Ken Langone ~ NYU's Donor Shares Lessons...

Fascinating and blunt Bloomberg interview with Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, donor to NYU and namesake of (and recent patient in) the evacuated medical center...

Squishy Circuits ~ Kids Electronics w/ Play Dough

Professor AnnMarie Thomas and students make Squishy Circuits...

"...to design tools and activities which allow kids of all ages to create circuits and explore electronics using play dough."

Check out her TED talk! (Plus see MakerEd)

Evacuation Drills ~ Levy on Practicing Responses

Perhaps one of the most distressing and lives-at-risk elements of Superstorm Sandy was the NYU Langone hospital emergency evacuation of ~200 patients (including 20 babies and 45 critical care patients) after multiple power systems failed. MIT alum, healthcare sector leader, and patient advocate Paul Levy posts about how evacuation practice can help and specifically spotlights his own hospital's drill in their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)...

"An important aspect of hospital operations is to prepare for the unexpected, a catastrophe that can cause a major disruption to patient care. All hospitals plan for such things, [plus we] drill."

Practice makes perfect and the NYU team (and their NYPD, FD, and ER brethren) stayed cool and dealt magnificently with a very severe situation. See more in David Goodman and Colin Moynihan's NYTimes piece Patient Evac From City Medical Center After Power Failure...

P.S. See here ABC report afterwards... P.P.S. CNN's Cooper interviews baby-carrying nurse Margot Condon...

Red Spider Nebula ~ NASA Spots Galactic Gases

NASA APOD spots Red Spider Planetary Nebula...

Imaging Sandy ~ NASA/NOAA Timelapse, Plus...

NASA/NOAA GOES-14 satellite imagery from 35,800 km up...

"Light from the changing angles of the sun highlight the structure of the clouds. [...] The "super rapid scan" images -- one every minute from 7:15 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. EDT -- reveal details of the storm's motion. Animation by Kevin Ward with images from NOAA and University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies."

And here gCaptain posts Sandy Wave Height buoy data...

The Atlantic spotlights Wind Map...

The Atlantic's John Metcalfe spots NASA TRMM imaging of the Eye...

NYTimes Lower Manhattan flood-guesstimap...

Beaufort Scale ~ Howtoons Visualizes Windforce!

Superstorm Sandy's blowing hard even here in Cambridge, MA several hundred klicks north of the Eye. Check out this handy Howtoons guide to the Beaufort windforce scale...

Exporting MIT ~ TCHE on Quiet Global Strategy

Karin Fischer writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education about Exporting MIT ~ MIT Adopts a Quiet Global Strategy...

"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was in the university-building business. [...] More than a generation later, MIT is at it again. [...] MIT is not stamping its name on campuses overseas. Instead it has seemed content to be a less-showy, largely silent partner in its international ventures. [...] these upstart institutions are being built in the spirit of MIT's motto, Mens et Manus, or Mind and Hand. They are meant to have real-world impact. [In the words of our new President...] "We cannot replicate MIT anywhere else," says Mr. Reif, a former provost and longtime faculty member. "It took us 150 years to get what we've got."

It's a fascinating piece, missing as much as it reveals, including essential history and failures. But read the whole thing!

Rise of Drones ~ Journeyman on Flying Robots

UD spots Journeyman's Rise of the Machines... Plus here's Journeyman's Attack of the Drones... Finally, on related note, here's Robot Wars...

Double Robotics ~ iPad x Segway Y-C Alumco...

Thanks to MIT's Charles Z Guan for spotlighting Double Robotics...

Hexaflexamexagon ~ Vi Hart's Food Mathemagic!

Building upon her previous Hexaflexagon demo, we now can taste the goodness with Vi Hart sharing Hexaflexamexagon tortilla treats;-) Thanks to MissC for spotting this food mathemagic!

Obama Phones ~ US Subsidizes Lifeline Mobiles

CNNMoney reports The real story behind free 'Obama phones'...

"17-million Americans get subsidized phone service through the Lifeline program and the world's richest man is benefiting."

NYC Evac Map ~ Warning Zones for Sandy...

NYTimes interactive on NYC Hurricane Evacuation Zones...

Urbanizing India ~ Economist Spots Trendscape

The Economist spotlights India's Urban Future...

Publish What You Pay ~ Transparent Extractions

Very compelling to see The Guardian's global development spotlight on Ali Idrissa's campaigning with Publish What You Pay in Niger for greater awareness and transparency in resource extraction industries...

"Nigeriens should not need help from rich countries to combat natural disasters and poverty: 'If we benefited from our resources, we would no longer need to do that.' Niger's uranium, gold and oil are not used to help alleviate poverty, he argues. Instead, there is exploitation, including child labour and exposure to cyanide."

Filming Cheetah ~ NatGeo's SloMo of Fast Cat!

National Geographic filmed the world's fastest cat with killer cameras and precision rig! See also feature article, Frans Lanting's photos, and Big Cats Initiative.

Swarm Robots ~ Cooperative Assembly Tasks...

UD spots Swarm Robots cooperating on "Spatially Targeted Communication and Self-Assembly", a project by Nithin Mathews, Anders Lyhne Christensen, Rehan O'Grady, and Marco Dorigo, from Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Instituto Universitario de Lisboa.

Superstorm Sandy ~ Tracking Emergent Weather

Interesting to see the emergence of this season's first stand-out weather event, what CNN is calling Superstorm Sandy...

"The biggest threat scenario involves the hurricane colliding with a cold front from the West, creating a "superstorm" that could stall over the Eastern seaboard for days. Residents [should] prepare for the possibility of a week or more without power."

NOAA forecasts possible paths...

P.S. See also Andrew Revkin's DotEarth commentary at NYTimes.
P.P.S. Check out NYTimes coverage of Dying Satellites...

Mao's Millionaire Minions ~ Censored NYTimes...

China's dictatorial overlords have censored the NYTimes article by David Barboza exposing the scandalous Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader. Witness Mao's millionaire minions enormous corruption and abuse of power in this infographic on the Wen Family Empire...

P.S. See also Economist piece on China's ruling families, a Torrent of Scandals.

Visual Strategies ~ Frankel Shares Key Science

MIT's David Chandler spotlights Felice Frankel's Visual Strategies book on how How to communicate science visually...

Modern Humanity ~ Mapping Global Migration...

Nice NewScientist map of Migration of Anatomically Modern Humans...