Category: Here & There

Cheap And Efficient Solar Energy Breakthrough

Great news: Cheap and efficient solar energy is becoming a reality…

The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what British scientists called “a revolution” in generating electricity.

The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.

[…]

The technology is particularly exciting because it can be used nearly everywhere. “You are talking about printing rolls of the stuff, printing it on garages, anywhere you want it. It really is a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar,” said Dan Kamman, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.

[Source: The Guardian]

[More: Solar Power Breakthrough (Daily Kos), Nanosolar]

Top Seven Health Myths

The list of the top seven health-related myths and misconceptions, that even some doctors fall prey to, and that we’ve been hearing time and again, goes as follows:

1. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight.
2. Using cell phones in hospitals is dangerous.
3. Fingernails and hair grow after death.
4. We use only 10 percent of our brains.
5. You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day.
6. Shaved hair grows back faster and coarser.
7. Tainted candy from strangers is a Halloween threat.

Full article: Top Seven Health Myths (Newsweek).

Egypt to Copyright Pyramids And Sphinx

Egypt’s MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids or the sphinx.

Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt, in all countries, and that the move was necessary to pay for the upkeep of the country’s thousands of pharaonic sites.

This could be a potential blow to themed resorts all across the world, from Vegas to Tokyo, where large-scale copies of Egyptian artefacts pull in the crowds.

Personally, I’m against involving copyright laws in stuff like this. The Pyramids, the Sphinx, Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, and all the other historic sites left for us by older civilizations are part of our world heritage, a heritage that was left for all of us and that we’re all proud of. They’re not anyone’s property to demand royalties for.

[Sources: Google News, BBC News]
[Via: Slashdot]

Things You Should Never Include on a Resume

I just came across this really interesting list of the 25 things you should never include in your resume.

I agree with most of the list, but the top ten ones for me, in no particular order, are the following:

1. What You Hated About Your Last Job
2. What You Hated About Your Last Boss or Co-Workers
3. Irrelevant Job Experience
4. Lies About Job Experience
5. Lies About Educational Background
6. Negative Thoughts, Words or Ideas
7. Prejudices
8. Information About Your Family Members
9. Every Job You’ve Had Since You Were 16
10. Low GPAs

Read the details and the rest of the list here: 25 Things You Should Never Include on a Resume (HR World).

Mukesh Ambani Becomes World

Mukesh AmbaniIndian billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani, 50, became the world’s richest man yesterday, overtaking Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, as the value of his stake in refinery-to-textiles giant Reliance Industries and two other group companies swelled, a direct result of the strong performance witnessed in the Indian stock markets recently.

Only last month, he overtook steel czar Lakshmi Mittal to become the richest Indian in the world.

The list of the five richest people in the world and their net worths is as follows now:

1. Mukesh Ambani ($63.2 billion)
2. Carlos Slim Helu ($62.2993 billion)
3. Bill Gates ($62.29 billion)
4. Warren Buffett ($55.9 billion)
5. Lakshmi Mittal ($50.9 billion)

How long he’ll be able to hold onto the title of ‘Richest man in the world’ is another matter that remains to be seen. Poor Carlos Slim didn’t hold on to it for too long.

Micro-Finance Makes Its Way Online

Over the past months more and more micro-lending solutions have been popping up online, displaying the internet’s potential as a charitable medium, enabling people to lend small amounts of money, which provide loans to those in developing countries empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.

Among these online tools we find Kiva, Prosper, Zopa, GlobeFunder and eBay’s newly launched MicroPlace.

Kiva is one of the most successful stories among these up to now; In just 2 years, the site has funded nearly 17,000 loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, recently reaching a total amount of loans of over $11 million.

The system is rather simple: Small entrepreneurs from the developing world go on the site and ask for a small loan to help get their businesses off the ground, then other people get to choose among these entrepreneurs and loan them small sums of money, as little as $25 for example, and when a loan is funded the money is passed on the entrepreneur by a local partner who follows up and reports back on the progress made by the entrepreneur, who starts paying back his loan once things get rolling on his side.

Simple, clear, and has the ability to help so many people in the developing world, which is great.

Some of these solutions charge some interest on their loans while others don’t. In some the money given is more of a mini-investment that the lender makes money on while in others it’s just a simple loan.

Personally, I think these solutions are a great way for people to get involved with helping people in the developing world pull themselves out of poverty and build better businesses and lives for themselves. They show that everyone one of us can make a change and play a bigger role by loaning a small amount of money, that might not mean much to us, but would mean the world to someone else.

FreeRice: Learn Free Vocabulary & Give Free Rice

FreeRice“For each word you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice to a hungry person…”

A word is displayed…
Underneath it are four choices of words…
You click on the one you think best defines the first word…
If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word…
For each word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to a hungry person through an international aid agency…
Finally, you get smarter and enhance your vocabulary while doing a noble thing helping poor and hungry people get food…

A very interesting approach and praiseworthy effort…

Do check it out: FreeRice.com