Climate change. Despite the protestations of the few, it’s pretty clear that climate change is real. And, the policies of TheDonald are simply going to bring about these changes more quickly.
Continue reading The Ostrich Effect
You’ve never had the pleasure of traveling with me. (OK. I’m probably choosing the wrong verb. But, I am the author and have sweeping leverage in choosing the verbs. )
Geez. You’d think with all this Russia hacking talk going on, our government would be doing some preventing. And, I’m not just talking about protecting our voting machinery.
Continue reading Must we emulate the ostrich?
This post was written long before The Donald elected to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. (That accord is officially entitled the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I italicized ‘framework’ to ensure y’all recognize this is but a suggestion to preserve the world in which we live- not a series of regulations governing our lives.) Everything in the post below still applies. Except now, the warnings are probably more dire.
Continue reading Stop! In the name of truth!
Electric cars. Electric trucks. Yeah, we’ve seen them. Even some self-driving versions of the vehicles.
Continue reading Up, up, and away..
I’m sure we’ve all heard about all the crazy ideas folks dream up to generate power. From adding technology to our shoes to connecting generators to our treadmills and exercise machines. Some of them are really not so crazy.
Continue reading From the bottom of my feet…
Yesterday, we talked about the Ukraine and DNC hacks. And, that Israel has strong programs to combat cyberattacks.. Today, we’ll find that US universities are missing the boat- and our electric grid (power transmission in the US) is at tremendous risk, among other critical infrastructure components.
Continue reading There’s a gap, all right
No matter what Donald Trump says, sentient beings recognize the fact that Russia had a field day with the Democratic Party apparatus. (The Russians probably attacked the Republican Party, too- but they kept that data for their own internal use.) And, those same sentient beings also recognize that this was the primary Democratic party sites (and certainly John Podesta’s eMail)- they didn’t seem to hack Hilary Clinton’s private server.
Continue reading Woops, there goes another kilowatt dam…
Most of us who work in biochemical engineering know that nature has supplied us with a variety of microbes that provide great starting grounds from which we can develop the specialized strains we need. In my case, that meant finding two strains that could degrade ammonia to innocuous gases- and with a little manipulation, a viable product was soon available. We employed the same process to eradicate aromatic hydrocarbons and,m then again, for some specialized mining situations. (The first set of microbes where I used this process involved finding the right bunch of bugs in nature for the inoculum to degrade honest-to-goodness solid waste to methane near Deer Island and the Boston Common- for one of my theses.) I also reported that Drs. Lewis and Epstein used the same ideas for their new antibiotic development.
Continue reading Nanowires- with high conductivity
Years ago, we were approached by one of the Port-O-Let dealers in Michigan. He had this idea he wanted us to help him develop.
