A High-Tech Home With a Good Pedigree

The German engineering firm Werner Sobek Ingenieure has designed a radical high-tech house that not only pushes the limits of technology, but also minimizes material and energy needs.

As the firm itself explains:

It is our firm conviction that modern buildings should not only represent the latest technologies, but also minimise the use of resources, be light, transparent and designed and built with a view to easy dismantling and recycling. Minimising the use of resources means using as little material as possible in the construction of a building, minimising the energy demand of the building over its lifetime and, if possible, making all construction materials recyclable.

The house, named "R 129," uses lightweight construction from plastics and titanium, and lots of transparency. It is also round, to optimize usable space. The "skin" of the house features a "low e" coating that reflects heat in the summer and retains it in the winter. Indead of fixed walls, residents can arrange cells to create "rooms" as they see fit. And when the residents don't care to be on public display, they can activiate an electrochromatic foil envelope that also contains solar cells. A carbon floor regulates temperature year-round.

However revolutionary R 129 might seem to those who prefer faux mansions in developments with aristocratic names like "Wellington Estates," R 129 has clear roots in the designs of Buckminster Fuller, and even The Jetsons. In fact, R 129 seems to be an updated version of Fuller's groundbreaking 1946 Dymaxion House. But if a few of these are built, have demonstrable energy and space-utilization benefits, and even sold, it could have an impact on designers of more traditional homes, encouraging them to explore different construction techniques.

Source: we make money not art

Childhood Obesity Spreading in Rural US

Research throughout the US is uncovering an alarming surge in obese children in rural communities, with one study finding a 5% increase in obese children in rural areas between 1999 and 2001 -- twice the increase of urban children.

Studies in western Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and West Virginia have all come to the same conclusions. In West Virginia and Arkansas, surveys have found that as many as a quarter of public school students may be obese.

But why? No one reason stands out, but researchers note that, contrary to stereotype, rural children don't do lots of hard work on family farms -- in part because family farms are disappearing, and those that are left are highly mechanized. Yet these families still eat a heavy "farm diet" of fats and simple carbohydrates. Meanwhile, rural kids are immersed in the same high-tech gadgetry as other kids -- which might exercise their minds and reflexes, but not their bodies. Poverty also plays a role, as does boredom in communities that have little to offer children.

Obesity and its impact on healthcare is a key future trend. At a health fair in western Pennsylvania, Dr. Darrell Ellsworth found that 60% of adults measured had metabolic syndrome, an assortment of health conditions that can lead to diabetes and heart disease. "The numbers for obesity in children were nowhere near what they are today and you can just imagine what we're going to be looking at 10 to 20 years from now if nothing is done," Dr. Ellsworth said. "That 60 percent ... that's going to seem like a pretty low figure."

Source: CNN.com

What "Baghdad Spring" Can Teach Futurists

Time and again, the so-called "Arab street" has surprised the pundits. In the wake of 9/11, the conventional wisdom was that the Arab street would explode if the US invaded Afghanistan or any other Muslim nation. When that didn't happen (due to a combination of police action and no great love for the Taliban), it took the world by surprise. Next, we were told that average Iraqis would greet US troops with open arms once they toppled Saddam. That didn't happen either. Then, almost overnight, countries throughout the Middle East seemed to embrace the wave of democracy that was started by the January elections in Iraq... once again startling many.

The phenomenon of the Arab street has a lot to teach those who attempt to gauge the future. The primary lesson is that we in the West -- even those who profess to be experts -- have a generally poor understanding of what's really going on in these countries, and therefore lack context to understand what may be coming. Our government officials are exposed largely to their Arab counterparts, who are ususally out of touch with the common man and woman. Even native observers are typically middle class expatriats and not entirely tuned in to what's going on at street level. Combine that with our overall poor understanding of Arab culture and Islam (the two go hand in hand), as well as not knowing the language, and one soon understands how hard it is to forceast anything meaningful.

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has named the recent Mideast democratic outbreak "Baghdad Spring." He illustrates, among other things, that like elsewhere in the world, economic interests will trump political and ideological ones ("It's the economy, stupid!"), citing an economic agreement between Israel, Egypt and the US that is wildly popular among Egyptian merchants. He also uses the 1989-91 wave of democracy that toppled Soviet communism as a template to forecast what might become of Arab states in flux:

This "Baghdad spring" will not blossom into sustainable democracy in any of these Arab states without a broader middle class and civil society institutions to support it. For too long, U.S. foreign policy was based on buying stability in the Arab world by supporting dictators, who destroyed all the independent press, political parties, unions, real private sector and civil society in their countries - everything except the mosque. Iraq is the starkest example of this, which is why democratization there will take time.

Looking at Eastern Europe on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a lecturer on the Middle East at Oxford, "we could have predicted which countries would have an easy transition to democracy and which ones not." Countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, which had a history of liberal institutions and free markets that had been suppressed by communism, quickly flourished. Others farther east, which did not have such institutions in their past and were starting from scratch - Bulgaria, Romania and the former Soviet republics - have struggled since the fall of the wall.

Global political upheavals don't happen every day, so predicting their outcomes is tough even in the best of circumstances; obviously, there are stark differences between Eastern Europe in 1989 and the Middle East today. But whether we're looking at politics, technology or business -- especially in a situation that we don't fully understand -- learning about history and culture, along with juxtaposing a situation with similar events, is necessary for giving us the insights to build scenarios.

RELATED: Publius Pundit is blogging the anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon, complete with news reports, on-scene interviews, photos, audio, video and other surprises.

Sewer-Mania

For our weekly Friday diversion, The History of Sanitary Sewers offers everything you ever (or never) wanted to know about waste disposal, sewers, chamber pots, outhouses and toilets.

A timeline provides details on the history of sewage treatment from ancient times to the present. The site is additionally of interest to us because it addresses future waste treatment and water usage issues and technology. Plus other fun stuff...

Source: Enviropundit

Next-Generation Wearable Computers

The next generation of wearable computers and electronics is being designed to be discreet, rugged, comfortable and stylish... as well as more functional than previous designs.

A handbag being developed by MIT, for instance, can keep track of one's belongings via RFID chips and otherwise effectively serve as a PDA. It could cost as little as $150, and is upgradeable. A health monitoring arm band by BodyMedia can help wearers monitor their stress and exercise levels, and can contribute to weight loss programs. "Smart shirts" are being developed for emergency workers to help monitor distress levels, and for the chronically ill, so that caregivers can constantly monitor their condition.

Many of these advances are thanks to new electronics that are flexible and washable, and to new fabrics such as Du Pont's Kevlar-based Aracon, which looks like ordinary fabric yet can conduct electricity. Sales of wearable computers and electronics are expected to rise sharply in the coming years, from just over 260,000 units last year to hearly 1.4 million in 2008.

Sources: BusinessWeek, Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

"Red List" Catalogs Threatened Species

A sobering reminder of our fragile ecosystem is provided by the Red List, an online database of extinct and threatened plant and animal species. Created by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Red List is searchable by status (extinct, extinct in the wild, threatened, vulnerable, etc.), year, geography, habitat type, and reasons for threat/extinction (loss of habitat, pollution, inbreeding, etc.). For instance, this Central American harlequin toad (Atelopus varius) is listed as "critically endangered" as of 2003:

For the record, 174 species are listed as having been declared extinct in 2004.

Source: WorldChanging

Japan Declares 2005 "Year of the Robot"

The Japanese fondness for robots is no secret. Now, scientists and government authorities have informally delcared 2005 the "year of the robot." This coincides with a major robot expo opening in Nagoya later this month, as well as a new generation of humanoid robots that can converse with humans in multiple languages.

"Ms. Saya" is a humanoid robot who has worked as a receptionist for Tokyo Univiersity of Science for two years. Says professor Hiroshi Kobayashi, her inventor, "I almost feel like she's a real person," but that, "She has a temper . . . and she sometimes makes mistakes, especially when she has low energy."

While people in the US would find the presence of such a robot unsettling to say the least, Ms. Saya and her counterparts are becoming so common in Japan that the government is drawing up safety guidelines for keeping robots in homes. Indeed, robotics experts predict that every Japanese household will own at least one robot by 2015.

Among the other robots under development in Japan: a babysitter that can recognize childrens' faces and call parents in case of emergency, a "robo-cop" security guard that can detect and thwart intruders (using non-lethal means), robot pets that provide therapy for the elderly, a robotic wheelchair that can can navigate traffic via GPS, and robotic servants that can serve food from a refrigerator upon request.

The Japanese government is investing billions in robot R&D. But why such intense interest in robots there? Japan's low birthrate and aging population, for one, are creating a need for nonhuman workers. Japan also has a tradition of creating robot-like mechanical toys that goes back well over a century (baby boomers will recall that it was Japan that brought us Astro Boy). Interests in robotics is even connected to Japanese religion. Says Norihiro Hagita, director of the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, "In Japanese [Shinto] religion, we believe that all things have gods within them. But in Western countries, most people believe in only one God. For us, however, a robot can have an energy all its own."

Source: Washington Post