I've been out of touch for a long time. An update is greatly overdue ( Read more... )

This is a big deal. Despite being a Democrat, Dingell has stymied both auto efficiency and climate change legislation at every turn.

National debtexceeds our ability to count it.

Interesting: Herman Daly's analysis of the underlying problem is essentially exactly the same as mine.

He also has a longer piece on the idea of a steady-state economy. I haven't read it all yet, but it looks pretty interesting so far.

The 2030 Challenge website has a great graphic that puts the whole offshore oil discussion in perspective:

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SpaceX succeeds where Rotary Rockets failed: The first orbital flight by a privately funded rocket. On the other hand, they're doing two stages, rather than single stage to orbit, although their first stage is reusable. More to the point, they're founded and funded by Elon Musk, the founder of Paypal. They've got 550 employees -- Rotary never ( Read more... )

Monsanto is selling off their rBGH product. This is an indication, I think, that the use of "performance enhancing drugs" is losing its grip in the dairy industry in the face of rising public resistance. (It is also, of course, a reflection of the fact that being a drug pusher to the dairy industry isn't nearly as profitable as owning the ( Read more... )

This Cornell prof has a technique for growing rice that he says can double (or more) yields while using alot less water and less seed. Pretty cool, if it works. I am a bit skeptical: humans have been growing rice for an awfully long time, and if improvements of this order were available, you would think that someone would have figured it out in ( Read more... )

This sounds promising: these guys figured out how to make a practical LED on silicon, rather than on sapphire. Much cheaper that way. Also, this should let us produce much larger LED, since making and handling big silicon wafers is something that industry knows how to do.

Hewlett Packard.