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50,000 Endangered Species Condoms to Be Handed Out at Year-end Events
Dec 23rd
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TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity is distributing 50,000 free Endangered Species Condoms for holiday and New Year’s Eve celebrations around the country. More than 600 volunteer distributors will hand out the condoms at events in all 50 states. The condoms are part of the Center’s 7 Billion and Counting campaign focusing on the effects of rapid human population growth on rare plants and animals. “There are more than 3 billion people on the planet under the age of 25. The choices this generation makes will determine whether our planet and its wildlife and natural resource base are burdened with 8 billion or 15 billion people. The difference between these paths can be measured by how many other species are left to roam alongside us,” said Jerry Karnas, population campaign director with the Center. “Our Endangered Species Condoms are a great way to get a conversation started about how the growing human population is affecting the wild world around us, especially animals already teetering on the edge of extinction.”
As part of its full-time population campaign launched in 2009, the Center has given out 450,000 free Endangered Species Condoms, featuring polar bears, panthers and other species threatened by population growth, loss of habitat and consumption of natural resources. This year, the Center is providing condoms to college health centers, nightclub owners, environmental activists, women’s reproductive-health groups and other activists around the United States. The world’s human population has doubled since 1970, reaching 7 billion in October 2011. According to the latest research, it could exceed 9 billion by 2050. In recent weeks, several federal reports have noted the impact that population is having on the natural world. A recent decision to propose Endangered Species Act protection for 66 coral species said that “the common root or driver of most, possibly all” of the threats that corals face — like climate change and changing ocean conditions — is the world’s growing human population. Another report, by the Department of the Interior, raised serious questions about the ability of the Colorado River to meet demands of a growing population in the western United States. “The evidence is mounting, and the solutions are at hand if only we’re just willing to start talking about them,” Karnas said. “Universal access to birth control, a rapid transition to clean energy, robust land-acquisition programs and much smarter growth policies can combine to forge a future for wildlife and a high quality of life for people. There’s no better time to start than in the new year of 2013.” The Center is the only environmental group with a full-time campaign highlighting the connection between unsustainable human population growth and the ongoing extinction crisis for plants and animals around the world. In 2011 the Center released a report on the top 10 U.S. species threatened by population growth. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 450,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. [includeme src=”http://c1n.tv/boulder/media/bouldersponsors.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”670″ height=”300″]
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New EnergySmart rebates for businesses coming soon
Dec 18th
$250k will be available to businesses, commercial property owners from Jan. 1 – Apr. 15
Boulder County, Colo. – Businesses and commercial property owners in Boulder County will be eligible for a new round of rebates for energy efficiency upgrades beginning in the early part of 2013.
EnergySmart is pleased to announce that $250,000 in rebates will be available for eligible business or commercial property projects completed between Jan. 1 and Apr. 15, 2013 or until funds are committed.
“We’re pleased to be able offer these additional incentives to local businesses,” said Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor. “Although funding from the federal ARRA grant will run out in mid-2013, our municipal and county officials and staff are committed to helping businesses continue to implement energy efficient improvements throughout the New Year.”
Already more than 500 EnergySmart Businesses throughout Boulder County have implemented energy efficiency projects that will save them more than $11 million a year. EnergySmart has awarded over $1 million in rebates to businesses since November 2010, supporting the investment of over $6.5 million in energy efficiency projects in commercial buildings located in our communities.
“The savings in power along with the reduced stress on the HVAC system and the overwhelming appreciation from the tenants makes this one of the best investments I have made in Commercial Real Estate,” said Rich Carlisle of BC Properties in Louisville.
EnergySmart is offering rebates to businesses and commercial property owners for over 120 qualifying energy efficiency measures. Previously awarded rebates will not count toward caps in this round. Solar photovoltaic (PV) and other renewable energy measures are eligible for rebates for commercial properties that achieve 15% energy savings through EnergySmart.
More information is available at www.EnergySmartYES.com. The rebate application will be available online Jan 2. Interested businesses are encouraged to call an Energy Advisor at 303-441-1300 to ensure your projects meet the eligibility requirements for both EnergySmart and local utility rebates. Payments will be made to qualifying applicants upon completion of projects on a first-come, first-served basis. Projects completed in 2012 are not eligible for 2013 rebate funds.
EnergySmart provides a suite of services to help businesses and homes in all Boulder County communities identify valuable energy-saving opportunities and assist residents and business owners through the energy upgrade process. For more information or to sign up, call an EnergySmart Advisor:
Businesses: 303-441-1300
Residents: 303-544-1000
Or visit www.EnergySmartYES.com
The program is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the U.S. Department of Energy’s BetterBuildings grant program and is sponsored in partnership by Boulder County, the cities of Boulder and Longmont, Xcel Energy and Platte River Power Authority.
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CU-Boulder team develops swarm of pingpong ball-sized robots
Dec 14th
University of Colorado Boulder Assistant Professor Nikolaus Correll likes to think in multiples. If one robot can accomplish a singular task, think how much more could be accomplished if you had hundreds of them.
Correll and his computer science research team, including research associate Dustin Reishus and professional research assistant Nick Farrow, have developed a basic robotic building block, which he hopes to reproduce in large quantities to develop increasingly complex systems.
Recently the team created a swarm of 20 robots, each the size of a pingpong ball, which they call “droplets.” When the droplets swarm together, Correll said, they form a “liquid that thinks.”
To accelerate the pace of innovation, he has created a lab where students can explore and develop new applications of robotics with basic, inexpensive tools.
Similar to the fictional “nanomorphs” depicted in the “Terminator” films, large swarms of intelligent robotic devices could be used for a range of tasks. Swarms of robots could be unleashed to contain an oil spill or to self-assemble into a piece of hardware after being launched separately into space, Correll said.
Correll plans to use the droplets to demonstrate self-assembly and swarm-intelligent behaviors such as pattern recognition, sensor-based motion and adaptive shape change. These behaviors could then be transferred to large swarms for water- or air-based tasks.
Correll hopes to create a design methodology for aggregating the droplets into more complex behaviors such as assembling parts of a large space telescope or an aircraft.
In the fall, Correll received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development award known as “CAREER.” In addition, he has received support from NSF’s Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research program, as well as NASA and the U.S. Air Force.
He also is continuing work on robotic garden technology he developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009. Correll has been working with Joseph Tanner in CU-Boulder’s aerospace engineering sciences department to further develop the technology, involving autonomous sensors and robots that can tend gardens, in conjunction with a model of a long-term space habitat being built by students.
Correll says there is virtually no limit to what might be created through distributed intelligence systems.
“Every living organism is made from a swarm of collaborating cells,” he said. “Perhaps some day, our swarms will colonize space where they will assemble habitats and lush gardens for future space explorers.”
For a short video of Correll’s team developing swarm droplets visit http://www.colorado.edu/news/multimedia/researchers-creating-team-tiny-robots. For more information about CU-Boulder’s computer science department visit http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/academics/degree/computer-science.
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