Science & Technology

Two great Britons died this week. One, Margaret Thatcher, is well known, and her passing has been widely noted. The other, Robert Edwards, is a brilliant physiologist whose work lead to the first successful human conception, and subsequent birth, through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). His passing has been relatively unnoticed, and…

"Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet," Alex Epstein argued in a March 29 talk (which I attended) at Vassar College. The event almost didn’t take place. Student members of the group 350.org—which opposes the development of fossil fuels—petitioned to have the talk canceled. When that didn’t work, some set out to…

In the Southern Texas county of La Salle in 2008, explorers at Petrohawk Energy Corporation took the first steps of what would become an oil producing revolution in the region. The company focused on developing the Eagle Ford Shale, a formation of siliciclastic carbonates and shale less than 300 feet…

When I was a kid I loved watching The Six Million Dollar Man, the television show starring Lee Majors about the bionic man. Of course that was just make-believe. But today scientists are making bionic components a reality. Time reports that Second Sight Medical Products produced (and the FDA approved)…

Since the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. petroleum consumption and imports have declined. Simultaneously, domestic oil production has increased. On Wednesday March 20, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) ran the headline “U.S. crude oil production on track to surpass imports for first time since 1995.” The expectation is that imports will…

In his article “No to Keystone, Yes to Crazy,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman damns the Keystone oil pipeline but says he’s willing to accept its existence in exchange for “systemic responses to climate change.” How might environmentalists facilitate such a deal? Friedman encourages the likes of “Bill McKibben…

Need to diagnose an intestinal worm infection? Yeah, there’s an app for that. In fact, it’s the built-in camera app in the iPhone 4S! Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a physician specializing in infectious diseases at Toronto General Hospital, and his associates have managed to transform the iPhone 4S into a basic…

It’s been a little over a year since BP, once one of the world’s leading solar power companies, announced that it was exiting the solar power market. According to the company’s website, “BP Alternative Energy is focusing on those sectors of the energy industry where we can profitably grow our…

Nuclear fusion has long been the holy grail as a source for energy. Consider that one kilogram of natural gas will light a hundred-watt light bulb for six days, but one kilogram of nuclear fuel will light it for 140 years. Unfortunately, there is some truth to the old joke…

Jack Andraka is not your typical cancer researcher. His first research project resulted in a non-invasive, simple, sensitive, and effective test for detecting pancreatic cancer. His test is 168 times faster than any currently available test; 26,000 times less expensive (that is not a typo); potentially 100 percent accurate; and…