So you want to be in the energy biz. Do you have what it takes? It’s April Fools' Day--- test your energy IQ and find out where you belong in the dynamic energy sector.

Prefabricated Housing
1) Is prefabricated housing cheaper and/or greener than stud built construction?
2) Did a Chinese developer build a prefabricated 30 story hotel in 15 days?

Oil Pipelines
3) Canada has a glut of oil and gives the United States bargain pricing. So, why does the United States buy oil from Venezuela?
4) For the Keystone XL Pipeline, what does the XL stand for? Hint, don’t confuse pipelines with men’s boxer shorts.

Globally existential threats due to ‘overpopulation momentum’ together with the top-heavy age structure leave by now no alternative to radical technological adaptation for anything that wants to survive 'long term'.  It is strictly too late to ‘go green’ except via a novel take on what constitutes ‘green’, including synthetic biology.  Hyped for a long time, nanoscience is still largely in its pioneering phase.  However, it matures as we speak and soon, as it becomes true nanotechnology, it will leave the hype far behind.

When I was a kid, I would happily play around with both words and numbers – I still do. Both have their aesthetic appeal. Whether it is constructing and deconstructing mathematical puzzles or cryptic crosswords, they appear as small artefacts that reveal a grander architecture. Combine this with the serendipity of the internet, and Pi Day was just a hop, skip and jump away from Richard Feynman and pilish poetry.

Cross-disciplinary  academic progress in vagueness has recently been augmented  with a paper from Prof. PhDr. Jarmila Tárnyiková CSc. at Palacký University, in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

The professor has authored one of the very few papers to examine and compare English and Czech Non-numerical Vague Quantifiers (also known as Vague Non-numerical Quantifiers – VnQs).
Some examples from the paper :

• Piles of
• Oodles of
• Mountains of
• A Smidgen of
• A Dash of
• A Pinch of

An international team of physicists has proposed a revolutionary laser system inspired by telecommunications technology that could be used in both fundamental research at laboratories such as CERN and more applied tasks such as proton therapy and nuclear transmutation. 

An autonomous robotic jellyfish the size and weight of a grown man has been developed. 

Nicknamed Cyro, this prototype is a larger model of the robotic jellyfish (named RoboJelly) the same team unveiled in 2012. RoboJelly is roughly the size of a man's hand, typical of jellyfish found along beaches.

The Mind Research Network in Albuquerque says that brain scans can predict the likelihood of whether a criminal will re-offend following release from prison.

Antidepressants are commonly prescribed for depression but their efficacy is questionable -   many people don't experience symptom relief.

The National Institute of Mental Health's STAR*D study, the largest and longest study ever conducted to evaluate depression treatment, may have a better way;  identifying predictors of antidepressant response. f

Researchers in the Sheffield Centre for Robotics have been working to program a group of 40 robots that 'swarm' together to carry out jobs. So far, they have demonstrated that the swarm can carry out simple fetching and carrying tasks, by grouping around an object and working together to push it across a surface.  

The robots can also group themselves together into a single cluster after being scattered across a room, and organize themselves by order of priority.  The programming for that part is simple. If the robots are being asked to group together, each robot only needs to be able to work out if there is another robot in front of it. If there is, it turns on the spot; if there isn't, it moves in a wider circle until it finds one. 

A recent article entitled "Monsanto v Monarch Butterflies" begins by examining the argument that GMO foods are impacting the population of Monarch butterflies.  There are enough references and quotes that indicate that this assertion isn't particularly viable and that it isn't likely that Bt toxin plays any role in the issues facing Monarchs.

So far so good.