For More On The Fermi Paradox And Why Alien Life Hasn’t Found Us Yet. (Infographic Via Futurism)

Interview: Scott Santens talks universal basic income, and why the U.S. could adopt it by 2035

Scott Santens is a writer and advocate of universal basic income for all. He is the moderator of the Basic Income community on Reddit and Founder of the BIG Patreon Creator Pledge. His writing has been featured in the Atlantic and Huffington Post.

Here’s a recent interview I did with Futurism.

How To Avoid The Next Atlantis

They say nothing in life is guaranteed except death and taxes. Maybe we should add rising sea levels to that list?

The lapping waves of Earth’s oceans are going to move as much as 1 full meter higher within our lifetimes, and perhaps several meters more in the coming centuries depending on what we do or don’t do about slowing down climate change. Part of this comes from melting glaciers and ice shelves flowing out to sea, and part comes from the natural expansion of water as it warms, but we have to face facts: Sea level is rising.

This new video from MinuteEarth looks at some of the interesting ways that coastal cities around the globe are trying to get ready for a wetter world. I wish this wasn’t something we had to prepare for, but I’m glad we’ve got smart people on the job.

Bonus: Curious what 1 meter of sea level rise looks like? Head over to Climate Central and play with their Surging Seas map simulator. Look, you can even make half of Florida and Louisiana disappear!

Migrant women hired to make $70 "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirts are paid $1/hour and sleep in dormitories with 16 women in a single room.

If it would take a woman worker in the factory two weeks of pay to buy one shirt, what’s feminist about that?

Is it important to know the real story behind our clothes? Read the full story here

Basic income is a tested social vaccine. It’s been found to increase equity and general welfare. It has been found to reduce hospitalizations by 8.5% in just a few years through reduced stress and work injuries. It’s been found to increase birth weights through increased maternal nutrition. It’s been found to decrease crime rates by 40% and reduce malnourishment by 30%. Intrinsic motivation is cultivated. Students do better in school. Bargaining positions increase. Economic activity increases. Entrepreneurs are born. With experiment after experiment, from smaller unconditional cash transfers to full-on basic incomes, the results point in positive directions across multiple measures when incomes are unconditionally increased.

Universal Basic Income as the Social Vaccine of the 21st Century (via letseyx)

It’s almost as if, as a species, we didn’t need to hurt ourselves in order for life to go on.

(via imathers)

My house is covered with solar panels, and I drove the first hybrid electric Ford in Vermont and on and on and on. I try not to fool myself with that’s how we’re going to win this fight. Global warming is a structural and systemic issue, that’s where it comes from, the structures and systems. So changing those is what’s key. As individuals, we’re relatively powerless against climate change. That’s why the most important thing an individual can do is not be an individual, which means joining with other people in this battle.

Bill McKibben, author, activist and co-founder of 350.org, arguing that the collective nature of our climate crisis requires a collective response. In essence, recycling, commuting by bike or electric vehicle, using cloth bags and unplugging our phone chargers are all fine and good, but they aren’t going to get the job done. Why? Because our economies run largely on fossil fuel energy (i.e. coal, oil and natural gas) and need to be decarbonized in order to ensure we all have a future to look forward to.  The quote comes from a recent interview with economic researcher Chris Martenson for his website, ‘Peak Prosperity’. The whole interview is worth a listen and share.

Photo: Some of the more than 300,000 strong ‘People’s Climate March’ last year in New York City. (Source: UN)

Infographic: Current pledges by countries to #ActOnClimate and transition to low carbon economies currently exceed the 2°C (3.6°F) threshold beyond which climate science shows catastrophic consequences for people, planet and economies. Long story short, we need to up our ambition and urgency. The COP21 negotiations in Paris this fall are critical to secure a deal to get us on the path to a climate-smart, globally sustainable future. (Source: Climate Interactive) Related:

‘Limited progress seen even as more nations step up on climate’ (New York Times)

‘How your brain tricks you into thinking you are greener than you actually are’ (Washington Post)

Dr. William Rees: ‘Climate change is one symptom’ (YouTube)

‘Systems thinking’ (Wikipedia)

‘Shell abandons Alaska Arctic oil drilling’ (Guardian)

It’s estimated that the world yields 110 million tons of citrus fruits annually, with oranges accounting for more than half of that production volume. Given that not every part of the fruit is put to use, that’s a lot of waste.  But researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, have made a breakthrough that will allow humans to use citrus waste to suck the highly poisonous metal mercury out of land and sea.

Orange Peel Waste Can Help Remove Mercury Pollution From Oceans | GOOD

ADB Finances Renewable Energy Transmission System in India

Amazing Maps of the World

Brain, Bone and Blood Vessels Coming Hot Off the Press

Could the days of custom clavicles and bespoke bladders produced just in the knick of time for suffering patients be around the corner?

While keeping an eye on tissue engineering studies, we’ve been seeing some significant wins in the lab that are bringing the sci-fi future of on-demand 3-D printed organs, bone and blood vessels closer. 

Harvard and Brown bioengineers are taking their own routes to build complex tissues in customized 3-D printers. And just the other week, we reported on newly unveiled work at the University of Florida to print complex soft structures in baths that could one day birth replacement human parts along with soft robots.

Now, Carnegie Mellon engineers reported on Friday that they had successfully printed simplified proof-of-concept anatomical structures like mini femurs, blood vessels and brains suspended in soft gelatin. Learn more and see a video below.

Keep reading

When the big Blue Marble photograph was first seen, there was this idea that it was going to change people’s view of ecology and everyone was going to become an environmentalist because of it. It was a big deal to see that image and now it’s just become so commonplace that no one even thinks about how incredible it is to look down on Earth from that perspective or just the technology it takes to create that image.

In the space of 40 years, we’ve come from this very primitive satellite that was taking photographs and scanning the pictures one line at a time, which took hours, to being able to just go online. It’s changed people’s perspective on space. People don’t think about distance anymore. It’s almost as if the geographic distance has evaporated.

It puts space in front of us as thing that we operate in but no longer think about. I think that’s why people get so frustrated in their cars when they want to get someplace quickly, because they’re so used to thinking distance doesn’t exist.  We’ve become spatial animals, we’ve become people that really track ourselves everywhere we go. When you go for a run, you’ve got your little Nike thing hooked to your cell phone. When you’re on Twitter you can use its place location wherever you’re tweeting from.

An interview with John Hessler, a cartography expert at the Library of Congress and one of the people behind the new book, Map: Exploring The World.

[Maps: Left: A Map of Vesuvius (1832) by John Auldjo. Right: Hurricane Katrina Flooding Estimated Depths and Extent (2005) (University of Otago, NOAA)]