The above consent rate for organ donation is an interesting study in how we (humans) work. No, the Danes and the Germans don’t covet their organs more than most Europeans, they’re just victims of poorly designed forms. In the 4 countries on the left, the DMV forms that ask if you want to be an organ donor ask you to “opt in,” they presume that you don’t want to donate organs but allow for the option to do so. In the countries on the right the only difference is that the form presumes that you DO want to be an organ donor. Of course there’s a box on the form that allows you to “opt out” but as you can see, the end results as far as consent is concerned, are quite different. Perhaps in a world that is perpetually short on donor organs, we should all join the countries in blue and presume consent?
The above graph was found in a blog entry by “Dan Ariely”:http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?page_id=5 at “PredictablyIrrational.com”:http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=235&date=1

He’s cute. And only has three legs. It’s funny how movements and sounds can really personify robots.

The creator is a bit of a mechanical whiz-kid – he builds steam engines into just about everything and makes little robots in his spare time. Oh and he animates too. Check out his site and picture close-ups of the Swashbot team:
http://www.crabfu.com/swashbot/

http://www.funai.gov.br/ -Portuguese site), a governmental office that tracks and tries to protect indigenous groups thought to have had no contact with the outside world. According to FUNAI, there are over 100 uncontacted tribes throughout the world and half of those are, like this one, in the dense rain forest of Peru and western Brazil. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a7KiEmlgepRA&refer=canada, and Australia's "Courier-Mail":http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23782431-952,00.html.

The world is drowning in plastic bags. A long time ago I wrote a short article about the “lack of leadership”:http://duenos.net/article/339/Plasticbagleadershipnowheretobefound around the issue of disposable bags and featured a photograph from the incredible “Plastic Bag Gallery”:http://www.photonet.org.uk/plasticbag/ but today I wanted to highlight a story with decidedly more hope.
“This post”:http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/05/28/breakthrough-decomposes-plastic-bags-in-three-months/ from Inhabitat describes a 16-year old Canadian student named Daniel Burd who may have developed a way to accelerate the decomposition of thin plastic shopping bags to just a few months–it ordinarily takes millenia. Burd’s discovery hinges on the isolation of two strains of bacteria (Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas) that have been proven to decompose the polyethlene plastic by 43% in just 6 weeks. There must be someone out there who can refine this process beyond “his rudimentary method”:http://news.therecord.com/article/354044 and turn this into a product.
Of course, this innovation could help with the plastic bag problem all over the world but nowhere more than the United States, where we have routinely failed to regulate this wasteful practice. Other countries–Ireland, Israel, South Africa, “even China”:http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/09/asia/plastic.php– have already taken up the cause.
Some plastic bag facts for you:
* Plastic bag production consumes 1.6 billion barrels of oil annually
* We produce 500 billion a year worldwide
* 1 million plastic bags are used and discarded worldwide every minute of the day.
* Only 1 to 2% of plastic bags in the USA end up getting recycled.
Sources: “here”:http://usa.envirosax.com/pages/plastic-bag-facts.php and the articles linked above.

[credit]
If you like doing laps in the swimming pool, you might want to stock up on the energy drinks before diving in to this one.It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres, had a 115 ft deep end and holds 66 million gallons of water.Yesterday the Guinness Book of Records named the vast pool beside the sea in Chile as the biggest in the world.But if you fancy splashing out on one of your own – and you have the space to accommodate it – then beware: This one took five years to build, cost nearly $1billion and the annual maintenance bill will be $2million.The man-made saltwater lagoon has been attracting huge crowds to the San Alfonso del Mar resort at Algarrobo, on Chile’s southern coast, since it opened last month.Its turquoise waters are so crystal clear that you can see the bottom even in the deep end.It dwarfs the world’s second biggest pool, the Orthlieb — nicknamed the Big Splash — in Morocco, which is a mere 150 yards long and 100 yards wide. An Olympic size pool measures some 50 yards by 25 yards.Chile ‘s monster pool uses a computer-controlled suction and filtration system to keep fresh seawater in permanent circulation, drawing it in from the ocean at one end and pumping it out at the other.
The sun warms the water to 26c, nine degrees warmer than the adjoining sea.Chilean biochemist Fernando Fischmann, whose Crystal Lagoons Corporation designed the pool, said advanced engineering meant his company could build ‘an impressive artifici al paradise’ even in inhospitable areas. ‘As long as we have access to unlimited seawater, we can make it work, and it causes no damage to the ocean.’

Looks more like something you’d use for heavy lifting than flying or fighting… but still pretty cool.

Learn more about the Raytheon Exoskeleton