In The News

The Depression: If Only Things Were That Good

David Leonhardt October 14, 2011
In analyzing any economic period, one can focus on wages or employment levels – or delve deeper into a society’s potential, examining education and innovations. David Leonhardt takes the latter approach in comparing the current crisis with the Great Depression, when television, autos, aviation, nylon and other materials were under development. A lack of technological innovations that provide for...

Portable Microscope Detects Bacteria Using Holograms

September 19, 2011
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently developed a portable microscope that detects bacteria using holograms, an invention that promises to have far-reaching effects in the developing world and telemedicine. The handheld device costs less than $100 to build. Rather than optics, the device relies on a digital photo sensor, common in iPhones, to magnify images of...

The Women Bringing Solar Power to Sierra Leone

September 15, 2011
Developing renewables to meet the growing demand for energy is a top priority in the 21st century. So is enhancing collaboration among developing countries. By training semi-literate women from rural Sierra Leone in solar-energy techniques, Barefoot College in western India works towards achieving both these goals. Twelve women attended and then returned to villages in Sierra Leone to assemble 1,...

Foxconn, HSBC Join Global Trend: Technology Reducing Labor Costs

David Magee August 4, 2011
For corporations, people are becoming a redundancy. Reliance on technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency is a corporate trend that has contributed to high unemployment rates. An International Business Times article reports the trend is expanding into areas often blamed for jobs lost in the developed world: the world of finance and outsourcing to China. HSBC Bank and Foxconn, the maker...

Huge Arctic Fire Hints at New Climate Cue

Richard Black August 2, 2011
Dry conditions stemming from climate change could lead to more wildfires even in the cool Arctic; in turn, the fires could hasten the pace of global warming. A 2007 fire in Alaska put as much carbon into the air as the entire Arctic tundra can absorb in one year, suggests ecology research released by Nature magazine and reported by the BBC News. “Fires in the tundra are uncommon because the...

Foreign Nations Push Into Space as US Pulls Back

W.J. Hennigan, Ralph Vartabedian July 28, 2011
Amid economic woes and waning support for government investment in science, the US has suspended its human spaceflight program indefinitely. Former astronauts and NASA supporters are bitter about NASA losing its competitive edge. The pullback could give China, Russia, India, Iran and other nations – there are more than 50 national space programs in all – a chance to catch up. The US is counting...

How Seawater Can Power the World

Stewart C. Prager July 14, 2011
Securing future energy sources will follow the path of past examples – through the long, hard work of scientific discovery that is so often a gamble. “[A]bundant, safe and clean energy source once thought to be the stuff of science fiction is closer than many realize: nuclear fusion,” writes Stewart C. Prager, Princeton physicist, in an opinion essay for the New York Times. But billions of...