#2 Reduce Somali Piracy
#3 Save Capitalism with Radical Transparency
#4 Make Government Agile
#5 Avoid Just in Time Economics
#6 Repair the U.S. Civil Service
#7 Free the Inspectors General
#8 Micro-Suggestions to Heal the Depression
#9 Restore the Army, the Navy and the National Guard
#10 Enhance our Nation's (and Civilization's) Overall Resilience
#11 Control the Borders
#12 Investigate Wartime Contracts
#14 Insure the Kids
#15 Truth and Reconciliation
#16 Bring Crooks to Justice
#17 Political Suggestions
#18 Time to End Gerrymandering
#19 A Few Crackpot Suggestions
#20 End Culture War
Enough politics...I will pause to offer a few techie snippets. Thrive.
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Cheap Chemical Sensors: Electronic "noses" made from printed electronics could detect toxic chemicals inexpensively.
Technology already exists that can sniff out chemicals in the air and water -- but the detecting devices are expensive, limiting their use. Now Vivek Subramanian, electrical engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has made arrays of sensors cheap enough that they could be widely distributed for monitoring toxins in the environment.
The goal is to "identify environmental problems before they become severe, then react to them," says Subramanian. "One of the major requirements, if we want to do this, is ultra-low cost," he says. Subramanian makes his array of inexpensive chemical sensors using organic semiconductors and inkjet printing technology. The first generation of his devices, which would still rely on costly silicon-based technology to process signals from the sensors, would run about 30 cents a piece, Subramanian estimates. That's a bargain compared with several hundred dollars for today's sensors, he says. Subramanian reported on his work at the Materials Research Society meeting in Boston this week.
(Need I mention this is another EARTH predictive hit ;-)
-A cure for computer viruses that spreads in a viral fashion could immunize the Internet, even against pests that travel at lightning speed, a mathematical study reveals. "Honeypot" computers would be linked to one another via a dedicated and secure network and distributed across the Internet. The honeypots would attract a virus, analyze it...
- Richard Carrigan, a particlephysicist at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, believes the SETI@home project is putting Earth's security at risk by distributing the signals they receive to computers all over the…
In his report, entitled Do potential Seti signals need to be decontaminated?, he suggests the Seti scientists may be too blase about finding a signal. "In science fiction, all the aliens are bad, but in the world of science, they are all good and simply want to get in touch."
