Earth Portation News December 31st

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AIR - Groundbreaking air-cleaner saves polluting industrials

Industries across Europe are threatened with shutdown as European Union emission rules for Volatile Organic Compounds are tightened. Now an air cleaning invention has proven its ability to remove these compounds. And in the process they have helped a business in Danish town Aarhus improve relations to angry neighbors.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121228203200.ht

BIRDS - Bird watching brings new discoveries

A recent study used bird watching records to build up the first bird watching database in China, which found a batch of new records of national level and a trend of of species moving to higher latitude and higher elevation regions.

http://phys.org/news/2012-12-bird-discoveries.htm

CLIMATE - Silicon Valley Faces Effects of Climate Change

Headquarters for some of the world's biggest tech companies are in the path of rising seas.
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/silicon-valley-facing-effec

ECONOMICS - 10 Most Popular Stories of 2012

The following articles were the most read pieces on the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge website in 2012. Now two questions for you. What do you think was the most important business story of the year? Fiscal cliff? China's slowdown? Also please share your opinion about what will be the most significant economic development of 2013. Use the "Comments" link to tell us what and why.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2012/12/31/10-most-pop

ECONOMICS - A Snitch In Time Can Save Employers a Lot of Money

In my article last week I noted that theft, corruption, embezzlement, and related ?occupational frauds? are rampant in American business and account for billions of dollars annually in losses. On a global basis, the estimate is an astounding 3.5 trillion dollars. Statistically, internal theft and other schemes carried out by trusted employees are the source of the problem. At the end of this article I list several recognized security and accounting controls that should be implemented within any commercial, government or other entity to prevent, deter and detect abuse. As noted in the ACFE Report to the Nations, implementation of one or more of these controls can significantly reduce exposure to losses from insiders.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcwebertobias/2012/12/30/a-snitch-in-tim

ECONOMICS - How Did I Do On My 2012 Predictions?

It's that time of year: time to reflect on the past year, time to get wasted and watch a glass ball smash into the ground, time for people like me who foolishly offered predictions for the past year to face the music. So here's how I did on my 2012 predictions:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/12/31/how-did-i-do-on-my-20

ECONOMICS - Sullivan Principles: Corporations Must Contribute to the Culture of Peace and Help End Gun Violence

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: A demonstrator from CodePink holds up a banner as National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre delivers remarks during a news conference at the Willard Hotel December 21, 2012 in Washington, DC. This is the first public appearance that leaders of the gun rights
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2012/12/25/sullivan-princip

ECONOMICS - Technically We Are Going To Hit The Fiscal Cliff

No vote in the House tonight, for sure, so technically we are going to hit The Fiscal Cliff. That doesn't mean that there isn't almost a deal done. Voting tomorrow or the next day might help the GOP at the margins, so it can claim it never voted to raise taxes. Full coverage of the events are here > House GOP conference meets at 5pm. Then will have ONLY series of votes for the day. Means absolutely no fiscal cliff vote in House today. - Jill ...

http://www.businessinsider.com/technically-we-are-going-to-hit-the-fis

ECONOMICS - Why I Left My Career In Finance For A Nonprofit

In our "Money Mic" series, we hand over the podium to someone with an opinion on a financial topic. These are their opinions, not ours, but we welcome a constructive, thoughtful discussion. This contributor has requested to remain anonymous. When I was recruited to work for a large corporate bank in New York City after graduating college in 2007, I was ready. They told me it would be long hours and a lot of pressure, but I knew that I would be ab ...


http://www.businessinsider.com/why-i-left-my-career-in-finance-2012-1

ENERGY - Measuring The Cost Of Energy, Drop By Drop

As far as interrelated water and energy challenges go, the case of the natural gas drilling method known as fracking is a doozy. Natural gas has been touted as a relatively cheap, less-polluting replacement for coal and petroleum, and that's fine as far as global warming management goes. But on a local level, here in the U.S., evidence is steadily mounting that the vast quantities of chemical-laced water used in fracking can contaminate loc ...


http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/29/masdar-engage-water-and-energy-cha

ENERGY - Show Me The (Fossil Fuel) Money

Have you ever read news coverage of an energy or climate issue and thought to yourself, "Why is that spokesperson defending fossil fuels, slamming clean energy, and denying climate change?" As you may suspect, it's because they receive financial support from pro-fossil fuel interests - a fact rarely mentioned in media coverage."Fossil Fuel Front Groups on the Front Page," a new report from the Checks and Balances Project, reveals financial ...


http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/29/show-me-the-fossil-fuel-money

ENERGY - Using Thermodynamics 100-Year-Old Technology To Break The $20 Per MWh Barrier

This is a guest post by one of our regular, cleantech-obsessed readers, David Fuchs. Clearly, David thinks he's on to something big. Enjoy the article!For years, the production of energy has fascinated me. Over the past 20 years, I have experimented with solar cells made via inkjet printer, a hydraulically coupled compressor and turbine based on Tesla's turbine, vertical wind turbines, high-temperature cracking of water, high COP heat pumps .

..
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/29/using-thermodynamics-100-year-old-

HOMES - 17 Favorite Tiny Apartments and Houses from 2012 in TreeHugger

We get small and look at designs from around the world
http://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/green-architecture/tiny-apartment

HOMES - 9 Renovations You Can Make Right Under Your Landlords Nose

Being a renter can make you feel like a renter. After a while, the cheap flooring and outdated kitchen can start to get to you, and you might find yourself wishing you just owned the place so you could fix it up. But, renters can personalize their space too. In fact, you can make quite a few improvements to a rental without breaking your budget - or your lease.Throw some paint on the walls A coat of paint can completely transform a room. For exa ...


http://www.businessinsider.com/9-ways-to-make-over-your-apartment-2012

HOMES - This Portable Gel Fireplace Can Warm Up Any Room

This is the Holly & Martin Hudson Portable Indoor/Outdoor Gel Fireplace. Why We Love It: Nothing says winter like cuddling with loved ones by a fireplace, but the real deal can be a hassle. This unobtrusive glass fireplace houses three cans of FireGlo gel fuel with an output of 3,000 BTU, and includes a snuffer cover for a no-heat option. The two tempered glass, cool-touch panels and brushed nickel base add a modern aesthetic to this fireplac ...


http://www.businessinsider.com/portable-indooroutdoor-gel-fireplace-20

PEOPLE - 15 Ways People Celebrate New Year's Eve Around The World

Happy New Year's Eve! Many of you will celebrate with champagne, dancing, and kissing your loved ones when the clock strikes midnight, but what about the rest of the world? January 1st may be the de facto beginning of the New Year in the Western hemisphere thanks to the Gregorian calendar, but some cultures believe the New Year takes place at a different time altogether. The Chinese New Year is in late January or early February, Rosh Hashanah


http://www.businessinsider.com/new-years-eve-around-the-world-2012-1

SCIENCE - Anti-Neutrinos May Hold The Key To Solving Physics Mystery

An international experiment with anti-neutrinos may hold the key to solving one of the great mysteries of physics.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/12/31/anti-neutrinos-may-ho

SCIENCE - Billionaires Funding Awesome Mad Science Projects

Some billionaires lead quiet lives. They collect books. they sample fine wines. They spend a lot of time in France. Others, however, are using their wealth to make a life a little more exciting... with science!

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ehjh45heeh/being-a-billionaire-should-b

SCIENCE - New kind of magnetism discovered: Experiments demonstrate 'quantum spin liquid'

Following up on earlier theoretical predictions, researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism. The experiments demonstrate "quantum spin liquid," which could have applications in new computer memory storage.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121220143745.ht

SCIENCE - Powerful new tool is quantum analog of phase space flow

Physicists have found that a new powerful tool they call 'Wigner flow' is the quantum analog of phase space flow. Wigner flow provides information for quantum dynamics similar to that gleaned from phase space trajectories in classical physics. Wigner flow can be used for the visualization of quantum dynamics. Additionally, Wigner flow helps with the abstract analysis of quantum dynamics using topological methods.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121226080400.ht

SCIENCE - Science's breakthrough of the year: Discovery of the Higgs boson

The observation of an elusive sub-atomic particle, known as the Higgs boson, has been heralded by the journal Science as the most important scientific discovery of 2012. This particle, which was first hypothesized more than 40 years ago, holds the key to explaining how other elementary particles (those that aren't made up of smaller particles), such as electrons and quarks, get their mass.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121220143520.ht

SOLAR - Solar PVs 44% Efficiency Record, Thanks To NREL & Solar Junction

Here's a great solar PV story from the good folks over at NREL (note that we've already covered Solar Junction's 44% solar cell efficiency record, but this post below goes above & beyond that first one):An operator inspects a photolithography tool used to manufacture high-efficiency Solar Junction concentrator solar cells. NREL's pioneering multijunction work led to the Solar Junction SJ3 solar cell with tunable bandgaps, lattice-matche .


http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/30/solar-pv-efficiency-record-broken-

SOLAR - Solar power prices to continue falling through 2025, experts say

Prices for solar modules—the part of solar panels that produce electricity—will continue to fall, in line with the long-term trend since 1980, according to a survey of experts by Near Zero, , a nonprofit energy research organization. However, for prices to keep falling for the long term will require continued committment to research, such as on materials used for making solar modules.

http://phys.org/news/2012-12-solar-power-prices-falling-experts.htm

SOLAR - SolarCity Announces Pricing of Its Initial Public Offering

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SolarCity Corporation, a provider of clean distributed energy, announced today the pricing of its initial public offering of 11,500,000 shares of common stock at a price of $8.00 per share. The common stock is expected to begin trading on The NASDAQ Global Market on December 13, 2012 under the ticker symbol “SCTY.” A total of 11,434,988 shares are being offered by SolarCity and 65,012 shares are being offered by selling stockholders.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121212006723/en/SolarCity-Anno

SPACE - First 'Alien Earth' Will Be Found in 2013

The epic find should change the way humanity views its place in the universe.

http://news.discovery.com/space/first-alien-earth-will-be-found-in-201

SPACE - ISS Astronaut Is Entertaining Himself By Tweeting Pictures From Space

Chris Hadfield is the Flight Engineer on Expedition 34, and is currently living in the International Space Station, in orbit about 250 miles over Earth's surface. He will be spending the next six months on the space station, and has been tweeting his journey, including these great images from orbit. He launched into space on the Soyuz capsule on Dec. 19, 2012. His objectives are to carry out scientific experiments, perform robotic tasks, and in M ...


http://www.businessinsider.com/iss-astronaut-christ-hadfield-tweeting-

TECH - 10 Incredibly Simple Things You Can Do To Protect Your Privacy

These are the really, really simple things you should be doing to keep casual intruders from invading your privacy.

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ekhg45fmhd/password-protect-your-device

TECH - 4 Reasons Why 2013 Will Be The Year of The Innovator

A couple of years back when I edited Innovation Management, I was a strong innovation skeptic. A lot of the writing that came my way sounded really like cheer-leading rather than analysis.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/12/31/4-reasons-why-

TECH - Five Green Tech Trends To Watch In 2013

With hours to go until the ball drops on 2012, here then are Green Wombat's green tech trends for 2013.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/12/31/five-green-tech-trend

TECH - Google Experiments With New Flight Explorer Feature

Google is trying out a new travel search tool that seems to be aimed primarily at casual travelers that are as concerned about price as they are about a destination.

http://searchengineland.com/google-experiments-with-new-flight-explore

TECH - Google's Project Glass in NYC to watch the ball drop?

According to the official Times Square website, more than 1 million will flock to New York City to watch the ball drop at the end of 2012. At least one of those people could be wearing a prototype of Google's Project Glass spectacles based on a snapshot found at the Road to Virtual Reality blog: Yesterday in NYC, someone was in public with the goggles, and this version supports eyeglasses. In case you missed Google's Project Glass introduction ea ...

http://gigaom.com/mobile/googles-project-glass-in-nyc-to-watch-the-bal

TECH - Liquid Mirror Telescope Technology Finally Going Mainstream

Today's 8-meter class, optical telescope mirrors are such expensive glass behemoths that when actually moved to their mountaintop vistas, they frequently arrive with helicopter escorts.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/12/30/liquid-mirror-tel

TECH - Meet Page Howe, A Man Who Made Millions Selling 2 Of The Worlds Most Expensive Domain Names

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TECH - Stick a fork in netbooks, they re done

After beginning in late 2007, the age of netbooks is coming to close. Acer and Asus, the two remaining top-tier manufacturers of the small laptops, are ceasing netbook production today, reports The Guardian's Charles Arthur. For a computing market that appeared to have unstoppable growth early on, the rise and fall of netbooks happened quickly. It should remind us that disruptive new technologies can quickly erode a product's market share, and ev ..


http://gigaom.com/mobile/stick-a-fork-in-netbooks-theyre-done

TECH - The Most Significant Consumer Technology Products of 2012

One great thing about a tech industry in transition is that manufacturers amp up the amount and breadth of the products they announce. 2012 was a transition year for PCs, smartphones, and tablets, and there were so very many great options to choose from.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2012/12/31/the-most-signif

TECH - The World's Most Active Twitter City? You Won't Guess It

Being (somewhat) active on Twitter, and fascinated by the vast amounts of wildly random but often extremely useful information endlessly tweeting across it, I'm always interested in who's using it. So when I happened across a study this evening from earlier this summer analyzing Twitter's global usage patterns, I gobbled it up like some of those Christmas treats I've been eating too many of. The findings surprised me. The world's most active city in terms of posted tweets? No, it's not New York, Tokyo or London (though they're all in the top 5).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2012/12/30/the-worlds-most-ac

URBAN - America's Coolest Cities

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fdjh45gdjm/introduction

URBAN - HOUSE OF THE DAY: Deutsche Bank Exec Now Selling His Southampton Mansion For A Discounted $25.8 Million

After letting it languish on the market for four years, Kevin E. Parker, global head of Deutsche Asset Management (who stepped down from the bank's executive committee in May), has chopped the price on his Southampton estate from $30 million to $25.8 million, according to Curbed Hamptons. It seems that Parker is really fed up, since he has also switched real estate agencies from Corcoran to Sotheby's International Realty. The house has 10 bedroom ...


http://www.businessinsider.com/385-great-plains-road-estate-2012-1

URBAN - Haus im Haus: Hamburgs Historic Chamber of Commerce Renovated With a Gleaming Glass Gem

Read the rest of Haus im Haus: Hamburg's Historic Chamber of Commerce Renovated With a Gleaming Glass Gem

http://inhabitat.com/haus-im-haus-gleaming-glazed-gem-brings

URBAN - The Incredible Story Of How The Burj Khalifas Poop is Trucked Out of Town

You'd think that the world's tallest building - a structure that requires amazingly complex engineering and technology to reach its heights - would have an equally impressive sewage system. Unfortunately, that's not the case because it isn't hooked up to a municipal wastewater treatment system - so when you poop in the Burj Khalifa, that waste is actually trucked out of the city. Trucked out of the city! We're frankly flabbergasted by the inefficiency of such a system. One of the world's most advanced buildings relies on an arcane method to transport wastewater to a treatment facility outside of town. So remember, if you happen to visit and use the Burj Khalifa's restroom, some unfortunate person has to collect your poop and drive it out of Dubai.



Read the rest of The Incredible Story Of How The Burj Khalifa's Poop is Trucked Out of Town

http://inhabitat.com/the-incredible-story-of-how-the-burj-kh