Using compressed air to power cars is something people have experimented with since at least 1840. That’s when two French men named Andraud and Tessie tested such a gaseous vehicle on a track. The eco-friendly automobile ‘worked well,’ reports the air-car lobby, which exists, ‘but the idea was not pursued further. ‘

Why not? Perhaps because making a practical, well-working model is damnably hard. But India’s Tata Motors is pushing the technology forward, inch by inch, with its project to build ‘Airpods’ – zero-pollution, cute-as-a-bug smartcars that zip along at 40 m.p.h. via the magic of squeezed air.

Sadly, these vehicles do not function by farting out a loud stream of gas that propels them forth. They instead are built with pneumatic motors that use pressurized air to drive pistons. In the case of Tata, a company that’s developing a line of ‘nano’ cars (including this bulletproof dwarf tank), the engines come from Luxembourg firm MDI, which has been tooling around with air automation for more than two decades.

Tata bought the rights to sell MDI’s creations in India five years ago, but the project’s proven difficult to get popping. But in May, the motor giant announced that it had completed the […]

No Comments

Professor Julian Savulescu said that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a ‘moral obligation’ as it makes them grow up into ‘ethically better children’.

The expert in practical ethics said that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children as it meant they were then less likely to ‘harm themselves and others’.

The academic, who is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, made his comments in an article in the latest edition of Reader’s Digest.

He explained that we are now in the middle of a genetic revolution and that although screening, for all but a few conditions, remained illegal it should be welcomed.

He said that science is increasingly discovering that genes have a significant influence on personality – with certain genetic markers in embryo suggesting future characteristics.

By screening in and screening out certain genes in the embryos, it should be possible to influence how a child turns out.

In the end, he said that ‘rational design’ would help lead to a better, more intelligent and less violent society in the future.

‘Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?’ wrote […]

No Comments

PHILADELPHIA — Hunger, health care, and urban violence are the usual subjects of concern when the Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia gathers for its semiannual meetings.

But at the spring 2011 session, a new topic was cast into the mix: real estate.

A member noted that he was grappling with a growing stock of vacant churches. Hoping for a solution from his high-placed peers at the conference table, he got instead a chorus of me-toos.

‘I always thought I could sell my buildings to you,’ a prelate of one Protestant denomination joked to another.

The group erupted in laughter.

‘But it was kind of sick humor,’ Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. recalled. ‘We all have these empty buildings now. We’re all in trouble.’

They are costly to maintain and increasingly difficult to sell, but painful to demolish, even as they decay into neighborhood eyesores. There are now so many shuttered houses of worship — at least 300 estimated across the Philadelphia region — that the anxiety over what to do with them has spread beyond religious circles and into City Hall and suburban town councils.

One real estate website, LoopNet.com, had 16 Philadelphia churches listed for sale last week, ranging in size from 1,700 to […]

No Comments

Solar power would appear to be an obvious choice for the developing world, but as impoverished regions need systems that are simple, self-operating and cheap to build and maintain, this is generally not the case. The ability to provide heating in addition to electricity would also be beneficial because many communities need hot water has much as they need lights. An MIT team has developed a solution that meets these needs with a solar power system that is an air conditioner built backwards.

Mention of the developing world brings up images of deserts, jungles, veldts and other hot climates, but some poor regions lie in the temperate zone. In southern Africa, for example, it can get very cold in the winter time. MIT graduate Matthew Orosz noticed this while working for the Peace Corps in Lesotho where local clinics needed not only electricity, but access to hot water. ‘We’ve had nurses tell us they avoid washing their hands in the winter, because the water is so cold,

No Comments

Daiwa House, Japan’s largest homebuilder, has introduced a line of prefabricated hydroponic vegetable factories, aimed at housing complexes, hotels, and top-end restaurants. Called the Agri-Cube, these units are touted by Daiwa as the first step in the industrialization of agriculture, to be located in and amongst the places where people live, work, and play.

More and more people desire sustainable, organic produce for their own use, and are turning to urban farming in an effort to insure the highest degree of freshness. However, some municipalities, neighborhoods, and homeowners associations have rules that effectively block such endeavors in areas under their sway. Add drought and pest control to the picture, and suddenly urban farming may seem more trouble than it is worth. There is a growing need for local supplies of freshly grown produce that avoids the difficulties presented by conventional small farms and gardens.

This is where the Agri-Cube comes in. Measuring less than five meters (about 16 feet) in length and 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) wide, Daiwa’s Agri-Cubes are smaller than a twenty-foot equivalent shipping container. An Agri-Cube can be brought to an installation site on the bed of a light heavy-duty truck. A concrete foundation about 10 square meters […]

No Comments