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Archive for the 'Science' Category
Opinion: ACTA – speaking out the unspeakable
Kader Arif, the Rapporteur for the ACTA agreement in the European Parliament has today resigned over the issues he sees with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (AKTA). To express his views and issues as a member of the European Parliament he issued the following statement on his blog (in French – English translation below) …
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U.S.A. – The weather and climate change in 2011
With climate extrema continue to expose human and natural system vulnerabilities, natural disaster cost are skyrocketing and dozens of billions in damages each year become common, many are asking how this will continue.
According to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) 2011 is estimated to become the costliest year for weather-related disasters since they began tracking billion-dollar disasters in 1980. There seems to be a pattern of more extreme, more frequent and more hazardous weather disasters emerging. Based on HVRI data (in 2009 USD) 6 of the 15 costliest years of the last 50 years where during the last decade. With losses of property & crop in 2009 totaling up to USD 67.4 billion after the record losses of USD 111.6 billion in 2005 and the almost 3 times the average (USD 11.4 billion) year of 2004 with USD 30.4 billion, losses of USD 23 billion in 2008, USD 16.2 billion in 2001 and USD 11.9 billion in 2006 these 6 peak years of the last decade combined have caused damages of USD 260.5 billion. That there is a change in extreme weather phenomena happening becomes even clearer when looking at the overall damage totals from the last 50 years (USD 573.6 billion) where those 6 peak years of the last decade represent more than 45% of all losses occurred during the recorded time frame (HVRI has data published from 1960 – 2009).
The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) tracked 3 more than an USD billion disasters for 2010 and 2011 has already topped their 30 year record of 2008 (8 events) with so-far 10 (multi)-billion disasters (Hurricane Irene being the 10th) …
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Science: Yoshimoto Cube
A video with a little puzzle to start the new year.
The Yoshimoto Cube – a transformation of two stellated rhombic dodecahedrons from one cube.
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National Geographic: How to make Zero G Idents
The spots shown at the beginning of this video might not be so spectacular, but watch how those have been made later in this clip.
Amazing.
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Video: Levitating Water
Amazing how you can fool the eye with a strobe light and some streams of water.
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Innovations: IBM’s Next 5 in 5
The third annual “IBM Next Five in Five” is a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. The Next Five in Five is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBMs Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible.
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