A Longevity Puzzle: Why Do Poor Costa Ricans Outlive Poor Americans?
January 5th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
Why are the poor in one of the world’s wealthiest countries more likely to die at an earlier age than the poor in a small, middle-income country? Lifestyle factors have a lot to do with it. In the U.S., smoking and obesity are far more common at the bottom of the income scale. That’s not the case in Costa Rica.
“Poor people or lower socioeconomic-status people are thinner and less prone to obesity than rich people, while in the U.S., the inverse of that situation is true,” said Luis Rosero-Bixby, a demographer at the Universidad de Costa Rica and lead author of the study. Costa Ricans are more likely to adhere to traditional diets and lifestyles that don’t include junk food or cigarettes. Costa Rica’s health care system is not better than that of the U.S., according to Rosero-Bixby, but it manages to ensure that “the very basic needs are covered.”
Portland’s New Pipes Harvest Power From Drinking Water
January 4th, 2016Via: Fast Coexist:
If you live in Portland, your lights may now be partly powered by your drinking water. An ingenious new system captures energy as water flows through the city’s pipes, creating hydropower without the negative environmental effects of something like a dam.
Small turbines in the pipes spin in the flowing water, and send that energy into a generator.
“It’s pretty rare to find a new source of energy where there’s no environmental impact,” says Gregg Semler, CEO of Lucid Energy, the Portland-based startup that designed the new system. “But this is inside a pipe, so no fish or endangered species are impacted. That’s what’s exciting.”
Armed Group Seizes U.S. Government Building at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
January 3rd, 2016Via: AP:
A protest in support of Oregon ranchers facing jail time for arson was followed by an occupation of a building at a national wildlife refuge led by members of a family previously involved in a nationally watched showdown with the federal government.
Ammon Bundy — the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a standoff with the government over grazing rights — told The Oregonian (http://is.gd/bK7d4E ) on Saturday that he and two of his brothers were among a group of dozens of people occupying the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Ammon Bundy posted a video on his Facebook page asking for militia members to come help him. He said “this is not a time to stand down. It’s a time to stand up and come to Harney County,” where Burns is located. Below the video is this statement: “(asterisk)(asterisk)ALL PATRIOTS ITS TIME TO STAND UP NOT STAND DOWN!!! WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! COME PREPARED.”
In an interview with reporters late Saturday night that was posted on Facebook, Bundy said he and others are occupying the building because “the people have been abused long enough.”
“I feel we are in a situation where if we do not do something, if we do not take a hard stand, we’ll be in a position where we’ll be no longer able to do so,” he said.
Bundy said the group planned to stay at the refuge indefinitely. “We’re planning on staying here for years, absolutely,” Ammon Bundy said. “This is not a decision we’ve made at the last minute.”
Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward told people to stay away from the building as authorities work to defuse the situation, the Oregonian reported.
Floating Dam Could Revolutionize Ocean Clean-Up
January 2nd, 2016Via: Quartz:
In a few months, a giant floating dam—in the form of a 328-feet (100 meters) long barrier segment—will be set up in the North Sea, some miles off the coast of The Netherlands. Its ambition: to cleanse the world’s oceans of plastic trash forever.
Plastic waste is a major threat to animals in the sea, who either choke on the material or suffer from related contaminants. But most ocean waste projects try to collect plastic waste with boats that end up inadvertently endangering ocean life. The revolutionary new dam, scheduled for deployment in the second quarter of 2016, will instead use currents to round up waves of garbage—bags, bottles, and other waste—while also letting sea creatures through. Passive, safe collection is the idea.
Scientists Reprogram Social Behavior in Carpenter Ants Using Epigenetic Drugs
January 2nd, 2016Via: PhysOrg:
In Florida carpenter ant colonies, distinct worker castes called minors and majors exhibit pronounced differences in social behavior throughout their lives. In a new study published today in Science, a multi-institution team anchored at University of Pennsylvania found that these caste-specific behaviors are not set in stone. Rather, this pioneering study shows that social behavior can be reprogrammed, indicating that an individual’s epigenetic, not genetic, makeup determines behavior in ant colonies.
Research Credit: tal
Happy New Year, Power’s Out Again
January 1st, 2016Summer storm took down the power about two hours ago. You know the routine… Middle of the night now, but if the juice isn’t back on by tomorrow I’ll be rigging up the inverter to ‘ye ole Nissan van. About 23c so our freezer will definitely be ready for a cooling blast by then.
Engineers Demo First Processor That Uses Light for Ultrafast Communications
December 31st, 2015Via: UC Berkeley:
“This is a milestone. It’s the first processor that can use light to communicate with the external world,” said Vladimir Stojanovi?, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the development of the chip. “No other processor has the photonic I/O in the chip.”
Stojanovi? and fellow UC Berkeley professor Krste Asanovi? teamed up with Rajeev Ram at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Miloš Popovi? at the University of Colorado Boulder to develop the new microprocessor.
“This is the first time we’ve put a system together at such scale, and have it actually do something useful, like run a program,” said Asanovi?, who helped develop the free and open architecture called RISC-V (reduced instruction set computer), used by the processor.
Microsoft Keeping Disk Encryption Keys for Those Signing Into Windows 10 Using Microsoft Accounts
December 29th, 2015Via: The Intercept:
One of the excellent features of new Windows devices is that disk encryption is built-in and turned on by default, protecting your data in case your device is lost or stolen. But what is less well-known is that, if you are like most users and login to Windows 10 using your Microsoft account, your computer automatically uploaded a copy of your recovery key – which can be used to unlock your encrypted disk – to Microsoft’s servers, probably without your knowledge and without an option to opt-out.
Related: China: Decryption on Demand
Marines’ LS3 Robotic Mule Too Loud for Real-World Combat
December 29th, 2015Before $42 million of public money was flushed down the gurgler, I guess nobody realized that the thing was going to sound like a leaf blower.
Via: Ars Technica:
The kickable “robotic mule,” also known as AlphaDog or LS3, created by Alphabet-owned Boston Dynamics under a contract with DARPA, has proved too loud to fight alongside the US Marines. Following an extended test period during the “Rim of the Pacific” military exercise last year, the project has been suspended.
Christmas 2015—Why There Is No Peace On Earth
December 29th, 2015Via: David Stockman’s Contra Corner:
In fact, the War Party entrenched in the nation’s capital is dedicated to economic interests and ideological perversions that guarantee perpetual war; they ensure endless waste on armaments and the inestimable death and human suffering that stems from 21st century high tech warfare and the terrorist blowback it inherently generates among those upon which the War Party inflicts its violent hegemony.
…
In a word, the real threat to peace circa 1990 was that Pax Americana would not go away quietly in the night.
In fact, during the past 25 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.
Research Credit: Pookie
