Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. About a quarter of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere goes into the oceans, where it forms carbonic acid. As the amount of carbon has risen …
The first half of 2012 has solidification of what will be big impacts on day to day life for many people in the world over the period of 2013 to 2020. I have made and track a list of technologies in what I call the Mundane Singularity. At the end of 2011, I had indicated …
A one page marketing document for the Sky City skyscraper has occupancy of 17,400 and not 174,000 There were previous reports that the occupancy would be 174,000 for the new 220 floor design. It is now clear that the 838 meter tall design is about half as thick as the old 666 meter design. The …
One of the main difficulties with any manned Mars mission that aims to land humans on the surface of Mars and return them to Earth is getting humans off of the surface of Mars. Mars has 40% Earth gravity, and overcoming such a gravity well would be problematic. But a European entrepreneur named Bas Lansdorp …
China will be trying to make 200-700 story Sky City factory mass produced skyscrapers. These buildings will use less material (steel and concrete), be lower cost per square foot and will have other environmental and economic benefits. From the Judge Dredd Comics there are the Stratoscrapers in Mega City One. They are described as often …
Seeking Alpha – Apple is about to become one of the world’s biggest buyers of industrial robots. The company has announced a 78% increase in its non-retail capital expenditure to $7.1bn. Analysts in Asia and America believe that the size of Apple’s robot purchases could tie up the market for several years. The increase is …
US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientists are leading a multi-agency study which reveals that a very high-resolution Doppler radar has the unique capacity to detect individual cloud hydrometeors in the free atmosphere. This study will improve scientists’ understanding of the dynamics and structure of cloud systems. This Doppler radar was previously used to track small …
The Stanford team has created an ultrafast nickel-iron battery that can be fully charged in about 2 minutes and discharged in less than 30 seconds. The team managed to increase the charging and discharging rate by nearly 1,000 times. Edison created the nickel-iron battery as an inexpensive alternative to corrosive lead-acid batteries. Its basic design …
DARPA’s Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP) program has completed the design of innovative technologies to transform commercial container ships into self-contained floating supply bases during disaster relief operations, without needing port infrastructure. The program envisions a container ship anchoring offshore of a disaster area, and the ship’s crew delivering supplies ashore using DARPA-developed, modular on-board …
CEO of Broad Group Zhang Yue, 52, says the “Sky City” skyscraper can fix many of the world’s pollution, congestion, transportation and even disease problems by completely purifying the tower’s air. The 838-meter-tall building (10 meters taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world’s tallest) will hold schools, a hospital, 17 helipads and …
The B612 Foundation has unveiled its plans to build, launch, and operate the first privately funded deep space mission – SENTINEL – a space telescope to be placed in orbit around the Sun, ranging up to 170 million miles from Earth, for a mission of discovery and mapping. The Foundation leadership and technical team include …