How hot is Copenhagen?
The Climate Scoreboard widget measures the results of the talks in Copenhagen and portrays its effect on future climate change in real-time. The Scoreboard is an initiative of Climate Interactive, a group that focuses on making understandable presentations of complex scientific issues and in particular the science of climate change. You can get live updates through Twitter
We can rebuild him — we have the technology
It looks like the bionically rebuild, crashed astronaut Steve Austin from the seventies tv-show the Six Million Dollar Man is not so farfetched after all. He’d probably be a bit more expensive today but nonetheless. Recently 51 year Peter Lane was one of the first people in the world outfitted with ‘bionic’ eyes. Peter Lane hasn’t seen the light in over thirty years and can now see outlines of objects such as doorways and furniture . He also has the ability to read though the reading is limited to small words. Cameras built into his glasses send the images to a processor worn on his belt where they are turned into an electronic signal. This signal is sent back to the glasses and transmitted wirelessly to a tiny receiver and electrode panel implanted on his retina. However, it’s still earlier days before the blind can see as well as people with healthy eyesight. Lane says the way he sees cars is as cotton wool but progress is definitely made. Bionic body replacement parts may become readily available sooner than you think. Head over to Wired for a great overview of bionic arms currently under development.
Could a tiny pellet power the world?
One small pellet for man, one giant leap for mankind
Next year might just be the best year mankind and for that matter Mother Earth too, has had in ages. If scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Lab succeed our energy problems will be history after 2010. They are planning to shoot world’s most powerful laser at a tiny pellet containing a few milligrams of deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen that can be extracted from water. If all goes well they will create a reaction like the one that takes place at the center of the sun, producing an endless supply of safe, clean energy.
This would mean nuclear fusion, the holy grail of clean energy, would finally become reality. But doesn’t this sound too good to be true? Some scientists think so. They warn it’s all ’snake oil’. Newsweek visited the lab about an hour’s drive east of San Francisco.
Focus on the future: the Bionic lens
Even though I’m nearsighted I don’t see myself wearing contact lenses in the near future. It’s a love-hate relationship. I hate them because they irritate my eyes and yes, I’ve tried them for several years. So I wear glasses but would love to be able to wear contact lenses. Not so much because a choice of shades would be nice but but because of what the future of contact lenses may hold in store for us. Let’s take a brief look at what the labrats are working on. Read more
Singularity and the art of mobile evolution
UK based designer Kyle Bean’s Russian Babushka doll style design of the evolution of the mobile phone is not only original, it’s also very telling. He beautifully objectified a piece of recent technological history. His ‘Mobile Evolution’ could be an illustration straight out of futurist Ray Kurzweil’s 2005 bestseller, “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”.
Biology merged with machine
In the book Kurzweil examines the next step in the evolutionary process, the singularity, a moment in the future when humans and machines merge and become one. Kurzweil believes this will happen rather sooner then later because exponential growth in scientific and technological developments drives us toward the singularity at an almost unimaginable high pace. Read more
Human Area Network 2.0
Click, BBC’s flagship technology program recently traveled to Japan showing a phone that transfers data through your body to a computer. This technology is called RedTacton and has been developed by Japanese scientists of Nippon Telegraph & Telecom. In a nutshell: RedTacton technology turns your body, your clothes, your shoes and even the floor your standing on into an ‘adsl cable’ that transfers data wirelessly to other RedTacton enabled devices.
Nearly two years ago I was fortunate enough to visit the RedTacton lab in Japan for the Dutch Television show ‘In de Ban van het Ding’…
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Who is David?
Easy boys, easy!
Welcome to my personal site. Though I’m a jack of all trades in essence I’m a storyteller. Whether it’s in print, on television, on the radio or live before an audience I thoroughly enjoy sharing my passion for science and technology.
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