Way cooler than airplanes

I thought making a paper airplane that could do a loop-de-loop was cool.  Now, I read in Wired, December 2007 that Japan’s Shigeru Ban makes paper houses. 

In fact, they make paper houses, libraries, domes, emergency structures, even bridges Wow. That’s cool. And, if it were recycled paper, then it is kind of environmentally friendly too.

At last I have found a use for my extensive library of science magazines….I could make an outhouse.

Cool New Books

I read about this neat book, “America from the Air“, in WIRED magazine’s reviews section. It is pictures of the USA taken from 35,000 feet and on major flightpaths. Apparently it is quite cool. Everytime I go flying I wonder what is below me. Now I could finally know.

I also heard about a cool new NASA pretty picture book, “Touch the Invisible Sky“. What makes it notable is that it is a book of outerspace pictures for the blind. All the pictures are coded in bumps and swiggles and raised portions to indicate the intensity of the colour. I personally can’t understand how it would work, but perhaps if you were blind this would be really cool. I like the idea of NASA being more inclusive of disabilities at least.

Pipe Dreams

From Discover, 2007 review, “Tubes made from LSCF [lanthanum-strontium-cobalt-ferric oxide] have the property of being permeable to oxygen ions – oxygen atoms with an electric charge – and little else. Using 15-inch-long tubes to filter oxygen from air, the researchers [from Newcastle University and Imperial College London] were able to burn hydrocarbons in the purified atmosphere to produce energy, steam and nearly pure carbon dioxide.”

So, I’m thinking that we attach a bundle of LSCF straws to the air intake of every car engine. It burns with pure oxygen, increasing the effectiveness and getting better mileage, plus we only emit pure CO2. Attach an air compressor or something on the tailpipe to capture the CO2, and then drop off the CO2 at your local fizzy drink manufacturer for carbon credits, or take the CO2 to your greenhouse to improve your locally grown bananas. Sound like a good idea?

Maybe not yet. But, a cool green technology anyway. Green Living or maybe Plenty.

Climate Change Monitoring

Discover Magazine, 2007 review, big map quantifying Global Warming. 

“A consortium of American states, Canadian provinces, and several other groups established registries this year to monitor greenhouse gas emissions of corporations, nonprofits, and municipalities within their jurisdiction.”

“More than 290 U.S. colleges and universities have pledged to strive for carbon neutrality by reducing or offsetting their greenhouse-gas emissions.”

In other news, I have also promised to keep track of how every breath I exhale (breath number 46799) and every fart I let rip (breath number 46800) so I can monitor my own personal CO2 (breath number 46801) and methane contributions (breath number 46802) to climate change. Think Apple has a Widget (breath number 46803) to keep track of this for me?

Go Gamma!

From Discover Magazine 2007 review, “Some astrophysicists believe that dark matter particles may occasionally annihilate each other, producing bursts of high-energy gamma rays. If the Milky Way has dark-matter satellites, and if they do emit gamma rays, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, scheduled for Launch in February, might detect them.”

Dark matter satellites annihilating each other in our own backyard, okay, how cool is that?!

I actually spoke with some of the NASA engineers and scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center outside Baltimore about GLAST two years ago. Sounded like a cool project, so I am glad to hear that they got the green light.

Unfortunately, the launch will not take place in the next few days but in May. Bummer for space enthusiasts, but opens up some opportunity for me to write an article about this neat new space telescope for Astronomy or Sky and Telescope.

Local Environmental Health Researchers

In Discover Magazine’s 2007 review they say, “A further study in October of last year found an average ratio of female to male births of 54:46 in about 90 Canadian communities, a shift that James Argo of the IntrAmericas Centre for Environment and Health in Ontario attributes to dioxin pollution from nearby oil refineries, metal smelters, coke ovens, and pulp mills.

Hmmmm…my daughter was born in 2006. Is she part of this growing trend of fewer boys?

Possible story angle for Environmental Health Perspectives or CFI’s Innovation Canada.

And Now For Something Completely Different…

So, about a week ago I was supposed to be in Boston, MA for the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship program’s 25th anniversary and three day conference on the Future of Science Journalism.  I couldn’t be there (long, unpleasant story), but Alfred Hermida was.

Hermida is a former BBC journalist, and he now teaches at the University of British Columbia.  He blogged about the conference, so I was able to almost feel like I was there.

He interviewed Clive Thompson (WIRED magazine columnist) about his blog and posted the short video online.  In the interview, Thompson suggests that he uses his blog to refine his ideas, using reader feedback to focus his writing.

Now, I’ve been looking for a good way to keep track of all my story ideas and pitches.  Random scraps of paper don’t work.  Neither do files named “Ideas January 2008″ saved on my desktop.  So, I am going to give the blogosphere a look into my Ideas Vault.

If anyone out there sees a story they think I should know something more about, they would like me to write about, or whatever, leave a comment.

Let the grand experiment begin.