Abe Farag Family Foundation

[makers4good-blog]

James is raising funds for HELIO: Solar Light & Powerbank for Adventures & Emergencies on Kickstarter! Ultra-efficient source of light and power. You get a great adventure & emergency light, and we send lights to people in need.

Our Kickstarter campaign for HELIO is now live! Back the project, and you’ll get a cool solar-charged light for outdoor activities and emergency situations…but you’ll also be helping other people who need access to light and power in Tanzania, Peru, or Liberia. 100% of the profits from all sales of HELIO will be donated to charities helping people in those regions.

How cool is that?

[exploratorium]

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Pier Piling Pivot has returned to Pier 15! View its plant and animal inhabitants later this year. 🐠🐟 (at Exploratorium)

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

pretty clever (x) | follow @the-future-now

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

Climate change just forced an entire Alaskan village to relocate

After years of watching rising sea levels destroy homes and climbing temperatures erode the coast, voters in Shishmaref, Alaska, decided Tuesday to relocate their entire village to the mainland. The vote was close, with 89 voting to move and 78 voting to stay for a compelling reason.

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[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

There may be a fifth force of nature

The possible discovery of a previously unknown subatomic particle last year led some physicists to speculate that it might be evidence of a fifth fundamental force of nature. We’re already familiar with the four fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces. This mysterious fifth force could be an indication of the dark sector of the universe.

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[neurosciencenews]

Signs of Pure Altruism Converge in the Brain and Increase With Age

University of Oregon research finds that personality measures, charitable-giving behavior and aging converge in the brain to reflect pure altruistic tendencies.

The research is in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. (full access paywall)

[abefaragfamilyfoundation]

Interesting finding.

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

Scientists have discovered a mysterious object beyond Neptune

There’s a strange object floating around the outer edge of our solar system, and it’s breaking all kinds of rules. Scientists have nicknamed it Niku, after the Chinese adjective for rebellious. Niku isa trans-Neptunian object, which are small rocky bodies that orbit out beyond Neptune. This TNO doesn’t act like the thousands of others in our solar system though.

For starters, Niku is orbiting the sun on a different plane than the planets and other TNOs. Its path is tilted about 110 degrees from the disc that the planets orbit on. It’s also got a a retrograde orbit.

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[abefaragfamilyfoundation]

GiveWell (an awardee of ours) works to identify high-impact philanthropic opportunites, and to provide information to potential donors about the viability of various charitable agencies. The idea is to help individuals and foundations who are interested in maximizing the impact of their donated dollars by examining not only the financial hardiness of a charity, but also the actual, practical impact those organizations make in the real world. The above being the case, it may seem a bit perplexing at first to hear them say that they recommend donating to a charity even though it may not benefit the world that much—and that's exactly the premise at issue in this post about their recommendation of deworming initiatives.

[the-cold-waters-deactivated2020]

Colle des Mees: France’s Biggest Solar Farm

[mindblowingscience]

Scientists just figured out continental plates can move up to 20 times faster than we thought

Just before they split.

Geophysicists have discovered something startling about tectonic plates: when under extreme stress, they hit the gas and can accelerate in speed by up to 20 times.

When they’re about to split, the plates can move about as fast as the human fingernail grows, and that’s very fast indeed as far as continental drift is concerned.

Scientists from the University of Sydney, Australia, and the University of Potsdam, Germany, used a combination of seismic data and computer modelling to map the varying speed of a plate breakups, and you can view the results online.

The University of Sydney’s Dietmar Müller compared the process to pulling a piece of dough apart. “At first, separating it requires a lot of effort because the dough resists your pulling and stretches slowly between your hands,” he said.

“If you’re persistent, you’ll eventually reach a point where the dough becomes thin enough to separate quite easily and quickly. The same principle applies to rifting continents once the connection between them has been thinned sufficiently.”

Continue Reading.

[abefaragfamilyfoundation]

This past September, Harald Haas gave a TED talk on the subject of bridging the digital gap in the developing world via a networking technique referred to as "Li-Fi," in which data packets are sent wirelessly using nothing more than an array of LED lights and a solar panel. 

[skunkbear]

It’s getting hot in herre! Europe and the United States may be experiencing heat waves … but Kuwait probably just set a world record. On Thursday, a weather station in Mitribah, Kuwait recorded a temperature of 54 degrees Celsius. That’s 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meteorologists have questioned the accuracy of two previous record holders – 56.7 °C (134.1 °F) in Death Valley in 1913 and 57.8 °C (136 °F) in Libya in 1922. They think those readings must have been mistakes.

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

City rooftops could supply nearly 40% of US power, study says

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a report in March that said if we slathered viable American rooftops with solar panels, the U.S. could potentially produce enough energy to cover 39% of the electricity we consume annually. That’s about 1,118 gigawatts worth of power. Specifically the report hones in on an unlikely candidate.

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[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

Astronomers just found evidence of the first water clouds outside our solar system

A brown dwarf star called WISE 0855 that sits just 7.2 light-years away from Earth has been hiding something surprising. Astronomers detected signs of clouds of water in its atmosphere. If confirmed, this will be the first time we’ve discovered atmospheric water outside our solar system. WISE 0855 is strikingly similar to a planet in our solar system.

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[abefaragfamilyfoundation]

Abe Farag Family Foundation is proud to offer its support to Creative Commons, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to offering a sane and modern alternative to traditional copyright which is better suited to the realities of the 21st century. 

[scienceisbeauty]

Build Your Own Particle Detector…

…with LEGO

Love it!

h-t

[fenrislorsrai]

This solar greenhouse could change the way we eat

Thanks to a transparent solar panel developed at UC Santa Cruz, greenhouses are enjoying a new moment in the sun.

We often think of the future as being lots of mirror finishes, chrome, and black but why not add some MAGENTA!

These are translucent solar panels.  The color helps them absorb light more efficiently.  what does pass through is the same spectrum as used for grow lights. (more technical explanation at source)  Greenhouse are relatively expensive to construct and power (fans, water pump, etc) so if it generates its own power it make them much more viable and can be used in spots that would otherwise requires a gas generator.  

Easiest application is obviously top of buildings in regions that would otherwise have too short a growing season to have rooftop farms. standard cool scifi building… with a magenta “hat”.  but also works in more remote off the grid areas. perhaps not so good for stealthy off the grid spots but boy can you see remote post from far off now.