The middle class earning between $30,000 and 100,000 is shrinking because more people are earning more than $100,000 There is a split into the regular middle class and a mass affluent class. Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are …
there is a report from next energy news that Las Vegas should have the first vertical farm by 2010 It is a $200 million project to make a 30 story building. They hope to generate $40 million per year. $25 million from produce and $15 million form tourists. However, no details about who is building …
The New Scientist reports onboron nanotubes that will have many superior properties over carbon nanotubes According to Xiaobao Yang, Yi Ding and Jun Ni from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, the best configuration for boron is to take the unstable hexagon lattice and add an extra atom to the centre of some of the hexagons …
From nanowerk, a new approach for solar power, which garnered two 2007 Nano50 awards, uses a special manufacturing process to stamp tiny square spirals of conducting metal onto a sheet of plastic. Each interlocking spiral “nanoantenna” is as wide as 1/25 the diameter of a human hair. Update: Al fin has an excellent article that …
Fast Company reports on Johnathan Goodwin. He aims to use the turbine to turn the Hummer into a tricked-out electric hybrid. UPDATE: It would be interesting and useful to see more independent testing of the fuel economy of the turbine/hybrid hummer. A 60 mpg hummer would need to have power sources that are about three …
By 2014 the Army may issue more than combat gear to deploying soldiers. University of Connecticut researchers are developing an implantable chip that would be injected under soldiers’ skin to help monitor vital health information while they are out in the field. These kinds of devices would help enable real time tracking of biomarkers for …
Apple’s Mac OS’s share of the overall operating system market hit 8% at the end of 2007 This share is very likely to increase because of faster growth in Mac sales and because of the shift to laptops where Apple is even stronger with 17.6%. Industry analysts predict that notebooks sales will exceed desktop sales …
Carnival of space 35 is up in two sections I contributed my article on new low earth orbit solar power plans Hobbyspace covers the latest New Space news Space4commerce talks about resources in space
The mainstream Economist magazine has extensive coverage of aging and life extension with a primary focus on the SENS strategy for life extension. The Economist article believes that SENS is a credible and plausible approach and thinks it has a chance of significant success. They also cover the Methuselah Mouse prize
Christopher Thomas is Intel’s deputy general manager for China and is based in Beijing and has written an article for Forbes that describe China’s efforts and plans to develop innovation and inventions locally. The Chinese government’s goals are sweeping: to develop, influence or downright own the core intellectual property of the next generation of technologies …
In response to the 2008 Edge question “when did facts change your mind”, Freeman Dyson describes the facts that changed his mind about the role of nuclear weapons in ending world war 2 I agree with the assessment that nuclear weapons are overrated and excessively feared. Nuclear weapons are devastating but conventional weapons and all …