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 […]
Have you heard? Plastic soft-drink or water bottles can create cheap lighting. That’s what “Liter of Light”, an organization created by graduate students from the University of St.Gallen in 2011, is doing. Its aim is to “spread an alternative cheap source of light.” The technology is incredibly simple. It consists of a 1.5 liter PET bottle filled with purified […]
Read all about it! Amazing good news about a “drinkable book”. The 20 pages of the book provide tips on filtering water and how to keep drinking water safe, and at the same time each page is a filter. When torn out of the book, each orange filter paper removes over 99% of bacteria and each […]
“Solar Impulse is the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel.” Solar Impulse 2 is a “revolutionary single-seater aircraft made of carbon fiber [that] has a 72 meter wingspan (larger than that of the Boeing 747-8I) for a weight of just 2,300 Kg, equivalent to […]
Much as there is financial capital in every business, there is also natural capital. Most businesses don’t realize it, but each and every one relies on products from nature to exist, from the water consumed and electricity used onsite by employees to the products they manufacture and how the basic materials also rely on other aspects […]
Recently we received good news from the World Health Organization: on March 27th the world region that counts one-fourth of the population, South-East Asia, was certified as free of polio. This progress now means that 80% of people now live in certified polio-free regions. Polio (or poliomyelitis) is a viral disease that can affect a person’s nerves, leading […]
The sub-title reads, “The eradication of polio suggests ways to tackle even deadlier diseases.” That good news appeared recently in The Economist” (18 January). The anti-polio campaign in India started in 1995, with massive efforts and money poured into millions of doses of vaccine and the services of millions of vaccinators who administered the oral drops. […]
“Believe it or not, the electric storage battery — a technology that has been around since the eighteenth century — could change the economic course of the twenty-first century. Thanks to breakthroughs on the horizon, batteries qualify as one of 12 disruptive technologies that the McKinsey Global Institute has identified.” That paragraph is how a […]
