Author: Adam Clare

Kuwaiti Election: Mixed Results

Kuwait just had its first election that women could run and vote in, which is more than a little late. Better late than never I guess. Not only did women get the vote (and were 57% of the electorate), the people of Kuwait has send a clear message to their government by electing reformists. There has been some corruption in the government and the reformists want to change that.

“By electing reformist candidates, the voters have sent a clear message to the government that they want change in Kuwaiti society, our correspondent says.”

So Long Sonar

A judge has ruled that the navy of the United States can no longer use sonar because it harms those creatures of the wet. The judge agreed with environmentalists that the use of SONAR during military procedures can “kill, injure, and disturb many marine species, including marine mammals, in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands.”

Sonar is a kind of radar for water that use sound to ping off of objects to figure out where the objects are. Sonar can wreak havoc on echolocation used by sea animals, which is why it is good to see the navy forced to not use sonar.

UK Readies for Biggest Wetland

The United Kingdom is going to make their largest human-made wetland to help endangered birds. Biodiversity is a fantastic thing and needs to be protected, so it is great to see such a large investment in helping birds live. It is also hoped that the wetland will help fish.

“Almost 115 hectares will be flooded at Wallasea Island, Essex, creating wetland, mudflats, saline lagoons and seven artificial islands.

The £7.5m government-funded project aims to replace bird habitats lost to development, improve flood defences, and create leisure opportunities.”

Nativetext Translates RSS Feeds

Nativetext is a great idea for spreading information across languages. THey have a novel “hight-tech” solution to all this needed translating. “Using a new kind of distributed supercomputing, foreign language translation is performed by a network of humans around the world, not machines.”

It’s not fully operational yet, but I can’t until it is.

Empty the Landfils?

Recycling is becoming easier with new technologies, techniques and other innovations, which means that we can start reusing discarded items that have ended up in landfills. The recycling and reuse sector of the American economy has grown so much that it currently employs as many people as the auto industry!

“Without recycling, given current virgin raw material supplies, we could not print the daily newspaper, build a car, or ship a product in a cardboard box,” says Powell. “Recycling is not some feel-good activity; it is one of the backbones of global economic development.” To his way of thinking, recovering cast-offs and putting them to good use “are key ingredients to industrial growth and stability.”