Miscellaneous
Ending homelessness with a real solution
Homelessness is a costly problem; one Colorado study found that each homeless person in the state cost taxpayers $43,000 per year in medical and other expenses, while housing them only cost $17,000 per year. Homelessness is a solvable problem, and is one being tackled by Housing First, a nonprofit Read More...
Oxygen treatment repairs brain damage
In 2006 British paratrooper Ben Parkinson was victim of a devastating bomb blast that took both of his legs above the knee, broke his back, and left him brain damaged. The doctors told Parkinson that he would never walk again, but in 2012 he defied the odds, not only walking but carrying the torch Read More...
Obama proposes to protect Artic from drilling
Yesterday President Obama proposed legislation that would designate12.3 million acres of Alaskan forest as a wildlife refuge, the highest of protected status. Obama’s measure would ban all oil production in the protected area, keeping some 10 billion barrels underfoot. The bill is already under Read More...
Video based intervention reduces signs of autism
Child developmental therapy cannot cure autism in children diagnosed with the disorder, but a new study has found that video intervention could help. Researchers discovered that parents who watched video lessons that showed them how develop their baby’s attention span, communication abilities, Read More...
Electric vehicle charging for apartment dwellers
Electric vehicles (EVs) are the cars of the future, they’re environmentally friendly, and pretty easy to charge—just plug it in over night. But what if you’re one of the millions of Americans that live in an apartment without your own garage? A new company called Powertree aims to solve that Read More...
Bill and Melinda gates see big changes coming in the next 15 years
Every year for the past five years Bill and Melinda Gates have written an open letter talking about their foundation, and the work that it’s doing. In this year’s letter the Gates spoke at great length about the improvements that will be coming over the next 15 years for people in developing Read More...
Amazon builds giant wind farm
More and more tech companies are trying to go green, and Amazon is no exception. The web services company announced that it is constructing a 150-megawatt wind farm in Indiana. 150 megawatts provides enough power to serve around 46,000 US homes, however this giant wind facility will be used to Read More...
Hybrid aircraft takes flight
By 2050 air travel is expected to increase six fold, and greenhouse gas emissions are projected to rise 50 percent. Planes are among the largest consumers of fossil fuels and emitters of greenhouse gases. So any way to save planes gas will surely impact greenhouse emissions. Cambridge University Read More...
Twitter predicts heart disease
Twitter has catalyzed revolutions, is regularly the first place news stories are broken, and if you’ve heard of the #hashtag it’s because of Twitter. Now Twitter is filtering tweets through an algorithm to predict the likelihood of developing heart disease in a given area, and surprisingly—or Read More...
Solar plane maps flight path for trip around the world
A Swiss team has constructed a plane the flies using only the sun’s energy. The plane’s pilots have plans to circumnavigate the globe, the first solar plane to do so, and have announced the stops they will make on their historic journey. Among the plane’s first stops are China, the US, and Read More...