I am my own grandpa (or grandma)?
[Linda MacDonald Glenn is guest blogging this month]Can nanotechnology be sustainable? At the site, Forumforthefuture.org, under the section Green Futures, Peter Madden argues that nanotechnology can contribute to sustainability. But the article doesn't set well with me -- why? Not because I'm a technophobe -- I love technology (except when it doesn't work, then I hate it).It bugs me because I can't tell what he means by sustainability.Who or what is being sustained? Humanity? Our Environment? The Earth? The Nanobots? Self-sustaining technology?

How Americans spent themselves into ruin... but saved the world
David Brin is a Sentient Developments guest blogger.In the 1/1/24 edition of the Silicon Valley newspaper and online journal Metroactive, I have an editorial describing how the American consumer came to propel the expor

Deus Sex Machina
[Linda MacDonald Glenn is guest blogging this month] (cross-posted on the Women's Bioethics Blog)(Roughly translated from Latin as Sex God in the machine) We all know that technology can improve our lives (sometimes....well, at least when it's working properly), but who'd have thunk that nanotechnology could improve your sex life?In yet one more 'tool' in the arsenal against dreaded erectile dysfunction, nanotechnology to the rescue! Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a foam with nanoparticles encapsulating nitric oxide for the topical treatment of erec

John Hodgman pulls off Fermi Paradox schtick
I totally love geek humor -- and this TED Talk by John Hodgman has plenty of it, including a bit about the Fermi Paradox and the ultimate question, "Where is everybody?"

IBM's claim to have simulated a cat's brain grossly overstated
This is not a brain. I'm a big fan of IBM's Brain and Mind Institute (BMI) and the Blue Brain project. Initiated in May 2005, the Blue Brain project is an attempt to to model the mammalian cerebral cortex with computers. The intention is not to re-create the actual physical structure of the brain, but to simulate it using arrays of super