Everyone’s talking about it! And it’s great news. Solar Impulse, the Swiss long-range solar-powered aircraft, took off this week to fly around the world without a drop of fuel. Instead, the plane uses solar power and can fly day and night on that energy. Follow pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg on their journey around the […]
“Watermen” are amazing. But, you ask, What are they? “Watermen are people who truly love the water and everything that has to do with the ocean. Salt water runs in their veins. They would rather be in or on the water than on land, comfortable enjoying it in whatever manner they can. Freediving, sailing, surfing, […]
Yves Rossy is Jetman. He’s a Swiss pilot who has wings. To be exact he has carbon-fiber wings. He had developed a flying suit and backpack equipped with semi-rigid wings that span 2.4 metres (7.9 feet). They are powered by four modified jet engines. Rossy’s career started when he learned how to fly, became a fighter pilot and then […]
The United Nations climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, ran over by two days this week due to the refusal of developing countries to accept the position of developed countries on what their contribution should be to cutting emissions and who is going to pay. But in the end, a deal, albeit one that appears weak, […]
We all have heard that laughter is the best medicine, but studies are increasingly bearing out that conclusion. “Dr. Lee Berk, an associate professor at Loma Linda University in California, has spent nearly three decades studying the ways the aftershocks of a good laugh ripple through your brain and body,” says a 19 November article on […]
Placebos are getting a fair amount of press lately. Yes, those “fake” remedies called “inert medications” that seem to be real treatments but aren’t are being talked about quite a bit. Recently, among others, health economist Austin Frakt wrote about them in “The Upshot” (“a New York Times website with analysis and data visualizations about politics, policy […]
Now everyone can have access to bits of history, through images. A project spearheaded by Kalev Leetaru of Georgetown University is making pictures from old books available to anyone who wants to view or use them. Here’s one example. The photo is from a book entitled “Prag” dated 1912, written by Josef Neuwirth. The subject […]
“There is surprising – even shocking – good news: Our ability to convert sunshine into usable energy has become much cheaper far more rapidly than anyone had predicted. The cost of electricity from photovoltaic, or PV, solar cells is now equal to or less than the cost of electricity from other sources powering electric grids […]
