A totally different approach to motivating people?

Click on this link to read a Wired dialogue between Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink about a different form of human motivation beside the traditional "carrot and the stick."  How can we tap into the motivation that led to 100 million hours of free labor on Wikipedia?

How to evaluate the safest technologies

Click on this link to read an article by the chairman of the Sierra Club that suggests a "rule of thumb" to evaluate the safest energy technologies.

Could alternative energies also contribute to the Gulf's demise?

Click on this link to read an editorial column in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (6-17-10) arguing that alternative energies such as bio-fuels will actually increase the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.  The article is by a member of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.  Do you agree with his concerns, or do you believe he makes certain assumptions about common practices that could be questioned? 

Sexual desire pill?

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald-Tribune article (6-17-10) that describes the FDA's concerns about a new drug meant to increase women's sexual libido.  Unlike male drugs like Viagra, this drug changes the brain to (allegedly) produce an increased sexual response.  But the results have been controversial.  The drug has been developed as a substitute for the conventional treatment--the administration of male hormones--that has undesirable side effects.

What is the worst American environmental catastrophe?

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald-Tribune article (6-19-10) about previous environmental catastrophes (such as the dust bowl, pictured here) that rival the BP oil spill.  Which has been the worst?

Abortion drugs given by video link

Click on this link to read a Sarasota Herald Tribune story (6-9-10) that describes how doctors can prescribe abortion-inducing drugs on line, dispensing the pills at a nurse's office hundreds of miles away.  Could teleconferencing equipment become the new means by which drugs are dispensed to patients?

Woman sues Google over walking directions

Click on this link to read a Washington Post article about a woman who sued Google because, while following the route it provided her for a walk, she was hit by a car.  She argues that the route was not "reasonably safe" for a pedestrian.  (Note: read the full article before you come to a conclusion about the strength of her claims!)  Do you think Google should be liable for any potential dangers created by the directions it provides?  For a more comical example, think of the episode of The Office in which two of the characters end up driving their car into a pond while trying to follow GPS directions.

Supreme Court Instructs Suspects To Speak Up If They Want To Remain Silent

From Slate (6-2-10):

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that a suspect's silence can be used against them in court—unless they speak up and explicitly say otherwise. In a 5-4 decision, the court determined that in order for people to invoke their Miranda rights—the right to a lawyer, to remain silent, etc.—they have to tell the arresting police officer that they're doing so. The case in question involved a Michigan man, Van Thompkins, who was arrested for murder in 2000. Thompkins kept quiet during a nearly three-hour police interrogation, then answered "yes" to the question "do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?" Thompkins argued that he had invoked his Miranda rights to remain silent by actually remaining silent, but he was eventually convicted of murder in 2001.The conviction was overturned after the 6th Circuit appeals court agreed with him, but today's ruling reinstates his conviction and forces suspect to inform police if they want to invoke their Miranda rights. Writing for the opposition, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the ruling "turns Miranda upside down." "Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent— which counterintuitively, requires them to speak," Sotomayor wrote. ''At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so."

Read original story in The Los Angeles Times | Tuesday, June 1, 2010

New BP Effort Could Make Things Worse

(From Slate, 6-2-10):

After "Top Kill" failed late last week, BP officials announced that they would try another method to stop the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico. The new method involves placing a giant cap over the opening of the well and siphoning oil to the surface of the water. (The site of the leak is about 5,000 feet below the surface.) Before the cap can be lowered into place, though, the broken riser pipe must be cut down to a size that will fit under the brim. "[I]t's a big gamble: Even if it succeeds, it will temporarily increase the flow of an already massive leak by 20 percent—at least 100,000 gallons more a day," the Associated Press reported. "That's on top of the estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons gushing out already." Estimates of the amount of oil vary widely, but somewhere between 20 million and 40 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers. It is already the largest oil spill in U.S. history, and if the cap fails, it could continue spewing oil until August, when a set of relief wells are completed. "Eric Smith, an associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute, likened the procedure to trying to place a tiny cap on a fire hydrant that's blowing straight up," theAssociated Press reported.

Read original story in The Associated Press | Wednesday, June 2, 2010