San Diego – becoming the country’s biotechnology corridor

It’s interesting how San Diego is positioning itself as the country’s greatest biotech corridor: San Diego is in the midst of yet another big building boom…which involves some of the city’s biggest interconnected industries — science, medicine, biotechnology and engineering. At least nine major structures are nearing completion, under way, or soon to start. The projects …

One million robots in three years – Foxconn’s Robot Kingdom

The largest private employer in China, Foxconn with over 1 million employees, is finally facing stiff labor costs. This is great news for the U.S. manufacturing sector who may be able to lure some work back to the United States. It will be interesting to see how this affects the global market, but for now …

Myth = 100% of our energy cannot come form renewable sources

100% of Minnesota’s electricity generation needs can be met by wind and solar sources combined with improvements to the state’s electric grid system and energy efficiency policies, according to a report released today. Renewable Minnesota: Aanalysis of a 100% renewable-energy based electricity system for Minnesota Researched and written by Dr. Arjun Makhijani and Christina Mills …

Why do people make choices against their best interests

“Freakonomics” was the book that made the public believe the dismal science has something interesting to say about how people act in the real world. But “Nudge” was the one that got policy wonks excited. The book, first published in 2008, is about the potential for behavioural economics to improve the effectiveness of government. Behavioural …

The first university-run channel on YouTube – original content just got smarter

On March 1, University of California Television (UCTV) will launch a new YouTube original channel, UCTV Prime, the first university-run channel to be included among YouTube’s new production partnerships with such recognizable brands as the Wall Street Journal, Madonna and TED. Each week, UCTV Prime will debut 15 minutes of fresh content. The channel’s inaugural …

Tipping point – estimated 1 billion more movies in 2012 will be streamed than watched via DVD

According to research from the IHS Screen Digest, we may have finally reached the point when streaming video services have become ubiquitous enough to take over American households. The researcher forecasts that 3.4 billion movies will be legally consumed over streaming services this year, more than double the 1.4 billion that were viewed last year …

Our natural sleeping pattern is two four hours periods, with 1-2 hours of leisure in-between

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month. It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first …

iPads for every kindergartener – early results show a positive trend

This is the nation’s first public school district to give every kindergartener an iPad. And the implementation was done very carefully, with the research component built in from the start, not added as an after-thought. — This fall, the district randomly selected 8 of its 16 kindergarten classes to receive iPads. There’s been ongoing professional …

TV Ratings 101 – a fun retro video that explains ratings like ESPN's SportsCenter

Here is another awesome project from JESS3. TV Ratings 101 – from ESPN   ESPN was looking for a way to make the explanation of how the TV ratings systems works simple and interesting—at least engaging enough to keep the audience awake. With direction to create something reminiscent of “Schoolhouse Rock,” meets “Sesame Street,” JESS3 …

TV Ratings 101 – a fun retro video that explains ratings like ESPN’s SportsCenter

Here is another awesome project from JESS3. TV Ratings 101 – from ESPN   ESPN was looking for a way to make the explanation of how the TV ratings systems works simple and interesting—at least engaging enough to keep the audience awake. With direction to create something reminiscent of “Schoolhouse Rock,” meets “Sesame Street,” JESS3 …