Monthly Archives: March, 2012

Bioengineering Update – If the Climate Changes Wouldn’t it be Easier to Change Us?

Re-engineering the planet may be tougher than re-engineering humanity argues S. Matthew Liao, of New York University, in an article, Human Engineering and Climate...

Geoengineering Update – Proposals for Dealing with Arctic Methane Permafrost Release

For the last two weeks here in Toronto the temperature has been abnormally warm. Today, March 19, 2012, we will see late May, early...

Energy Update – Advances in Hydrogen Storage

Hydrogen can be found everywhere on Earth. Along with oxygen it forms water. But getting the hydrogen out of water and distributing it for...

Our 20th Century Space Legacy – Part 3: Testing the Limits of Human Endurance in Near-Earth Space

In December 1972 the United States sent Apollo XVII to the Moon - the last time a human stepped on the surface of another...

Our 20th Century Space Legacy – Part 2: To the Moon and Back

The Space Race was both ideological and technical. Which of the two nations, the United States or the Soviet Union had the means to...

Our 20th Century Space Legacy – Part 1: The Evolution of Rocket Technology

I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction where humanity travelled as freely through space as we do on Earth. Our venture...

Geoengineering Update – Rising Sea Levels Represent a Distinct Risk in the 21st Century

With one island nation, Kiribati, already planning an exit strategy, and climatologists and oceanographers marking the steady rise in ocean surface levels, the 21st...

Biomedicine Update – Cloning the Woolly Mammoth a Step Closer to Reality

Scientists from Russia and South Korea are hell-bent on recreating the Woolly Mammoth, an animal that has been extinct for more than 10,000 years. The...

The Pursuit of Intelligent Machines – Mass Customization & 3D Printing

New 3D technology allows for precision printing on a nanoscale. In a process called two-photon lithography, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be...

Urban Landscapes in the 21st Century – Part 6: The Evolution of Cities

Freshwater is critical to life on this planet. Yet we are a species that treats it with such little regard considering how scarce a...

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