Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
The Unintended Consequences Of China’s One-Child Policy
October 10th, 2012Via: io9: “Historically, societies in which men substantially outnumber women are not nice places to live,” writes Hvistendahl, “Often they are unstable. Sometimes they are violent.” She points to examples in history, such as fourth century B.C. Athens and China’s Taiping Rebellion in mid-19th century — both of which were the result of wide scale […]
California Cities in Fiscal Trouble ‘Conga Line’
October 4th, 2012Via: CNBC: Vallejo started it. Then came Stockton. Mammoth Lakes. San Bernardino. Which California city will go bankrupt next? “There’s a lot of them lined up in the conga line,” said Marilyn Cohen, CEO of Envision Capital Management. Up next could be the city of Atwater, where civic leaders will vote Wednesday night on declaring […]
We’ve Already Passed the Tipping Point for Orbital Debris
October 4th, 2012Via: IEEE: Since the dawn of the space age, more than 20 000 objects larger than a softball have accumulated in Earth’s orbit. About 1000 of those objects are spacecraft that carry active payloads, serving many valuable missions for mankind. But the rest could best be called junk, the by-product of thousands of launches and […]
‘The Last Pictures’
October 3rd, 2012Via: Computerworld: The problem: You want to send images into space and you want them to last 5 billion years. The solution: A gold-plated disc. That’s the idea behind The Last Pictures project, which is scheduled to blast off in the next few months. The project involves attaching a silicon disc encased in gold to […]
Deprived of Nature, Kids Exposed to ‘Shocking’ Amount of TV
October 2nd, 2012Via: Common Dreams: In addition to the troubling 80 minutes of TV that the average child in the United States watches each and every day, a new study released on Monday found that the amount of “secondhand” exposure to television for young children was “staggering” and should be of additional concern to parents and pediatricians […]
75% Tax on Top Incomes in France
September 28th, 2012Via: Reuters: President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone. … To the dismay of business leaders who fear an exodus of top talent, the government […]
Riot Outside Spanish Parliament
September 27th, 2012Via: Russia Today: Madrid riot police have cleared Plaza de Neptune of protesters, with about 200 officers securing the surrounding blocks. At least 60 people have been injured and 26 arrested as police used batons and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Local emergency services have confirmed that at least 60 people, including eight policemen, […]
Hitachi Developing Quartz Based Permanent Storage Syetem for Digital Information
September 26th, 2012Via: AFP: As Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones prove, good music lasts a long time; now Japanese hi-tech giant Hitachi says it can last even longer — a few hundred million years at least. The company on Monday unveiled a method of storing digital information on slivers of quartz glass that can endure extreme […]
Suicide Now Kills More Americans Than Car Crashes
September 24th, 2012Via: Medline: More Americans now commit suicide than die in car crashes, making suicide the leading cause of injury deaths, according to a new study. In addition, over the last 10 years, while the number of deaths from car crashes has declined, deaths from poisoning and falls increased significantly, the researchers report. “Suicides are terribly […]
PANASONIC, CANON CLOSE FACTORIES IN CHINA DUE TO VIOLENT PROTESTS
September 17th, 2012Via: NBC: Major electronics firms Panasonic and Canon have temporarily suspended production at factories in China after a territorial dispute over a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea triggered violent anti-Japanese protests. Sites linked to auto manufacturers Toyota and Honda have also been attacked in the unrest, which has forced frightened expatriates […]
