is full of surprises.” read the whole thing Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing says “Nexus is a superbly plotted high…
R e a d M o r eNexus: T Minus 7 Days
10 Dec, 2012
Nexus comes out in 7 days. The early reviews are coming in, and so far people seem to like it. Quotes from three of my favorites so far: “A superbly plotted high-tension technothriller … full of delicious, thoughtful moral ambiguity … a hell of a…
R e a d M o r e
Announcing The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet
18 Sep, 2012
“Required reading for all global thinkers and leaders.” – Steven Pinker Can Innovation Save the Planet? Climate Change. Energy. Water. Food. Population. We’re beset by an array of natural resource and environmental challenges. They pose a tremendous risk to human prosperity, to world peace, and to…
R e a d M o r eChina’s Tipping Point on Environment?
29 Jul, 2012
Chinese environmental protesters have won the cancellation of an industrial waste pipeline that would have dumped waste from a paper factory into the ocean near the town of Qidong. This is not the first such victory. The Guardian notes that: The protest followed similar demonstrations against projects in…
R e a d M o r ePricing Nature to Save the Planet
27 Jun, 2012
New Scientist, covering Rio+20, talks about putting a price on the natural world: Green economics, the theory goes, will work by quantifying nature and giving it a cash value. As Steiner put it: “Factoring natural capital into the bottom line will bring the real wealth…
R e a d M o r eIs Automation the Handmaiden of Inequality?
3 May, 2012
In Technology Review, Christopher Mims asks if the increasing automation of US industry has contributed to growing inequality, by bringing its gains to factory owners rather than workers. Here’s how I would interpret the odd coincidence of these two trends: in a perfectly capitalist system,…
R e a d M o r eOne gene helped human brains become complex
3 May, 2012
Two extra copies of the SRGAP2 gene appear to have led to slower human brain development, but denser interconnection between neurons, possibly contributing to our current cognitive abilities. (Total brain interconnectivity correlates moderately well with IQ.) If you want to learn how to take care…
R e a d M o r eChina now consumes twice as much meat as the United States
24 Apr, 2012
Janet Larsen at the Earth Policy Institute has an extremely informative post on meat consumption in China. Total meat consumption there has risen by a whopping 600% since 1980 and is now double the amount consumed in the US. Yet on a per-capita basis, Chinese…
R e a d M o r eNano-devices that cross blood-brain barrier
23 Apr, 2012
In my upcoming sci-fi novel Nexus , I write about a nano-device that can cross the blood-brain barrier and which has a very real impact on the mind. Not so far fetched… A team of scientists from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have developed nano-devices that successfully cross…
R e a d M o r eCombining Current Tech Could Make Solar Cheaper than Coal
22 Feb, 2012
By the end of the decade, manufacturers in the United States could make solar panels that are less than half as expensive as the ones they make now. That would be cheap enough for solar power to compete with electricity from fossil fuels, according to…
R e a d M o r eInnovation as the Infinite Resource: My Talk at Chicago Ideas Week
31 Jan, 2012
Innovation as the Infinite Resource: Ramez Naam at Chicago Ideas Week
R e a d M o r eNo Big Fukushima Health Impact Seen, UN Official Says: Scientific American
31 Jan, 2012
The health impact of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday. …. “As far as the doses we have seen from the…
R e a d M o r eJapans population to drop by 1 million each year
30 Jan, 2012
Japans rapid aging means the national population of 128 million will shrink by one-third by 2060 and seniors will account for 40 percent of people, placing a greater burden on the shrinking work force population to support the social security and tax systems. The population…
R e a d M o r eDuke Researchers Send Touch Sensations into the Brain
5 Oct, 2011
More advances in mind-machine interfaces this week. MIguel Nicolelis (a pioneer in neural interfaces) and colleagues announced that they were able to send touch sensory data into the brains of monkeys. So the tally is now: Vision: In and out Sound: In Motion: Out…
R e a d M o r eReconstruction from brain activity – YouTube
27 Sep, 2011
Below is a clip showing the reconstruction of video subjects where shown via MRI scanning of their brains. Pretty remarkable. The ‘reconstructed’ video looks odd because the reconstruction method was actually to match the brain activity against snippets of YouTube videos. Future…
R e a d M o r eCarbon Nanotubes Could Replace Rare Earth Indium in Solar Cells
27 Sep, 2011
A frequently voiced concern about solar energy is the dependence of solar cells on rare earth elements such as indium. While rare earth elements are actually far more plentiful than their name suggests, it’s also encouraging to see studies showing that components made from abundant…
R e a d M o r eRat cyborg gets digital cerebellum
27 Sep, 2011
New Scientist covers another step towards functional neural prosthetics. Development here will be slow and complex, but we now have sufficient proof of concept across the field to see that interfacing digital systems with out brains is quite possible. We’ll use that first to help…
R e a d M o r eMemory Prosthetics – Some Progress
27 Sep, 2011
Theodore Berger and team, who I’ve been following since describing their work in More Than Human, achieved success earlier this year in recording a rat memory during encoding, and playing it back to the rat later. This is a very very very early step towards…
R e a d M o r e30,000 Human Genomes to be Sequenced in 2011 – Exponential Growth
26 Sep, 2011
MIT Technology Review on the incredible rise in number of genomes sequenced per year: Exponential: The number of human beings whose entire DNA sequence is known has increased dramatically. This year, the world’s DNA-sequencing machines are expected to churn out 30,000 entire human genomes, according…
R e a d M o r eA roadmap for growing prosperity while saving the planet
3 Aug, 2011
Chris Jablonski at ZDnet interviewed me recently about my next book, The Infinite Resource. Here’s a short excerpt. Click at the link at the bottom to read the whole interview. In your upcoming book, The Infinite Resource – Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on…
R e a d M o r eCheap Plastic Made from Sugarcane
3 Aug, 2011
Plastics are frequently manufactured from oil, but they can also be manufactured from ethanol. With oil prices high, Dow is scaling up production of plastics from methanol derived from sugar cane in Brazil. By implication, if next gen biofuel algae that produce ethanol come online,…
R e a d M o r eSheer Numbers Gave Early Humans Edge Over Neanderthals
3 Aug, 2011
Early humans may have overwhelmed Neanderthals by dint of sheer numbers. Of course, that begs the question of why homo sapiens had such larger numbers than our homo neanderthalensis cousins. Between 35,000 and 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals in Europe and Asia were replaced by the…
R e a d M o r eIron-rich dust fuelled 4 million years of ice ages
3 Aug, 2011
Iron-rich dust fuelled 4 million years of ice ages – environment – 03 August 2011 – New Scientist. DUST is all that’s needed to plunge the world into an ice age. When blown into the sea, the iron it…
R e a d M o r eMy WFS2011 Talk: The Infinite Resource: Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on the Earth
9 Jul, 2011
I gave at talk this morning at the World Future Society 2011 Conference in Vancouver. The talk was entitled The Infinite Resource: Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on the Earth, and it looks at what the ultimate limits of growth and prosperity on this planet…
R e a d M o r eWorld Bank: Scrap biofuel subsidies to curb food costs
12 Jun, 2011
The World Bank, WTO, and other agencies have wisely come out against biofuel subsidies. Most of these subsidies go to corn-based biofuels, which drive up the cost of food worldwide and offer minimal environmental or energy policy advantages. My comments: Instead of subsidizing ineffective or…
R e a d M o r eAnti-Ghrelin Vaccine to Fight Obesity
12 Jun, 2011
Ghrelin is a hormone that helps regulate body weight and metabolism. Higher ghrelin levels lead us to expend less energy and to eat more in an attempt to conserve resources. Now a group in Portugal has shown that it’s possible to immunize mice against ghrelin,…
R e a d M o r eBMW Powered Twin-Rotor Hoverbike
12 Jun, 2011
Want. BMW Powered Twin-Rotor Hoverbike | Gear Patrol.
R e a d M o r eFarmers Were Genetic Breeders 10,000 Years Ago
10 Jun, 2011
From New Scientist: “Chinese rice farmers 10,000 years ago were early pioneers of modern genetic breeding. Like modern breeders they seemed to realise that shorter plants would produce higher yields, and unwittingly selected for mutations in a gene that shrinks rice stems: the…
R e a d M o r eViolence Among Primates (including Bonobos)
10 Jun, 2011
New Scientist reviews Among African Apes, a set of field diaries by Martha Robbins and Christophe Boesch that explode the myth of peace and tranquility among other primate species, including the much-revered bonobos. One small sample: We also meet Volker, an ambitious young bonobo the…
R e a d M o r eSolar Cheaper than Coal in 3-5 Years? GE and First Solar Think So
9 Jun, 2011
The news is carrying two stories in the last two weeks pitching solar as potentially cheaper than current electrical rates in the next 3-5 years. First, in an interview with Bloomberg, GE’s global research director Mark M. Little said that their thin film solar PV…
R e a d M o r eGenetically Tweaked Microbes on 0.6% of Earth’s Land Could Replace Oil
18 May, 2011
New Scientist has an article on biotech firm Joule’s upcoming ethanol production biofuel plant. Joule already has a pilot plant covering 0.8 hectares in Leander, Texas. On 5 May, the firm announced that it had secured 486 hectares in Lea County, New Mexico, for a…
R e a d M o r eCan We Capture All the World’s Carbon?
16 May, 2011
I originally posted this at Scientific American. Reposting here with permission. In 2011, the world will emit more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Every day of the year, almost a hundred million tons will be released into the atmosphere. Every second more than…
R e a d M o r eSpecial report: Rescuing nuclear power – New Scientist
31 Mar, 2011
New Scientist has an excellent special report on nuclear power. Topics covered include how well more recently built reactors would have fared in the tsunami (many of them would have done just fine), the prospects for safe Thorium based reactors, and this graphic below…
R e a d M o r eMore Efficient Aircraft Designs
30 Mar, 2011
The Economist has an article on aircraft designs that could cut fuel use by 50-70%, while still working with today’s airports (a challenge for flying wing designs). From the article: Two groups working on the future of aircraft have come up with designs that could…
R e a d M o r eKey Trends of the Next 25 Years
21 Mar, 2011
Michell Zappa has a fascinating infographic attempting to lay out timelines for future technologies over the next 25 years. It’s an impressive job of collecting data and laying it out in a way that someone can explore. It’s worth playing with. Click through on the…
R e a d M o r ePersuading Climate Skeptics – Why We Need Republican Experts
18 Mar, 2011
New Scientist has an interesting article on research into what persuades people on scientific issues. The key finding is that there’s a major impact of hearing the evidence from someone who has similar political and social outlooks. Experts who are similar to listeners are inherently…
R e a d M o r eIs Moore’s Law Really a Fair Comparison for Solar?
17 Mar, 2011
[This is an update of a post I first wrote in March of 2011, responding to criticism of the analogy of Moore’s Law for solar power. Updating in April 2015, on the 50th Anniversary of Moore’s Law, in light of renewed conversation on this topic.…
R e a d M o r eThe Exponential Gains in Solar Power per Dollar
17 Mar, 2011
My post on the Moore’s Law-like exponential gains in solar power per dollar went up at Scientific American yesterday. Reprinting here with permission. The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed…
R e a d M o r eOrganic Crops have Lower Yields than Conventional Crops
14 Mar, 2011
Plant pathologist Steve Savage has analyzed the data from the USDA’s Organic Production Survey (the largest ever survey of organic farming in the United States) and finds that organic yields per acre are substantially lower than the yields of conventional crops. By far the biggest…
R e a d M o r eFrom Printing Press to Twitter: What Makes a Technology Pro-Democracy?
7 Feb, 2011
We’ve heard a lot about the role of social media, text messaging, and mobile phones in the uprising in Egypt. A lot has been said to credit them with fueling or at least organizing the protests and with getting word out to the outside…
R e a d M o r eLessons From Egypt : Encouraging Saudi Democracy & Beyond
7 Feb, 2011
I posted recently that the situation in Egypt provides important lessons for US foreign policy. Specifically, the US should have been pressing for democracy in Egypt decades ago, and making US military aid to Egypt contingent on steps towards a free press, free elections, and…
R e a d M o r eEgypt, Twitter, and the Collapse of Top-Heavy Societies
5 Feb, 2011
Watching the news about Egypt and the debate as to whether Twitter, Facebook, etc.. are inherently pro-democracy, I’m struck by a connection to Joseph Tainter’s 1988 classic, The Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter speculates that societies ultimately face two problems. One, the marginal return on…
R e a d M o r eEgypt: Is Mandatory Conscription Pro-Democracy?
31 Jan, 2011
Watching the situation in Egypt, I’ve been struck repeatedly by how the Army has behaved. Today the Egyptian Army announced that it won’t use force against protesters. Earlier in the protests, we saw reports of Egyptian soldiers shaking hands with protesters and inviting them onto…
R e a d M o r eTurmoil in Egypt Shows Shortsightedness of US Foreign Policy
28 Jan, 2011
Over the last few days, Egyptians have taken to the streets, demanding that Egyptian president and dictator Hosni Mubarak step down. The protests so far haven’t had a religious or anti-American bent. They’re not Islamist. They are a wave of people – mostly young people…
R e a d M o r eSingularity Summit Talk: The Digital Biome – Re-Engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century
17 Aug, 2010
This weekend I was at the Singularity Summit in San Francisco. On Sunday I gave a talk called The Digital Biome – Re-Engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century. (Follow the link to see the slides on SlideShare.) The…
R e a d M o r eGlobal Warming: Risk of Methane Release from Frozen Tundra
5 Dec, 2008
Now this is scary. The linear rate of global warming, in and of itself, is scary only in the somewhat long term (100+ years or so). The real risk with global warming is runaway feed-forward loops. E.g., one that you hear about often is that…
R e a d M o r eAnders Sandberg, Aubrey de Grey, Nick Bostrom on Future of Human Aging
24 Nov, 2008
>Three of my friends and fellow futurists commenting on the future of future of human aging. Anders focuses on uploading the brain (the best preservation, but most challenging), Aubrey de Grey on our attitudes on change. And Nick Bostrom on the uncertainties implicit in the…
R e a d M o r eUncertainty and Conditioning
24 Nov, 2008
>The article below quotes research stating that uncertain outcome produces more uncertainty than clear negative outcomes. That makes sense from an adaptive standpoint. Makes me wonder if that is the the same mechanism underlying the advantage of inconsistent conditioning over consistent conditioning in operant behavior.…
R e a d M o r eWoman Gets New Windpipe Grown from Her Stem Cells
19 Nov, 2008
>Now this is really exciting. New Scientist: Woman Receives Windpipe Built from Her Stem Cells Organ transplants have lots of problems, from the number of donors and availability of the right organ, to the issues of transport and logistics, and especially immune rejection. For a…
R e a d M o r eFirst Potential Anti-Aging Drug Clears Mouse Trials
5 Nov, 2008
>Back in 1990 or so, Tom Johnson demonstrated that it is possible to slow the aging process in a multi-cellular organism. Since then, our knowledge of the biology of aging and the interconnections of caloric restriction, the effects of red wine, mitochondrial function, and the…
R e a d M o r eSolar Prices Drop Exponentially for 30 Years
3 Jan, 2008
>FuturePundit blogs about projections for $2 a watt photovoltaics by 2010, which would be a reduction in cost of about half from today’s prices. The interesting thing in this post for me is a link to an Earth Policy Institute page which shows an exponential…
R e a d M o r eA Solar Grand Plan
3 Jan, 2008
>The cover story of this month’s Scientific American is a proposal to build out solar power in the US to supply 70% of the country’s electrical needs by 2050. It looks like a pretty doable plan, actually, requiring no technological advances in solar power beyond…
R e a d M o r eMeditate – Why and How
26 Jun, 2007
>At Foo Camp, I did a 5 minute “learn to meditate” session for about 50 people. It was fun despite being a really noisy environment (due to a session next door, mostly). A lot of people came up later and gave me positive feedback. I…
R e a d M o r eFOO Camp Talks
25 Jun, 2007
>This past weekend I was at FOO Camp which was fabulous. My head is still spinning from all the great information, ideas, and people. My talks from this year and last year are online: 2007: When Everything Becomes Information: The Convergence of Matter, Life, and…
R e a d M o r eGreat Boing Boing Review of Citizen Cyborg
12 Apr, 2005
>James Hughes’s Citizen Cyborg gets a fantastic review over at Boing Boing. I couldn’t agree more!
R e a d M o r eBlogging vs. Book Writing
25 Mar, 2005
>One of the most common questions I get is “how did you write this book?”. (The most common is actually “how did you get it published?”, but more on that later.) Steven Johnson has a thoughtful post on the writing side, or specifically, how writing…
R e a d M o r eGizmodo and NPR
22 Mar, 2005
>I was interviewed this morning on San Diego’s NPR station KPBS. The host, Tom Fudge, had clearly read the book and had great questions. So did the callers. You can listen to the interview online. And as a nice bonus, I got a brief review…
R e a d M o r eScientific American Editors Recommend More Than Human, Citizen Cyborg
20 Mar, 2005
>In the April issue of Scientific American, the Editors Recommend section features both More Than Human and James Hughes’s excellent Cyborg Democracy.
R e a d M o r eInfertile Women Would Use Sex Selection
15 Mar, 2005
>Betterhumans quotes a recent survey which shows that 41% of women undergoing infertility treatments would select the sex of their child if possible. Interestingly enough: Contradicting fears that such sex selection would cause gender imbalance, thesurvey found that women with no children would choose baby…
R e a d M o r e>More Than Human 4th on BookTalk
13 Mar, 2005
>According to Technorati’s BookTalk, the fourth most talked about book in the blogosphere is …. More Than Human . It’s right behind The Davinci Code, Blink, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Not bad! Of course, this will probably change by the time you…
R e a d M o r e>It’s Good to Have Friends
13 Mar, 2005
>A gaggle of friends and acquiantances around the web have blogged links to me over the past few days. The only reason the book hit #650 on Amazon in its first few days is the large social network I had who jumped on buying it…
R e a d M o r eWe’re All Transhumanists
13 Mar, 2005
>Thinking about my conversation with Alex Pang about his review of More Than Human in the LA Times. I still think it’s a fine review, the kind that informs people about the book and calls out an honest limitation- More Than Human isn’t going to…
R e a d M o r e>New Lie Detectors – Same Old Problems?
13 Mar, 2005
>David Pescovitz over at BoingBoing blogs about new lie detectors based on facial blood flow. This is fascinating technology, but I find the claims rather hyped. The scientists interviewed in the NewScientist article say things like: “You can double your respiration rate or make it…
R e a d M o r e>Making Light of the Bush Bioethics Agenda
12 Mar, 2005
>Virginia Postrel blogs that Leon Kass is putting together an aggressive bioethics agenda for Bush’s second term. Just what we need. Classical Values saves my mood, though, with an elegant post that manages to simultaneously poke holes in Kass’s logic, poke fun at the man…
R e a d M o r e>Why I Wrote More Than Human
11 Mar, 2005
>I originally posted this as a review on Amazon, but thought it might be interesting here. Why I Wrote This Book In 1999, a friend suggested to me that within a few decades we’d have Matrix-esque implants in our brains that would, among other things,…
R e a d M o r e>Interview with Me Online
11 Mar, 2005
>NuSapiens posts an email interview with me about the book.
R e a d M o r e>Risks of Prohibition
11 Mar, 2005
>Over at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok writes: I understand that some people don’t want to expand the human lifespan beyond its“natural” limits but I object to their preventing others from doing so justbecause they don’t like the sight of sprightly senior citizens. Not only should…
R e a d M o r e>More Transhumanism in the Blogosphere
11 Mar, 2005
>FuturePundit joins the conversation on transhumanism and identity. A lot of this conversation hinges on how possible and likely it is that parents make radical personality changes to their offspring. I think it’s important to keep three things in mind when thinking about that: 1…
R e a d M o r e>Transhumanism, Parenting, and Identity
10 Mar, 2005
>Marginal Revolution has had a very interesting conversation about transhumanism, parenting, and identity. Tyler Cowen asks if parents would make a change to their unborn children to make them 1% happier if it meant that those kids would be radically different from their parents. I…
R e a d M o r e>Chris Mooney
9 Mar, 2005
>Chris Mooney encouraged his readers to check out More Than Human yesterday. If you haven’t read Chris’s blog, I highly recommend it. It’s a constant stream of commentary on the intersections of science, politics, and public policy. Popular topics are stem cells, environmental policy, and…
R e a d M o r e>First NPR Interview!
9 Mar, 2005
>I’ll be interviewed on Salt Lake City’s NPR affiliate KCPW’s Public Affairs Hour. It happens on Wednesday March 16th at 9:40am local time.
R e a d M o r e>Who is More Than Human Trying to Convince?
9 Mar, 2005
>Alex Pang blogs about his LA Times review of More Than Human. I thought it was a fine a review, quite positive on the “science” part of the book. Alex’s major ding was that the book wouldn’t convince someone who objected to enhancement technology on…
R e a d M o r e>NuSapiens Review
9 Mar, 2005
>NuSapiens has an excellent review of the book up. It’s excellent both because it’s very complimentary 🙂 and because of the depth and breadth of the coverage. It does a rather good job of summarizing the key arguments of the book.
R e a d M o r e>New Reviews
8 Mar, 2005
>Two new reviews have posted in the last 24 hours! Yesterday, Rand Simberg posted this review over at Transterrestrial Musings. And today I see that the LA Times has posted their own positive review of the book. I’ve added the LA Times review to the…
R e a d M o r e>Upcoming Event: Tools for the Development of Humanity
2 Mar, 2005
>Posted to the events page. I expect this to be a good event. Among others, David Brin and Gary Hart will be speaking. Here’s the official announcement: Attend The Arlington Institute’s 3rd Annual ConferenceTools for the Development of HumanityApril 25-26, 2005 in Washington, DC http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/TAICON2005…
R e a d M o r e>New Site Up
2 Mar, 2005
>I finally put some time into this site. From here on out I’ll be posting reviews to the home page. I’ve also created an events page where I’ll be listing speaking events, book signings, and conferences I’m attending.
R e a d M o r e>Welcome
23 Jan, 2005
>Welcome to the More Than Human blog. I’m going to blog here about what’s going on with my upcoming book More Than Human, but also about whatever strikes my fancy. private transportation from cancun airport to playa del carmen
R e a d M o r e