O.C. Heaton's Blog, page 11

What does "Moore's Law" mean for the human race?

Have you heard of Moore's Law? It's pretty simple really.

"The number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months."

- Gordon Moore, Intel Co-Founder

Gordon Moore, the co-founder of microprocessor manufacturer Intel, observed back in the 1960s that the number of transistors (devices used to amplify and switch electronic signals) placed on an integrated circuit had approximately doubled every two years since 1958.  This became known as Moore's...

The Royal Wedding: was it worth the carbon cost?

I have struggled with all the fuss caused by the Royal Wedding. As a Sixties child, the Monarchy has no personal relevance for me and represents nothing more than a colourful tourist attraction for the many visitors who come to London in search of the Queen. Not only that but, as the big day approached, all I could think about was the environmental cost of this Royal shindig.

Some 25 million Brits were going to tune in to watch William and Catherine tie the knot, along with...

Where the old towpath meets the motorway

Canals are great places to visit. They transport you back into another age, where the tempo of life was by necessity so much slower than it is today. They also reconnect you with Mother Nature – they can't fail to as they calmly wind their way through the quiet countryside.

 I've just returned from visiting the Lake District where, on the very last day, we decided to make the most of the unseasonably good weather and cycle down the Lancaster Canal towpath.  We made our way...

Superpower? There's only one…

It's been a strange four months. Natural disasters have unfurled across the globe with a frightening regularity. The earthquake in Japan is, rightly, uppermost in everyone's minds but there have been other disasters too. Between November and February, Australia suffered its costliest natural disaster ever as Queensland and Victoria were flooded. In January, Brazil experienced its worst natural disaster in several decades as torrential rainstorms triggered mudslides in the...

Is Virgin Galactic incredible or mundane?

I wonder what Samuel Reynolds III, the villainous CEO of Reynolds Air in The Human Race, would have made of Virgin Galactic. This is Richard Branson's current project, which plans to blast tourists into space as early as 2013. I suspect that he would have approved overall, especially of the price: $200,000 per ticket is not for the fainthearted. That said, the steep price tag does not seem to have put off 410 budding space explorers, who are now preparing to become Virgin...

The Iceland debt crisis: spare a thought for the Icelanders

As readers of The Human Race and this blog will know, I am very fond of Iceland. When I was researching my first novel I visited the country twice and came to love everything there: the dormant lava fields, active volcanoes, jittery geology, geothermal power, Northern Lights, the eternal sunshine of summer and the permanent blackness of winter. One thing I discovered during my visits to Iceland and extensive research is that the Icelanders are an incredibly stoic people. They ...

Why trillions of atoms in the human body amount to little

Ever since I was a kid I've been fascinated by what we are made of. I think most children are. Of course, back then I held quite a simplistic view, believing that we were all made of just three things: skin, bones and blood. As I got older, being a non-scientist, my rather basic view didn't change too much. I knew for instance that 95 per cent of our body was comprised of just three elements: oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Oxygen is t...

The Chauvet Cave Paintings: prehistoric caveman meets Picasso

The Chauvet Cave Paintings are the subject of the latest film offering from the controversial and eccentric German filmmaker Werner Herzog.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a documentary that examines the Chauvet Cave Paintings in detail. The Chauvet Cave Paintings are prehistoric cave art, discovered in the Chauvet cave system in France in 1994. Since their discovery, the caves have been shut off to the public as apparently human breath, along with an artificial lighting system...

Why we are all facing a Carbon Future

As the fallout from the nuclear disaster in Japan continues to worsen, many countries have announced moratoria on further nuclear power development. This is sensible. However the cynic inside me suspects that once the horror dies down, at least in the public consciousness, nuclear power plant construction will be back on the agenda.

Surprisingly (to me, anyway), green stocks have experienced a bounce as a result of Japan's nuclear crisis. Green technologies tick a box that...

Why you should watch the new film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Until last week I had never heard of Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the aerial photographer who spent two years filming the earth from a helicopter. The result of his unusual work was his bestselling book The Earth from the Air, which was published in 2010 and has already sold a staggering 3.5 million copies. His website is well worth a look and it made me realise that although I hadn't heard his name until relatively recently, I recognised many of his photos. A photographer at his...