The electric car industry is held back by reliance on conventional energy. Despite spending trillions of dollars on mandates and subsidies, solar and wind alternatives have made little difference in the share of energy filled by natural gas and oil.
Some of that is economics. A subsidy prevents innovation because it props up the status quo, and environmentalists and the politicians they support remain opposed to nuclear power, but some is plain physics. Lithium-ion batteries are stuck in the 1990s because there are real challenges to be overcome in the next generation.
The bond between humans and dogs is one of the oldest stories in anthropology. It may also be a cautionary tale for other animals, though the organic, holistic, free-range, ayurvedic, shade-tree grown dog food is probably pretty good.
A new study of bones recovered from Gough’s Cave and Pınarbaşı says we may have been dressing pets up in funny outfits even farther back. Evidence shows they were actually accompanying us on walks over 14,000 years ago, even before agriculture created the spark of civilization.
“I have lost D’Artagnan, in whom I had every confidence,” wrote King Louis XIV to his Queen Consort, Maria Theresa of Spain, after he received news that his right-hand man, Charles de Batz de Castelmore, the Earl of Artagnan, was killed during the siege of Maastricht in the summer of 1673.
D’Artagnan would become famous thanks to an 1844 serialized novel by Alexandre Dumas, in which he was instead a young Gascon peasant who becomes a friend to Athos, Porthos, and Aramis in the King's Musketeers and saves King Louis VIII from various intrigues. It was such a hit that it made Un pour tous, tous pour un (one for all, all for one) part of the worldwide lexicon and it's been turned into dozens of films, including its greatest, Richard Lester's 1974 version.
The future career arc for my house is a library bed-and-breakfast. It will be just like it sounds; every bedroom is also a library, as is the house. Except not a government library, with sterile walls and floors that echo, the whole thing will be comfortable.
Because some readers are less social than others, when they reserve a room people will be able to choose to designate Book Club or Book Worm. If they just want to be left alone, they are book worms so they'll get the polite basics. Warm but not outgoing, read in a comfy chair in front of the fireplace in peace. If they are book club, they can talk to me and have coffee and such.
The other day I traveled with Kalliopi and our two newborns to Padova from Lulea. After six full months in Lapland - a full autumn and winter, in fact - I needed to get back to my original office, and take care of other business at what has become my second home now. Meanwhile, travel has become considerably more complicated for me: traveling with two infants is no easy matter.
Older people who eat large amounts of meat have a lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline than they should have with a gene that some link to increased risk.
The gene that has been linked to increased risk is Apolipoprotein E, which plays a role in the transport of cholesterol and fats in the brain and blood. The gene exists in three main variants: epsilon 2, 3 and 4. Since each person inherits two APOE genes, one from each parent, giving six possible genotypes): 2/2, 2/3, 2/4, 3/3, 3/4 and 4/4. In Sweden, where the study was done, approximately 30 per cent of the population are carriers of the gene combinations APOE 3/4 or APOE 4/4.
"Medical" marijuana is legal in many places but often just an excuse to buy recreational drugs, as shown in uptake data that 60 percent of pain patients are older women while 75 percent of medical marijuana prescriptions are for young men.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System "concentrated" solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert is by any measure an unmitigated disaster.
The party that is now claiming they are rescuing the Ivanpah they mandated to exist was scheduled to be closed this year - because its low costs were always a pipe dream and its maintenance estimates were the optimism no scientists believed.
But California ignores scientists. We ignore them about 80,000 Prop 65 cancer warning labels on harmless products, we ignore them on pesticides, and we ignore them on energy.
A new DNA analysis reveals that long before the Incan Empire took over Peru, animals were being transported across the Andes, a trek that also involved rainforests, highlands and deserts.
The analysis was of parrot feathers discovered at Pachacamac, Peru, a religious hub that is far outside the birds’ native rainforest range. The burial feather assemblage included the Scarlet Macaw, Blue-and-yellow Macaw, Red-and-green Macaw and Mealy Amazon. DNA sequencing, isotope chemistry and computational landscape modeling says the western side of the Andes was just as inhospitable to these species one thousand years ago as it is today.
Personalized online ads must work for the same reason advertising must work; it wouldn't be a trillion-dollar industry if it didn't work. Even supplements and organic food are only $140 billion, and those are really popular things that don't work. Advertising is not popular at all but good luck succeeding without it.
Yet there are limits for what people accept without being uncomfortable. In robots and animation, that has long been termed the 'uncanny valley' - where something is not lifelike enough to look real but too lifelike to be acceptable. Some digital marketing has its own uncanny valley; where it becomes unsettling. Examples are people who say they mentioned something in the presence of their Amazon Echo and then ads on Facebook began to target them.
