Rotundus.com

Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

"THE hottest new material in town is light, strong and conducts electricity. ... Nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), which is produced by processing wood pulp, is being hailed as the latest wonder material. ... why all the fuss? Well, not only is NCC transparent but it is made from a tightly packed array of needle-like crystals which have a strength-to-weight ratio that is eight times better than stainless steel. Even better, it's incredibly cheap. 'It is the natural, renewable version of a carbon nanotube at a fraction of the price,' says Jeff Youngblood of Purdue University's NanoForestry Institute in West Lafayette, Indiana."

Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

"A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy. Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy ... previous studies estimated the warp drive would require a minimum amount of energy about equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter. But recently White calculated what would happen if the shape of the ring encircling the spacecraft was adjusted ... the warp drive could be powered by a mass about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager 1 probe NASA launched in 1977."

A Literal Epidemic of Crutch Words

Certain turns of phrase that might make conversation flow more smoothly if eliminated.

Can a “Value of Solar Tariff” Replace Net Energy Metering?

One of the problems of integrating solar energy is that it isn't always available when desired, and that those providing solar power don't have to pay the integration costs to accomodate the energy they produce. Here's an alternative, trying to calculate a value for solar based on the following: "1. Energy value for predictably priced point-of-consumption electricity production; 2. Generation value for the avoided cost of building traditional generation; 3. Environmental value for reduced emissions and pollution; 4. Transmission and distribution system value for reduced burdens on existing wires and infrastructure and the eliminated need for new wires and infrastructure; 5. Disaster recovery value for serving when central stations go offline; 6. Reactive power value for stabilizing voltage drops that cause outages; and 7. Loss savings value for preventing ... losses."

Excerpted from a piece by Charles Murray in the Boston Review (emphasis mine):

Toward the end of his career, sociologist Peter Rossi, a dedicated progressive and the nation’s leading expert on social program evaluation from the 1960s through the 1980s, summarized his encyclopedic knowledge of the evaluation literature with his “metallic laws.” Rossi’s iron law was that “the expected value of any net impact assessment of any large scale social program is zero.” His stainless steel law was that “the better designed the impact assessment of a social program, the more likely is the resulting estimate of net impact to be zero.” To me, the experience of early childhood intervention programs follows the familiar, discouraging pattern that led him to formulate his laws: small-scale experimental efforts staffed by highly motivated people show effects. When they are subject to well-designed large-scale replications, those promising signs attenuate and often evaporate altogether.

Researchers' motivations for conducting a study matter. Such applies more generally than just to the social sciences.

New Zealand Grants a River the Rights of Personhood

Apparently not only humans (excepting those still in their mother's wombs) and corporations can be legal persons, rivers can too.

In plain view: How child molesters get away with it.

"The pedophile is often imagined as the dishevelled old man baldly offering candy to preschoolers. But the truth is that most of the time we have no clue what we are dealing with."

Americans Confused About the Number of Protestants, Atheists, Mormons, and Muslims

"The typical American badly underestimates how many Protestants there are in the country, notes the report, and overestimates the presence of religious minorities such as Mormon, Muslim, and atheist/agnostic." - A survey like this could really use an apatheist category to deal with the large group of nominally affiliated people. I suspect that that would shift the numbers somewhat.

As it's revealed the Bond star was victim of domestic violence, why did Roger Moore's wives beat him up?

"... both his two wives prior to Luisa attacked him, subjecting him to a string of batterings during their marriages. He recalls how he was scratched, punched and even hit over the head with a guitar, as well as having a brick thrown through his window by a jealous spouse. And though he has never gone into detail about life with Luisa — the mother of his children, and the only one of his previous wives still alive — everyone who knew them during their more than 30-year relationship has a tale to tell about her volatile behaviour." Yet another reminder that both men and women perpetrate domestic violence, with a 2007 study finding that "[i]n nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases."

Zimbabwean PM weds under custom permitting polygamy

He "held a ceremony under Zimbabwe’s 'customary marriage' practice. ... A magistrate said on Friday that Mr. Tsvangirai’s former flame Locardia Karimatsenga had proved she was his wife under the customary marriage practice. A man can have several customary marriages, but if he has wed under the practice is precluded from holding a legal marriage ceremony." It's a bit similar to an American example in which the person in questions argues "his polygamist arrangement is legal because he is legally married only to one woman, and the other marriages are spiritual unions."

From Ancient Deforestation, a Delta Is Born

"Humans were tampering with nature long before the Industrial Revolution’s steam and internal combustion engines arrived on the scene. The invention of agriculture around 8,000 years ago, some argue, significantly changed ecosystems as it spread around the globe... millennium-old development along the Danube River in Eastern Europe significantly changed the Black Sea ecosystem and helped create the lush Danube Delta in Romania and Ukraine."

Jane Shepherdson: Why I prefer to hire women — they work harder, can multi-task and they’re passionate

When discrimination is OK...

The 'chemputer' that could print out any drug

"When Lee Cronin learned about the concept of 3D printers, he had a brilliant idea: why not turn such a device into a universal chemistry set that could make its own drugs?" ... looks like 3D printers might also be able to print guns as well.