The US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a new study that finds the price tag for motor vehicle crashes in the US in 2010 carried a cost of $871 billion (6% of GDP) in economic loss and societal harm. This includes $277 billion in economic costs—nearly $900 for each person …
The World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council have a report Urban China: Toward Efficient, Inclusive and Sustainable Urbanization which has six priority areas for a new model of urbanization. 1. Reforming land management and institutions 2. Reforming the hukou household-registration system to provide equal access to quality services for all …
Google released the demographics of its almost 50,000 person workforce. Thirty percent of Google’s 46,170 employees worldwide are women, the company said, and 17 percent of its technical employees are women. Comparatively, 47 percent of the total work force in the United States is women and 20 percent of software developers are women, according to …
Hybrid super-capacitor / battery material could be built into the structure of all types of construction projects — from the siding and drywall of homes to the chassis of airplanes and electrc cars and the cases of smartphones. Researchers from Vanderbilt University’s Nanomaterials and Energy Devices Laboratory are now designing materials that combine the best …
The new Spacex Dragon V2 can carry seven astronauts for several days It can land propulsively with the accuracy of a helicopter anywhere on Earth. It has an improved pica heat shield. It should be carrying astronauts in 2017 or 2018 to the space station and other places in orbit. The new version of Dragon …
Bill Gates says automation will reduce the total jobs that will be available in the future. As part of a Q&A session at the American Enterprise Institute, Bill Gates talked about how public policy can help workers, particularly in jobs subject to greater automation, better cope with technological change. Gates favors (a) taxing consumption rather …
Financial Times claims significant and possibly deliberate errors or falsehoods in the Picketty wealth inequality data. There seems to be little consistent evidence of any upward trend in wealth inequality of the top 1 per cent. Their wealth share declines from after the first world war to around 1980 and is pretty constant thereafter. The …
Popular Mechanics looks at the physics of Bruce Lees One Inch Punch Although Bruce Lee’s fist travels a tiny distance in mere milliseconds, the punch is an intricate full-body movement. According to Jessica Rose, a Stanford University biomechanical researcher, Lee’s lightning-quick jab actually starts with his legs. “When watching the one-inch punch, you can see …
Boeing Co. Chief Executive Jim McNerney said the plane maker aims to emulate the product strategy of Apple Inc. by developing future passenger jets in incremental steps, rather than once-a-generation “moon shots” that carry too much risk. This is a reaction to the difficulties in building the advanced 787 Dreamliner, which suffered years of delays …
The Economist has a new chart of US vs China Purchasing power parity GDP based upon the new 2011 comparison of pricing If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 206 is up at Hiroshima Syndrome Atomic insights reviews the MIT floating nuclear reactor design Next Big Future – Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) should be launching their crowdsourcing effort in 2014 They need to get their Tungsten electrode and then later switch to a beryllium electrode. If successful with their …