food

David Biello  in Scientific American:

Next time you're stuck in traffic and antsy to get to your destination, think of this new mantra: What Would Ants Do?

In a move that seems to fall somewhere between greenwashing and legitimate green progress, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority recently announced that its Tri-Rail regional transit lines would be running 8 out of its 10 trains on a nearly pure blend of biofuels. Let’s consider the pro’s and con’s.

Airplanes are some of the most gas-guzzling players in our transportation industry, which makes them a good place to start implementing renewable biofuels. Boeing has recently announced plans to do just that, phasing in 30% biofuel blends within the next 3 to 5 years, depending on when the fuels obtains enough industry commercialization.

The Verizon Business Risk Team reviewed more than 500 corporate data breaches between 2004 and 2007 and found that 87 percent could have been prevented -- if only the companies had the proper security measures in place at the time of the breach. After four years of forensic research involving more than 230 million records, the "2008 Data Breach Investigations Report" found that 73 percent of breaches resulted from external sources, while 18 percent were caused by insiders.

The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.

The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with spotlights to frighten Kimani back into the Ol Pejeta conservancy.

Edward B. Rackley

Thanks to our financial turmoil, radio talk shows can now probe deeper than the usual 'house of cards' metaphor when reporting the quakes of late capitalism to economic illiterates like me. Experts of every stripe are sharing their views on a topic long-shrouded in patriotic orthodoxy. How often in public discourse do Americans openly question the omniscience of the Invisible Hand, a modern myth of cosmologic proportions?