WC Archive

Continuing the conversation with Dr. James Hughes of Trinity College, founder of the Democratic Transhumanism movement.

Read Part I.

Democratic Transhumanism, despite its futuristic trappings, hearkens back to an earlier manifestation of the liberal tradition. In the 19th and early 20th century, scientific rationalism and technological utopianism went hand-in-hand with socialism, feminism, and progressivism. This changed in the post-WW2 era, as science and technology seemed to many to be increasingly the tools of military and corporate giants. The anti-technology perspective emerged most strongly in the environmental movement, which often linked ecological irresponsibility (industrial pollution, toxic waste dumps, unethical animal and human experimentation, etc.) with technological development. While many progressives and greens are more willing adopt cleaner, better technologies today, some of the anti-technology biases remain. From Dr. Hughes' essay on Democratic Transhumanism:

Today most bioethicists, informed by and contributing to the growing Luddite orientation in left-leaning arts and humanities faculties, start from the assumption that new biotechnologies are being developed in unethical ways by a rapacious medical-industrial complex, and will have myriad unpleasant consequences for society, especially for women and the powerless. Rather than emphasizing the liberty and autonomy of individuals who may want to adopt new technologies, or arguing for increased equitable access to new biotechnologies, balancing attention to the “right from” technology with attention to the “right to” technology, most bioethicists see it as their responsibility to slow the adoption of biotechnology altogether.

The tension between philosophies focused on for social justice and environmental responsibility and the transhumanist movement is strong, and the evident frustration and anger in Dr. Hughes' tone -- both in the article linked above and in today's section of the interview -- reflects his belief that the human enhancement movement should be considered an ally, not an opponent, of those who are trying to better the human condition. He and I don't see eye-to-eye on many of the topics discussed in today's section, but we do agree on an underlying value: responsible technological development is critical for building a better planet.

Dina Mehta is the latest new addition to the WorldChanging team, and we're very happy to bring her on board. She's based in Mumbai, India, juggling writing her weblog Conversations with Dina and running her consulting company, Explore Research, which focuses on brand, product and service strategy. Her blog posts about social software and collaboration networks caught my eye months ago, and when Alex and I started talking about asking her to join us on WorldChanging, he said "she's definitely one of us."

Welcome to WorldChanging, Dina -- glad you're here.

Back in June, I posted about the National Weather Service requesting comments on a proposed policy to make weather data officially "open access" -- a proposal opposed by the chairman of Accuweather and other firms who wanted to make publicly-funded weather data only available through commercial vendors. Well, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the department overseeing the NWS) has decided to go forward with the plan as proposed, making explicit a "Commitment to Open Internet-Based Standards for Information Sharing." Of the nearly 1500 comments received, 1190 supported the policy, while only 176 opposed it.

Free/Open Source applications making use of NWS xml feeds are widely available. Now we know that they will remain so. Good work, everyone!

Concluding the conversation with Dr. James Hughes of Trinity College, founder of the Democratic Transhumanism movement.

Read Part I.
Read Part II.

While it may be difficult to see in the aftermath of last month's election, the compositions of the post-World War II coalitions on both the Left and the Right are changing. Emerging issues, from globalization to climate disruption to intellectual property rights on the Internet, are starting to push some traditional allies apart and traditional opponents together. For Dr. Hughes, human enhancement technologies will likely prove to be another axis for new political friction. From his democratic transhumanism treatise:

The biopolitical spectrum is still emerging, starting first among intellectuals and activists. Self-described “transhumanists” and “Luddites” are the most advanced and self-conscious of an emerging wave of the public’s ideological crystallization. We are at the same place in the crystallization of biopolitics as left-right economic politics was when Marx helped found the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864, or when the Fabian Society was founded in England in 1884: intellectuals and activists struggling to make explicit the battle lines that are already emerging, before popular parties have been organized and masses rallied to their banners.

Will transhumanism -- or human enhancement technology -- be a key line of conflict for the 21st century? It's possible, although I suspect it will be part of a larger struggle both over the direction of human technology and the nature of "personhood." If the core philosophical struggle of the 20th century was over "how we live," the core philosophical struggle of the 21st may be "who we are."

I also suspect, moreover profoundly hope, that the "transhuman" meme falls to the wayside, and that tools and techniques that help us live healthier, longer, happier lives are seen as human technologies, something rightly available to us all, not something that implicitly divides us. Progressives are thinking a lot about "framing" these days, and rightly so: how we describe something imparts a great deal of meaning. Just as Dr. Hughes wishes (as said in Part I of the interview) that, in due time, "democratic transhumanism" will shed "democratic" in the name because the need for equitable, fair, and full distribution of enhancement technologies will be obvious to all, I hope that "democratic transhumanism" will shed "transhumanism," because the realization that enhancement technologies are simply part of our cultural birthright as humans will be equally obvious.

In the final installment of my interview with James Hughes, we talk a bit about what the future may hold for the democratic transhumanist movement and humankind in general.

One of the elements of the Kyoto treaty is the use of carbon markets. This lets those countries either producing under the treaty limits of CO2 or not currently bound by the treaty (for now, mostly developing nations) sell carbon emission rights to treaty-bound over-producers. While this may seem like a way for over-producing countries to just keep spewing excess CO2, it's actually a very good idea: few countries are close to making the Kyoto limits without buying credits, so there's considerable demand; even as more countries get their emissions in order, the emissions allowed will gradually decline over time, making the remaining credits inevitably more expensive; countries will therefore have an economic incentive to be net carbon credit producers instead of consumers. It's definitely an incentive for developing countries to adopt cleaner technologies sooner, so as to continue being sellers and not buyers as they continue to grow. We're now starting to see how these markets will play out.

Reuters reports a partnership between a Norwegian firm and a Brazilian landfill to trap and burn methane emitted by the landfill; this will reduce the net addition of methane (21x more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2) to the atmosphere. Norway would get the credit -- equivalent to 670,000 tons of CO2 -- and Brazil the cash, currently €8.25 ($10.98) per ton. While this is one of the first deals signed, it's far from the only one around.

Elsewhere around the globe, Telnes [technical director of the Norwegian company, DNV] said about 200-300 clean energy projects were nearing certification in developing nations with perhaps another 1,200-1,300 on the drawing board.

"In the long term I wouldn't be surprised if we saw between 500 and 1,000 projects coming on every year," Telnes told Reuters. DNV, perhaps best known for checking ship designs, is a world leader in certifying environmental schemes.

With the markets now underway, there's a real need for information about their function and efficiency. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development often gets stories from the for-pay Point Carbon, a website which collects information on carbon markets and the UN's "Clean Development Mechanism" which coordinates these developing world carbon-for-cash schemes. Point Carbon has abundant information about carbon markets, from news feeds to market analysis to explanations of just how it all works. Some of the explanatory pieces are free, but much of the material requires a subscription fee.

I'm still looking for a free source of carbon trading info. Any suggestions? This is a process which is definitely worth watching.

APOPO, a Belgian organization based at the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania, has developed another tool in the global effort to detect and remove landmines. Trained rats -- specifically Cricetomys gambianus, the African Giant Pouched rat -- can sniff out the residual chemicals from landmines and scratch the ground, indicating to handlers the explosive's location. Light enough in weight not to set the mines off, the rats are well cared for, and able to cover around 100 square meters in about a half hour.

APOPO is also working on training rats to detect signs of tuberculosis through scent, with initially good results.

Swiss Re is the world's second largest insurance company, is known for taking the threat of global warming-induced climate change very seriously. One big problem with climate disruption is that it makes loss estimate projections based on historical trends unreliable. Environmental Finance reports (via WBCSD) that the insurance firm is now shifting to an approach they call "event-based risk analysis," which creates 500,000 simulated hurricane life cycles, modeling nearly every possible combination of storm intensity and path. This also allows them to model what happens when a storm hits an already-storm-damaged location.

Swiss Re has a short report (PDF) going into more detail about the results of the 2004 Hurricane season, and how event-based risk analysis is used. It makes for interesting reading, revealing how insurance analysts think about risk and natural disasters. While the authors are exceedingly careful to point out that climate change cannot be definitively fingered as the driver of the unusual (and occasionally unprecedented) weather seen this year, it's clear that Swiss Re is acting under the assumption that the 2004 storm season isn't an anomaly, but a harbinger.

The always-interesting CRNblog at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology posted this week a short essay going into the possibility of soon reaching "peak oil," and the ways in which further developments in molecular manufacturing could help us avoid serious problems. The essay itself is good, as usual, but what is more notable is the ensuing discussion. Lots of good ideas and diverse viewpoints, and well worth reading.

There's a catch. You have to be an employee of Hyperion, a Santa Clara, California, based software company:

Under its Drive Clean to Drive Change initiative, Hyperion will reimburse employees US $5,000 for vehicles that achieve 45 miles per gallon or the equivalent of gasoline. [...] The standard also is achievable by fuel-efficient vehicles using technologies such as hybrid, diesel and electric that increasingly are available in most of the countries in which Hyperion does business. [...] “We know we are not necessarily going to change the world through this initiative, but we aim to get people thinking about change,” said [Godfrey] Sullivan [president and chief executive officer of Hyperion].  “Drive Clean to Drive Change is not just a good thing to do. It’s the right thing to do.”

Under the Drive Clean to Drive Change plan, employees who have been with Hyperion for more than a year can apply for the subsidy for one vehicle every four years. Up to 200 employees a year will be funded, on a first-come, first-served basis. A shining example of a "transcommercial" company policy, and definitely good to hear about.

No human's going to step foot on Mars for a couple more decades at best, but that hasn't stopped people from thinking about what we should do when we get there -- or, more to the point, what we should not do. Charles Cockell, a microbiologist for the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, and Gerda Horneck, an astrobiologist from the German Aerospace Centre in Cologne, have proposed that we (the global 'we') set aside a series of conservation parks on Mars, places where no human activity (especially terraforming) should take place. The seven proposed park locations cover relatively obvious locations such as the northern (water) ice cap and Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, as well as locations of either historical (the Viking and Pathfinder landing sites) or geological (the Hellas crater) interest. They seek to limit the environmental impact of human activity in these areas.

The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna, Austria, would be best placed to administer the parks, [Cockell] says, although he has not contacted them about the idea. They already oversee planetary protection regulations that limit the number of spores allowed on a Mars lander. But the sole purpose of this is to stop experiments looking for life becoming contaminated, says Cockell. "There's no sense of any greater environmental protection."

The struggle between those who wish to keep Mars pristine and those who wish to make Mars more habitable for humankind is the core plot driver for Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Mars trilogy (and in a delicious bit of meme-play, those who want to change the environment are referred to as Greens, and the Reds are those who want to keep Mars as it was). This Martian Park proposal would satisfy neither side, of course, as it either blocks off too much potentially interesting places from human activity or gives up most of the planet, depending on one's point of view.

Yes.

Naomi Oreskes, at Science magazine, undertook a study of the 928 peer-reviewed papers and reports published between 1993 and 2003 which included the keywords "climate change" when indexed. Not one of them argued that observed climate change was natural in origin. As Oreskes puts it:

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

(Thanks, John Maas)

Perhaps the most widely-accepted vision of what a greener future will look like is that of the "Hydrogen Economy." Everyone from ecofuturists like the Rocky Mountain Institute to petroconservatives like the Bush administration extol the virtues of hydrogen powered vehicles. We talk about hydrogen as a future fuel here on WorldChanging with some frequency; it remains our best bet for moving beyond greenhouse gas-emitting transportation technologies.

But the move to hydrogen is not without its challenges. We've mentioned that a few times here, but if you're interested in the future of transportation and energy, it's a subject worth understanding. Fortunately, the current issue of Physics Today has a lengthy and detailed article covering the current issues and possible developments in the efforts to build the hydrogen economy. (While not overly-complex, it is a Physics Today piece, so it assumes some comfort with scientific and technical terms.)

The challenges to the shift to hydrogen are in three fundamental areas:

The Financial Times reports that British bank HSBC is about to start improving efficiency, trading emission credits, and planting thousands of trees around the world in order to balance out its carbon emissions, trying to become the first "carbon-neutral" international bank.

Stephen Green, chief executive, said: "In 2003, HSBC's CO2 emissions from using electricity, natural gas, fuel oil and business travel were more than 550,000 tonnes. We need to act now to reduce our emissions."

The carbon management plan, to be implemented by 2006, will examine three ways of achieving carbon neutrality - tree-planting, increasing HSBC's energy efficiency and trading emissions on emerging carbon exchanges and elsewhere.

The article notes that Swiss Re was the pioneer in financial institutions seeking to become carbon-neutral.

(Thanks, Tim!)

It's been all over the blogosphere, but we've now been asked to say a little something about it: researchers at the University of Warwick, UK, and the Pvaxx Research & Development company have come up with a polymer that looks and feels like any other plastic, but which biodegrades to soil; researchers then embedded a sunflower seed in the plastic, so that when discarded, a plant will grow, feeding on the nitrates in the biodegraded polymer. Motorola initiated the research, but hasn't yet decided whether to actually use the material.

While some of the coverage for the story has suggested (at least in the headlines) that this will lead to biodegradable mobile phones, the reality is at once less exciting and more practical. Although discarded cell phones are contributors to toxic metals in the waste stream, the likely initial use will be for the interchangeable cell phone covers, popular with the kids these days and more likely to be tossed out when no longer fashionable or "groovy." Moreover, biodegradable plastic could have much broader application than phone shells; the CNN report suggests that Pvaxx is already looking at uses in "electronics, horticulture, ammunition and household cleaning." I must admit to finding that particular combination of applications fascinating.

Jeff Egnaczyk alerts us to DestiNY USA (yes, that's the way they're spelling it), a new "Mall of America"-style development underway in upstate New York. The notable -- and potentially worldchanging -- element is the emphasis the developers are putting on their planned use of renewable energy to operate the facility. They claim that DestiNY USA will be 100% renewable energy-powered, and have a lengthy flash animation about the biodiesel-fueled power/heat/cooling/laundry/greenhouse system they're going to put in.

As Jeff notes, the details are slim and are currently more vague promises than actual delivery, but the potential is interesting. DestiNY USA is definitely worth keeping an eye on -- let's hope they live up to their promises. If successful, it could be a terrific way of demonstrating the power of green design.

(Thanks, Jeff!)

Yesterday we posted about the Physics Today article covering the current status of hydrogen fuel technology. The same issue of Physics Today has another article of interest to worldchangers, this one covering the history and potential evolution of the electrical power grid. While it focuses on the grid in the United States, most of the observations are applicable across the developed world, and give some hints for leapfrogging directions.

The North American power grid is truly an astounding feat of engineering, but it has seen better days. Investment in infrastructure upgrades and repair in the 1990s was as low a percentage of industry revenues as it was in the days of the Great Depression and World War II. The system was built to handle the kinds of varying analog loads typical of the 1950s and 1960s; the need for constant clean power characterizing digital technology is more taxing to the system than many of us are aware. Policies to introduce greater market competition, open access to providers, and even environmental regulations have added uncertainty and stress to the creaking infrastructure. The 2002 blackout in the northeast, while a sign that the emergency systems operated properly (if they hadn't, the blackout would have been far larger and much longer-lasting), was also a harbinger of failures to come.

But there are solutions at hand, and some are ideas we've talked about here on WorldChanging. They include:

Which of the big six auto manufacturers -- Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, Toyota -- has the overall best environmental performance? If you read the title of this post, you know the answer. For the last six model years for which there are full government records, Honda has had the best combined fleet performance in terms of both smog-causing and heat-trapping emissions, according to a new report (1.6MB PDF) from the Union of Concerned Scientists. GM, conversely, has the worst results, going from 4th place in 1997 to last place in 2003. Honda's smog-forming emissions in 2003 were less than half of the overall average, and their fleet greenhouse emissions were 82% of average; GM, by comparison, came in at 129% smog/104% greenhouse. Interestingly, Toyota, widely praised for its Prius, dropped from 2nd place to 3rd as their larger trucks grew more popular, with 84% smog/88% greenhouse, with Nissan moving to the #2 spot (70%/94%). Ford had the overall worst greenhouse emissions, at 107% of average, but moved to #4 on the basis of its smog emissions, only 91% of average.

Wind power is not a new concept. Windmills have been around for centuries, and wind-powered sailboats have been around for even longer -- since 3200 bce, or even earlier. The advent of engine-powered shipping relegated wind-powered boats to hobbyists, tourists and adventurers. But if the German company SkySails is right, we may soon see a return to shipping powered by the wind.

The notion is straightforward: a large parasail-type kite on a tow cable can add significant power to a standard diesel engine ship when lofted to 500 meters or so in the air. How much power? SkySails claims that a cargo ship can increase speed for a given fuel consumption by at least 10%, and often more; conversely, a sail-enabled ship can run at its standard speed but cut fuel consumption by as much as one-half. The technology is more efficient at capturing wind power than standard sails, takes up less shipboard space, and supposedly does not require additional crew. Navigational software linked to real-time weather data routes for optimal wind speed and travel time. The design has won a number of German innovation awards, but has not yet been field-tested in its full configuration (at least as far as I can tell); SkySails proposes that the design would work not just for commercial vessels, but for ships of all types.

If SkySails works, the benefits are more than reduced fuel cost or shipping time. The SkySails site claims that "the toxic emission volume of the world trade fleet equals that of the United States." A system (such as SkySails) which can cut fuel consumption and reduce travel time would in turn reduce those emissions.

While there is something superficially absurd about massive cargo ships being pulled along by kites, upon reflection the notion makes sense. It's a novel form of "hybrid" power, taking advantage of strengths of diverse propulsion systems: the consistency of diesel engines and the free availability and startling strength of wind power. While SkySails still needs to demonstrate that their system works as claimed, we will undoubtedly see more of these "situational hybrid" power generation systems in years to come.

I'm looking forward to the day that nanofabs make it possible for any of us to "rip, mix and burn" physical objects. In the meantime, however, more conventional fabrication techniques remain necessary for those who wish to create complex material devices. This means machine shops and tools -- the kinds of gear included in MIT's Fab Labs. But if you don't have your own machine shop, and MIT hasn't seen fit to drop a Fab Lab on your block, you have another option: the Internet.

eMachineShop will build parts for physical objects to your specifications, using a variety of standard techniques (injection molding, milling, punching, etc.). Free (in the gratis, not libre sense) CAD software walks users through the process of designing parts, and eMachineShop will manufacture the unit in whatever quantity (including one-off). A recent article about the site notes that most of the users are either making prototype parts for new designs or recreated parts for old hardware when replacements are no longer available.

And what if your new device needs some electronic smarts? Individual electronic components are relatively simple to come by, but in order to make a real prototype, the components need to be seated on a printed circuit board. You can't just wander down to Radio Shack and pick one up, however; they need to be specially crafted. Again, the Internet comes to the rescue, with a site called Bare Bones Proto PCBs. Send 'em your design, they send you your boards.

It's likely that many WorldChanging readers are right now going "so what?" A few of you, however, are already quivering in your seats, imagining what you'll make. These services make it possible for garage industrial design to take on far greater sophistication than before. The number of people with the knowledge and desire to do industrial design far outweighs the number who also have the requisite tools. These companies (along with the competitors who undoubtedly exist -- post URLs in the comments when you find them) are in many respects the design world analogues of the cheap editing software which opened up new worlds of video and musical creativity. Coming up with an innovative idea is terrific; being able to make that idea manifest, whether as a work of art or a work of design, can be worldchanging.

(Thanks, Jet and CTP!)

Green Car Congress has an interesting post today looking closely at the relative performance and environmental stats of the 2005 model year Honda Accords: the four and six-cylinder gasolines, the four cylinder diesel, and the six cylinder hybrid. The results are quite interesting:

the Accord Diesel (using petroleum diesel) offers the lowest fuel consumption and the lowest CO₂ emissions, even surpassing the Accord Hybrid.

The Accord Diesel (which is not offered in the US) gets 43.3 miles per gallon and emits ~143 grams of CO₂ per kilometer, compared to 33/165 for the Accord Hybrid. Use of biodiesel would further lower the carbon footprint of the diesel Accord. And while some of the efficiency comes from being a four-cylinder instead of a six-cylinder vehicle, it's worth noting that the diesel model greatly out-performs the four-cylinder gasoline model across the board.

Be sure to read the comments; Mike also addresses questions about the relative non-CO₂ emissions.

The US Marine Corps and US Special Operations Command are now testing the "Shadow Reconnaissance Surveillance Targeting Vehicle" (Shadow RST-V for short). What makes this notable is that the Shadow RST-V is a diesel hybrid-electric, able to run in electric-only mode, hence making it a "full hybrid." It gets nearly three times the miles-per-gallon of the military version of the Hummer, and about twice the commercial Hummer mileage: 758 kilometers on 95 liters, or roughly 18 miles per gallon, vs. 8-10 mpg for the H2.

That the American military is testing a new stealthy recon vehicle is not particularly worldchanging. But think about American car culture: the military styling and legacy of the Hummer line is a key motivation for the many purchasers who want that alpha-monkey feeling. The same motivation would apply to the Shadow. A civilian version of the Shadow, stripped of armor and hardpoints and the sundry trappings that the military needs and civilians can't have, would be lighter and get better mileage, probably up into the low 20s. That's not revolutionary, but it is significant. Even more significant would be the "hybrid reframing," directly attacking the myth that hybrid cars are wimpy vehicles for greens & yuppies; that, more than anything, could be the key to making hybrid vehicle technology dominant.

Microcredit is one of those brilliant ideas which is at once simple and revolutionary. As many as 100 million people have had their lives made better through loans of very small amounts of money (about 90% of which are paid back). We looked at other forms of microfinance last year, but it's definitely worth revisiting the idea. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development hosts a new article exploring the idea of "micro-insurance" (making insurance protection available to those in poverty) and the need to make remittance transactions less onerous and expensive. These ideas make a huge amount of sense, would be relatively cheap and easy for microfinance institutions to carry out, and would make a huge difference in millions of lives.

It could make a great difference if poor people were given access to insurance, says Dr Johan Bastiaensen, an expert on microfinance at the department of development policy at the University of Antwerp. "Theft or a minor illness can be a life threatening accident for someone struggling to make ends meet," he told IPS. "Insurance is arguably the most wanted financial product in developing countries."

[...]

Funds transferred by migrants to families back home are a vast, reliable and useful income for developing countries, he says. They exceed the level of official development aid (ODA), which stood at $ 68 billion in 2003.

International money transfer agencies like Western Union and Money Gram provide quick and reliable transfers, but charge a juicy commission. "It is one of the most blatant injustices in today's world that poor immigrants need to pay a 15 to 20 percent commission on remittances to their families back home," Bastiaensen argues.

RealClimate is here. It's a blog written by nine working climatologists from around the world (all experts in their field), focusing on explaining climate science, providing context to current reports in the mainstream media, and rebutting the fallacious arguments of carbon lobby hacks. They've started off with a bang -- in their first ten days of operation, they've covered climate models, critics of the "hockey stick" temperature reconstruction, the Arctic Climate Assessment, urban heat islands, solar influence, and more. For anyone interested in climate science, this site will be the first place to read every day. Highly recommended.

The Christian Science Monitor has a short article today about the National Commission on Energy Policy's new set of proposals for US energy strategy. In trying to avoid controversy, it apparently manages to adopt really obsolete positions and still disappoint just about everyone. Elements include:

We have a new addition to our Sustainability Sundays lineup: Justin Thomas of Metaefficient. Meatefficient "searches out products that we believe are more effective and healthier for individuals and the world, yet are comparable in price to mainstream products." We're glad to feature the best of what Justin's found lately, here on Worldchanging:

EcoResin Furniture

3Form has just introduced a new line of furniture made with Varia Ecoresin. Varia is manufactured under strict OHSA approved standards and is free of VOC's, solvents and emissions. 3form ecoresin and Varia are built to exceed LEED accreditation insuring at least 40% post industrial recycled content, and are free from plasticizers and stabilizers.

Self-Contained Watering System

The Oasis Automatic Plant Watering System by Claber is a programmable system that distributes up to 6 gallons of water to as many as 20 plants. It is a completely independent system, needing no connection to a tap or electrical main. It runs on one 9V battery.

Hassan Masum joins the roster of WorldChanging contributors today. He's a problem solver by training and temperament, with a strong grasp of technology and a strong bias towards positive, creative outcomes. Much of his work focuses on developing and understanding tools for collaborative development, and one of his best-received works is his essay (with Yi-Cheng Zhang), Manifesto for the Reputation Society, which explores the how reputation mechanisms found on websites such as Slashdot, eBay, Amazon and others may scale up to be a broader phenomenon. Like many of us here, Hassan also works with scenarios as a tool for understanding social, technological and economic change.

We greatly look forward to seeing his insights and ideas here at WorldChanging. Welcome, Hassan!

It's become increasingly clear that the 21st century will be built with carbon nanotubes. EurekAlert lists yet another application for the plucky little singled-walled molecules: fluorescing biosensors:

"Carbon nanotubes naturally fluoresce in the near-infrared region of the spectrum where human tissue and biological fluids are particularly transparent," said Michael Strano, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at [University of] Illinois [Urbana-Champaign]. "We have developed molecular sheaths around the nanotube that respond to a particular chemical and modulate the nanotube's optical properties."

The test setup was able to detect glucose levels, signaling changing concentration via changes in light when excited by a laser. Carbon nanotubes last longer in tissues than other fluorescing organic molecules, so they'll be more usable for extended monitoring. And the technique should work for a wide array of chemical types, allowing for extremely accurate health and environmental sensors.

This week's New York Times Magazine has an interesting collection of short pieces it calls "The Year in Ideas: A to Z." The ideas run the gamut from "Acoustic Keyboard Eavesdropping" to "You Don't Need Superstars To Win," and include several WorldChanging favorites, such as "Land Mine Detecting Plants" (WC post) and "Concrete You Can See Through" (WC post). Several of them are of particular WorldChanging interest: "Augmented Bar Codes," "Dumb Robots Are Better," and "The Micropolis," among others.

"Ambient technologies" are supposed to make streams of variable information noticeable without being intrusive, and are a clever method for "making the invisible visible." They're designed to remain at the periphery of one's perception, notable only when the monitored conditions (the weather outside, power consumption, a child's location, email status, etc.) changes. We noted the Ambient Orb awhile back, which while interesting, suffers from only responding to a small number of different inputs from a subscription-only proprietary wireless frequency. Now the Register (a UK technology website) notes that British Telecom is showing off their own ambient display, which reads whatever assigned data over plain old 802.11 WiFi. It looks like it's a technology demo, not a product preview, which is unfortunate; ambient displays and WiFi seem like a perfect combination.

(Via Engadget)

This week's Economist looks at the growing level of innovation in the health-related biotechnology industries of developing nations. No longer simply copying existing drugs and treatments, nations such as China, India, Cuba and Brazil have begun to make substantial contributions to global bioscience. Biotechnology is an ideal leapfrog pathway, as it doesn't require a substantial existing industrial base, only well-educated scientists -- education acquired both in the West and, increasingly, at home. It also is a useful pathway for dealing with one of the problems of development: populations afflicted by serious diseases, yet not rich enough to be seen as an attractive market for American and European pharmaceutical companies.

Developing world biotech groups have come up with innovative treatments for (among others) Hepatitis B, Meningitis, Chagas Disease, and AIDS, with the research sometimes based on local knowledge of indigenous plants and traditional treatments. Some of the research is government driven, but local entrepreneurism is an important part of biotech innovation. This may present some difficulties down the road; the rapid growth of the developing world biomedicine industry is triggering some concern for health activists such as Médecins Sans Frontières. This is not because the drugs and treatments aren't useful -- they are, critically so -- but because a number of these biotech leapfrog nations are starting to adopt stricter patent regimes, potentially restricting the ability to produce cheap copies of new medicines produced elsewhere. A conflict between the principles of South-South science transfer and the desire for WTO membership seems to be on the horizon. It will be interesting to see if the growing "open source" biotech movement gains any ground in these nations.

The Economist piece is based on the December issue of Nature Biotechnology, which surveys the state of health-related biotechnology research in Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, South Africa and South Korea. (PDFs of each of these articles are available at no charge, although a multi-step free subscription to the website is required.) Each article looks at examples of recent health biotech developments, as well as the lessons each state teaches to other developing nations looking at local bioscience efforts. Nature's overall conclusions are worth listing, because they apply to leapfrogging efforts beyond biomedicine:

One of the drawbacks of traditional silicon-based photovoltaic cells is that they are hard. While it's possible to embed traditional solar cells in fabric, it's not an optimal situation -- the cells themselves remain solid, even if the fabric is flexible. The backing electronics required for silicon cells adds further complexity to using them as anything other than a standalone add-on for devices or buildings. But what if the photovoltaics were made of something other than silicon?

Organic photovoltaics are flexible, lightweight, and potentially less expensive than traditional solar cells (they're "organic" because they're based on carbon). The main drawback is that organic PV cells are nowhere near as efficient at converting light into electricity as silicon cells. A recent development at Georgia Institute of Technology, however, is starting to close that performance gap. By adding a chemical called pentacene to the carbon "buckyballs" (Fullerenes again!) used in making the organic solar cells, the researchers were able to boost the efficiency to nearly 3.4 percent, with signs they could get to 5 percent in the near future. This compares to 25 percent for silicon cells (and up to 50 percent for experimental materials).

Although organic solar cells aren't as efficient, their other characteristics -- flexibility, weight, ruggedness, cost -- still make them attractive. They can be more readily embedded in other materials, from fabrics to plastics to roofing, and are ideal for small, low-power projects such as remote sensors. If, a decade from now, you drive a car with solar cells on its roof to help recharge the hybrid batteries, these are mostly likely the cells you'll be using.

Fran Pavley, California state Assemblywoman from Agoura Hills, was the sponsor of the legislation instructing the California Air Resources Board to draw up plans to require automakers to reduce fleet CO₂ emissions by 30% by 2016. The New York Times has a short profile of her, going into some detail about the auto industry's choice to send lawyers, not engineers in response. Not a deep piece, but an interesting one.

Electronic sensors are an important part of knowing the world. Sensor technology is pretty remarkable these days, and useful components can be both very small and very inexpensive. Scientific research and culture hacking alike already take advantage of widely available, useful sensor tech. With a modicum of understanding about how to assemble electronic devices, any student or hobbyist could be a Junior Jeremijenko in no time!

Gizmodo points us to a Czech company called Bladox, which manufactures small circuit boards and software to plug into old mobile phones, turning them into accelerometer-based car alarms: when "unauthorized" motion is detected, the system will call the user via the old phone. While this isn't particularly worldchanging in and of itself, the idea of using old mobile phones as the communication element of home-built sensor devices is intriguing.

Bladox makes boards and software allowing for a wide variety of inputs; better still, their applications are all licensed under the GPL. With this hardware, pretty much any kind of low-power sensor system (temperature, location, motion, air quality, etc. etc.) could be hooked up. Rigging a mobile phone as part of a sensor system takes care of one of the critical elements of any such device: communicating results. As long as there's network coverage in the sensor location, the results can be sent to anyone in the world with a phone. And the sensor-phone would still have a phone number, allowing for calling in to get results as needed. There are numerous solar panel rechargers for phones, so keeping the battery topped up wouldn't even be a big issue.

The vast majority of mobile phone users discard their old phones long before they stop working. The fact that many mobile services "lock" the phones, making them only work with that particular service (unless unlocked, a sometimes tricky process), makes such a wasteful practice almost inevitable. There are millions of completely functional but ostensibly useless phones out there; you probably have a few sitting around your home (I know I do). While recycling is possible (and far preferable to just throwing them out, given the toxic metal content), there's something particularly appealing about reusing the phone in novel ways.

What would you make with a system like this?

Seven cents per kilowatt-hour, that is. That's about the standard price for electricity in the United States (some locales will vary; California averages about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour). Renewable power needs to be price competitive with 7 cent non-renewable sources. Tidal can be, and wind is close, but both have location requirements (and wind needs lots of space). Solar, however, is still generally priced out of competition, in the 30-45 cents per kilowatt-hour range. But nanotechnology may well change that. Investor's Business Daily profiles three companies working on applying nanomaterial and nanoengineering discoveries to the more efficient generation of solar electricity: Nanosolar (making solar cells 100x thinner than current ones), Nanosys (making specialized materials for embedding into construction material), and Konarka Technologies (making light-activated plastic).

Favorite line of the article: In time, such work could become "world changing," said Josh Wolfe, a managing partner of nanotech-focused investment firm Lux Capital.

Backchannel discussion here at WorldChanging has lately centered on whether or how to respond to the publication of Michael Crichton's new novel, State of Fear, a lengthy polemic (in novel's clothing) pooh-poohing the idea that global warming-induced climate disruption is real. We decided to wait and see if any interesting responses pop up elsewhere, and point to those. We didn't have to wait long.