America and much of the world are facing a clean-water crisis of epic proportions. It came to the forefront in the states recently with the Flint, Michigan lead-water fiasco that has poisoned thousands, been linked to a Legionnaires’ disease breakout that killed several people and resulted in criminal charges against three city and state workers....
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Access to clean water will remain an increasing challenge globally for the foreseeable future – not only due to shortages caused by drought and overuse, but also to crumbling infrastructure in developed and undeveloped worlds. Moreover, explosive global population growth will tax these rotting systems even further. In 1900, the world’s population was just 1.5...
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Drawing Points
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Why your sweet tooth isn’t going away
You can’t give up glazed donuts just by willpower. Researchers at Duke University have shown that a habit rewires the brain to ensure that our nervous system will continue to crave the fix. The scientists addicted mice to sugar in varying severities, then surveyed the nerve networks in the part of the brain that governs...
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Continuing research revealing specific aspects of the brain’s plasticity is uncovering not only new methods, but also less invasive ways, to redirect neural wiring and alter behavior by modifying biochemistry. This avenue of research will find new, more effective ways to treat and perhaps cure mental illnesses, but it also raises the specter of creating...
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Digital greengrocer bypasses bureaucracy
Hunger remains a problem in developed countries — not for lack of food, but for lack of getting it where it needs to go before it rots. Two new online ventures are showing how the problem can be solved. Cropmobster, covering seven counties in central California, lets growers and producers post their wares for hundreds...
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About 40 percent of food in the US is wasted, which also wastes energy, water and work. Digital platforms and community linkages can turn “food thrift” into a tool to solve community-level hunger without government agencies having to write a check.
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IoT: Where the opportunity is
Investors looking to profit from the Internet of Things (IoT) — in which every device digitally communicates with every other device — need to know which sectors of that fluid market have the most room to grow. A recent study by market analyst VisionMobile shows that the IoT’s industrial sector is virtually mature already (factory...
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A 2014 estimate pegged the number of developers working in IoT at 4.5 million by 2020. That number was reached last year. The new estimate is that 10 million IoT developers will be employed in 2020. This tech sector is exploding and will continue to bloom well into the next decade. Risk-averse investors will put...
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Who needs the countryside? Farming Los Angeles
The Los Angeles River bed is a vast concrete trough through the city that remains dry except for the occasional flood that it channels away from the city to the Pacific Ocean. A study by the private, nonprofit Los Angeles River Revitalization Corp. envisions converting 660 down-at-the-heels industrial acres along the riverbed into an urban...