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US Renewable Energy Production Surpasses Nuclear Energy For First Time
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.
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Half of US social program recipients believe they "have not used a government social program" – Boing Boing
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."
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Sparkleshare — A Great Open Source Alternative To Dropbox [Linux & Mac]
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.
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Fewer aphids in organic crop fields
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.
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| The unsolved mystery of kava toxicity
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.
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Bold new approach to wind ‘farm’ design may provide efficiency gains
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.
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Book review: “Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist,” by Peter L. Berger – The Washington Post
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."
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How Frequent Fliers Exploit A Government Program To Get Free Trips : Planet Money : NPR
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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Ren21 Map
Sorry but you have not flash player installed. Please download from http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/ … or please click on the link below for a static consultation of the information displayed : http://www.map.ren21.net/search.aspx
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The Future of Ocean Beach | SPUR – San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association
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.
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| Place and Sustainability: The Case for Thinking Locally – Kaid Benfield – Life – The Atlantic
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.
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3-D Prints Of Vocal Chords Let Extinct Mammoths Roar Again | Co.Design
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.
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Industry clusters: The modern-day snake oil – The Washington Post
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.
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This is the time to go your own way Brian Solis
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.
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