People that seem both nuts and genius-smart are really interesting. My favourite is Ray Kurzweil, who you may well be sick of hearing about on TCAL. I’m subscribed to his newsletter and it arrives in my inbox periodically, glowing energon-cube like with the latest weirdness in science. This issue informs me:

Raw algae can be processed to make biocrude, the renewable equivalent of petroleum, and refined to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and chemical feedstocks for plastics and drugs. Indeed, it can be processed at existing oil refineries to make just about anything that can be made from crude oil.

Story. How cool does biocrude sound?

Physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised an approach that may help unlock the hidden shapes of alternate dimensions of the universe.

Story. Physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we salute you.

EoPlex is developing a revolutionary way to print objects in three dimensions: mass-produce tiny gears and switches using a process that builds 3-D objects by layering materials on top of each other, over and over, until a third dimension takes shape.

Story. Uh oh! Grey goo warning!

Futurists see a conflict forming over our dominion over the human body, and over the choices we make about our biological future, and that of our children. Some call it a clash between “bioliberals” and “bioconservatives,” and frame it as a debate over individual rights.

Story. I consider myeslf a bioliberal. You?

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