Cool stuff that’s too small for a big article
Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting, but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch.
Solar Panels Can Now Work At NIGHT!
(from the WaPo article)- “In a laboratory amid Northern Virgina’s sprawling data centers, a group of scientists is looking very far outside the box for a solution to overwhelmed power grids. They want to harness the sun’s rays and shoot a kilometer-wide laser — they prefer the term “power beam” — down from satellites in space to solar panels on Earth. The idea is to overcome solar power’s biggest weakness: that it stops working when there is no sunlight. If all goes according to plan… They would enable off-the-shelf solar panels to generate electricity even at night and could more than triple the amount of energy produced by a conventional solar farm.…”
Sub-Micro Video Contest Winners
from Nikon- “Nikon Small World is regarded as the leading forum for showcasing the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope. The Photomicrography Competition is open to anyone with an interest in microscopy and photography. The video competition, entitled Small World In Motion encompasses any movie or digital time-lapse photography taken through the microscope.” We’re linking you to this years’ winners here, a gallery of past winners here, and here’s a tidbit… a scandal this year meant removing the original winner, but you can read all about it here.
Psychological warfare is now the primary battleground
from the article– “Psychological warfare has always been a central tool of statecraft, but we have crossed a threshold from which there may be no return. Today, your attention is being harvested, your biases are being weaponized, and your sense of reality is being systematically dismantled, not by armies, but by algorithms. Oxford philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist Nayef Al-Rodhan argues that unless we urgently rebuild our capacity for independent thought and move beyond traditional security tactics to protect the very integrity of human judgment—or risk losing the ability to think for ourselves…
College Education at a Price You Can Afford… FREE!
(from OpenCulture.com)- “Founded in 2006, Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It’s all free. It’s all enriching. But it’s also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it.” Open Culture has free movies, audio books, eBooks, 46 language courses, and more, but here’s a directory to the 1700 FREE online courses from top universities. Get learnin’!
