Causes of Death From Japanese Catastophe (as of what is known and estimated today) 1) Earthquake motion from initial Magnitude 9 Quake= 2,000 (estimated of total 10,000) 2) Earthquake aftershocks in one week duration= 50 deaths (from debris movement) 3) Tsunami wave drowning and impact= 8,000 (of estimated 10,000 deaths) 4) Nuclear Power Plant Failures …
BBC News – Even under this worst case, though, the direct health consequences of the nuclear accident would be very small compared with the thousands already killed by the earthquake and tsunami, let alone the continued suffering of the survivors (by David Spiegelhalter Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University. The Daily Mail …
University of Pennsylvania purchasing power parity tables are available (Penn World Tables 7.0) Because of China’s population and a degree of uncertainty about the rate of growth of China’s GDP as well as its actual economic size, PWT 7.0 provides two versions, an official and non-official. The former uses the ICP 2005 base estimate of …
This site had previously analyzed the deaths per terawatt hour by energy source. Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh) Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity) Coal – China 278 Coal – USA 15 Oil 36 (36% of world energy) Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy) Biofuel/Biomass 12 …
This graphic shows how waves generated by Japan’s Honshu earthquake propagated across the Pacific Ocean, based on computer models. The different colors indicate different wave heights, as indicated by the key at lower right. A picture of the killer tsunami that was caused by the Japan earthquake. If you liked this article, please give it …
In an interview with Sander Olson, Cornell engineer and researcher Hod Lipson discusses adaptive, evolving robots. Lipson’s robots compete and learn, and acquire new skills in movement. Lipson uses simulators to co-evolve both simulators and robots. Lipson’s has already demonstrated a robot that can compensate for losing a limb by modifying its movement. Hod Lipson …
Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio have gained funding to carry out a clinical trial injecting a virus carrying a gene called follistatin which stimulates muscle growth Jerry Mendell M.D. and Brian Kaspar PhD have been awarded a US$600,000 grant by the US charity Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. The money will be used to …
Quantum Computer researcher Suzanne Gildert claims that computronium is unobtanium. Computronium is defined by some as a substance which approaches the theoretical limit of computational power that we can achieve through engineering of the matter around us. It would mean that every atom of a piece of matter would be put to useful work doing …
Steve Jobs claimed a high tablet market share at the IPad2 rollout Many have said (iPad) is the most successful consumer product ever launched. Over 90% market share and our competitors were flummoxed.” There are difficulties determining how many tablets Ycombinator has a debate about the claims. There will be hundreds of competing tablets in …
Ideas for Space Industrialization in the spirit of G. Harry Stine’s The Third Industrial Revolution By Joseph Friedlander Space Products And Potential Earthly Markets. The original Space Age (say 1958-68 and to a lesser degree all the way to 1975) was not merely the successor to the Atomic Age (immediate post WW2 say 1945-57) but …
What makes a nation, a people, a lifestyle productive of wealth? And what would living that way feel like? By Joseph Friedlander Note: This is a very long article Brian Wang has written extensively on the concept of the Mundane Singularity (Singularity lite) in analogy to beverages, which does not include the full Eric Drexler-like …