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Comment Take it one step further... (Score 1) 47

Add a big, Cheshire grin.

The lions won't just feel self-conscious from being watched by a cow's butt; they'll feel a growing sense of unease as a whole herd fixes them with a mischievous smirk. What are those cows planning now? It certainly can't be good for the lions.
Power

Hybird Solar Converter Harvests Both Sunlight and Heat At 85% Efficiency (newatlas.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved dept.
Engineers have developed a new type of hybrid solar energy converter, which uses energy from the Sun to create both electricity and steam. The device reportedly has high efficiency and runs at low cost, allowing industry to make use of a wider spectrum of solar energy. New Atlas reports: The device looks like a satellite dish, with a small device suspended over the center of a parabolic collector. The dish part is mirrored, and focuses the sun's rays onto the box in the middle. The bottom of this section contains multi-junction solar cells, which collect and convert visible and ultraviolet light into electricity. But the clever part is that these cells redirect the infrared light -- the heat energy -- to a separate thermal receiver, higher up in the device. This receiver is essentially a cup-shaped cavity surrounded by pressurized water, which captures the heat and turns into steam.

The team says that the total collection efficiency is 85.1 percent, meaning a very high amount of the Sun's energy is converted into either electricity or heat. The steam can be heated up to 248C (478F), which is a much higher temperature than many other thermal energy collectors. This means it's hot enough for many industrial processes, such as drying, curing, sterilizing, and pasteurizing. The other advantage is cost. The team reports that once scaled up, the hybrid device could run for as little as 3 cents per kilowatt hour. The research was published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.

Comment Re:Animal cruelty and not being a vegan asshole (Score 1) 111

There's mounting evidence to indicate that plants have their own slow-motion version of pain, memory, and communication. So going vegan to prevent animal suffering is kind of like the Chick-fil-A cows who say to eat more chicken, except it's the plants who become the target.

Still, it's probably a lot easier for most people to accept that animals have feelings than to feel bad for eating plants. I get that. I just wanted to point out that not everybody wins.

Of course, there's also the point that the plants wouldn't be grown at all if not to be eaten. But that same argument could be made for most of the animals in question, too.

This is kind of like the problem of robots replacing factory workers. Sure, the animals don't have to be eaten anymore, but now what will happen to them?
Businesses

If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists? (hbr.org) 339

Posted by msmash from the things-to-ponder dept.
Numerous studies and real-life examples show humble, unassuming people as leaders improve the performance of a company in the long run. The humity, exuded by these leaders, can be contagious. Yet, instead of following the lead of these unsung heroes, an article on Harvard Business Review argues, we appear hardwired to search for people who exude charisma. The article looks into why such is the case: One study suggests that despite being perceived as arrogant, narcissistic individuals radiate "an image of a prototypically effective leader." Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader's narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance. It's not that charismatic and narcissistic people can't ever make good leaders. In some circumstances, they can. For example, one study found that narcissistic CEOs "favor bold actions that attract attention, resulting in big wins or big losses." A narcissistic leader thus can represent a high-risk, high-reward proposition.
Iphone

Apple Fixes Three Zero Days Used In Targeted Attack (onthewire.io) 76

Posted by EditorDavid from the infecting-an-iPhone dept.
Trailrunner7 quotes a report from On The Wire: Apple has patched three critical vulnerabilities in iOS that were identified when an attacker targeted a human rights activist in the UAE with an exploit chain that used the bugs to attempt to remotely jailbreak and infect his iPhone. The vulnerabilities include two kernel flaws and one in WebKit and Apple released iOS 9.3.5 to fix them.

The attack that set off the investigation into the vulnerabilities targeted Ahmed Mansoor, an activist living in the UAE. Earlier this month, he received a text message that included a link to what was supposedly new information on human rights abuses. Suspicious, Manor forwarded the link to researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, who recognized what they were looking at. "On August 10 and 11, 2016, Mansoor received SMS text messages on his iPhone promising ;new secrets' about detainees tortured in UAE jails if he clicked on an included link. Instead of clicking, Mansoor sent the messages to Citizen Lab researchers. We recognized the links as belonging to an exploit infrastructure connected to NSO Group, an Israel-based 'cyber war' company that sells Pegasus, a government-exclusive "lawful intercept" spyware product," Citizen Lab said in a new report on the attack and iOS flaws.

Comment Carbon is a gas now? (Score 2) 190

by The Mysterious Dr. X (#52743029) Attached to: Can Cow Backpacks Reduce Global Methane Emissions?

Methane, like carbon, is a greenhouse gas, but methane's global warming impact per molecule is 25 times greater than carbon's, according to the EPA.

I assume they mean carbon dioxide, right? Because if they're talking about pure carbon, I can't imagine it stays airborne for long enough to have much of an impact.

Maybe that's why it's so much less effective than methane.

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