PopTech

askjerves: climateadaptation: My energetic climate buddy Ben...

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:18:00 -0400

climateadaptation:

My energetic climate buddy Ben Jervey created a kickstarter! It’s an education themed project aimed to help folks understand where electricity comes from. Of course, it includes the impacts on the environment and tools to help fix the system. Donate a few bucks, reblog if you can. And follow askjerves:

So, here goes: yet another Kickstarter plea. I’m working on this pretty big project with the incredible folks at Focus the Nation, and we need dough to turn a basic Energy 101 primer into a kickass interactive e-version.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate to ask for anything (even clicks, let alone money), but I really, sincerely think this is a really important project. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever worked on, and I think that The Watt? An Energy 101 primer could be a super useful tool for climate and clean energy advocates.

The basic mission here is to combat energy illiteracy. The basic reason is that you can’t advocate for something you don’t understand.

So, please, if you care a lick about one of the biggest most fundamental challenges of our time, throw a few ducats our way. Promise to make it as awesome as possible.

Thanks, Mike! Though I should say, it’s not just electricity. Energy in all forms. Watch the vid, which I think does a bang up job of explaining the scale of the project.

Nice! We spy a few videos from our Energy Disruptors series, too.

explore-blog: Jonathan Harris on social media as “routing...

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:06:39 -0400

explore-blog:

Jonathan Harris on social media as “routing devices for human attention… providing our species with a common nervous system.”

Jonathan Harris (PopTech 2007) continues to redefine online storytelling.

"Effective leaders have a classic hormone profile: high levels of testosterone, low levels of..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:29:48 -0400

“Effective leaders have a classic hormone profile: high levels of testosterone, low levels of cortisol (a stress-associated hormone). But levels are flexible. When an individual takes over the alpha role, their testosterone rises and their cortisol drops. We found two minutes in a power pose—arms and legs stretched out—spikes a person’s testosterone and drops their cortisol. It works for both genders. It’s the ratio that’s important.”

- Amy Cuddy (PopTech 2012), Power Postures Can Make You Feel More Powerful

The Limits of Density

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:10:39 -0400

The Limits of Density:

“The key function of a city is to enable exchange, interaction, and the [creative] combination and recombination of people and ideas. When buildings become so massive that street life disappears, they can damp down and limit just this sort of interaction…

What we need are new measures of density that do not simply count how many people we can physically cram into a space but that account for how well the space is utilized, the kinds of interactions it facilitates.”

Anne-Marie Slaughter on a new era of ‘citizen social actor...

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:54:00 -0400

Anne-Marie Slaughter on a new era of ‘citizen social actor foreign policy’

In case you missed it, professor of politics and international relations at Princeton and former Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State Anne-Marie Slaughter (PopTech 2011) was on NPR last week to weigh in on the struggling international peace plan for Syria.

Slaughter is a foreign policy expert and watching her PopTech talk you’ll see why. Slaughter provided an overview on the future of foreign policy, exploring the transformation, over the past few decades, from state to non-state, non-governmental ‘social actors’ as key players to effect change in a less siloed, more networked world.

Bring it to the Table: A project that brings citizens together...

Tue, 15 May 2012 16:35:00 -0400

Bring it to the Table: A project that brings citizens together around issues that normally tear us apart.

Trace Heavens by James Nizam Artist James Nizam makes incisions...

Tue, 15 May 2012 16:11:44 -0400

Trace Heavens by James Nizam

Artist James Nizam makes incisions into the structure of a house to manipulate sunlight into light sculptures.

(via unknownskywalker)

The smart phone of the future could be powered by a virus.

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:16:42 -0400

The smart phone of the future could be powered by a virus.:

Anyone who’s had the flu knows viruses can be powerful. But scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are working on technology that will be able to harness that power to generate electricity.

Photo

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:36:34 -0400

inothernews: MOUNT EVER-RED A mountain seemingly glows red as...

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:33:16 -0400

inothernews:

MOUNT EVER-RED A mountain seemingly glows red as the sun’s rays break through clouds at sunrise in Glacier National Park, Montana. (Photo: Harry Litchman / Solent News via The Telegraph)

Interactive map shows the locations of 25,000 speciesKnowing the...

Mon, 14 May 2012 11:54:40 -0400

Interactive map shows the locations of 25,000 species
Knowing the distribution of species around the world will help officials decide how to focus conservation efforts.

(via mothernaturenetwork)

architizer: 100,000 solar-powered LED “fireflies” in Tokyo’s...

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:55:25 -0400

architizer:

100,000 solar-powered LED “fireflies” in Tokyo’s Sumida River

curiosity counts: Do We All See The Same Colors? | BBC Future

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:34:49 -0400

curiosity counts: Do We All See The Same Colors? | BBC Future:

curiositycounts:

Imagine the two of us, arm in arm, looking at a sunset, where the horizon is fretted with golden fire and the deep blue night encroaches from the opposite side of the sky. “What beautiful colours”, I say, and you agree.

And then, in the space of the following silence, I am struck by a worry. I…

Hang out on this Walker Art Center page for a while for the...

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:14:01 -0400

Hang out on this Walker Art Center page for a while for the exhibition Lifelike and see what happens.

amnhnyc: Some minerals contain fluorescent molecules that glow...

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:27:36 -0400

amnhnyc:

Some minerals contain fluorescent molecules that glow under ultraviolet light. Here, Willemite and calcite + apatite and tourmaline fluoresce under a black light. See more in our Creatures of Light exhibition.

Photo by Denis

“Do you know who produces the ingredients in your...

Wed, 09 May 2012 12:46:49 -0400

“Do you know who produces the ingredients in your kid’s school lunch? What about the meals at your parent’s assisted living community? Or even the milk in that coffee you pick up on the way to work each day?” If Erika Block, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and Founder of Local Orbit, has anything to do with it, we will all know soon enough.

These vignettes draw comparisons between software and medicine...

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:01:26 -0400

These vignettes draw comparisons between software and medicine — in their dual capacities to heal and to hurt. They explore the nature of addictive technologies in relation to business, the power that software designers are presently wielding over the masses, and a new way of imagining companies: as medicine men for the species. I hope these vignettes will help to inspire the engineering community to adopt a common set of ethical principles to guide the evolution of software (which, in turn, will help to guide the evolution of our species).

via Jonathan Harris (PopTech 2007) on his new project, Modern Medicine, a series of vignettes, which can be found on Farmer & Farmer

Glass Microbiology by Luke Jerram (via mapmeoblivion)

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:01:46 -0400

Glass Microbiology by Luke Jerram (via mapmeoblivion)

Two British men who have been totally blind for many years have...

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:54:43 -0400

Two British men who have been totally blind for many years have had part of their vision restored after surgery to fit pioneering eye implants.

via BBC News Health

So how big is 7 billion, anyway? Nigel Holmes helps us grapple...

Mon, 07 May 2012 15:01:30 -0400

So how big is 7 billion, anyway? Nigel Holmes helps us grapple with the magnitude of the number in this video animation.

via National Geographic