Converting Body Movements Into Electricity

From the New York Times...

"It may not seem like it, but even the laziest of couch potatoes is a human dynamo. The act of breathing — of moving the ribs to draw air into the lungs and expel it — can generate about a watt of power. And if the potato actually gets up off the couch and walks briskly across the room, each heel strike can produce even more power, about 70 watts’ worth.

That energy could be put to work, charging a cellphone, say, or a medical sensor inside the body. The problem is how to harvest it."

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Computers Turn Flat Photos Into 3-D Buildings

From the New York Times...

"Rome wasn’t built in a day, but in cyberspace it might be.

Computer science researchers at the University of Washington and Cornell University are deploying a system that will blend teamwork and collaboration with powerful graphics algorithms to create three-dimensional renderings of buildings, neighborhoods and potentially even entire cities."

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Turning Math into Cash

From Technology Review published by MIT...

"IBM has found a new source of revenue: using its mathematicians' formulas in business services."

"Five years ago, Brenda Dietrich started to investigate how IBM's 40,000 salespeople could learn to rely a little more on math than on their gut instincts. In particular, Dietrich, who heads the company's 200-person worldwide team of math researchers, was asked to see if math could help managers do a better job of setting sales quotas. She assigned three mathematicians at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, to work on new techniques for predicting how much business the company could get from a given customer."

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An Undiscovered Link Between Sensory Perception and Shannon's Theory of Information

From Technology Review published by MIT...

"The mathematics that describe both sensory perception and the transmission of information turn out to have remarkable similarities."

"The idea that sensory perception is a form of communication and so obeys the same rules, is not entirely surprising. What's astonishing (if true) is that the connection has never been noticed before."

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Haiti Earthquake Clearinghouse

From the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute...

Visit this site for General Information about the Haiti Earthquake, Reconnaissance Efforts, Reports from the Field, Response and Recovery Efforts, Maps, Geoscience Information, and Structural Information.

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USGS Updates Assessment of Earthquake Hazard and Safety in Haiti and the Caribbean

From the USGS...

"The magnitude-7 earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010, near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, has generated a sharp increase in concerns about the potential for future earthquakes in Haiti and the surrounding region. These concerns extend to understanding the causes of the earthquake hazard and learning what can be done to ensure seismic safety in the future. The purpose of this statement is to convey our best judgment on these subjects."

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U.S. Refines Quake Alerts

From The Wall Street Journal...

"Scientists' understanding of earthquakes has improved significantly in recent years. Using an array of sensitive instruments to measure tiny shifts in the Earth's tectonic plates and known fault lines, seismologists have become more adept at forecasting the size and location of quakes, and thus whether they are likely to occur in populated areas. Predicting their timing is much harder, and is often given in terms of decades. But this expertise helps speed relief and humanitarian agencies to the worst-hit areas.

That's where the NEIC comes in. Some 1,000 seismic stations around the world relay earthquake signals in real time to NEIC."

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Disaster Awaits Cities in Earthquake Zones

From The New York Times...

"Istanbul is one of a host of quake-threatened cities in the developing world where populations have swelled far faster than the capacity to house them safely, setting them up for disaster of a scope that could, in some cases, surpass the devastation in Haiti from last month’s earthquake."

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A Frightening New Law of Hurricane Formation

From Technology Review published by MIT...

"A new mathematical model of hurricane formation finally solves one of the outstanding puzzles of climate change but also predicts dramatic increases in the number of storms as the world warms."

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coop himmelb(l)au: town town erdberg

From designboom.com

"For their project town town erdberg, austrian firm coop himmelb(l)au will receive
the sustainability award for the 2010 MIPIM architectural review future project awards.

The intention of developing the office high-rise town town erdberg was to generate
a building which correlates to the principle 'aesthetics of sustainability'. Through an
energy active facade and an integrated wind turbine the building is producing more
energy than it is actually consuming."

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