Most Prefer Electric Shocks To Solitary Thinking
I shock therefore I am. In fact, our own minds are so intolerable that many people chose to administer painful electric shocks to themselves rather than sit in quiet contemplation, researchers from the University of Virginia and Harvard discovered. Here is the Science research paper. The researchers were shocked by their results. In a series of 11 studies, U.Va. psychologist Timothy Wilson and colleagues at U.Va. and Harvard University found that study participants from a range of ages generally did not enjoy spending even brief periods of time alone in a room with nothing to do but think, ponder or daydream. The participa...
Source: FuturePundit - July 3, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Coal Still Fastest Growing Fossil Fuel
BP says coal is still the fossil fuel whose consumption growth is the fastest. Coal consumption grew by 3% in 2013, well below the 10-year average of 3.9% but it is still the fastest-growing fossil fuel Consumption outside the OECD rose by a below-average 3.7%, but still accounted for 89% of global growth. China recorded the weakest absolute growth since 2008 but the country still accounted for 67% of global growth. India experienced its second largest volumetric increase on record and accounted for 21% of global growth. OECD consumption increased by 1.4%, with increases in the US and Japan offsetting declines in the EU. E...
Source: FuturePundit - June 19, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Genes For Long Telomeres Boost Brain Cancer Risk
Every time Icome across a report of some gene, protein, or hormone that is claimed to have the potential to make us live longer I am always very skeptical. Our bodies wear out and any effort to turn up the knob on activity in a type of cell or organ risks turning up the risk of cancer or some other disease that strikes when worn out cells are made to do more than they safely can do. This latest report provides an example. As the telomere caps on chromosomes wear down cells lose the ability to divide. So longer telomere caps good? Shorter telomere caps bad? Not that easy. Cells that can divide more times are cells that gain...
Source: FuturePundit - June 10, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Coronal Mass Ejection Barely Missed Earth In 2012
It was on par with the 1859 Carrington Event and would have caused massive electric grid collapses. I do not want to see a civilizational collapse due to lack of electricity. We ought to have big electric power transformers stockpiled underground along with any other vulnerable but essential pieces of our electric power infrastructure. We are incredibly dependent on electric power and our civilization would collapse very rapidly without it. Our population densities preclude a shift back to a lower tech lifestyle without a big die-off. I've said this before. If you happen to live in a really really rural area where people f...
Source: FuturePundit - March 20, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Large Pacific Northwest American Earthquake Threat
A big subduction zone plate shift could ruin your whole day. 9.0 baby. In the Pacific Northwest, Native American stories told of "how the prairie became ocean," and how canoes were flung into trees. Whitmore of the National Tsunami Warning Center said similar waves, up to 100 feet above sea level, could again inundate many areas of the U.S. West Coast. West of Eureka California a 6.9 earthquake just hit 3 nights ago. It was at the southern end of the Cascadia subduction zone. Sooner or later huge natural disasters happen. Hurricanes aren't a big deal because we can see them approaching and we've got cars and evacuation she...
Source: FuturePundit - March 15, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Japan Policy Change Back Toward Nuclear Power
Big increases in coal, natural gas, and even oil have substituted for the nuclear reactors shut down after the April 2011 earthquake. At the Hamaoka nuclear reactor site the Chubu Electric Power Company is building a 1.6 kilometer long concrete and steel wall to prevent a future tsunami from hitting that site's reactors. The company is also building an elevated backup power plant that can generate power to circulate water to prevent a meltdown after a future earthquake. A combination of these 2 measures could have prevented the Fukushima reactor failures. Here is a table of Japanese nuclear reactors and which have applicat...
Source: FuturePundit - March 12, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Railroads Evaluating LNG Locomotives
The energy cost difference between diesel and natural gas is now so great that BNSF and General Electric are going to test liquified natural gas (LNG) for locomotives. CSX is going to test retrofit kits supplied by GE. Mixtures of diesel and natural gas are being used. Canadian National Railway is also doing LNG locomotive evaluations. Do not expect a rapid shift to LNG. The railroads make locomotive changes only very slowly. The use of natural gas as a transportation fuel is expected to increase by 50% from 2007 baseline to 2016. Railroads have energy cost advantages over trucks due to higher efficiency. LNG as a fuel cou...
Source: FuturePundit - March 10, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Did Dark Matter Wipe Out Dinosaurs?
Every 35 million years Earth passes thru a thin layer of dark matter that reaches across the Milky Way Galaxy. Traversal thru that layer could bombard Earth with some comets from the Oort Cloud. Jan Oort's could of comets is around the outside of our solar system in all directions. A small gravitational nudge could send some our way. Right some rogue comet might be headed toward Earth to cause another extinction event. Three asteroids came close to Earth on March 5 and 6. One of them was spotted only a day before it passed by. We could treat these as warnings that we ought to build asteroid defenses. Seems like a much bett...
Source: FuturePundit - March 10, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Peak International Oil Company CapEx Spending
Gail Tverberg has excerpts from a Steve Kopits presentation on how big oil companies are cutting their capital expenditures budgets on exploration and drilling (Upstream) spending. The price of oil isn't high enough to justify enough drilling to maintain and increase oil production rates. Kopits argues that exploration and production costs are rising much faster than prices and have been for years. Those costs have now gotten high enough that oil companies can not economically justify spending enough to maintain production. This is how Peak Oil happens. When costs go even higher than the price a monopolist could charge pro...
Source: FuturePundit - February 28, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
A Better Fetal Genetic Test
In an article about a hugely improved genetic test for fetal DNA an interesting fact gets revealed: Lots of free-floating DNA in a pregnant woman's blood comes from the placenta around the fetus. The screen analyzes blood from women who are at least 10 weeks pregnant. At that point, about 10 percent of DNA in the blood will be fetal DNA from the placenta, Dr. Bianchi said. One consequence of very accurate fetal DNA testing: more abortions due to genetic defects. In any society with legal and easily available abortion services the amount of genetically defective babies will go down. I'll leave it to you all to form your own...
Source: FuturePundit - February 26, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Supersonic Business Jets And The Cutting Edge
Spike Aerospace claims they will deliver a supersonic business jet in 2018. A competitor, Aerion, now puts their own supersonic jet delivery in in 2021 (a multi-year slip btw). Since the world now has so many billionaires and highly paid CEOs I would like to see more cutting edge products developed to address their needs and desires. They can afford to pay high prices for small volume and technologically sophisticated products. What would be ideal: major efforts to develop rejuvenation therapies that at first only the wealthiest will be able to afford. Our problem: as long the wealthy make most of their personal expenditur...
Source: FuturePundit - December 31, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Colder North America And Warmer Rest Of World
Wondering what the extensive snow cover in the US says about the climate of the rest of the world? The US and Canada are the outliers. The rest of the world is warmer. Scroll down to the November 2013 NASS GISS global temperature anomaly map at that link. Alaska is warmer than normal and the rest of North America is colder than normal. Siberia is much warmer than normal. Bottom line: heavy snows in North America are not a sign that the world is cooling. Unless you have time machine the future of global climate is hard to predict. Since a lot is riding on future trends in climate I'd really like to know what is going to hap...
Source: FuturePundit - December 24, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Coal Consumption Growth Still Outpacing Oil And Natural Gas
If you pay attention to press stories in the United States about booming production of oil and natural gas from shale you might think that King Coal is in serious trouble. Well, coal consumption in America is certainly down. But King Coal is still booming globally, outpacing oil and natural gas. Coal use increased by an average of 3.4 percent per year from 2007 to 2012, faster than the increase in either oil or natural gas. Consumption through 2018 is expected to increase by 2.3 percent a year, the I.E.A. said. Most countries are not willing to impose on themselves the sorts of high electric power costs that Germans pay in...
Source: FuturePundit - December 22, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Plant Genetic Engineering Needed To Adjust For Climate Change?
David Rotman argues that genetic engineering of plants will be needed to feed the world because climate change will speed the spread of plant diseases. This could lead off into a discussion on whether the globe is warming. Well, the signal from the ocean is much clearer on that score (warming) than the signal from atmospheric temperatures. Since the oceans have way more mass than the atmosphere I'm thinking the oceans are telling us what we need to know. But we don't need global warming in order to see the necessity of crop genetic engineering. Cheaper faster transportation and global trade are already spreading many plant...
Source: FuturePundit - December 20, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Robotic Delivery: Easier With Restaurant, Fresh Food?
For general parcels the hardest part for robotic delivery trucks is the last dozen few hundred feet to your doorstep. The truck can get near the destination but can't take the final step. A friend was telling me how he uses a web site to order restaurant food. The service places the order with the restaurant, picks it up, and drives it to your home. That got me thinking: It is easier to do robotic pizza delivery than robotic delivery of non-cooked goods. Why? You are usually there waiting for the hot food to get delivered. Suppose you order a hot pizza or (being more health conscious) hot turkey, sweet potatoes, and beans....
Source: FuturePundit - December 15, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
