While covering Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project symposium last fall, I learned a term that has been bouncing around in my head ever since: Gandhian engineering – the development of technology to benefit the world’s poorest citizens. The concept led me to a growing trend in engineering and design, often called frugal innovation. Here’s…
I’m sure I was not the only person relieved to see November headlines with news of bendy cell phones set to hit shelves sometime in 2013. Now, with fewer consequences than ever, I will be free to drop my phone, step on it, fold it into my back pocket, all without breaking its screen. This…
I’ve spent decades running trails that wind through the state parks of California. But even though I’ve logged at least ten thousand miles in the middle of nature, I just discovered I’ve been a stranger to an entire kingdom living among the trees—the realm of mushrooms. Not an animal, yet not exactly a plant, a…
I’ve been doing a lot of haphazard story-sniffing lately, and I noticed a common fragrance: scientists and engineers doing fascinating work on a microscopic budget. They’re not just scraping by with meager funding, they’re showing that cheaper projects can have real advantages. Here’s the first in a series of posts on the power of low-cost…
Sharing science in the days of YouTube Steven Ward has a pretty good trick. He can drop you right into the heart of a natural disaster and you’ll come out unscathed. Guaranteed. Tsunami? Earthquake? Volcanic explosion? He’ll even take requests. (more…)
Marine biologists have identified a family of genes that make some corals more resilient to unusually high temperatures, providing hope that the devastation of the world’s reef-building coral population can be reversed. Reef-building corals are a critical part of marine ecosystems worldwide, providing shelter to one-quarter of all marine species and providing shoreline protection against…
2012 was a big year for science. From tiny particles to worlds millions of miles away, there were a lot of science stories worth reading. Here is a compilation of the top five of the year, according to the point-score given by users of Reddit.com. For each major story I’ve made a useful infographic to…
When my neighbor cranks up his stereo, the bass makes my adjoining apartment walls hum. If the percussion ramps up, then my ears ring, too. But, I don’t mind, since I usually like music my neighbor plays. If I don’t like what I’m hearing, I’m quick to ask him to turn down the volume. I’m…
As the Curiosity rover safely studies rocks on the surface of Mars, a NASA mission on route to Pluto may find itself on a treacherously rocky path. NASA announced last month that the $650 million New Horizons space probe’s planned trajectory during its July 2015 flyby could turn into a collision course with unknown moons…
In Georgia, bird watching kept me in touch with the seasons. The winter woods near my house were dominated by the high trill of Pine Warblers. When Swamp Sparrows fattened up for migration and cleared out of the fields around the banding station where I volunteered, I knew more colorful summer residents were on the…
