1. Gobar gas. Using relatively cheap materials, it is possible to build a “digester” that turns dung into natural gas. Gobar gas has had a lot of success in the Indian subcontinent. It seems like this could be an excellent way to provide safer cooking fuels for rural people in developing countries (as opposed to using wood for cooking fuel, which produces indoor smoke which is often a health hazard and which uses up the trees in forests). 2 Computer…
What is the most commonly-spoken language in South America? If you said Spanish, you’re wrong. It’s Portuguese. Portuguese is the unexpected winner (unexpected, at least, in most Americans’ minds) because Brazil is such a big country (bigger than the continental United States). Brazil is the fifth most populous country in the world, with a population of nearly 200 million (only China, India, the United States, and Indonesia have bigger populations).1 In 2007 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated, however, that only…
1. Somatic mutations make twins’ brain less similar. A new study indicates that one of the reasons that even identical twins differ in their development and how they turn out is maybe because of post-conception mutations in their somatic cells. Random mutations happen when your cells divide. A study comparing mutations in identical twins found about 1,000 point mutations (a change in one letter of the DNA code) in one twin not present in the other and two to three…
Note: This is part 5 of a series on morality and ethics. Here are the other parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 6, and part 7 (plus additional posts on hypocrisy and free will). The entire series makes up the fourth chapter of my book, The Triple Path, which can be downloaded for free here in PDF and eReader formats or purchased at all major book retailers (in print and eReader formats). The Golden Mean…