Michael Brooks:

Forget mysterious dark matter and the inexplicable accelerating expansion of the universe; the bicycle represents a far more embarrassing hole in the accomplishments of physics.

Let’s be honest, a bit of the pleasure at Chris Froome’s victory in the Tour de France is down to this being our second victory in a row and to the thought that the French haven’t won it since 1985. What must be worse for them, though, is that when it comes to the science of team cycling, even the Belgians are in front.

At the University of Mons, researchers are developing something called the Anaconda. It’s never going to be much of a speed machine because it is, in effect, a chain of monocycles with handlebars. These units are connected, by means of hinges that allow them to snake along, to a normal two-wheeled bike at the front. Every rider in the chain can be going in a slightly different direction, which means it takes an enormous amount of control and collaboration to move the thing forward. According to Olivier Verlinden, chief engineer on the project, the main qualification for riders is to be unafraid of falling off.

It’s fun, apparently. The idea is to unleash it as a beach-resort bike, the kind of thing that stag and hen parties will use to terrorise seaside towns across the world. But it is also scientifically interesting. Why? Because we still don’t really know how bicycles work.

The Economist:

THERE was something surreal, in a Kafkaesque sort of way, about Barack Obama’s press conference on August 9th. Aiming to ease concern over the government’s surveillance programmes, the president announced reforms that seem both obvious and overdue. Then he criticised the man whose actions set those reforms in motion.

The president’s proposals include creating a group of outside experts to assess the government’s balancing of security and privacy. (When in doubt, create a task force.) More substantially, Mr Obama said he would like to change the proceedings of the secret court that approves electronic spying and interprets counterterrorism laws. Whereas now the court only hear’s the government’s side of any argument, the president wants to see an opposing viewpoint represented.

BBC:

Researchers have found no link between the number of US drivers making phone calls while on the road and the number of accidents recorded.

A team at Carnegie Mellon University and the London School of Economics analysed more than eight million incidents of car crashes and all fatalities on roads in eight US states.

They examined data before and after 9pm local time over a three-year period.

However they say their results do not include texting or internet browsing.

The timeslot was chosen because during the period studied (2002 – 2005) many American mobile phone operators offered free calls after 9pm during the week.

Brad Tuttle:

Why are young people less likely to purchase cars, or even have driver’s licenses nowadays? One theory has it that the generation that came of age with the Internet and smartphones thinks cars are pretty lame. Automakers prefer to see the situation differently—that young people today love cars just as much as any other group, but just can’t afford them right now.

The auto industry has been in recovery mode over the past few years. Automakers sold 14.5 million new cars and trucks in 2012, a 13% increase over the prior year, and the highest total since 2007. Projected auto sales totals for 2013 should easily beat last year too, topping 15 million. Even so, the comeback has been called a “subpar recovery,” and a prime reason why sales haven’t truly taken off is that younger consumers today aren’t buying cars like younger consumers traditionally have in the car-crazed U.S.

Gen Y has been dubbed “Gen N”, as in Generation Neutral—which is the way some describe how millennials feel about car ownership. Studies have shown that fewer young adults have driver’s licenses, that this group hates the traditional car-buying process more than other demographics, and that they prefer urban living and socializing online and therefore have less need for cars.

The latest data from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) bolsters the idea that younger Americans are much less interested in car ownership than their older siblings, parents, and grandparents. Bloomberg News highlighted data from the study showing that while consumers in the 35-to-44 age demographic were the most likely to be purchasing new cars four years ago, today it’s the 55-to-65 age Baby Boomers buying new cars with the most frequency. In 2011, boomers were 15 times more likely to purchase new vehicles than young millennials (ages 18 to 24), and even consumers ages 75 and up have been buying cars at higher rates than groups ages 18 to 24 and 25 to 34.

I have a preference for Gray Brewing’s Rathskeller Ale.

The terrace view is a bit different in March, particularly when the Statue of Liberty pays a visit.

Magic Touch & DJ Tolerance performed on a beautiful Friday evening in Madison.

AAP:

“Of 280,000 farms in Germany, between 800 and 1,000 use optical sensors,” he says.

However, precision agriculture may have bumper times ahead.
“It offers enormous productivity gains and allows for a reduction of resource use at a time of growing environmental regulatory demands,” said Oliver Neumann, spokesman for agricultural equipment giant John Deere.

A problem is that the equipment still doesn’t come cheap. Some high-tech combine harvesters can cost up to half a million euros.

Mariah Blake:

hen Thomas Shaw gets worked up, he twists in his chair and kneads his hand. Or he paces about in his tube socks grumbling, “They’re trying to destroy us,” and “The whole thing is a giant scam.” And Shaw, the founder of a medical device maker called Retractable Technologies, spends a lot of time being agitated.

One of the topics that gets him most riled up these days is bloodstream infections. And with good reason—while most people rarely think about them, these are the most dangerous of the hospital-acquired bugs that afflict one in ten patients in the United States. Their spread has helped to make contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country.

A few years ago, Shaw, an engineer by training, decided he wanted to do something to help solve this problem and quickly homed in on the mechanics of needle-less IV catheters. Rather than using needles to inject drugs into IV systems, most hospitals have moved to a new design, which involves screwing the threaded tip of a needle-less syringe into a specially designed port. The problem is that if the tip brushes against a nurse’s scrubs, or a counter, or the railing of a hospital bed, it can pick up bacteria. And the rugged threaded surface makes it difficult to get rid of the germs once they’re there. Often, the bacteria go straight into the patients’ bloodstream—which explains why, according to some studies, the rate of bloodstream infections is three times higher with needle-less systems than with their needle-based counterparts.

Frederic Lardinois:

So where is the real disruption in real estate? Startups are taking on commercial real estate and apartment rentals all the time, but when it comes to private properties, we’re still basically stuck with the same sales model today as somebody who bought a house in the 60s. We’re still working with agents and pay them fees (directly as least as sellers – and indirectly as buyers), even though we often know more about a house and neighborhood then they do. They do, however, have the key to the house we want to see and unless there’s an open house, there is basically no other way to get into a place that’s for sale.

Real estate transactions are big and complicated (and you can bet your agent will often remind you that it’s the biggest financial decision you’ll ever make), but where is the startup that tries to change this or at least tries to make some aspects easier and more transparent? Sure, it’s a well-regulated industry with plenty of (local) quirks, but the same could be said for taxis and it looks like some companies have been able to change that landscape pretty effectively. If Airbnb can rent out houses, there sure must be a way to at least make home showings easier in the age of Lockitron (once it starts shipping) and internet-connected surveillance.

Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of good real estate agents out there, but I can’t help but think that in the long run, real estate agents will go the way of travel agents. There will also be a need for a few good ones that can help you out in special circumstances and some people will always want to rely on them instead of handling things themselves. It took some ambitious startups to change how we book our travel today and it’ll take even more ambitious startups to change real estate as we know it.

There is a huge opportunity here, however, and I’m looking forward to seeing somebody try to really shake things up.

Adam Lesser:

Similar to Apple’s strategy, Tesla has been creating a closed ecosystem, and in Tesla’s case it’s around electric car charging. And that’s not so great for the electric car drivers of the future.

Now that’s all well and good for Tesla, but what about the entire EV landscape? Tesla’s supercharger utilizes a proprietary plug, and although the stations its planning to build will have four to six EV spots servicing any vehicle, four will be dedicated to Tesla. Imagine going to the gas station, and four of the pumps were reserved for BMWs. When the automakers get a say in the powering of their EVs, they are choosing to create closed systems that exclude their competition.