Missing Links
Plus, guess where solar is headed next

Isle of Skye Stinging Eyes (CC licensed)

Also, useful rats, accommodating corpses, and more, all in today's links.

  • How to set up a solar energy project where none of the residents will cry out "Not in my backyard"? Build it in a cemetery. (What the residents' kids will say is a different story.)
  • Researchers have found that prints left by dinosaurs on the Isle of Skye in Scotland are virtually indistinguishable from prints found in Wyoming. We are really hoping that researchers will next find signs of those little fairies that supposedly roam around Skye in Wyoming, too.
  • Scientists foresee a shift from computers that can calculate to computers that can cogitate, or at least more closely mimic the processes and circuitry of a human brain.
  • Just like your mom hollering "Yoo hoo!", anoles have a way of getting their comrades' attention -- only they do so silently.
  • Rats: They're not just for running around on subway tracks and spreading disease anymore. A species known for their "sunny disposition" is being trained to sniff out explosives, while others are being used to detect tuberculosis bacteria.
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1 Comment

President-elect Barack Obama's energy initiatives focus upon electric-powered vehicles, wind turbines and solar energy. The plans necessitate building a transmission grid capable of delivering renewable power generated in remote places to distant cities. Grid developers face uncertainties in cost allocations and returns on investments, environmental concerns, landowner objections and a variety of regulations in different states served by the same power lines.
Solar energy possibilities are discussed at http://www.onebiosphere.com
New electricity from wind and solar sources could increase the regularity of blackouts and reduce the reliability of the nation's electrical grid according to experts. Energy from these new sources will impose new demands on a transmission system that was not designed for large power transfers over extremely long distances.



June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


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