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Google’s autonomous cars to hit California’s roads this summer
Driverless cars are about become a lot more real. Some of us who have grown familiar with the Google self-driving Lexuses cruising around the San Francisco Bay Are, can get ready to witness the next iteration of Google’s automobile project: tiny gumdrop-shaped cars that can’t exceed 25 mph and Read More...
California’s 2030 renewable energy plan will save $51 billion a year
Governor Jerry Brown made headlines last January when he announced an ambitious plan to source 50 percent of energy from renewables by 2030. A new analysis by Strategen Consulting now confirms that the plan is not only achievable, but also “economically sound (and) environmentally beneficial.” Read More...
Swedish food packaging design combines beauty and functionality of nature
Food packaging is typically made of landfill-bound materials like plastic, aluminum-lined paper or Styrofoam that outlive their content way longer than necessary. Tomorrow Machines has come up with alternative solutions whose materials, functionality and esthetics borrow from nature. We watched the Read More...
Moth’s eye and lotus leaf inspire more efficient, easier to maintain solar panels
Just as the cost of solar energy has been dropping precipitously, innovations sprout to accelerate the trend while improving the technology. In a recent example of biomimicry applied to solar, Oak Ridge National Lab was inspired by the moth’s eye to create an antireflective coating that increases Read More...
Public bench turns mundane moment into blissful break
What if our public spaces were filled with playful opportunities to take a happiness break and connect with strangers? This is the vision of artist George Zisiadis whose merry-go-round bench was tested at the Market Street Prototyping Festival in San Francisco last month. Watch the video and go Read More...
Meet Charles Arntzen, creator of world’s most promising anti-Ebola drug from tobacco plants
Bioengineered plants meet vaccines. It actually is a lot more promising than it may sound. A pioneer in the field is Arizona State University Professor Charles Arntzen. He has been working on nothing less than the world’s most promising anti-Ebola drug. ZMapp is an injectable synthetic serum made Read More...
Global warming soundtrack sounds eerily beautiful
An astonishing experiment by a music student and his teacher at the University of Minnesota has yielded a piece for string quartet that is as hauntingly beautiful as it is moving. Their goal: giving global warming a sound representation, just as animated color maps from NASA provide a visual Read More...
Lawyers in public-service jobs rank highest in happiness than their higher-paid peers
Passing the bar and becoming a lawyer is not all that it is made to be. At least not on the happiness and well-being fronts. Research shows that lawyers have significantly higher incidence of mental health, depression and substance abuse. One group, however, stands out for being significantly Read More...
Grip strength better than blood pressure at predicting fatal heart disease
The human body in a never-ending source of discoveries. So is the exploration of human health. Consider this: grip strength is better than blood pressure at predicting fatal cardiovascular disease and stroke risk, according to a study of nearly 140,000 people in 14 countries published in the Read More...
Raising flourishing adults in a world ruled by electronics
On average, children spend more time with electronic screens than they do in school, or engaged with any other activity. Electronics even compete with sleep. One consequence is that children are exposed to over a million messages a year that are geared to instant gratification—instant text Read More...