News of the demise of Kim Jong Il, leader of the ‘hermit kingdom’, or the World’s last Stalinist State, North Korea, shouldn’t have come as a surprise; after all, he […]
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You searched for: Water
If glaciologists and engineers can somehow harness flotillas of icebergs at the frozen corners of the Earth, it may signal hope for the throngs of thirsty people around the world.
I’m eager to join in the “Which five books on a desert island?” game suggested by Big Think editor Dan Honan in a recent post. As a blogger, would-be critic, […]
I just got back from a glorious week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. John Nash and I were consulting with two different local grassroots NGOs. Our role was to help build […]
Peter Gleick, a water and climate analyst at the Pacific Institute and member of the National Academies, has admitted in a blog post at the Huffington Post to having obtained […]
A new generation of unconventional fossil fuels is taking hold thanks to new technologies that are expected to diversify global resources away from the Middle East.
The Consumer Electronics Show is over and Mat Honan, senior reporter for Gizmodo.com, is depressed. He wrote a lyrical piece about the melancholia created by a three-day Bacchanalia of […]
On January 19-21, the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists hosted a major summit of more than 100 social scientists, scientists, professionals, and political leaders […]
I’d be remiss if I let 2011 slip by without a tribute to Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979), who was born a century ago and who now looms larger over contemporary poetry […]
A body of running water may be called any of many different names, the most generic being stream, the most common being river. A river can be defined as ‘a […]
Beyond wind and solar, a variety of carbon-free energy sources—biofuels, geothermal and advanced nuclear energy—are seen as possible ways of meeting rising global demand.
Put your rain sticks away. Scientists have developed a way to summon water droplets out of thin air through the use of lasers which may one day help us control where it rains.
My earlier post, “Storming the Ivory Tower“, discussed the real harm that religion is doing in the world, harm that Very Serious People overlook while tut-tutting at atheists. The natural […]
Five tech breakthroughs helping level the playing field in developing countries: inexpensive tablets, laptops, and mobile phones; affordable solar panels and nanotech toilets.
In each generation, our most brilliant thinkers lay the foundations on which lesser lights will build a new, bloated bureaucracy of the mind. Can experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats help us break the cycle?
Astronomers have discovered a huge mass of water — some 140 trillion times the amount of water in all the Earth’s oceans combined. This water is 12 billion light years from Earth, evidence that water existed in abundance when the universe was young.
If you know the name of artist Chris Burden, you probably think pain: shooting, electrocution, and even crucifixion. Although Burden ended his agonizing exploits over 35 years ago, those performance […]
The vast majority of Earth’s water is too salty for humans to drink and desalination has, until now, proven too inefficient to be practical. A German engineering company has a new solution.
For almost 2000 years, Western Art has groped about in the darkness, laboring under the Ptolemaic misconception that Earth (and humankind) is at the center of all things. Until now.
Peter Diamandis is one of the world’s most ambitious entrepreneurs. Creator of the X-Prize Foundation and other companies, he is optimistic about the current direction of business.
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is drawing to a close, and with it the brave and caffeine-addled efforts of over 200,000 writers worldwide. Unabashedly privileging “enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking […]
Chefs Make Change, a loose coalition of superstar chefs, is leveraging the power of micro-donations to raise a million dollars for charities, many of them focused on how, what, and whether people eat.
Burial and cremation are no longer the only ways of putting your loved one to rest. A Scottish company has installed the first ‘alkaline hydrolysis’ unit in a Florida funeral home.
1 billion people in the world lack clean drinking water and over 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation services. Peter Thum came up with the idea for Ethos Water in 2001 […]
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Metaphor is extremely powerful: By washing, people can remove a sense of immorality, unlucky feelings or doubt about a decision, say University of Michigan psychologists.
The urge to predict is understandable. We forecast the future, and continue to do so even after repeated mistakes, because of the deep psychological need for a sense of control, to keep ourselves safe.
Social entrepreneur Peter Thum compares Ethos Water to the Prius, which he says “basically doesn’t solve any problems, but it takes advantage of an imperfect technology and it takes a step in the right direction.”
Like many urban rivers, the South Platte in Denver is not always easy to get to. City officials have done a fair job of creating walking and biking paths along […]
Brian O’Neill, co-founder of Waq al-waq, remembers Chris: As most people reading this today already know, Chris Boucek- suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically, passed away this morning, at the shockingly young age […]
While America has always led the world in supporting new entrepreneurs and launching innovative new companies, the democratization of the Internet over the past decade means that we are all […]