Toshiba is building baby nuclear reactors.

Interest in pocket nuclear plants is growing among developing countries and island nations, advocates say. Like solar and wind power, a pocket nuke is a modular, carbon-free power source. Unlike those other energy sources, it would generate power 24/7 and at a fraction of the cost of a diesel generator, they say.

Not everyone thinks this is going to work though (from the comments)

But what is more likely is that this project will never materialize and the entire discussion is an exercise in a technophilic distraction from the pressing work of reducing carbon emissions in the near term.

Innovators Develop Products That Mimic Nature’s Principles - washingtonpost.com:

“‘I see a whale, I see a six-to-12-volt electric generator that is able to pump 1,000 liters per pulse through more than 108 miles of veins and arteries,’ he said. The intricate wiring of the whale’s heart is being studied as a model for a device called a nanoscale atrioventricular bridge, which will undergo animal testing next year and could replace pacemakers for the millions of people whose diseased hearts need help to beat steadily.”

That’s amazing.

A nice description of Certificate Authorities and the web of trust along with details on how researchers broke it in the case of MD5 signed certificates.

Theoretical attacks yield practical attacks on SSL, PKI: “In so doing they showed once and for all that the theoretical attack had practical value; chosen prefixes are enough to undermine systems built using MD5.”

(update: on the other hand, it appears to have worked… My spiffy FOAF URI is http://foafbuilder.qdos.com/people/gwking.myopenid.com/foaf.rdf)

I was trying to add myself to FOAF builder (just because). It was slick. It was nice. It was using OpenID. But then:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function sparql_put_string() in /usr/local/src/foafbuilder/application/controllers/WriterController.php on line 295

sign. computers. still. suck.

Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island

“The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem — even with the best of intentions, the study said.

‘The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs,’ Bergstrom said.”

Basics - In ‘Geek Chic’ and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science - NYTimes.com

From a purely Darwinian point of view, expecting a young woman to sacrifice her reproductive fitness for the sake of career advancement is simply too much, and yet the structure of academic research, in which one must spend one’s 20s and early 30s as a poorly compensated and minimally empowered graduate student and postdoctoral fellow, and the remainder of one’s 30s and into the low 40s working madly to earn tenure, can demand exactly that.

That’s damn straight. Science is geared towards a particular sort of maleness. This, however, is a good sign:

Dr. Mason and her colleagues found that while two-thirds of the respondents either had or planned to have children, 84 percent of the women and 74 percent of the men expressed worry about the family-unfriendliness of their intended profession, and many had changed their plans accordingly.

I’m heartened that so many males are getting a clue and understanding that family is important.

(On the other hand, as far as I know, all academic positions are some measure of the publish or perish, hunt for tenure, etc. Why is science in a worse position?).

Would this work in America? How about a tour…?

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Teens flock to new maths show

“A new theatre show which explores the world of maths has become a hit with with teenage students. Sarah Campbell reports.”

Time Cook’s vision of Apple

“We believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross pollenization of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly. we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company and we have the self honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.”

Nice.

Sad, funny, story about quality, quantity and the consumer society:

Interview: iPhone dev gets existential about “crap” apps

“What High said next, however, is perhaps a bit more telling: ‘I think Apple does a good job of featuring apps that are well designed and well though out. I just don’t know if well thought out, beautiful apps are what the majority of iPhone users want.’”

I hope that we manage to follow through:

climate change envoy vows ‘dramatic diplomacy’

“‘The time for denial, delay and dispute is over. The time for the United States to take up its rightful place at the negotiating table is here,’ Stern said.

‘We can only meet the climate challenge with a response that is genuinely global,’ he said. ‘We will need to engage in vigorous, dramatic diplomacy.’”

This makes me happy!