Prelude FLNG ~ gCaptain Spots Shell Supership

Thanks to Mike from gCaptain for spotting Shell’s Prelude FLNG, the...

"...world’s first FLNG [Floating Liquified Natural Gas] facility [and] world’s largest floating object ever constructed [...] From bow to stern, the Prelude FLNG measures 488 meters long (that’s more than 1,600 feet) and 74m wide That’s longer than 4 football fields laid end-to-end, including end zones. That dwarfs the massive Emma Maersk by 300 ft and even the late Knock Nevis supertanker by nearly 100 ft."

What I especially like about this is it's the most sophisticated example yet of "containerized infrastructure" which offer economies of flexibility and even urgency -- i.e. many examples are standard shipping container-based, whereas others -- such as the Shell Prelude -- are floating superstructures, e.g. power plants, hospital ships, even prisons! Amazing in scale and ambition!

Cargohopper ~ Utrecht's Clean Logistics Solution

Thanks to Velo Mondial for spotting the Cargohopper, the electric delivery vehicle and system in Utrecht, Netherlands...

Optogenetics ~ Boyden's Neurotech Talk @ TED

MIT Media Lab colleague Professor Ed Boyden shares some of his work and interest in optogenetics as a tool for neurotechnology in his TED talk...

Explosive Images ~ Thrainsson Spots Volcanoes

The DailyMail delivers Explosive Images by daredevil nature photographer Skarphedinn Thrainsson...

GIKEN ~ Great Japanese Eco-Construction Toolco

Japanese eco-construction tools company GIKEN supplies some of the most innovative equipment and enables truly remarkable urban and infrastructural designs! I first came to know of GIKEN because of their fantastic ECO Cycle robotic underground bicycle storage system, which I've written about in Bicycle Parking, More Robotic Storage, and Tokyo Bike Tower. The core of the GIKEN suite of solutions is the Silent Piler which uses the "Press-In Method" of inserting pilings underground for a variety of construction purposes. Here's an example Silent Piler in action... And here a great demo of vibration-free operations! Check out their GIKEN 'Tube channel for more goodies! This innovative company out of Japan is a great example urban venture!

Transparent Displays ~ Everyday Surfaces Alive!

Thanks to Gregg Favalora for spotting the coolest thing at SID -- transparent displays! As gfav says...

"On a fridge door. With beer inside. Look, yeah, it looks like a commercial, but c'mon. This is awesome!"

Fraunhofer CSE ~ New Green Building Showcase

Erin Ailworth writes in the Globe about A showcase for building green, why the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) is relocating to the Boston Innovation District from northeast of Kendall Square, Cambridge...

"The firm, which is a subsidiary of the German research organization Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, helps start-up energy efficiency companies commercialize cutting-edge products and services. [According to CSE's Managing Director Nol Browne] "We want to be the center where people can come to learn about the next generation of building technology." [...] The Fraunhofer center will begin retrofitting its new offices -- originally constructed in 1913 for a leather merchant -- to create a roughly 50,000-square-foot "living lab" where employees will work to advance power-saving ideas."

Revival Technologies ~ Improving Survival Odds...

Ron Winslow in the WSJournal spotlights the remarkable experience of Howard Snitzer who survived 96 Minutes Without a Heartbeat...

"Mr. Snitzer collapsed from cardiac arrest outside a grocery store in January, two men at a gas station across the street sprinted to his aid. Both volunteer firemen, they were soon joined by two dozen local police, firemen and rescuers from two neighboring towns in what became a 96-minute marathon to get Mr. Snitzer's heart started again. [...] Of the 300,000 annual cases of sudden cardiac arrest outside a hospital, 125,000 victims are found too late to be helped [...] The big worry in sudden cardiac arrest beyond restarting the heart is protecting the brain. [...] Recent AHA guidelines, which were published last fall, call for a more sophisticated and continuous monitoring of CO2 [...using the capnograph] After about an hour and 15 minutes had elapsed following Mr. Snitzer's collapse, [and 11 unsuccessful shocks with the defibrillator] the two decided that an additional dose of an anti-arrhythmia drug and one more shock -- the 12th -- would be the last chance. CPR continued as those steps were taken. At the 96th minute, soon after the shock was administered, Mr. Snitzer's pulse returned. [..] About five days later [he] was out of intensive care. In a report on the case published online last month by Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Dr. White and his colleagues reported that Mr. Snitzer "experienced a complete neurologic recovery" and described the episode as the "longest duration of pulselessness in an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with a good outcome." Mr. Snitzer goes regularly to the Mayo Clinic for cardiac rehabilitation. He says he had hardly any idea what happened to him or how he came to survive it. But as he learned about the quick response from rescue workers and how the signals from the capnograph convinced them not to quit, he said: "I'm a regular guy. I happened to die at the right place at the right time."

Amazing stuff. And the capnography technology is just one example of our growing toolset for reviving victims and surviving trauma.

Tintin ~ Trailer for Spielberg's Upcoming Movie!

The Adventures of Tintin movie by Spielberg! I can't wait!

"Fairy Story" ~ Hawking on Heaven and Religion...

Ian Sample in the Guardian shares exclusive interview with cosmologist Stephen Hawking who asserts...

"There is no heaven or afterlife [...] that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. [...] "We should seek the greatest value of our action." [...] "I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first."

Blunt, honest words from a remarkable intellect unbroken by the irrational religiosity all around us.

Decoupling ~ Sustainable and Scalable Growth...

Interesting piece in Fast Company by Ariel Schwartz on Do More With Less Or Things Will Get Ugly...

"As it stands, economic growth is largely dependent on resource consumption. As a country grows, so does its use of natural -- and limited -- high-quality resources like oil, gold, and copper. But this is untenable in the long run, especially as growing countries like India and China model themselves increasingly on American habits of consumption (a car, two cell phones, and 30 pounds of meat for all!) The seemingly impossible solution: separating resource use and environmental impact from economic growth -- a process with the unfortunate moniker "decoupling." According to a new report [Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth] from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), decoupling is already happening, albeit at a small scale. The resources required per $1,000 of economic output dropped from 2.1 to 1.6 tons between between 1980 and 2002"

Also check out my previous posts on The Sustainability of Economic Growth ~ Material vs Intangible Economics?, Energy Intensity, and Ever More Efficient GDP.

Physics Works ~ MIT's Extraordinary Walter Lewin

MIT's inspiring and extraordinary Professor Walter Lewin speaks tonight Monday May 16th at 7p in 26-100 to celebrate publication of his book For The Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge of Time -- A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics. (P.S. MIT News writes about Lewin and this last lecture) We're fortunate to have captured some of this master-lecturer on video... Watch also this longer piece on How To Make Teaching Come Alive...

Ice Pilots ~ Buffalo Airways Delivers the Goods!

Just saw for the first time reality TV show Ice Pilots about the people and business stories of Buffalo Airways, a logistics and flight services firm up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Cool!

Test-Tube Burgers ~ Meat Without Slaughter...

Thanks to NYTimes Dot Earthling Andrew Revkin for writing Meat Without Slaughter spotting Michael Specter's New Yorker piece on Test-Tube Burgers. He writes about in vitro meat inventor Dutchman Willem van Eelen who...

"...was seized by an idea: “Why can’t we grow meat outside of the body? Make it in a laboratory, as we make so many other things.” [...] A new discipline, propelled by an unlikely combination of stem-cell biologists, tissue engineers, animal-rights activists, and environmentalists, has emerged in both Europe and the U.S. [...] Lab-grown meat raises powerful questions about what most people see as the boundaries of nature and the basic definitions of life. [...] “The goal [of cultured meat] is to create the volume previously provided by a million animals.”

See also Humanity+ article by Hank Hyena on Eight Ways In-Vitro Meat will Change Our Lives and my past posts, including on Synthetic Food and In Vitro Meat .

Palestinian Transition ~ Morally Savvy Strategies

Since the state of Israel was unilaterally declared in 1948, the many displaced Palestinian refugees and those who became partial-citizen Israeli-Arabs have marked Nakba Day today, on May 15, to commemorate the Catastrophe of their expulsion and occupation. But as Karin Laub of the Associated Press notes in Palestinians test tactic of unarmed mass marches, this year we are witnessing the growing Palestinian Transition away from terrorism, suicide bombings, and armed resistance towards unarmed mass demonstrations and peaceful protests (e.g. as documented in Budrus) plus clear articulations of the moral case for fully equal, secular, democratic human rights -- and also crucially -- accelerating entrepreneurial economic development (e.g. as evidenced by Rawabi)...

"Palestinian activists are calling it a preview of new tactics to pressure Israel and win world support for statehood: Masses of marchers, galvanized by the Arab Spring and brought together by Facebook, descending on borders and military posts -- and daring Israeli soldiers to shoot. [...] Israeli officials openly puzzled over how to handle an unfamiliar new phase. "The Palestinians' transition from terrorism and suicide bombings to deliberately unarmed mass demonstrations is a transition that will present us with difficult challenges," said Defense Minister Ehud Barak."

This Palestinian pincer strategy of non-violent moral rightness combined with pro-growth prosperity policies will force Israelis to finally actually share the land and riches of Canaan instead of continuing their racist "Jewish majority", ethnic cleansing, and law of return practices, repeated gross violations of international law and multiple UN resolutions, outright criminal behavior including land seizures as well as raw material and water theft, and irrational Apartheid-like policies, including illegal settlements, concentration camps, and barrier walls, all of which are morally reprehensible, politically indefensible, and culturally barbaric. There's room for many creative solutions here, whether this is a separate two-state future with strong freedoms of cross-border movement, or a federalized bi-national state with strong local rule, or even a one state solution -- or perhaps a blend of these over time with trust-building and peace-keeping measures phased over many years. Or maybe now's the time to be thinking about post-nationalist solutions which instead empower individuals instead of ethnic or tribal collectives. P.S. As added context, please see Palestine's Hidden History of Nonviolence by Yousef Munayyer in Foreign Policy...

"You wouldn't know it from the media coverage, but peaceful protests are nothing new for Palestinians. But if they are to succeed this time, the West needs to start paying attention."

Military-Industrial Complex ~ Ike's 1961 Warning

President Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address warned against the Military-Industrial Complex a half-century ago...

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Dying Sucks ~ The Cruel Reality of Decline...

We're all born with aging genetically "programmed" in -- or, at least, it hasn't yet been evolutionarily selected against. Perhaps God and the Devil are both bloody Darwinians? And when you compound aging with the environmental ravages and behavioral burdens we bear or self-inflict, it's little wonder that our bodies and brains wither away too soon. But worst of all, in the final stretch, when we can consciously see our flame flickering low, the cruel reality of our decline and doom really hits home. That's dying and it sucks. P.S. I'm going to do something about this too. As far as I'm concerned, Gerontechnology merits a 12 figure global R&D budget. Governments planet-wide burn that much per year in tax dollars on military "defense" killing people, so it's not crazy to instead invest at least as much money on something that's the constructive exact opposite.

Future Cities ~ CNN's Quest on Urbanization...

CNN's Quest Means Business has a series on Future Cities with spotlight on conurbations, including Abu Dhabi...
Curitiba...
And even LA...

Cityscope ~ McKinsey on Top 600 Global Cities...

The McKinsey Quarterly writes about Global cities of the future: An interactive map...

"Over the next 15 years, 600 cities will account for more than 60 percent of global GDP growth. Which of them will contribute the largest number of children or elderly to the world’s population? Which will see the fastest expansion of new entrants to the consuming middle classes? How will regional patterns of growth differ? Explore these questions by browsing through the interactive global map which contains city-specific highlights from the McKinsey Global Institute’s database of more than 2,000 metropolitan areas around the world."

This is part of larger McKinsey Global Institute report, Urban world: Mapping the economic power of cities.

World in 2100 ~ Future Population Pyramid...

The Economist daily infographic spots World Population Pyramid...