Posts Tagged "science"
There are 76 results found
Is US air quality ever as bad as in Shanghai? (photos)
Yet another evening of bad Los Angeles air quality We won’t bore our readers by pointing out that last night [January 29, 2014] was yet another “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” bad air quality day in Los Angeles. (Sensitive Groups includes those athletically inclined.) You can read about the trials and tribulations of our air purifiers from previous days this week and this month. “Lower your standards!” We had a comment exchange on a social media site with someone in Shanghai regarding China’s consideration of spraying water from skyscrapers. China hopes this can bring PM2.5 down to 35 micrograms per cubic meter. We point out this is at the US 24-hour average but still way above the US annual average exposure limit (but below where it has sometimes been in Los Angeles recently). We previously discussed this new technology, and whether it should be applied in the U.S. “Lower (weaken) your standards!”… Read the restDr. Beak From Rome and the Black Plague, or why having a surgical mask might be handy
This 1656 woodcut (see photo) depicts the plague doctor “Dr. Beak from Rome” (“Doktor Schnabel von Rom”). His bird mask was stuffed with straw, which served as a crude air filter. Medieval artists alternated lampooned him (as here) and later celebrated him as scientific and practical methods of plague control slowly proved themselves over the more superstitious practices of that era. When we got into this we were thinking about how smart homes (and smarter air purification) could reduce dust buildup in our more dusty urban areas (like urban California, Europe, and Asia). While it was obvious there was a lot of dust buildup on furniture, we didn’t realize just how badly air quality fluctuated from day-to-day here. Bird Flu or just poor air quality Earlier this week one of our staff members saw someone walking the streets of Los Angeles with a surgical mask on. He appeared to be from a part of Asia that had experience with bird flu, and wearing surgical masks on the street is more culturally accept there than here.… Read the restWeight loss, Al Gore, and the Internet of Things
Air Quality Monitoring with your bathroom scale? We were enthusiastic to learn that two Internet-connected devices, the Withings scale and the Netatmo weather station featured “air quality monitors.” However, this just turned out to be a simple CO2 monitor, and doesn’t monitor the more important dust, VOC, or other noxious gas issues that are generally considered to be of much greater concern. CO2 monitoring in crowded bars We’ve played with CO2 monitors in our office (using Ardunio hardware prototyping boards). It is one of the less effective air quality components to sense, because the valid range for CO2 is so wide. It’s kind of fun exhaling into a CO2 monitor and watching the CO2 counts spike (your exhaled breath has a lot of CO2), but that same reason means that animals have evolved in an environment where CO2 spikes in their inhaled air was not uncommon. Everyday objects monitoring CO2? Did Al Gore invent #InternetOfThings too?… Read the restThe ancient link between fashion and technology
This article was original published by Acculation on another site. Is there a utilitarian purpose to fashion? Fashion is economically very important in the media and advertising industries for reasons not well understood, at least to the average tech engineer. In the smartphone and wearables area, the two fields are increasingly colliding. Is there an ancient link between technology and fashion? Humans love technology, but we were also very dependent on it very early on. Was fashion initially a way of identifying humans visually over long distances? Was it, in the sense, an early form of technology? Tech and Fashion: Ancient History? Our ancestors have been using tools for well over a million years. For most of that time, however, they had brains about half the size that we do currently. Anatomically modern humans that resembled us physically (and had our size brains) first appeared around 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.… Read the restRecent Posts
Recent Comments
- florimee on genetic disease turns you into a real-life vampire
- Acculation on Alien Pioneer plaque starmap to 3D printed jewelry transmedia: maker movement data-driven multiplatform media
- Acculation on Free Video Data Science Assessment Tool
- Acculation on Free Business Advice Chatbot Product
- Acculation on Online Consultation with Dr. Krebs (Big Data and Management Consulting)
Featured Posts
Tags
analytics
animal
art
artwork
bigdata
blue
book
business
california
careers
classic
collage
colors
cool
data
drawing
encore
famous
figure
gadget
glitch
glitched
green
historic
historical
ideas
illustration
intelligent
light
mirror
more
old
photo
pop
popart
post
red
Sagan
science
space
story
tech
us
warhol
water