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HERE’S another video from our recent “Innovation Forum 2013″ event, held in Berkeley, California. Chris Anderson, former editor of Wired (and before that a journalist at The Economist), discusses why the advent of digital manufacturing, which encompasses 3D printing and other techniques, is giving rise to a new industrial revolution—and why this technology has the potential to be bigger than...
THE heavens do not lend themselves to poking and prodding. Astronomers therefore have no choice but to rely on whatever data the cosmos deigns to throw at them. And they have learnt a lot this way. Thus you can even (see article) study chemistry in space that would be impossible in a laboratory. Some astronomers, though, are dissatisfied with being passive observers. ...
At a time when agricultural experts are getting hot under the collar about an Indian village whose claims to be smashing rice-growing records have been extolled here and debunked here, it is useful to have a cool global appraisal of the state of genetically-modified (GM) crops, traditionally seen as most likely source of a new green revolution or (alternatively) as a disaster in embryo. ...
SOOT—also known as black carbon—heats up the atmosphere because it absorbs sunlight. Black things do. That is basic physics. But for years the institutions that focus on climate policy have played down the role of pollutants such as black carbon that stay in the atmosphere for a short time, and concentrated on carbon dioxide, which, once generated, tends to remain there. That may soon change.On January 15th,...
THERE are an estimated 120,000 microfinance initiatives worldwide but Thailand’s “Village and Urban Revolving Fund” lends more money to more people than any other. The scheme’s outstanding loan portfolio totalled $4.9 billion in 2011; the number of active borrowers that year stood at 8.5m. Those numbers are swelling. Yingluck Shinawatra, the Thai prime minister (pictured above), announced plans late...
A SPEECH by Mark Lynas has stirred up an intriguing debate both online and off about genetically-modified (GM) foods. Mr Lynas is the author of three well-received books about the environment and was an early anti-GM activist, spending, as he puts it “several years ripping up GM crops” in the 1990s. In 2008, Mr Lynas was unsparing in his criticism of GM food companies, calling their claims that GM crops...
