Blogs

It's the Ides of March and unless you are unaware of the auspiciousness of this Caesarian date, it is also the day for me to post weekly headlines that I want to share with you, my readers. This week I have picked a few stories about developments in and from space:

• Curiosity Gives Us a Better Picture of the Martian Past;

It will probably come as a surprise to most to learn that the first revival of an extinct species has already occurred. It happened in 2003 when scientists cloned a bucardo, an Iberian wild goat, that had gone extinct three years earlier, by inserting its DNA (which they got from frozen bucardo skin) into the eggs of an existing goat. The cloned bucardo was born, but then died just ten minutes later.

Known as carbon capture and sequestration or CCS, it is the answer that "clean coal" patronizers seek. It is an answer for the carbon intensive oil sands. It is the only answer for coal-fired power plants if they are continue to exist.

If you are like my family, avid watchers of the new version of the nighttime soap opera, Dallas, you know that Christo

Urbee II seen in the image below, sounds like it is, a cuddly urban three-wheel automobile that is futuristic in its design. What makes it different from any other vehicle on the road today? Much of it is produced using 3D printing technology.

In this blog I describe several important technological trends relevant to the agricultural sector.

Imagine replacing a missing tooth, not with an implant or a bridge, but with a bioengineered one created from your gum cells. Sound like science fiction? Well it's not.

Transatomic Power is the name of the company and its contribution to the energy sector is a newly designed nuclear reactor that will be half the cost of competing technologies. It's not a new idea.

There are 26 million square kilometers (10 million square miles) of northern land under vegetation. Over the past 30 years 34 to 41% (9 million square kilometers or 3.5 million square miles) have seen increased plant growth while 3 to 5% have seen a decline. The area of enhanced vegetation is comparable in size to the United States not including Alaska and Hawaii.

There are many 3D printers on the market now and some of them are even affordable for home use. But making 3D models up to now has required CAD software and mastering engineering drawing is not everybody's cup of tea.