Month: September 2011

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Liberating Identity

Australia recognizes third gender on passports

Instead of identifying gender with the traditional M or F, intersex people – individuals who do not identify as completely male or female, biologically – can list their gender as X in their travel docs. Transgender people – whose biological gender doesn’t match the way they see themselves – won’t be able to use the “X”, but will be able to choose male or female if they have a doctor’s statement that says they’re transitioning.

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Smart People Are Conspiring Behind the Scenes to Enhance Life on This Planet

21 Scientific Research Projects That Could Change the World

Every year, governments and other institutions give scientists grants to continue valuable research in their fields. In the fall, we’ll see thousands of such research projects get started — projects that will cure disease, improve agriculture, create more efficient energy, and take us into space — all thanks to funding from taxpayers and philanthropists.

Here are twenty-one standout projects from many nations that will start to change the world this fall.

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Good Environmental News

Huge Boost in Fish Numbers in Cabo Pulmo National Park

There’s been an amazing reversal of fortune for an undersea wildlife park off the tip of Mexico in Baha, California, according to a press release from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The number of marine species in Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP) rocketed by 460% between 1999 and 2009. Much of the credit for this terrific change goes to locals, who have ensured adherence to the park’s ‘no take’ law.

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Conspiracy to Create Clean Energy

Brazilian wind power now cheaper than natural gas

Seventy-eight wind power projects won contracts in last week’s energy auctions held by Brazil’s National Electric Power Agency, totalling 1,928MW and priced at approximately 99.5 reals (£37.4) per MWh.

By comparison, the average price for power generated with natural gas is currently 103 reals (£38.7) per MWh in Brazil, while the average price for energy determined through the auctions was 102.07 reals per MWh.

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Conspiracy to Create Life-Saving Drugs

New drug could cure nearly any virus

The drug works by targeting a type of RNA produced only in cells that have been infected by viruses. “In theory, it should work against all viruses,” says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology.

Because the technology is so broad-spectrum, it could potentially also be used to combat outbreaks of new viruses, such as the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak, Rider says.

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The Most Practical Pronoiacs of All?

The permaculture movement is growing

The movement’s founders, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, coined the term permaculture in the mid-1970s, as a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture.

In practice, permaculture is a growing and influential movement that runs deep beneath sustainable farming and urban food gardening. You can find permaculturists setting up worm trays and bee boxes, aquaponics ponds and chicken roosts, composting toilets and rain barrels, solar panels and earth houses