William Pentland, Contributor

I write about energy and environmental issues.

Massive reserves of “freshwater” are buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves around the world, including off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.

This is the conclusion of a new study by a team of Australian scientists that appears in this week’s issue of the journal, Nature.

Continue reading “Vast Freshwater Reserves Discovered Under Ocean Floor, Scientists Say” »

By Greg Scoblete — Real Clear Technology

We worry about robots.

Hardly a day goes by where we’re not reminded about how robots are taking our jobs and hollowing out the middle class. The worry is so acute that economists are busy devising new social contracts to cope with a potentially enormous class of obsolete humans.

Continue reading “Our Final Invention: How the Human Race Goes and Gets Itself Killed” »

By Drew Prindle — December 6, 2013

For some odd reason, pizza always seems to be at the forefront of emerging technology. It was the first food you could buy via online ordering, the first food to legitimately be delivered via drones, and now it’s dipping its saucy little Italian toes into 3D printing.

Natural Machines, a startup out of Barcelona, has developed a prototype 3D printer called Foodini that can pump out decent, edible-looking pizza just like a normal 3D printer pumps out custom-made lightswitch covers and drain plugs.

—By Dana Liebelson

When 27-year-old Samy Kamkar—a security researcher who famously made one million Myspace friends in a single day—heard the announcement on Sunday that Amazon was planning to start delivering packages via drone in 2015, he had an idea. He knew that whenever new technology, like drones, becomes popular quickly, there are bound to be security flaws. And he claims that he found one within 24 hours and promptly exploited it: America, meet the zombie drone that Kamkar says hunts, hacks, and takes over nearby drones. With enough hacks, a user can allegedly control an entire zombie drone army capable of flying in any direction, taking video of your house, or committing mass drone-suicide.

“I’ve been playing with drones for a few years,” Kamkar, who is based in Los Angeles, tells Mother Jones. “I’m sure that with most of the drones out there, if you scrutinize the security, you’ll find some kind of vulnerability.” Kamkar says that the Amazon announcement was an opportunity to point out that drone security has room for improvement.

Read more

The establishment of the Oxford Martin School is an important initiative to research the greatest global challenges facing us. I attended a featured event organised by the School, ‘Now for the Long Term’ where Sir John Beddington and Lord Rees outlined some of the short-term and long-term challenges that require urgent attention from governments worldwide. I was struck by both the degree of optimism and pessimism in tackling issues such as climate change, where it seems that scientific evidence is being superseded by political agendas. Indeed it would seem to some that many politicians are more concerned about winning elections. While science and engineering are integral to finding solutions to many of the issues facing our world, they fundamentally depend upon policy decisions, which are ultimately shaped by values. People’s worldview and values will determine how they think about solving problems and how they prioritise, and that seems to be at the heart of the problem of why we seem unable to tackle issues affecting the future existence of humanity. As Lord Rees said there is no scientific impediment to achieving a sustainable world, however we still need to overcome the gap between knowledge and effective action.

There are some deeper issues, which have to be tackled of really getting to the reason of why we are not taking on these issues with the seriousness and commitment needed. We have brilliant scientists and engineers and more are needed but if the political culture and values aren’t built upon an aspiration to discover what is true, and a culture of basing decisions upon evidence, rather than desires then it makes the task of changing our world for the better that much harder. Indeed so much of our time and energy seems to be taken up having to convince people, and even when people are confronted with overwhelming evidence there is still a reluctance to take it on board, which leaves me asking the question, why?

Nelson Ireson

If you’re not familiar with Bitcoin, you might want to change that. The electronic cryptocurrency is rapidly gaining acceptance around the globe, with many businesses–and even one university–accepting Bitcoins as readily as dollars. Now, a Tesla Model S has been purchased directly with Bitcoin.

The car, sold for an undisclosed sum of Bitcoin by Lamborghini Newport Beach in Costa Mesa, California, appears to have been a lightly used model, if only because it wasn’t sold directly by Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA].

ALSO SEE: 2015 Ford Mustang Preview: Official Photos And Video

Continue reading “First Tesla Model S Purchased With Bitcoin” »

Continue reading “US Navy launches drone from submerged submarine” »

The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting

By Avi Roy, University of Buckingham and Anders Sandberg, University of Oxford

Benjamin Franklin said two things are certain in life: death and taxes. Another one we could add to this list is that on any given news website and in almost all print media there will be articles about health and nutrition that are complete garbage.

Some articles that run under the health and nutrition “news” heading are thought provoking, well researched and unbiased, but unfortunately not all. And to help you traverse this maze – alongside an excellent article about 20 tips for interpreting scientific claims – we will look at seven clichés of improper or misguided reporting.

If you spot any of these clichés in an article, we humbly suggest that you switch to reading LOLCats, which will be more entertaining and maybe more informative too.

Continue reading “The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting” »

Thousands of people die every year due to drunk driving. It’s a statistic that’s both appalling and frightening. We all like to party, but then when the party’s over, many still refuse to recognize the danger they not only put themselves in, but others as well when they choose to drive while mentally impaired. Thankfully a lot of potential situations are averted every year as well due to taxi services, or even friends willing to drive them home.

Today, however, we live in a very sensor-oriented society. Our phones have sensors. Our homes have sensors. Our tablets have sensors. Our cars have sensors. Take Tesla Motors as an example. They have sensors by their doors which detects whether or not the right driver is approaching the vehicle. If it detects its correct driver, then it’ll extrude the door handle out, ready to be open. If you’re not the correct driver, however, like someone trying to hijack the vehicle, then the door handle will not pop out for you. Sorry.

Continue reading “Driving Home Drunk Will Never Be the Same Again” »