Len Rosen's blog
Autoclave Quality Sterilization in Remote Settings for Less Than $200
My wife many years ago worked in a dental clinic. One of her responsibilities was taking discarded dental instruments and cleaning them in a device called an autoclave. Autoclaves use high pressure steam (15 pounds per square inch) at temperatures well above boiling (121 Celsius or 250 Fahrenheit) for a period of 20 minutes to ensure that anything put in them gets sterilized for potential reuse.
New V-Chip Gives Results of 50 Different Tests From One Drop of Blood
I have my annual physical next week and as always it involves collecting vials of my blood for numerous tests - cholesterol, iron levels, calcium, blood sugar....you name it. What always gets me is the amount of blood taken. I'm a regular blood donor and sometimes I swear that I give more blood during my annual physical than I do when I go to a donor clinic. Of course that's not true.
An Innovation That Will Change The Way We Treat Heart Disease
In the December 29 issue of The Wall Street Journal an article authored by Ron Winslow describes a number of major advances in medicine aimed at transforming the way we treat and cure disease.
The Future of Medicine is the iDoctor
If some pundits are right, 80% of doctors will find themselves replaced by machines in the 21st century. What kind of machines?
Tech Headlines for December 28, 2012
On this our last headlines posting for 2012 I have selected the following five stories:
- Wind Power Tax Policies Have Worked to Increase Capacity;
- Robockey - Robotic Game Sharpens Engineering Skills;
- Can Geo-Engineering Stop the Arctic Sea Ice From Melting?
21st Century Tech Blog's Human Resolutions for Lifeboat Earth in 2013
We live on Lifeboat Earth. Our sea is the Universe. To be ignorant of this is to ignore the potential consequences of our bad behavior and its impact on the boat. We have to stop putting spikes in the bottom of it otherwise we will eventually sink. Instead we need to protect every square centimeter, husbanding all our on board resources and ensuring we survive the journey.
Fishing Update at 21st Century Tech Blog: GMO Salmon to Get FDA Approval in the United States
When we think of genetically modified organisms we tend to talk about corn and soybeans. But aquaculture is turning out GMOs in the shape of salmon. Genetically engineered by AquaBounty Technologies, it has taken a decade to finally get this close to being given the green light as a safe food.
In Pursuit of a Global Technical Society
Here we are in the last week of 2012 with another 88 years before we see the end of the current century and I am one of those who is hopeful that we have the tools to make the world by then a much better place for all of humanity and the biodiversity that surrounds us.
Gizmos & Gadgets at 21st Century Tech Blog: The GravityLight Lamp
A large number of us don't have access to electricity. Those in the know put the number at 1.5 billion. That's more than the total population of China. Can you imagine an entire country the size of China being completely off the grid?
The Pursuit of the Millennium Still Drives So Many of Us - From Mayan Myths to Second Comings
Every once in awhile I rant.
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WorldFutureSoc on TwitterAbout 21st Century Tech
Len Rosen is futurist, writer, and researcher based in Toronto, Canada. Read more of his work at 21stcentech.com. Follow him at @lenrosen4.
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THE FUTURIST Magazine Releases Its Top 10 Forecasts for 2013 and Beyond (With Video)
Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. The forecasts are meant as conversation starters, not absolute predictions about the future. We hope that this report--covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology--inspires you to tackle the challenges, and seize the opportunities, of the coming decade. Here are our top ten.
Why the Future Will Almost Certainly Be Better than the Present
Five hundred years ago there was no telephone. No telegraph, for that matter. There was only a postal system that took weeks to deliver a letter. Communication was only possible in any fluent manner between people living in the same neighborhood. And neighborhoods were smaller, too. There were no cars allowing us to travel great distances in the blink of an eye. So the world was a bunch of disjointed groups of individuals who evolved pretty much oblivious to what happened around them.
Headlines at 21st Century Tech for January 11, 2013
Welcome to our second weekly headlines for 2013. This week's stories include:
- A Science Rendezvous to Inspire the Next Generation
- Next Steps for the Mars One Project
- Feeding the Planet Would Be Easier if We Didn't Waste Half of What We Produce
Where is the future?
Like the road you can see ahead of you as you drive on a journey, I suggest the future is embedded in emerging, continuous space-time. Although you’re not there yet, you can see the road in front of you. In the rear-view mirror stretches the landscape of the past, the world you have been through and still remember.
Transparency 2013: Good and bad news about banking, guns, freedom and all that
“Bank secrecy is essentially eroding before our eyes,” says a recent NPR article. ”I think the combination of the fear factor that has kicked in for not only Americans with money offshore, countries that don’t want to be on the wrong side of this issue and the legislative weight of FATCA means that within three to five years it will be exceptionally difficult for any American to hide money in any financial institution.”
The Internet of Things and Smartphones are Breaking the Internet
I have written several articles on network communications on this blog site as well as on other sites, describing its e
BiFi, Biology, Engineering and Artifical Life
BiFi is to biology as WiFi is to computers. It's a technology being pioneered by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions, looking at bioengineering techniques for creating complex biological communities working together to accomplish specific tasks. In a sense every organ and every system of coordinated activity within our bodies runs as a BiFi network.