Co.Exist

Looking to Lose Weight? Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

Ben Schiller — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:15:42 GMT

Science proves the old adage true: If you go to the supermarket on an empty stomach, you’re going to make some bad decisions.

If you’re looking to lose or maintain weight, you might think of shopping when your belly’s full. That’s the upshot of a new paper looking at how people shop when they haven’t eaten. Simply put: if you skip a meal, you’re more likely to buy high calorie food, and probably eat it later on.

Aner Tal and Brian Wansink, researchers at Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab, conducted two experiments. In the first, 68 participants were told not to eat for five hours before coming to the lab in the afternoon. Then one group got to eat until they were "satiated" (they only got Wheat Thins, but still), while the other group got nothing at all. When the groups were subsequently asked to shop in a simulated market, the second group bought 18.6% more food, including 31% more high calorie stuff.

In the second experiment, the researchers went to an actual market and observed purchases both right after lunch (when shoppers are less likely to be hungry) and in the late afternoon (when they’re getting peckish again). They looked at the ratio of high to low calorie foods in people’s baskets, finding that the later shoppers had 26.7% fewer low-cal items.

Tal says if they had counted calories (instead of products), the satiated/non-satiated and post-lunch/late afternoon differences might have been even bigger. The research also didn’t look at consumption--though Tal says previous work shows availability has a strong bearing on eating decisions. If you buy unhealthy, you’re more likely to eat unhealthy.

He says the weight-conscious "might want to eat something before shopping" and even before making a list. Moreover, it could pay to go to the store with a clear head. Studies show that "a lack of cognitive resources can increase impulse purchases and hedonic choices", Tal adds.

Gender Equality Bears Its Chest For A Topless Summer

Zak Stone — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:00:20 GMT

For years, it’s been legal for women to go au natural (from the waist up) in New York. But the NYPD’s level of tolerance for this court-protected behavior has been less than stellar. This year, they’ve pledged to step up their efforts to not enforce a non-existent code of decency.

Climate change will make for increasingly toasty (and deadly) summers in New York City (especially since carbon dioxide is entering the atmosphere faster than ever.) But there’s good news for half of the population who may have once felt concered about their rights to go topless in the city’s parks in summers past. This year, the NYPD’s 34,000 officers have been ordered to no longer arrest women who show their breasts in public.

The New York Times reports that the message was delivered to the city’s police squad this February. The message is more of a reminder than a new order: In the past, police have arrested women for showing their breasts in public, even though a New York state court decided more than 20 years ago that the activity is just as legal for a woman as it is for a man.

The Times cites a memo distributed among police saying:

"Even if the topless display draws a lot of attention, officers are to 'give a lawful order to disperse the entire crowd and take enforcement action’ against those who do not comply, the memo says. 'Whether the individuals are clothed is not a factor in making a determination about whether the above-mentioned crowd conditions exist.' "

Sounds like New Yorkers can expect more naked Occupiers in coming months? Jokes aside, the decision’s an important one for gender equality in the city. As PolicyMic’s Hannah Ridge writes,

Though bare-breasted women might shock the sensibilities of some in the public, it is encouraging to see the police responding positively to gender bias, even on such a seemingly small scale. After all, no one thinks twice about a man shirtless on a summer day. However, the female nipple or chest is still considered “lewd.” By reminding its officers of this, the NYPD is publicly declaring that it will no longer perpetuate unconstitutional gender discrimination, a standard to which all law enforcement should be held and a decision for which it should be applauded.

Here’s to a topless summer for everyone.

Giving Kids Computers Doesn’t Help Them In School At All

Ariel Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:00:20 GMT

A new study looked at organizations that give disadvantaged kids home computers and found that kids used the computers a lot--but not for schoolwork.

There’s an unspoken assumption that giving poor and disadvantaged kids computers will help them academically. That’s why there are so many organizations doling out computers and Internet access for their schools and after-school programs. But home computers? They don’t make a difference.

Slate reports on a study that gave computers to kids in California who didn’t have a computer at home. The kids took advantage of the gift--they spent 50% more of their time using a computer for social networking, playing games, and doing homework. But academically, there was no impact. From Slate:

But there was no improvement in academic achievement or attendance or anything else. There wasn’t even an improvement in computer skills. At the same time, there was no negative impact either. The access to extra computer games didn’t reduce total time spent on homework or lead to any declines in anything. They broke it down by a few demographic subgroups and didn’t find anything there either. It’s just a huge nada. Nothing happening.

The results of this research are the logical follow up to a 2008 study that looked at the effect of a voucher program in Romania, implemented to help families pay off the cost of a home computer for their kids, on education. The result: Kids whose families used the vouchers watched less TV, but had significantly lower grades in math, English, and Romanian classes. Yet another study in 2010 showed that computer use among students is is linked to a widened achievement gap among rich and poor.

The researchers behind the later study speculated on the reasoning in the Register:

The profs suggest that this is because a kid in a disadvantaged home given a computer and internet access will tend to be poorly supervised and use it mainly for gaming, social networking or other timewasting online/computer activities rather than buckling down and doing homework. Thus computered-up poor children actually become dumber than they would have been without the tech.

If parents of all the children in the most recent study had provided constant supervision, the results would probably be more heartening. But it’s easier for a distractible school-age kid (or anyone, really) to mess around on a computer than to do actual work, no matter how many online resources are available.

This Map Shines A Light On Every Single U.S. Drone Attack

Zak Stone — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:30:21 GMT

Obama is making changes to how the U.S. drone program operates, but the past of the program is still shrouded in secrecy. This map helps clarify exactly what our killer technology is doing overseas.

On May 24, President Obama addressed the U.S. military’s use of drone strikes to target suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Somalaia, and Yemen--and pledged to continue to wind down those operations.

Fittingly, Bloomberg Businessweek created this map to serve as a reminder of the scope of that program., calling it the first ever "comprehensive compilation of all known lethal U.S. drone attacks."

The sobering stats are as follows:

Yemen: at least 552 killed between 2002 and 2013. The site of the first ever drone strike in 2002.
Pakistan: at least 2,561 killed between 2004 and 2013.
Somalia: at least 23 killed between 2011 and 2012.

Even though the programs are secretive, it’s still surprising how hard it is to get reliable data on just how many people we’ve killed with drones. Bloomberg's infographic got its information from the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism, but was unable to get confirmation from the State Department. Other sources in Washington, when asked, offered a wide range of numbers.

Will an Obama administration with a renewed commitment to following international codes of conduct shed more light on our drone operations and make it easier to get these numbers in the future?

According to the New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti, who provided live analysis of the speech, Obama’s speech didn’t go there:

One of the big outstanding questions is just how transparent the Obama administration will be about drone strikes in the future. Will administration officials begin to publicly confirm strikes after they happen?
There was no mention of this in the speech, and it is telling that the president did not mention the C.I.A. at all. It seems quite certain that past operations in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere are not going to be declassified anytime soon.

Also, moving operations from the C.I.A. to the Pentagon does not automatically mean that the strikes will be publicly discussed. The Pentagon is carrying out a secret drone program in Yemen right now, and it is very difficult to get information about those operations.

This Strange Looking Funnel May Be The Future Of Wind Power (Or Not)

Ben Schiller — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:00:30 GMT

The people behind the Invelox turbine claim that it can take a small gust of wind and make it much bigger. If they’re right, it could change the equation of renewable power.

Daryoush Allaei thinks the wind power industry has it all wrong. Rather than turbines high in the sky, he says, it should bring wind to the ground, in concentrated form. "This is the right track. The industry has been on the wrong track."

Allaei’s Invelox "wind delivery system" is a big funnel that captures air at the top, and squeezes it through a turbine at the bottom. Wind entering at 10 MPH ends up as fast as 40 MPH, he says--meaning it’s no longer necessary to go to a hilltop for optimum conditions.

According to SheerWind--the company Allaei heads--the funnel can produce 600% more power than a conventional wind device, and with lower installation and maintenance costs.

Now, if that sounds too good to be true, there are reasons for skepticism. For one, Allaei is quite coy about exactly what happens inside the funnel: the combination of ducts and pipework is a "trade secret." For another, the system is yet to be tested outside a select group.

Still, Allaei insists the idea is based on proven science--notably the Venturi Effect, which says that wind (and water) speeds into a jet when constrained to a tighter space.

Also, concentrating energy follows the example of other forms of power.
"The reason fossil fuels are cheap now is because the source of energy has been concentrated for millions of years," he says. "The solar guys found out if you use mirrors and lens to concentrate the source, you can improve the capacity. Wind is the only one that has been on a track of concentrating equipment, but not concentrating the source."

If you’re looking for other crazy ideas for the future of wind power, look no further than the Windstrument.

The latest version of the Invelox is 60 feet high and about 6.5 feet in diameter. Allaei says one advantage is that it can be more or less any size: from something that might power your cellphone, to something the size of today’s utility installation. He reckons we’ll see the first working applications in three to four years--in communities, industrial parks, universities and schools--given more investment.

"We are past the technology validation. The question is more about the business. Can we bring the cost down and compete with a well established industry?"

That might be a daunting prospect. But he points to $2 million in funding so far, and that three of the five largest turbine manufacturers have looked over the technology.

"There is nothing new about an industry going on a track for many years and all of a sudden someone comes along with a different idea, and it changes," he says. "We are telling the industry it needs to retool."

12 More-Sad-Than-Funny Cartoons That Illuminate The War On Science

Ben Schiller — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:30:38 GMT

From lobbyists gutting science bills to Congress not knowing the Earth is round, have a sigh and a chuckle at the punchlines in these entries in the Union of Concerned Scientists anti-science cartoon contest.

From climate change to evolution, science is under siege. The cartoons here count the ways: political interference, personal attacks, erroneous reporting, dumbing down, corporate mischief. The list goes on.

The cartoons were collected by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which represents more than 400,000 professionals and citizens around the country. "We’ve chosen 12 all-star cartoons that stand out in their ability to poke fun at the not-so-humorous challenges to the complex relationship between science and democracy," the group says.

"The cartoons cover a number of topics that are critical to the role of science in policy making, including the general state of public dialogue, corporate interference in science, attacks on the scientific regulatory system, barriers to the responsible use of science in policy making, the interaction of communications and social media with science, attacks on scientists, and the defense of science."

Take a look through the slide show, then head over to UCS’s contest page, where you can choose a favorite. The one with the most votes goes on the front of next year’s Editorial Cartoon Calendar.

While we’re about it, here’s last year’s entry list as well.

This Anti-Gravity 3-D Printer Can Make Objects Anywhere—Even Space

Zak Stone — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:30 GMT

The Mataerial printer squirts quick-drying polymers from a nozzle, like it was frosting a cake, creating a new model for 3-D printing that doesn’t require layers and supports to make a new object.

While many creators look at 3-D printing as a technology full of endless potential, designers Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić saw something with room for improvement.

“There is a variety of different 3-D printing types […] and no matter how they work, they all work with layers,” explains Novikov. Machines extrude plastic layer by layer until the desired shape slowly accrues. “We thought that this is strange because layers are not very efficient”: they require the presence of a support structure to prop up an object as it’s printed, which restricts the printing process to horizontal surfaces. Plus the technique can increase the printing time, the use of materials, and the risk of damaging an object when removing it from its support structure.

Novikov and Jokić, who were studying at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona last fall, wondered about printing with fibers instead of layers. Since then, they’ve worked to research, design, and patent a new method for 3-D printing called Mataerial, which squeezes polymers from a nozzle in a way that’s reminiscent of how bakers squeeze icing from a tube to frost a cake.

“The material that comes out of the nozzle is still kind of viscous--It’s not a liquid already but its not a solid material, so what we wanted to do is make it solid the same exact moment it comes out of the nozzle,” Novikov says. “And that’s the hardest part. Because if it solidifies before it comes out of the nozzle, then its going to make a clog… but if it solidifies after it leaves the nozzle, than its going to be weak and fall down.”

The secret was finding two liquid polymers that, when mixed, quickly harden. They’re calling the resulting method “Anti-Gravity Object Modeling,” since the material’s just-in-time solidification eschews the need for any sort of support structure, turning hard in mid-air.

The new method is exciting for a number of reasons. While their demonstration video shows a large robotic arm moving the nozzle, the size could easily be scaled up or down, according to Novikov, to print with a nozzle that’s narrower than 1 mm, or as big as a professional 3-D printer, to be used for furniture design or architectural construction.

What could a 3-D printed moon base look like? Check out more visions here.

The technology also allows for precise control over color and width of the tube, in real time as it’s printed. Syringes with cyan, magenta, yellow, and black coloring connect to the tube, and changing the proportions allows for customization of the color. Slowing down the robotic arm can also change the thickness of the tube.

But perhaps what’s most exciting, in the context of recent conversations about using 3-D printers to build bases on the moon or Mars: “We did an investigation and we are pretty sure that this could be used as 3-D printer in zero gravity," Novikov says.

NASA, are you out there?

The Boy Scouts Vote To Allow Gay Youth

Zak Stone — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:30:39 GMT

But adult gay scouts are still banned.

With a vote this afternoon, the Boy Scouts of America made official a policy that’s been in the work for months: gay youth will no longer be excluded from the troop. As for gay adults, they’ll still have to sit on the sideline.

This, of course, causes a problem for all those gay youth who will one day grow up and become gay adults. Reuters reports that:

according to internal documents from the organization, “when youth members become adults, they ‘must meet the requirements of our adult standards’ to remain in the group.”

So, will gay boy scouts have to reenter the closet to participate in the organization when they get to be adults?

The new policy is certainly a victory for gay youth and their families, but it’s one that comes with a certain amount of confusion. It’s okay to be gay in the Boy Scouts, but only if you’re a boy.

Hop On Prague’s New Love Train To Find A Date

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:00:26 GMT

The city is planning to introduce cars for single people, in an attempt to get their young people having babies.

Prague has one of the most heavily used public transport systems on the planet; most local commuters use the system four times a day. At the same time, fewer women in the Czech Republic are having children, and the marriage rate in the country has dropped dramatically since 1970. Clearly, a love train is needed to make things right.

Ropid, a local transport company in Prague, is launching a real-life "love train" where single commuters can have awkward conversations away from the judging eyes and ears of regular commuters. From the International Business Times:

"People today have no place to meet. Maybe somewhere at parties, or at work. In the metro you can already read and learn, so why not find a partner?" said Filip Drapal, spokesman for Ropid.
"We want to make life more pleasant. People today have no time to meet.

The Love Train launches later this year, but Ropid is reportedly fine-tuning the details, like how many trains to include, which train cars are most appropriate, and what types of signs to display. That last detail is particularly important--no one wants to accidentally end up in the cruising car (just imagine how creeped out all the confused tourists would be).

Prague residents feel mixed about the Love Train. IB Times reports:

Tyden’s readers seem divided in the idea of the “love train”; a little over half (54 percent) of those who replied to a survey said it is a “great idea”; while 43 percent derided it as “utter nonsense.”

The Metro newspaper actually asked some real live Czech commuters what they thought:

Petr Voracek said: ‘When I’m in a rush, I enter the first open door I see. I should watch out now and make sure no one starts seducing me.’
Another commuter Karolina Vranova, added: ‘As a notorious Metro catcher I’m afraid I might become the butt of gossip.’

‘What if someone sees me in the carriage and tells my boyfriend?’

It’s a silly idea, but if it gets more people out of their cars and into trains, why not?

Summer Heat Is Going To Make New York Deadly

Zak Stone — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:00:57 GMT

The amount of people dying from heat-related deaths in the city is going to rise rapidly thanks to climate change.

Summer heat waves can transform East Coast cities likes New York and Washington, DC, into humid, odiferous swamps of misery and stagnation. But with climate change conspiring toward increasingly hotter summers, New York and other towns won’t just be more unpleasant; they’ll be deadlier.

As The Guardian reported:

New York city could experience up to 22% more deaths from extreme summertime heat in the coming decade under global warming, according to a study of the impact of climate trends.
The higher deaths will be partially offset by a reduction in deaths due to the milder winters predicted in Manhattan.

Overall, however, the net effect of the new temperature norms under climate change would be to increase weather-related deaths in New York city by up to 6.2% a year by the 2020s, according to the scientists.

Those numbers, published in a study in Nature Climate Change, get even scarier when looked at over the long term. Assuming there’s little change to our carbon emissions, "heatwave deaths in New York city could rise by as much as 91% on 1980s levels by the 2080s."

Part of the problem is that concrete-filled, treeless urban areas get even hotter than non-urbanized zones on account of the urban heat island effect. Another problem is the high concentration of the elderly, disabled, and poor in urban areas, who may not have air conditioning. "How can we reach out to people who are stuck in their apartments trying to ride out the events? We have to try to target vulnerable people," Columbia University professor and study author Patrick Kinney, told the paper.

Is “I Wish My Son Had Cancer” Appropriate Ad Copy?

Morgan Clendaniel — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:29:19 GMT

An ad for a rare disease makes an uncomfortable statement.

The Hilarious, Befuddling Charts Of The U.S. Congress

Morgan Clendaniel — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:26:01 GMT

Floor Charts catalogs the visual aids--good, bad, and ugly--that drive Congressional debate. Okay, mostly they’re just bad and ugly.

Building A Social Network For Clean Water With Apps And Cheap Tests

Ben Schiller — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:00:59 GMT

The app mWater provides low-cost water tests to people in the developing world and then crowdsources their results, creating definitive maps of where water is safe to drink.

John Feighery became interested in water testing while working for NASA. Spaceships have sophisticated systems for recycling condensates and urine, and it was Feighery’s job to ensure that what astronauts drank was safe.

When it comes to water testing, a space station isn’t so different from, say, rural Africa. Both places lack expensive equipment for analysis and storing samples. So, Feighery is transferring a little of the space program to Planet Earth.

Feighery and his partner Annie have built an app called mWater that takes advantage of the rapidly falling cost of water testing kits. Their aim is to build a "social network for water," where quality is transparent, and anyone can immediately know what they’re drinking.

The app records the location of tests, the result, and additional notes (say, if a well is broken). By logging thousands of samples, it builds maps that help individuals and health professionals make informed decisions.

"Our aim is to prevent diarrheal disease," Feighery says. "It is completely preventable in most cases, and it’s always caused by poor water quality and hygiene." The World Health Organization estimates the disease kills 760,000 kids under five every year, and that there are 1.7 billion cases worldwide. The majority are in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa, where mWater is concentrating.

The tests come in several forms. The most basic is a bag to collect a water sample. You drop in a little change agent, and if it switches from yellow to green, you know E. coli is present. That indicates the water is likely to be contaminated with sewage. Another is the 3M Petrifilm. As well as being cheap in themselves--under $5--the tests don’t require lab analysis, or elaborate transfer procedures.

The Feigherys are also collaborating with a group in Germany to develop "compact dry plates," which multiply E. coli samples to make bacteria countable. Samplers take a picture of the plate, and the app automatically records the count. And, they hope to include a test for arsenic being developed at at Columbia, and others for nitrates and chlorine.

Feighery believes, in general, that aid groups need to focus more on water quality than simple availability.

"A lot of people are realizing that water they said was OK is not really OK. We want to be the open access database for water quality results, and for people to share data, and not keep it in house."

"It’s better to have water than not to have water. But it’s even better to have safe water."

Not Even Tesla Can Make Battery Swapping Ubiquitous In The U.S.

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:00:34 GMT

What if instead of charging your electric car, you just popped a new, fully charged battery under the hood. It’s an idea that’s been tried--and failed--but Tesla is hinting they want to bring it back.

Tesla may have made a big splash by paying back its loans from the government, but buried in Tesla’s latest filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission is this hint of things to come:

Other factors that may influence the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, and specifically electric vehicles, include…our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future.

But it’s still unlikely that battery swapping will quickly take off in the U.S.

Read about our test drive of the Tesla Model S here.

If the concept of battery swapping sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the main driver behind Better Place, an Israeli startup that dreamed of creating a global network of electric vehicle swapping stations that could switch out batteries in two minutes, no three-hour battery charging breaks required. These days, Better Place appears to be on the verge of death. Charismatic founder Shai Agassi stepped down in 2012, the company has sold just 750 cars in Israel (which was its launch market), and it has bled over $500 million. And yet, Tesla is at least intrigued by the idea.

Better Place is stumbling due to a variety of factors: other automakers wouldn’t build battery-swapping compatible vehicles (Sue Cischke, Ford’s vice president for Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, once told me that "For Ford, it doesn’t seem to be a solution that makes sense"), the model is hard to explain to customers, and in Israel, local officials haven’t been that supportive.

In its heyday, Better Place thought that China would be a big market because of its ambitious EV goals (5 million vehicles by 2020). Quartz believes that Tesla might be eyeing the same market for battery switching technology, both because of China’s goals and its ongoing debate over whether battery swapping should be a national standard.

But Tesla owners in the U.S. won’t be cruising up to battery swap stations anytime soon. Like Better Place, it’s unlikely that Tesla could convince other automakers to adopt a unified battery switching standard. And the U.S. is too big for this to work on any sort of country-wide scale without the kind of national standard proposed by China.

Electric vehicle charging stations aren’t nearly as ubiquitous as gas stations, and that’s with a number of different companies (including Tesla) installing them on streets and in parking lots. If Tesla is the only company installing battery swap stations in the U.S.--and they only work for Tesla batteries--they will inevitably be limited in scope (barring a future where we only drive Teslas).

But that doesn’t mean we won’t see any working battery swaps because Tesla might have the ability make it work on a small scale, something that wouldn’t work for Better Place’s business plan. Tesla’s Model S Supercharger network provides a model for how it might play out in a more limited way: after launching the network of quick-charge stations last September, the company has installed nine of them in California, New York City, Boston, and Washington D.C. There will be over 100 by 2015.

Unlike Better Place, to make battery swapping a success, Tesla doesn’t need the system to become the de facto method of EV charging in this country; it could just be a supplement to the EV maker’s existing network of charging stations--making it easier to own a Tesla, and more compelling to buy one.

Your Healthy Greek Yogurt Harbors A Deadly Secret

Zak Stone — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:00:54 GMT

Greek yogurt is healthy and good, but the process of making it creates something called acid whey. Acid whey is very bad: accidental spills of it have killed thousands of fish. But Greek yogurt is booming, so what to do with its dangerous byproduct?

For every container of Greek yogurt you see on a supermarket shelf, picture another container (or two or three) of deadly poison. It’s called acid whey, and it’s a toxic byproduct from the yogurt-making process that’s becoming a big problem for manufacturers as their product continues its assault on the hearts and minds of health-conscious Americans.

Never heard of "acid whey?" Neither had we. Modern Farmer explains:

It’s a thin, runny waste product that can’t simply be dumped. Not only would that be illegal, but whey decomposition is toxic to the natural environment, robbing oxygen from streams and rivers. That could turn a waterway into what one expert calls a “dead sea,” destroying aquatic life over potentially large areas. Spills of cheese whey, a cousin of Greek yogurt whey, have killed tens of thousands of fish around the country in recent years.
The scale of the problem—or opportunity, depending on who you ask—is daunting. The $2 billion Greek yogurt market has become one of the biggest success stories in food over the past few years and total yogurt production in New York nearly tripled between 2007 and 2013. New plants continue to open all over the country. The Northeast alone, led by New York, produced more than 150 million gallons of acid whey last year, according to one estimate. (Emphasis mine.)

Possible solutions to the acid whey problem include farmers mixing it with cattle feed, incorporating it into fertilizer, or making biogas from it. Another is using it to make baby-food. But nobody’s really figured it out. As Cornell dairy scientist Dave Barbano told Modern Farmer: “Because the Greek yogurt production grew so rapidly, no one really had the time to step back and look at the other viable options."

The cheese industry has solved its whey problem by selling the stuff to companies that make body-building supplements. But the "sweet whey" produced from cheese-making is richer in protein than acid whey, and therefore easier to process.

For now, it remains a mystery what will become of all that whey. But by all means, keep eating the Greek yogurt and feeling good about yourself.

[Illustration: Kelly Rakowski/Co.Exist]

This Is Your Body On A Can Of Soda

Ben Schiller — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:30:05 GMT

It feels so good when it hits your lips, but the rest of your body isn’t so happy.

At this point, you’d have to be quite daft to drink soda on a regular basis. Because the evidence of its ill-effects is vast, and mounting. Just recently, research found that consuming a 12-ounce can daily increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 22%. And, not long ago, we wrote up a study that linked soda, and other heavily sugared drinks, with 184,000 deaths annually (132,000 of those from diabetes). And so on.

This infographic, from Term Life Insurance, is a little trip around the body, from your lungs and heart, to your kidney and gut. For example, it points to research showing that phosphoric acid in cola leads to higher risk of osteoporosis, particularly in older women. And, that high fructose corn syrup is associated with heart disease, and may cause more weight gain than conventional sugar. And, that soda rots the enamel in your teeth.

Of course, if you’re looking for an alternative perspective, you could also go to the site kept by the Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute For Health & Wellness (yes, there is such a thing), or Sweetsurprise.com (from the Corn Refiners Association). Both are full of contradictory "facts" and figures.

Amazon Is Building A Biosphere For Its Employees

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:00:53 GMT

Who needs a boring office park when you have a 65,000-square-foot glass dome?

If you’ve ever dreamed of working in a lush, greenery-filled dome, consider moving to Seattle. That’s where Amazon is building a biosphere (made out of three intersecting domes) alongside a new skyscraper project. Plans for the 65,000 square foot structure, unveiled earlier this month, call for a general temperature range of 68 to 72 degrees and plants from high-elevation climates (that’s the "montane ecologies" below) that can thrive in the weather.

From Amazon’s planning document:

While the form of the building will be visually reminiscent of a greenhouse or conservatory, plant material will be selected for its ability to co-exist in a microclimate that also suits people. To encourage growth and maintain the health of the plants, the building’s interior will include high bay spaces on five floors totaling approximately 65,000 SF and capable of accommodating mature trees. The exterior enclosure will be highly transparent and be composed primarily of multiple layers of glass supported by a metal framework.
In addition to a variety of workplace environments, the facility will incorporate dining, meeting and lounge spaces, as well as a variety of botanical zones modeled on montane ecologies found around the globe.

NBBJ

Not everyone is thrilled about the dome. Gundula Proksch, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Washington and a member of Seattle’s design review board, asked the Seattle Times, "What is it offering other than making an experimental work environment?" The obvious answer: it’s an architectural attraction, something different from the uniform buildings surrounding it. Seattle already has the greenest office building in the world. Why not add a biosphere?

It’s an experimental work environment, sure, but it’s not all that different from how tech companies like Google and Facebook are building green roofs for their employees to enjoy. Facebook’s roof will even have hiking trails. In rainy Seattle, an indoor biosphere might be preferable.

And somewhere, Pauly Shore is smiling.

This Robot Will Be Your Perfectly Precise Bartender

Zak Stone — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:00:13 GMT

The Makr Shakr can make any drink you want--and even cut a lemon. Put a tie and a vest on it, and you won’t even be able to tell the difference between it and your local mixologist.

At the Milan Design Week, furniture usually take center stage. But lucky for booze-loving attendees this year, the fair’s definition of "design" is broad enough to include cocktails, made at, perhaps, the world’s most technologically advanced bar.

Called the MakrShakr, the project is a collaboration between MIT Senseable City Lab and Carlo Ratti Associati, an Italian architecture firm. Mustachioed mixologists have been replaced by a team of theree robots, capable of making millions and millions--or, to get mathematical, a googol (that’s 1 followed by 100 zeroes)--of drink recipes, created on the spot by the bar’s patrons. "Makr Shakr aims to show the 'Third Industrial Revolution’ paradigm through the simple process design-make-enjoy, and in just the time needed to prepare a new cocktail," explains the project website.

Design fair attendees who need to take the edge off will first download an app to create their order (and peruse the recipes that other users have come up with). "The cocktail is then crafted by three robotic arms, whose movements reproduce every action of a barman--from the shaking of a Martini to the muddling of a Mojito, and even the thin slicing of a lemon garnish," according to a press release.

If those motions seem particularly graceful, it’s because they were inspired by ballet dancer Roberto Bolle, whose "movements were filmed and used as input for the programming of the Makr Shakr robots."

While drinks designed by bar-goers, not experts, may not be as perfectly balanced as a craft cocktail, they’re extremely precise. The design system monitors exactly how much booze each patron is consuming, which, in theory, could let the robot-bartenders know when it’s time to cut off designers who have thrown back a few too many.

Check out the video here.

Take A Breathtaking Trip Around The World In 15 Minutes

Zak Stone — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:30:15 GMT

This NASA video shows a satellite pass over a huge swath of land, from Russia to South Africa, in stunning detail. Cue up some soaring music and sit back and enjoy.

NASA’s Landsat satellites have provided incomparable views of Earthen landscapes since the 1970s. In February, the newest satellite to join the family, called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, took flight, and thanks to its new imaging technology, the Operational Land Imager, the images of land-masses are more detailed than ever.

A recently released video of a fly-over of a swath of land 185 kilometers wide and 9,000 kilometers long--extending from Russia to South Africa and passing over land almost the entire way--is a testament to the power of the new imaging technology. In this 15 minute video, sped up from the 20 minutes it took the satellite to photograph, the image resolution is high enough that viewers can make out "urban centers, farms, forests and other land uses."

Like the time-lapse videos created from Landsat data I wrote about earlier this month, the most fascinating scenes are the ones that offer snapshots of man’s touch, whether cities rising out of the desert or irrigation altering a river’s natural course. As one YouTube commenter wrote, "Landsat flew right over the spine of the birthplace of the human species, and at the same time the birthplace of agriculture. This is where we came from, and the environment which might be said to have had the biggest impact on what made us… us. There could almost be no other landscape so interesting to see in one large glimpse as this one."

And while the 15-minute glimpse is fascinating, what’s possibly more entertaining is the 4-minute highlight reel above, annotated with pop-up graphics explaining the stream of landmarks passing by, from borders, to cities, to mountains, to lakes. Selections include farmland along Russia’s Volga river, irrigated crops along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, the shores of Lake Victoria in east Africa, and Zimbabwe’s mineral-rich rock formation The Great Dyke. The viewing experience is amplified with world music corresponding to the locations below.

At the end of this month, NASA will hand over control of the satellite to the U.S. Geological Survey, its partner in the project, who will operate the satellite and it make its data available for free.

Want To Stop Being Fat? Cook

Zak Stone — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:00:23 GMT

The only way to control what goes in your body is to make it yourself.

Fat. Sugar. Salt. Carbs. When seeking explanations for why Americans’ health has spun out of control over the past few decades, we tend to single out individual parts of the nutritional landscape for blame. But, as the New York Times' health blogger Jane E. Brody points out, the problem is "multifaceted" and will require systemic change to solve. While the average number of calories consumed per day has grown by more than 20% since 1970, that consumption increase is fueled by an across the board jump in the amount of not just sugar, but fats, oils, cereals, and flour that people are eating.

So where are all these calories coming from? If there’s any one culprit for the obesity epidemic in the U.S., perhaps we ought to point a finger at the overarching trend responsible for Americans eating more: the increasing popularity of eating food we didn’t prepare ourselves.

According to Brody:

Eating just one meal a week away from home can translate into two extra pounds a year for the average person, the [Department of Agriculture] calculated. Although the recent economic downturn forced more people to dine at home, the average adult now eats out nearly five times a week.

Brody points to a number of reasons why restaurant meals can sneak in so many calories, including the lack of nutritional facts on menus, the pre-dinner bread basket or chips and salsa, and the growth in portion size to please budget-seeking diners. This last reason has shifted the way we think about portion size even when we’re not at a restaurant. Makers of processed foods have adjusted accordingly with foods like bagels and muffins being larger than ever and yogurts being more sugary.

The advice for the American diner, which, is also the message of Michael Pollan’s new book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, is to cook your own meals using unprocessed ingredients if you want to buck the trend toward becoming overweight. The problem, of course, is that this is not a reality for many overworked, poor Americans who don’t have access to healthy food in their neighborhoods--the exact demographic most likely to battle obesity.

Tips By Millennials, For Millennials On Surviving Your Nonprofit Gig

Anya Kamenetz — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:00:15 GMT

Tip #1: "Don’t work at one."

More than almost anything, Millennials value work with purpose. But their fresh-faced idealism may open the door to years of peonage in the underpaid, overworked nonprofit sector. The sad irony is that the same people who commit to helping those less fortunate or fighting back against injustice often end up invisible and disrespected themselves.

Youngist, a polished Tumblr maintained by a team of under-24 year olds, has some advice on avoiding getting screwed in the nonprofit game.

Most notable is the writer, "Jade(d)'s" Here are some of our favorite of her tips. (Read the rest here):

Tip #1: Don’t want to be exploited with a job at a nonprofit? Don’t work at one.

"Working at a nonprofit generally involves at least some level of exploitation."

However, Jaded explains, different flavors of exploitation are offered at small and large nonprofits. Unfortunately, there is usually an inverse relationship between the degree of exploitation and the "street cred" offered by the job. Working in direct service or grassroots organizing, going door to door, say, has the worst hours and the worst wages, but also brings you closest to the problems you’re ostensibly concerned about. Working for Unicef or the Gates Foundation probably means better pay and conditions--hey! air conditioning!--but your grittier radical vegan friends in bandanas and chain wallets will despise you.

Tip #2: Make sure you really care about the issue.

"Every job involves doing some stuff that you don’t want to do, but the boring stuff should at least be training you in some small way for the career that you actually want."

There’s no point in purpose-driven work if it’s not your own personal purpose.

Tip #3: Set boundaries.

"People who don’t take care of themselves burn out and often become jaded and bitter. You can’t sustain 'the movement’ if you don’t sustain yourself."

Safeguard your own time and energy, because no one else is going to protect it. Sleep, weekends, or seeing friends--you can’t have all three in the nonprofit grind, but pick the one that’s most important.

For more great advice, check out the post.

4 Innovative Models Changing Health Care In Africa

David Olson — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:32:55 GMT

From pop-up clinics to diagnostic rats, people are finding ways to bring modern health care to the developing world.

In Tanzania, giant pouched rats are trained to sniff out tuberculosis in human sputum samples. Dubbed HeroRATS, the animals can evaluate 40 samples in just seven minutes, equal to what a skilled lab technician can do in a full day.
In northern Kenya, health services--including family planning services--are being brought to 36 remote, underserved communities by four-wheel drive vehicles, bicycles, camels and good old-fashioned human feet. And in Malawi, durable e-health hardware--even touch screen computers--that are significantly more robust in harsh environments with erratic power supplies are being manufactured by Malawians.

These are some of the really out-of-the-box ideas private sector organizations are applying in an effort to improve health by bringing affordable and high-quality health services to low-income people in Africa. While imported Western technologies certainly have their place, these ideas acknowledge local realities and tend to mix high and low tech in surprising ways that are appropriate to their environments.

In South Africa, Unjani Clinic-in-a-Box prefers to stay totally in-the-box, by providing trailer houses that are made and fitted according to the specific needs of the site. It takes only four weeks from order to arrival at site, and another day to have it up and running. The clinics are part of a primary health care social franchise model equipped to deal with a range of the most non-threatening ailments that account for 50% to 60% of consultations in under-served communities of South Africa.

These projects--all drawn from the crowd-sourcing platform of the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)--are revolutionizing health care around the world by applying local solutions to local problems. The CHMI platform currently profiles 1,250 such private sector health programs in developing countries.

Rats sniffing out TB

APOPO--which originally trained rats to sniff out landmines--evaluates samples from 10 TB centers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The HeroRATS sniff a series of holes under which human sputum samples are placed and identify samples that contain TB bacteria. Their correct indications on known positive samples are rewarded with a food treat. Indications on unknown samples, if pinpointed by two or more rats, are confirmed by humans using microscopes. Positive samples are reported to hospitals, who follow up with patients. The rats have already detected over 2,300 TB-positive patients that were missed by microscopes. APOPO’s TB detection program is in a research phase, and is now working towards further validation before full implementation.

Delivering health care by camel

The Community Health Africa Trust (CHAT) is a community organization that supports people living in remote, underserved poor communities of northern Kenya to have healthy lives. It does this through mobile clinics that use vehicles, bicycles, feet and camels--depending on the terrain and infrastructure--to visit 36 communities per month. CHAT provides services in basic medical care, reproductive health, malaria and TB treatment, HIV counseling and testing, AIDS treatment, child immunizations and health education, including information on the dangers of female genital mutilation.

High tech in a low tech environment

The Baobab Health Trust says it is “committed to using technological innovation to change lives in the developing world.” It appears they are doing just that by developing software, touch screen computers, bar codes and alternative energy sources in health facilities in Malawi.

Most notably, Baobab has developed low-cost and long-lasting power back-up systems that have allowed more than 1 million antiretroviral therapy sessions for 18,000 patients, registration of 800,000 patients and 160,000 HIV counseling and testing sessions. Baobab has also developed touch screen-based user interfaces designed for users with limited technology experience and low-cost information devices that stand up far better in harsh conditions than traditional computers.

Clinic-in-a- Box

The Unjani Clinic-in-a-Box is designed to provide primary health care services at affordable prices to under-served communities in South Africa. The 12-meter-long clinic provides consultations at about $15 per patient, including medicines, which is very competitive with other forms of private health care. Each clinic has an outside reception area, an examination room, a medicine dispensary, a registered nurse practitioner and an assistant.

The model aims to empower black women. All clinics are managed and owned by an experienced and community-based registered nurse. Start-up costs are around $20,000. There are currently seven fully franchised units in different parts of South Africa. Each clinic sees between 180 and 400 patients per month, a figure which is growing every month.

Three Ideas For Better Health Care Of The Future, From Tech And Health Executives

Ariel Schwartz — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:52 GMT

You like your smartphone? Get ready for your smart toilet.

The conventional wisdom goes that health care is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies. The explosion in the past few years of sensor and app-filled health startups is starting to prove that wrong (emphasis on "starting"). But what about the large-scale stuff that will really make a difference in patients’ lives? Genomic medicine has long been promised to the masses. And what about precision medicine, which integrates genetics, blood tests, medication and therapy response, and lab discoveries to make better treatment decisions?

For two days in May, the most important executives in the country got together with health care leaders at a UC San Francisco gymnasium to come up with the solution to a thorny problem: How can we revolutionize medicine? Mark Zuckerberg stopped by to contribute. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, contributed his thoughts. So did GE Healthymagination CEO Sue Siegel. And at the end of the day, everyone walked out with some clear-cut steps forward.

Genomic medicine is slowly starting to be used with cancer patients, but it has a long way to go. Precision medicine--a term invented in 2011--is even further from reality. In a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann lamented the gap between scientific discoveries and what’s used in doctor offices. Making that leap requires all the brainpower from disparate industries that health care can muster.

And that’s why I find myself sitting in front of Salesforce founder and CEO Mark Benioff--who recently contributed $100 million for a new children’s hospital at UCSF--as he discusses the promise of precision medicine to a crowd of over 150 people at the OME Precision Medicine Summit. I was witnessing the tail end of the two day event, which matched participants into teams that worked together on precision medicine-related ideas for a final pitch session. At the end, participants were encouraged to volunteer their resources (money, brainpower, access) to move the ideas forward. Not everyone had the chance to pitch; in the end, 11 of the best ideas were selected for presentation. There were some clear highlights.

Smart Toilet

The first idea pitched to the audience was also the only consumer product. The basic idea: a smart toilet that analyzes stool samples, letting the user know if they have anything wrong with them--giardia, the nasty bacteria C. difficile, you name it, the smart toilet can find it. The creators estimated that they would need $1.5 million to create a smart toilet device that can analyze stool samples on a chip--but the technology is within reach.

Learning From Failure

An amazing 95% of drugs never reach patients. All the data from those failed drugs is essentially left unused; laws prohibit the FDA from making failed trial data public. This team proposed crafting an agreement with pharmaceutical companies to open up their data, ensuring that other researchers can learn from what doesn’t work to more quickly make useful drugs. Big Pharma would obviously be concerned about confidentiality, but the team maintained that eventually, opening up data would lower the economic burden of getting drugs to market. Whether this idea can gain any traction is questionable, but both the FDA commissioner (Margaret Hamburg) and high-ranking representatives from pharmaceutical companies were present at the UCSF event--so it’s possible.

Data Donor Drive

The easiest way to further genomic research is to gather lots and lots of data. This team proposed creating a data donor drive to collect 1 million genetic data sets. The first volunteers would be health care practitioners and members of disease advocacy--after that, the hope is that the first donors encourage their family and friends to join in.

Nobody is quite sure what happens now. That will depend largely on what kinds of commitments participants made to furthering each of the projects (they submitted commitments on slips of paper at the end of the event). "We didn’t set any notion of next steps," says Desmond-Hellmann. UCSF has already offered to get onboard with some of the projects, including one called the Global Biological Data Consortium that proposes a consortium to establish standards for analyzing biological data. We’ll know more in the coming months about whether any of the projects get off the ground.

This Strawscraper Gets Its Power From Thousands Of Quivering Hairs

Ben Schiller — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:38 GMT

Using piezoelectricity, this concept skyscraper wouldn’t need to be attached to the city’s grid. It would get all its power from the wind passing through its hairy exterior.

Called a Strawscraper, this tower is covered in piezoelectric fronds that rustle in the wind, generating power for people inside. It’s just a concept, for now, but a pretty interesting one, and another example how designers see future buildings relying on their own power, rather than a power station at the city limits. Designer Rahel Belatchew Lerdell says the inspiration "came from fields of wheat swaying in the wind", while a press release talks about a construction that gives "the impression of a body that is breathing".

Belatchew’s blueprint calls for the "completion" of the Söder Torn, in Stockholm. The building, constructed the 1997, was originally envisaged as 40 stories, but was cut down to 26, when its architect, Henning Larsen, lost control of the project. The straws are an added bonus, but, for the moment, more futuristic than feasible.

Still the idea is intriguing. "By using piezoelectric technology, a large number of thin straws can produce electricity merely through small movements generated by the wind," says the release. "The result is a new kind of wind power plant that opens up possibilities of how buildings can produce energy."

Though piezoelectricity has never been used in this way, the idea is well understood (see here and here for a couple of studies). And several other designers have conceptualized using it. See here for another interesting example, conceived for the Masdar Energy City project in Abu Dhabi.

How Two College Pals Are Growing A Solution To Our Reliance On Plastic

Patrick James — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:33 GMT

Six years ago, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre were college friends with a bright idea: using mushrooms and agricultural byproducts to create an alternative to plastic. Now, they’re growing a business that could change almost everything about how we live.

Maybe the most devastating aspect of styrofoam packaging is that it’s useful for a matter of days or hours--say, while a product ships--but it lasts for a millennium. Plastics like styrofoam currently take up between 25% and 30% of our landfill space, and a single cubic foot of styrofoam has the same energy content as about one and a half liters of gasoline. That’s a lot of impact for just a little bit of value.

And that’s precisely why college pals Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre established Ecovative, which grows cost-effective alternatives to plastic insulation and packaging. While they were students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bayer and McIntyre experimented with mycelium, the network of vegetative filaments in mushrooms, and realized that it could be used to form incredibly strong bonds. Essentially, the substance functions like a glue that you can grow and use to form agricultural byproducts like plant stalks and seed husks into natural alternatives to styrofoam packaging and insulation.

"It turns out that mycelium is actually a living polymer," says Bayer, who graduated in 2007 and co-founded Ecovative that same year. "I like to think of it as low-tech biotech."

After graduation, he and McIntyre continued working with mycelium and soon earned grants from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. Larger awards followed from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the EPA; these allowed them to hone their concept and bring it closer to market. Bayer even performed a TED talk in 2010.

They’ve replaced toxic products--styrofoam and insulation--with superior proxies that are biocompatible with the planet (meaning they’re compostable). And perhaps the most compelling fact about Ecovative is that--like the product itself--the company continues to grow. What began as a bright idea between two college students is now the driving force for a company of more than 50 people. They’ve got a fully operational New York office and hope to open a 40,000-foot facility in the Midwest this summer. They’re even working on growing a house entirely out of the fungal materials. Ultimately, they’ve unearthed a natural solution to a consumer problem.

"All of our clients came to us because they have a problem," said Bayer of styrofoam-based products. "They had to get out of plastic, either because their CEO said they’re not going to do any more plastic or because their customers called up and asked them to stop sending plastic waste with their products."

Ecovative products use what Bayer calls a "whole-organism approach," meaning that everything they grow goes into the final product. "There’s no extraction in the approach. The feedstock and the organism become the final product. This means our yield rates in comparison to every other company are phenomenal. It’s a tremendous challenge to replace a plastic like styrofoam--which is really cheap--at the same price and performance. It’s really hard; that’s why no one’s done it. But we’re thrilled to be able to get there. "