Science

[Cross-posted at GAIN News] [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Entrance to the Rio+20 Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil[/caption] 45,381 participants from 188 countries, which included 100 heads of state and their staff were present at Rio+20. The goal of this United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development was to strengthen political commitment towards sustainable development. Among the many messages gaining strength around Rio+20, a few are resonating with our participation at the conference: 1) The side events are much more interesting than the actual negotiations, albeit the lack focus on the private sector; 2) Moving beyond measuring GDP gets more traction; 3) Adaptation is a cross cutting but also overarching challenge in sustainable development; 4) Data gains relevance, yet the opportunity for a data declaration is lost. ...

Hoy se presenta el nuevo número del Cuaderno Cultural Prímula, en el cual colaboro con un artículo sobre el Sol: "El Sol y sus Tormentas". Prímula es una revista gratuita del Hospital de Cabueñes de Gijón (Asturias). Se publica dos veces al año y está formada por artículos donados por sus autores. Se puede descargar en su web y se imprime para ser distribuida gratuitamente en el Hospital para aquellos que están internos o de visita. Prímula es un cuaderno cultural en sentido amplio, gestado, confeccionado y distribuido por un conjunto de personas que desarrollan su actividad profesional en el Hospital de Cabueñes (Gijón) y en el que colaboran los usuarios o pacientes ingresados y ambulatorios) y sus familiares. Ha sido un placer escribirlo y un honor pensar en que quizás pueda hacer más ameno parte del tiempo que algunos lectores han de pasar en el Hospital. Gracias Prímula! Aquí enlazo una copia de la revista, y adjunto el texto del artículo, sin maquetar. He de dar las gracias a todos aquellos que me dísteis vuestra opinión cuando publiqué el borrador en un Google Doc y, por supuesto, a Aurora, gestora de Prímula. ...

This is a screencast of my talk the Adaptation Futures conference in Arizona last month. I present our GAIN Index to measure the vulnerability of countries to face Adaptation challenges, and their readiness to implement solutions. Beyond the Index, I tried to stress the importance of the whole package: It is not about making good science, it is not just an academic exercise. From the beginning one needs to think who will be the users, what do they know and what they want to know, and how are you going to present it. ...

Earlier this month my NGO (GAIN) had its annual meeting. Around 200 participants, which includes several presidents, CEOs, ambassadors and representatives of the World Bank, OAS, and more than 100 companies. The invitation list to the reception had more than 1,000 names. I built the Invitation system almost from scratch using Google Apps Script (GAS), and I want to share the experience. The decision to engage on this was partly because I had the chance to participate on a free and open event about GAS for developers at the Google Washington DC offices (thank you!). ...

A Russian satellite makes a time lapse of the Earth from space. A truly beautiful video. This reminds me of a text I read many years ago: Carl Sagan was defending the inclusion of visual cameras in scientific payloads, even when the scientific value would be arguable. Researchers were complaining about the extra weight and limited value, and longevity, of such an instrument, versus the many other things they could put there to measure wind speed, chemical composition, … ...

This idea is for a synthetic multi-beam microphone, basically allowing to select and amplify sound coming from any, and all, selectable angles and distances, at once, live or replaying the sound, and to detect their LOS velocity. Combined with a speaker, it can be a multi-beam sonar.Physically it would be an array of microphones, as the size of the lattice would define part of the resolution. The rest would come from the software. I thought of this by merging concepts from sounds, nets, radio astronomy, and optical interferometry. ...

It’s roughly a year since we made it to the Finalists to the Apps for Development competition of the World Bank. To commemorate the date, the Bank prepared an article to assess the impact. They contacted all finalists and made a little interview (Here is the full interview with our team). I was fascinated with the idea and eager to read the outcome. With all finalists, we share a Facebook group so we are more able to keep track of each other’s whereabouts. I do see being finalists was very positive personally and professionally for all of us. But I was also interested on the impact for all those non-finalists. Many of them jumped into the Open Data portal to participate. Are they still engaged? Was participation incentive enough to continue developing in the area? Are they likely to participate again? Unfortunately none of these questions was answered. ...

Hace unos días estuve en la Habana, Cuba, con mi padre de vacaciones. Tenía muchas ganas de ir, y aprender. Me preguntaba ¿Qué es lo que opina el cubano de la calle? ¿Qué es el régimen revolucionario, en términos reales? ¿Cómo es el sector privado allí? ¿Qué no se puede hacer? ¿Que beneficios tiene un sistema comunista? ... Esto es lo que he podido medio entender después de una semana de vacaciones allí, charlando con cubanos, viviendo en un apartamento alquilado, yendo a varias ciudades en las afueras (Mariel y Viñales), visitando un hospital, una universidad, un conservatorio, varias casas particulares... ...

[Cross posted at GAIN] Engineers will be among those on the front lines of adaptation. From improving the resilience of water pipes and energy transport systems to redesigning how entire urban areas are built, engineering firms will need to solve new challenges created by population growth, urbanization and climate change. Incorporation of new scientific, economic and social science data is becoming more critical as unprecedented changes are upon us. Engineering innovation and technology will be part of the solution. These were the main takeaways according to participants at the Engineers Without Borders (EWB)–USA 10-year anniversary International Conference in Henderson, Nev., March 22-24. ...

The cost of ending hunger globally is less than the value of wasted food only in the US, and orders of magnitude smaller than the Wall Street bailout. "The world only needs 30 billion dollars a year to eradicate the scourge of hunger." FAO Newsroom. 2008 "14-15 per cent of United States edible food is untouched or unopened, amounting to $43 billion worth of discarded, but edible, food". Wikipedia quoting a study by the University of Arizona in 2004 ...