A 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…
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