Instead of being enslaved to the financial and political demands of those who own the world’s supplies of fossil fuels, “…a privately held and highly secretive US biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for ‘a proprietary organism’ – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost [more...]

Today is my last day of work this year.

The educational institution where I work will be open tomorrow, but I never work on Fridays.

Instead, I work 9 hours per day every [more...]

Way back in 1992, when I was working as a PC consultant to a multinational corporation based in the Frostbite State, I created several posters that I hung over my desk.

One of them said, “No matter which PC you buy; no matter how great it is; no matter how little you pay for it; in three months, you will [more...]

Regular readers know that I’m a technophile. I love to keep up with all of the latest gadgets and technologies, but although I can afford to buy any of them, I usually don’t — mostly for the philosophical reason that I enjoy living very simply.

As this year’s gift-giving season quickly approaches, [more...]

One of my favorite professors and best friends of all time was (and is) Dr. Gene Poor.

When I took one of Gene’s multimedia production courses back around 1983, we instantly took a liking to each other.

After that, I spent one or two summers [more...]

How would you design a robotic hand to work?

If you’re like most robot designers, your robotic hand would probably either have separate fingers and an opposable thumb, like a human hand, or two opposing “claws,” like automobile-assembly robots and the robot in the 1960s TV show, Lost In Space.

But scientists at the University of Chicago have [more...]

On December 21, 2003, my wife and two of our neighbors and I packed our rented moving truck about one-half full and connected a dolly behind it to tow our second car. Then, the next morning, my wife, our pets and I — with me driving the truck that pulled our second car, and my wife following behind in our other car — began our 1600+ mile move from the Frostbite State to the Sunshine State. My wife followed behind me so that we could work together to maneuver the [more...]

We’ve all undoubtedly heard these familiar John Denver lyrics many times:

Almost Heaven, West Virginia.
Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah River.
Life is old there — older than the trees.
Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze.

But, according to new research, it appears that, [more...]