Janine Benyus - Biomimicry

Champion of the Earth honoree and biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus has transformed the way we think about innovation and design. Benyus challenges us to study nature’s best ideas, then imitate its designs and processes to solve some of our greatest human challenges.

IfItWereMyHome.com

IfItWereMyHome.com: "IfItWereMyHome.com is your gateway to understanding life outside your home. Use our country comparison tool to compare living conditions in your own country to those of another. Start by selecting a region to compare on the map to the right, and begin your exploration."

Eythor Bender demos human exoskeletons

Eythor Bender of Berkeley Bionics brings onstage two amazing exoskeletons, HULC and eLEGS -- robotic add-ons that could one day allow a human to carry 200 pounds without tiring, or allow a wheelchair user to stand and walk. It's a powerful onstage demo, with implications for human potential of all kinds.

Frankengenentics or Science Future?

Paul Root Wolpe: It's time to question bio-engineering



At TEDxPeachtree, bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe describes an astonishing series of recent bio-engineering experiments, from hybrid pets to mice that grow human ears. He asks: isn't it time to set some ground rules?

These advances are both amazing and can be ethically questionable depending on your perspectives and beliefs. We have been manipulating genetics of plants and animals for thousands of years (through selective breeding), the only difference is now we have much greater control.

TEDTalks : Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" - Eli Pariser (2011)

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

Joel Salatin: War Stories from the Local Food Front

Summary
American farmer Joel Salatin, the star of the documentary Food Inc, has become a "pin up boy" for the growing food "re-localization" movement. On a recent visit to Canberra, he gives his take on food politics after a lifetime of experience in natural and profitable farming.

Salatin came to prominence with his ideas about creating abundance on a family farm. His methods include learning how to mimic nature and arrange the facets of farm life so they don't operate as independent operations, but rather a system of "intertwined cycles."

Disregarding conventional wisdom, the Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, moved cows daily with portable electric fencing, and utilized portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.

Salatin believes we’re now living through an age of a "food inquisition", not unlike the religious inquisition of 500 years ago, where the powers behind industrialized agriculture and food production are putting heretical farmers like him "on the rack."

In this talk, organized by Milkwood Permaculture in association with Slow Food Canberra, Salatin lays out twelve false assumptions peddled by the "inquisitors," which sustainable farming methods counter.

Discovery Landing Ends Storied Chapter in NASA History

eWeek.com reports: "NASA moved one step closer to the end of an illustrious era of spaceflight when space shuttle Discovery touched down for the last time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9. Discovery and its six-member crew delivered the Permanent Multipurpose Module, packed with supplies and critical spare parts, as well as Robonaut 2, the dexterous humanoid astronaut helper, to the International Space Station. STS-133 was Discovery's 39th and final mission."

I wonder if this is truly an end of era of the American space program. If so this is very sad.

Awesome Milk Trick!.

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook

The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect

New bank Trojan employs fresh tricks to steal account data

Computerworld reports: "Unlike other conventional hacking tools, OddJob does not require fraudsters to log into a user's online bank account to steal from it. Instead, the malware is designed to hijack a user's online banking session in real-time by stealing session ID tokens."

This is a very scary piece of malware. I am pretty sure that we will soon see a lot of other types of malware copycat the technique.

Amazon launches Prime Instant Video, unlimited streaming for Prime subscribers

Engadget reports: "We heard it was coming and now here it is. Amazon has flipped the switch on its 'free' video streaming for Prime members, the service we've been hearing about for the past month or so. If you've already been taking advantage of subscription-based two-day shipping so that your impulse buys get to your door a little quicker you can now enjoy streaming of 5,000 pieces of 'prime eligible' content, including some recent movies and a lot of TV shows, much of which will look awfully familiar if you're also a Netflix subscriber. However, on some foreign films (like The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest above) you have the choice of subtitles or dubbed, and much of this content is still available to 'rent' or 'buy' if you want to be able to download it to a mobile device. We're just checking out the service now and will be back with some impressions a little later."

Its looks like Amazon is trying to give Netflix a run for its money.

NOVA scienceNOW: Where Did We Come From? | Cosmic Perspective

Watson Jeopardy! computer: Ken Jennings describes what it's like to play against a machine. - By Ken Jennings - Slate Magazine

Slate reports: "When I was selected as one of the two human players to be pitted against IBM's 'Watson' supercomputer in a special man-vs.-machine Jeopardy! exhibition match, I felt honored, even heroic. I envisioned myself as the Great Carbon-Based Hope against a new generation of thinking machines—which, if Hollywood is to be believed, will inevitably run amok, build unstoppable robot shells, and destroy us all. But at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Lab, an Eero Saarinen-designed fortress in the snowy wilds of New York's Westchester County, where the shows taped last month, I wasn't the hero at all. I was the villain."

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex

Tom Guilmette: "I was working a gig in Vegas with a brand new Phantom Flex high speed digital cinema camera. I had to try it out. In fact, I never did go to bed that night. I opened up a wormhole shooting at 2,564 frames per second."

Firefox's Problem with Windows

USB Dead Drops (Cool Idea)

Excerpt from the site: "‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is open to participation. If you want to install a dead drop in your city/neighborhood follow the ‘how to’ instructions and submit the location and pictures."

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture

How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. At TEDSalon in London, Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun.

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China

Speaking at a TED Salon in London, economist Martin Jacques asks: How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise? The author of "When China Rules the World," he examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become.

Watson's Jeopardy Showdown: Man Vs. Machine

CIO Insight reports: "An epic showdown of man vs. machine kicks off Feb. 14, 2011. That's when “Watson ,” a computing system from IBM, will face off against 'Jeopardy!' superstars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Can an artificial intelligence-driven machine overcome championship-level human minds? With Watson, the key challenge isn’t a command of statistics and factoids. It’s a matter of programming a computing system that can pick up the subtle nuances of the game show. This requires understanding of language, including the puns and irony that provide the subtle clues hidden in the often-clever wording of the Jeopardy! answer-and-question trivia format."