3d Printing Threatens Retail

A report from Gartner says that 3D printing will create debate on ethics and regulation. Furthermore, analysts expect that rapid development of 3D Bioprinters will spark calls to ban the technology for human and non-human use by 2016. 3D bioprinting is the medical application of 3D printing to produce living tissue and organs. It is … Read more

A $200 Dome Home

It’s a tiny geodesic dome built for a grand total of two hundred bucks by Jeffery the builder at Aprovecho, ” a regional resource for researching, demonstrating, and educating the techniques and strategies of sustainable living” that will be a story on its own. “To begin the project I constructed a nine-foot, ten sided deck … Read more

3D Printing – The First Snort is Free

It’s been selling all of us overpriced ink and toner for decades now, while basically giving its printers away. It plans to do the same thing with 3D printers by making them compatible only with proprietary spools and filaments. HP recently told the press that it has already developed a special polymer that its 3D … Read more

Making the Case for Open Source

No one makes a better case for open source hardware and software than the manufacturer of a high-priced, high-end CNC mill like the Mori Seiki NV5000 A/40. Even if you own the machine outright, if you move it at all, a GPS and gyro sensor package in the machine will automatically shut it down and … Read more

As Tiny Houses Go, Try Whimsical.

Move over C.S. Lewis. You’ve got competition now J.R.R Tolkien. This tiny home studio is one truly inspirational abode for the aspirational writer. Heck, even I could churn out readable stuff from a home like this! The builder describes it as a Whimsical Day Use Shop, Potting Shed or Hideout. But, they must have never … Read more

The Most Insidious Symbioses

The United States is the world’s largest grower and consumer of genetically-modified (GM) foods. As of 2010, the United States had 66.8 million hectares of GM crops planted, covering 16.5 percent of our total agricultural area. Because GM foods are made with proteins from organisms that weren’t previously part of the food chain, GM foods … Read more

Ag-gag — When the Law is an Ass

North Dakota, Montana and Kansas were the first to embark on what is known as Ag Gag back in 1990-91. Three more states elected to impair the First Amendment in 2012 when Iowa, Utah, and Missouri lost their independence to big-agri. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Mercy for Animals, The American Society … Read more

Sucralose (Splenda) Baking Releases Dioxin

The Center for the Public Interest in Science downgraded Splenda from “safe” to “caution,” citing their need to evaluate a forthcoming Italian study linking the artificial sweetener to leukemia in mice as a basis for their decision. Another recent human study linked Splenda to diabetes-associated changes, calling into question its value as a non-calorie sweetener … Read more

Is Monsanto’s Glyphosate Destroying The Soil?

Ever since Monsanto developed, marketed and patented the glyphosate molecule — Roundup (®) herbicide’s active ingredient — beginning in the early 70’s, a substantial and ever-growing portion of the earth’s arable surface has been transformed into an environmental and human health experiment, of unprecedented scale. Roundup Ready (®) (glyphosate resistant) genetically modified (GM) plants (also … Read more