Air Car Coming to U.S. by 2010: How would you like to be getting 868 miles on a single fill-up? A startup funded by Indian car company Tata Motors plans on bringing a car powered by compressed air to the U.S. automobile market sometime in 2009 or 2010. They company, named Zero Pollution Motors, has developed a car that runs entirely on compressed air for around-town driving, and uses minimal amounts of gasoline at highway speeds. [CNET News.com]
7:29:53 PM
This compelling 7-minute video suggests our search for life elsewhere in the universe should focus on microbes instead of on civilizations. Modern technological civilization on our own planet is a brief moment in time, a mere millenium. Meanwhile life has existed here on Earth for most of the planet's existance (3 out of the 4 billion years since our planet first formed). [European Space Agency/NASA via The Speculist]
11:06:40 AM
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Texas Startup Says It Has Batteries Beat: The patent application from EEStor of Austin Texas claims "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," and if so, they're onto something big. Many in the industry view their claims with great cynicism... but that has not dissuaded Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers from investing $3 million in the little company. [Yahoo News]
8:14:02 AM
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Heavenly Bodies: Whenever the Bear comes across such atronomical comparisons as these, it inspires awe, tinged with a great humility at our smallness in the celestial void, and gratitude and wonder that we even exist at all.
Dick Cheney's Quagmire: The Bear does not usually comment on politics, but this truth-telling from our 2nd in command -- Dick Cheney -- was just too significant to pass up. Here is the Vice President, nine years prior to our invading Iraq, on why such an imperial conquest would be a bad, BAD idea...
Aluminum Alloy Extracts Hydrogen From Water On Demand: While cleaning some lab equipment, a Purdue University engineer inadvertently stumbles upon a new method for producing hydrogen from water. The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you need, when you need it. It's possible the technique could be used to replace gasoline in cars. [What's Next In Science & Technology]
7:41:05 AM
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Peak Uranium: "Limited supplies of uranium fuel for nuclear power plants may thwart the renewed and growing interest in nuclear energy in the United States and other nations, according to an industry expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." [Reuters News via Futurismic]
8:09:47 AM
How Apple TV Changes the Economics Of TV: Not only will niche content change the economics of television, but long before that happens many viewers will drop their cable TV service and instead use Apple TV to buy their TV shows and movies a la carte from iTunes -- all for less than the cost of their monthly cable bill. [Micropersuasion via MyAppleMenu]
7:52:09 AM
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
High Hopes for Pond Scum: Solix Biofuels is betting on commercial algae production. Their algae feeds on CO2 and produces oil, lots of oil. The company hopes to give soy some competition in the emerging market for renewable biofuels. [Popular Mechanics via The Speculist]
7:32:00 AM
