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There is a website called TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and which features luminaries from these worlds speaking on a range of topics. This presentation by a scientist named Amory Lovins I found to be both incredibly interesting and incredibly hopeful. They should bundle this with every copy of An Inconvenient Truth...
A couple of months ago I blogged about a Finnish guy with one of these flying squirrel suits who strapped jet engines to his feet, jumped from a balloon, and shot off into the wild blue yonder. Today's New York Times had this piece about a guy who's going to try and land using one with no parachute. Check it out and make sure to click on the video links. The YouTube video is especially mind blowing.
I like that picture on the right. They look like funny puffy little angels.
When I was a kid, my favorite dinosaur was the brontosaurus. I used to daydream about riding on the head of one of these giants, floating slowly through the treetops as my friend chomped down bale after bale of leaves.
The other day there was something about dinosaurs on the radio, and I realized that I hadn't heard or read mention of the brontosaurus in years.
Well, it turns out that there never was such a thing. The guy, Othniel C. Marsh, who discovered the Apatosaurus, thought he found a similar species that was much larger, and named it brontosaurus ("Thunder Lizard," which would also be a good name for a metal band). The bigger creature turned out, though, to be just a full-grown Apatosaurus; the first one he found was a juvenile.
So now you know.
