Ramez Naam's Blog, page 9

The Sunlight is Where the Energy Poverty Is

The future world energy system will undoubtedly be a mix of many different energy technologies – nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and some fossil fuels for decades and decades to come.  Yet I'm particularly optimistic about solar. One reason is its … Continue reading →

Income, Energy Use, and Life Expectancy

One of the best indicators of human well-being is life expectancy.  High life expectancy means low infant mortality. It also, almost invariably, correlates with high access to food, medicine, shelter, and education, and low levels of disease and violence.  So … Continue reading →

Life Satisfaction and Income

There's a persistant meme that greater income has no impact on happiness. I see this brought up most frequently in conversations about international development – should we really view economic development in China or India as a positive thing?  Will … Continue reading →

Energy Storage Gets Exponentially Cheaper Too

At MIT Technology Review today was an article on Sun Catalytix's new flow battery intended for grid-scale storage, which Sun Catalytix believes will drop grid-scale storage prices in half.  As the article notes, several other storage technology companies are also … Continue reading →

Video: Wiring the Brain: The Real Science of Nexus

I spoke last night at University Book Store on the science of sending sight, sound, and more in and out of the human brain – the real life science behind my novels Nexus and Crux. For those who couldn't make … Continue reading →

SuperBugs kill 23,000, sicken 2 million, and cost at least $1 billion in the US each year

The CDC has a new report on the impact of drug-resistant pathogens in the US (primarily antibiotic-resistant bacteria).   They find that at a minimum in 2012, drug-resistant germs caused 23,000 deaths, more than 2 million illnesses, and more than $1 billion … Continue reading →

MIT: Air pollution Causes 200,000 Early Deaths per Year in the US

A new report out from MIT's Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment finds the health impact of air pollution (all of it from fossil fuel burning) is even higher than previously believed: The group tracked ground-level emissions from sources such … Continue reading →

Videos of My Talks & Media Appearances

Just as with my articles I've done a poor job linking on this site to videos of my talks and media appearances around the web when they've happened.  I recently had to pull together a CV as part of a nomination … Continue reading →

Pieces I’ve Written Around the Web

Over the last few months (and a bit over the past few years) I wrote a number of pieces around the web, primarily on energy, sustainability, genetically modified foods, and economic growth.  I did a poor job of linking to … Continue reading →

US Teen Birth Rate Hits All Time Low

The CDC reported on Friday that teens in the US are having children at their lowest rate ever in the 73 years the statistic has been tracked.  The rate of births to mothers aged 15-19 has dropped roughly in half … Continue reading →