According to the United States Energy Information Administration, renewable energy generation now surpasses nuclear energy production across the country. This is good news for the renewable energy sector which has been receiving increased attention over the past few years, yet little observable progress in surpassing conventional energy production.

Half of US social program recipients believe they "have not used a government social program" Cory Doctorow at 10:48 AM Friday, Jul 8, 2011 "Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era," a paper by Cornell’s Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions Suzanne Mettler features this remarkable chart showing that about half of American social program beneficiaries believe that they "have not used a government social program."

There’s been quite a few problems that have risen about Dropbox in recent months that is making some people feel uncomfortable about using it and are seeking refuge by means of an alternative. There are plenty of other online storage services, such as Box.net, but it seems that there is no alternative that can compete with the benefits that Dropbox provides, namely file synchronization.

Farmers who spray insecticides against aphids as a preventative measure only achieve a short-term effect with this method. In the long term, their fields will end up with even more aphids than untreated fields. This has been reported by researchers at the Biocenter of the University of Wuerzburg in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

A major new review of scientific knowledge on kava — a plant used to make dietary supplements and a trendy drink with calming effects — has left unsolved the mystery of why Pacific Island people can consume it safely, while people in the United States, Europe and other Western cultures sometimes experience toxic effects.

Conventional wisdom suggests that because we’re approaching the theoretical limit on individual wind turbine efficiency, wind energy is now a mature technology. But California Institute of Technology researchers revisited some of the fundamental assumptions that guided the wind industry for the past 30 years, and now believe that a new approach to wind farm design — one that places wind turbines close together instead of far apart — may provide significant efficiency gains.

Who knew that sociologists regard economists in roughly the same way the Redskins view the Dallas Cowboys? In this memoir of his scholarly career, Peter L. Berger writes that, with a few exceptions, economists are "as impervious as fundamentalist mullahs to any language other than the one allegedly revealed to them, and to them alone."

We recently reported on the the government’s failed effort to persuade Americans to use dollar coins. But the coins have found at least one group of fans: Travel enthusiasts who buy thousands of dollar coins with credit cards that award frequent-flier miles for purchases.Once in possession of the coins – shipped to them by the government for free – they can deposit them into their bank accounts and pay off the credit card bills.

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Thanks to sea-level rise, a beloved public place already busy with uses becomes even more complex Ocean Beach, the three-and-a-half-mile stretch of sand and dunes along San Francisco’s rugged Pacific coast, faces serious challenges. Part wild landscape, part urban beachfront, it draws a remarkably diverse three million visitors per year to stroll, bike, surf, walk dogs and enjoy the stunning natural setting.

Kaid Benfield – Kaid Benfield is the director of the Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, co-founder of the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system, and co-founder of Smart Growth America. More I find that I am almost always thinking about the quality of places.

A quest to reproduce a mammoth’s voice led a student on an incredible data-collecting journey to piece together bits of information from all corners of science. Scientists employ all sorts of techniques to introduce us to extinct animals in the context of a museum, but for the most part, those techniques are largely visual.

A recent study provides one more argument against government officials who tout "industry clusters" as the Holy Grail of regional growth and innovation. The formula for creating these clusters is always the same: Pick a hot industry, build a technology park next to a research university, provide incentives for businesses to relocate, add some venture capital and then watch the magic happen.

I was recently asked to write the foreword for Social Media Geek-to-Geek by Rick & Kathy Schmidt Jamison. I was delighted to help and as always, I requested to publish the foreword here when the book was released.

If you like to ride bicycles for fun and have a taste for it odds are you have a very nice bike, not something you bought down at Walmart. If you are a well to do cyclist you might want something that is very different from any one riding in your group.

Vivek Kundra’s resignation last week from his post as the nation’s Chief Information Officer is an ominous event. Kundra’s goal was to set government data free via an expansive Internet effort called Data.gov, and encourage innovation with government-collected data through the Open Government Initiative.

Companies and organizations can donate an unlimited amount of money to honor officials, sponsor their conferences, and donate to their pet charities, so long as these donations are reported to the Senate. The Sunlight Foundation analyzed these filings from 2009 and 2010 and found about $50 million in honorary gifts and meeting costs.

Whether it’s a washing machine that monitors the power grid, or a fridge that you can "look" in with your smartphone, more and more devices that aren’t computers can now perform actions or be controlled via the internet. The phenomenon is known as The Internet of Things, and as technology advances, so will the number of "things" involved.

Why choose a Pneumatic Vacuum Elevator? Features and Benefits for your House, Condo or Boat Be On The Cutting Edge: Revolutionary vacuum technology now available for residential elevators Sleek and Compact Design: 37 inch diameter that can be placed virtually anywhere with a 360 degree panoramic view Flexibility and Speed: 30 feet/min, available in 2 and 3 stops, up to 35 feet, installation is less than a week and can be relocated if needed Safe: Due to the advanced safety features, the vacu…

CogniFit blog gives you daily insights about our latest development, discoveries around the brain and neuroscience.

The paper was owned by Marshall Field V and his brother Ted Field. Ted wanted to cash in. Marshall couldn’t or didn’t choose to buy him out. Murdoch was known to be a bidder. Royko was involved in negotiations with a group of local investors assembled by Jim Hoge to buy the paper.

Section I: Overused Plots and Storylines Section II: Overused Settings and Characterizations Section III: Overused story events and plot devices Section V: Rejected suggestions that I get a whole lot An Internet correspondent by the name of Shveta Thakrar has kindly asked that I replace the swastika with another symbol.

Making good use of geocentric models of the universe, or how to brush up on 18th-century British slang. Thanks to the tireless curators behind brilliant sites such as 50 Watts, BibliOdyssey, Paleofuture, and How to Be a Retronaut, to name just a few of the Internet’s treasure troves, we now have collections of archival material that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

Remember our story last week, discussing the copyright issues of monkeys taking photographs of themselves using a photographer’s camera that he had left alone?

Imagine you can insert a memory card in your brain and go all Keanu Wow, I know Jiu-Jitsu! Reeves. It’s actually not that far away: Scientists have created a chip that allows rats to instantly know things.

Curious about changes in the highest income demographics? Cap Gemini has all of the details. Most of America may be treading water, but the High Net Worth Individuals are kickin’ it old school!

Modified carbon nanotubes can store solar energy indefinitely, then be recharged by exposure to the sun. David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

Continuing to explore the ways in which technological and social change affect our relation to money… In my last post I discussed some of the reasons people will gravitate towards collaborative non-market based production as a substitute for monetary purchases. In this post I want to explore further how the notion of "wealth" shifts as this change proceeds.

I was unfamiliar with how mycorrhizal networks connect the roots of trees, facilitating the sharing of resources. Dr. Suzanne Simard writes: Graduate student Kevin Beiler has uncovered the extent and architecture of this network through the use of new molecular tools that can distinguish the DNA of one fungal individual from another, or of one tree’s roots from another.

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This Pacific Domes BioEnergy Dome is located in one of the most isolated areas of the U.S. where the only flourishing oasis is in this dome. It is always springtime where vegetables and fish flourish in this protype BioEnergy Dome on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Naatani, Arizona.

Beyond the broad-grained geographic pattern is a remarkable degree of variation. Washington has at least one metropolitan region in each of the quintiles, ranging from Seattle, which is ranked Very High and Yakima, ranked Very Low.

Nearly a fifth of the contiguous United States has been faced with the worst drought in recent years.

Researchers in the US are testing biofilter systems as a viable alternative to releasing methane from passive landfill vents into the atmosphere. The technology could reduce the overall impact of old landfills on global warming. Details are reported in the current issue of the International Journal of Environmental Engineering.

TORONTO, ON – University of Toronto researchers have derived inspiration from the photosynthetic apparatus in plants to engineer a new generation of nanomaterials that control and direct the energy absorbed from light. Their findings are reported in a forthcoming issue of Nature Nanotechnology, which will be released on July 10, 2011.

Columbia Engineering researchers have built optical nanostructures that enable them to slow photons down and fully control light dispersion. They have shown that it is possible for light to propagate from point A to point B without accumulating any phase, spreading through the artificial medium as if the medium is completely missing in space.

If you love maps as much as we do, the 13th book by author Rebecca Solnit” (of Wanderlust fame) will make you swoon. Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, out today, is a collection of 22 magnificent maps brimming with full-color whimsy that reveal the city in an entirely new light.

From the home of Braveheart comes video of Tarantulaheart. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) allowed scientists at Edinburgh University in Scotland to take detailed images of tarantula tickers beating while the arachnid was still kicking.

See more of Vivian Maier’s street photography. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TAKE measure of Vivian Maier’s photos without taking stock of her story. She was by all accounts remarkably private, someone who didn’t always enjoy the company of other adults.

As things stand today, the US is hurtling toward a budget showdown in less than a month. Either President Obama will once again capitulate to extreme Republican budget-slashing demands, making Democrats seem as much of a threat to Medicare as Republicans, and virtually ensuring a GOP electoral sweep in 2012, or the US will default on its debt for the first time in its history, most likely plunging the world economy back into another five-continent recession, also costing Democrats the 2012 e…

The BitTrust API is a common platform for developers of applications (for online destinations and user interfaces of Bit Coin trading systems) to build their user interfaces around. Acting as an intelligence hub it removes the necessity to build out many specific features for every application and instead share one data center via our central API.

Artificial trachea built from scratch shows the promise of regenerative medicine. Surgeons in Sweden have successfully transplanted a fully synthetic, tissue-engineered organ-a trachea-into a man with late-stage tracheal cancer. The synthetic trachea was created entirely in the lab, using a scaffold built out of a porous polymer, and tissue grown from the patient’s own stem cells inside a bioreactor designed to protect the organ and promote cell growth.

Atlanta Regional Commission project constructed the new ramp to accomodate the aging population in Atlanta. People are getting old, fast, and they’re doing it in cities designed for the young. Cities in American are grappling with that fact as work on getting the communities ready for an older population has gotten a late start considering demographers have warned for a long time that the population is about to get older.

The first thing you’ll need to do is determine your gnome’s alter ego. Spend time with the gnome. Sleep with it if you have to. Look into its eyes…its soul. Look around your yard too. What type of issues are the yard inhabitants facing? Are there other-worldly invaders? Common street thugs?

To combat cyberattacks, the U.S. may need more than new cyberdefenses. It might need a whole new piece of Internet infrastructure. So says former CIA director Michael Hayden, who served under President G.W. Bush, and he’s not the only one. Several lawmakers and the current Cyber Command chief Gen.

Directions for Scoring the Leary Interpersonal Behavior Test

Esther Inglis-Arkell – Scientists have found a gene that can ‘lock’ and ‘unlock’ certain sections of your genetic code, allowing other genes to be expressed in your body. If you are under enough stress, this gene springs into action. So you think you have access to all your DNA just by being born?

Frequently Asked Questions About Stem Cell 100TM 1. What is the preferred dose of Stem Cell 100TM and when should it be taken? If you are 125 pounds or less or in your 20s, then it may be best to only take one capsule of Stem Cell 100 per day preferably after lunch.

The business environment for newspapers continues to be grim. Pew recently reported that advertising revenue rebounded in 2010 for all forms of media, except newspapers.* This might just be a matter of transitioning from print to digital revenues but for the fact that the market values a print reader far more highly than a digital one.

From Bangladesh to Brazil, or what photojournalism can reveal about food and cultural context. In case you ever wondered, the most popular Brain Pickings post to date is our review of photographers Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio’s Hungry Planet – a grounding portrait of what the world eats, from the $376.45 an Australian family spends on food per week to the $1.23 weekly budget of a same-sized family in Chad’s poorest refugee camp.

Illustration by Harry Campbell for TIME Bob Lutz, the former Vice Chairman of General Motors, is the most famous also-ran in the auto business. In the course of his 47-year rampage through the industry, he’s been within swiping range of the brass ring at Ford, BMW, Chrysler and, most recently, GM, but he’s never landed the top gig.

The AR patent gives Apple a way to populate live photos and video feeds from iPads and iPhones with digital information, allowing users to easily identify unknown objects and places. For example, with this AR patent, Apple may conceivably create an iPad screen that displays a live picture of a city on the top half and then maps out that skyline digitally in the bottom half.

Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Anton Kusters, talking about the birth of his first book. We are sitting on my front porch during a beautiful sunrise. Somehow appropriate. Even more appropriate is that today is Anton’s birthday.

AN IMAGE processing system that obscures the position from which photographs are taken could help protestors in repressive regimes escape arrest – and give journalists "plausible deniability" over the provenance of leaked photos. The technology was conceived in September 2007, when the Burmese junta began arresting people who had taken photos of the violence meted out by police against pro-democracy protestors, many of whom were monks.

Paper and packaging materials. It accounts for roughly 31% of all waste Americans send to the landfill. Close behind is another contributor to household waste that may surprise you. Food and yard waste accounts for 27% of our annual waste. Households waste approximately 14% of their food purchases, either through spoilage or as scraps.

Immediately after the judge read the not guilty verdict in the high profile Casey Anthony criminal case, total internet traffic to major news outlets doubled, and most importantly, outsiders took to social media outlets to display their emotions and opinions.

A powerful set of online tools for eDiscovery and text analytic research. Gain insightful knowledge from your data by filtering through documents and feeds.

What can you do in CAT? Efficiently code raw text data sets Annotate coding with shared memos Manage team coding permissions via the Web Create unlimited collaborator sub-accounts Assign multiple coders to specific tasks Easily measure inter-rater reliability Adjudicate valid & invalid coder decisions Report validity by dataset, code or coder Export coding in RTF, CSV or XML format Archive or share completed projects What file types can CAT import?

A study by Columbia Business School’s marketing professors Ran Kivetz, Philip H. Geier, Jr. Professor of Marketing, and Oded Netzer, Philip H. Geier Jr. Associate Professor, Marketing, alongside Rom Schrift, Assistant Professor of Marketing, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (he received his Ph.D.

By Michael Carlowicz Design by Robert Simmon July 8, 2011 It wasn’t built for Earth science, but the contributions were inevitable. When the Space Shuttle Columbia first rocketed into space on a pillar of fire in April 1981, it was the maiden voyage of the world’s first re-useable spacecraft.

Window 1i am plumbed with a yellow Bezier connector to Window 2. Window 2i am plumbed with a yellow Bezier connector to Window 1, and a Bezier connector with square endpoints to Window 3 Window 3i am plumbed with a Bezier connector and square endpoints to Window 2, and a Bezier connector with custom style to Window 4.

Slightly changes the interface of Google to maximizes space & provide the most appropriate usability. Ensure you read the comments as there are a few issues to be aware of. I have personally had no issues with it. Add +1 to your pages to help your site stand out.

Almost 216 million people, or 3.15% of the world population, live outside their countries. Click on a country box to know more about migration flow to/from that country. Refugees and asylum seekers made up 16.3 million, or 8%, of international migrants in 2010.

In this natural-color image from August 31, 2010, the ocean’s canvas swirls with turquoise, teal, navy, and green, the abstract art of the natural world. The colors were painted by a massive phytoplankton bloom made up of millions of tiny, light-reflecting organisms growing in the sunlit surface waters of the Barents Sea.

A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people’s lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.