New diseases

I remember in my college biology class my teacher talked about new forms of disease emerging has demographics changes. I don't think contagious cancer will be a problem for us soon, but imagine how horrible it would be if it came. I've been following the Tasmanian Devil face cancer for a while and it's always deeply disturbed me. Just sit back and imagine what would happen if something like this happened to humans? Now Hapers has an excellent article on the subject.

Microsoft Tries to catch up

I've been having the feeling for years that Microsoft is behind the technological trend. This news about how they're developing a different kind of OS, one that isn't tied to an individual PC, is interesting. I'll keep my eye on this.

The end of globalization?

A series of posts from Worldchanging, Gristmill, and NYT, all theorizing that increases in energy prices could reverse globalization. I'm pretty skeptical, globalization is a powerful trend. Thomas Barnett has another take here.

Gassification idea

I really love this guy. His posts are always long and well thought out. Here he has one on how high oil prices might change international shipping. Interestingly he suggests coal gasification as a replacement if, and only if, the oil price gets high enough to make that worthwhile. I think I really need to find the coal gasification break-even oil price. Is it $5? $10? $20? I'll research.

Micro-nuclear plants? Sounds creepy to me

The idea of having a "hot-tub" sized nuclear power plant scares me a little bit but it might be neat (assuming the companies claims are true).

Environmentalists get excited

Mr. Williams-Derry seems to be a little bit over-excited about this new solar low interest loan program to California residents. Nonetheless it might help encourage more solar power.

New Energy Mapping tool

Renewable energy maps have been available for a long time, but you had to know where to look and what to look for. This new mapping tool helps makes things easier. I like

COOL ZOT

Shazam!!!!

Somewhat interesting NYT op

Check out Thomas Friendman's new column. I just like the sentence "climate change means “global weirding,” not just global warming"

Very creepy article about natural mind controling animals

This just gives me the shivers. I've heard about the parasite that controls sheep but I hadn't heard about most of the critters in this gallery. A critter that controls humans could make a great horror movie plot (and it sort of has, but most of them are about aliens controlling humans, not something from Earth).