Hey, Ross: when you’re done with the floors in your house, I have an idea for your next project.

Today in Science Express, some MIT scientists announced experimental confirmation for a method of relatively efficient non-radiative wireless power transmission.

Basically, they lit up a 60W lightbulb even though the power source was 2 meters away without making anyone sterile in the process, and it only took 150W of power to pull it off. Imagine setting things on your desk (or on a Microsoft Surface) and having them charge automatically. Imagine never having to plug anything into a cigarette lighter, ever. I doubt you’d want to use it for lights or your air conditioner because of the inefficiency and waste involved, but for small, power unintensive appliences it could be pretty convenient.

I would really like to have access to read this paper for free to figure out how they did it, but maybe later I’ll see if the internet has the info. I’d like to know how the efficiency scales with range. I’m also totally into trying to replicate what they did as long as it doesn’t require a superconducting electromagnet or anything because, seriously, plugging things in is a serious drag. Actually, even if it does require a superconducting electromagnet, I could maybe see if my old physics lab has an old one and, like, some liquid helium sitting around.

If you want people to be smarter, all you have to do is tell them that they can make themselves smarter.

Yeah, sounds ridiculous, right? But check it out. It’s a given that most people think that intelligence is fixed - some people are just smarter. Maybe it’s genetics, and maybe it’s upbringing, but once you get to a certain age your intelligence is set.

But most scientific studies do not support that. People actually can make themselves smarter if they work at it. So what would happen if you told people this? How would they act on that knowledge?

Some people did that study. They created two groups of college students, and taught one group that intelligence could be changed. The other group was taught no such thing. The results were fascinating:

Those students who learned about IQ’s malleability improved their grades more than did students who did not receive this message, and also saw academics as more important than did students in the control group. Even more exciting was the finding that Black students benefited more from learning about the malleable nature of intelligence than did White students, showing that this intervention may successfully counteract stereotype threat.

Can this sort of thing counteract the effect of stereotypes enough to make a real difference? In a later study, the evidence suggests that it can. This same type of study was done on seventh graders. The control group learned about memory strategies, and the test group learned about the possibility of intelligence development.

As compared to the control group, students who learned about intelligence’s malleability had higher academic motivation, better academic behavior, and better grades in mathematics. Indeed, students who were members of vulnerable groups (e.g., those who previously thought that intelligence cannot change, those who had low prior mathematics achievement, and female students) had higher mathematics grades following the intelligence-is-malleable intervention, while the grades of similar students in the control group declined. In fact, girls who received the intervention matched and even slightly exceeded the boys in math grades, whereas girls in the control group performed well below the boys.

Now, who knows if this is real. More studies are needed. But IF it is true, it absolutely must be part of the curriculums of schools, starting at the lowest levels. I mean, I would contribute money to a campaign to put PSA’s on TV telling people that they can become smarter if they want to be. I view this as a really big deal.

Like Midas, I recently ventured to my local multiplex to check out Al Gore’s lesson in effective presentation skills: An Inconvenient Truth.

Now, being the skeptical sort of guy that I am, I naturally started looking for movies that show the other side of the story. Fortunately, I found two!

“Is carbon dioxide a harmful air pollutant, or is it an amazingly effective aerial fertilizer?”

Great question! The answers are provided in the following documentaries, available at the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change:

I mean, they’re not called Greenhouse Gasses because they make everything brown, are they? No!

“Evidence is presented to show how current CO2 levels, which are 35 percent higher than in the pre-industrial era, have greatly enhanced the growth of trees and other plants. Results from controlled studies show how a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is expected to occur over the next century, will boost crop yields, increase the water-use efficiency of much of earth’s vegetation, and enhance the productivity of forests. The impact and implications of such change are far-reaching.”

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On Monday, Maura and I finally got out to see An Inconvenient Truth up at Potomac Mills with our good friends Jon and Ingrid. They are soon to be moving out to California, where Jon is going to study for his PhD in Oceanography, so they were excellent people to go see this particular movie with.

If you haven’t gone to see it, you should. It may very well not be playing near you, in which case you could always download it illegally off of the internet, not that I am advocating that. It is a pretty entertaining movie which boils down to basically an engaging lecture on the global warming situation, its causes, evidence, and consequences. It has a teensy bit of Al Gore biography in it, but it isn’t really an advertisement for him - if anything, it’s an advertisement for Apple Keynote. Go see it!

But this article isn’t really about the movie at all. In fact, if you are the kind of person who doesn’t believe in science or in personal responsibility, it doesn’t really have to be about global warming either. At the least, this is an article about how to save money. Add some idealism, and it could be an article about how to reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil. And if you are one of those lucky few who does believe in anthropogenic climate change, well, here is how to save the world.

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Times Dispatch Story

Wilder: Braves balking on downtown ballpark
Braves official ‘blown away’ by mayor’s talk

This story blows my mind. I don’t even know what’s happening- there seems to be utter confusion about the whole project and/or the RTD writer is terrible. This story should be important to anyone who cares about the city of Richmond. Whether you agree or disagree with plans, or love or hate baseball, this project will have a major impact on the city (positive in some areas in negative in others, no doubt). Having read the article, I am more confused than ever about what’s happening with this project, but I’m still willing to throw in my opinions and interpretations of the latest saga….

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Seriously check this out, on my wife’s W2:

Insert finger here and slide along this edge…