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Three Days left to vote for the Conrad Awards

Only THREE Days left to vote for the Spirit of Innovation Awards! Have you voted yet? Check out www.conradawards.org for more information on all of the teams, their products, and to submit your vote! For the past week and a half I have posted different videos from the different divisions. The three divisions are Aerospace, Renewable/Green and Space Nutrition. Today, Tomorrow and Friday (the last day to vote) I will have videos that go with the finalists in each division.Here are the teams that are the Aerospace Finalists. Make sure you go and VOTE (Click on the big red button to vote). You…

You CAN do the Rubik's Cube! Have you signed up yet?

Deadline for the tournament sign up is April 30, 2010 so there is still a little bit of time to sign up for the Rubik's cube tournament! Are you a teacher and looking to incorporate the Rubik's cube contest into your teaching lessons? There is an orientation workshop on April 10th at the National Electronics Museum (1745 West Nursery Road, Linthicum Hts, MD 21090-2906) where we will show you how to solve the Rubik's Cube and you will hear from Teachers and Educators who already use the Rubik's Cube in their classroom. To sign up for this workshop, simply state so on the tournament…

A Shout Out to Scientific Blogging 2.0!

A big shout out to Scientific Blogging 2.0 who is currently covering the AAAS convention in San Diego, CA. We get a little excited around here when we start seeing people talking about the festival mainly because WE are so excited about the festival. Here is an excerpt from Hank Campbell's post referencing the USA Science and Engineering Festival. "...[Aimee Stern] was off to meet Larry Bock, the gent who is putting on the USA Science & Engineering Festival, and biology legend Francis Collins at the Pancake House, the unofficial de facto offsite meeting spot of the convention, it seems…

Losing the sense of the argument

I think we can all already see the defense the right wing is throwing up to rationalize Sarah Palin's inane remarks about "fruit fly research in Paris, France": she wasn't disparaging all research into fruit flies, but only one specific earmark for studying agricultural pests. Baloney. The context of that comment was that she was claiming research had "little or nothing to do with the public good", and she brought up these seemingly trivial little animals and a place the right wing despises as dogwhistles to her hoople-headed fans. Claiming now that she was making an informed criticism of a…

Sarah Palin: Ignorant and anti-science

This is too much. Sarah Palin gave a policy speech today in which she claimed that she wanted more support for children with disabilities, more tools to test for disorders, and while also decrying the expense of scientific research. Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You've heard about some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not. I am appalled. This idiot woman, this blind,…

Afterthoughts on the Life Sciences Summit

This morning I attended the Fifth Annual WBBA Governor's Life Sciences Summit. The breakfast was great; the talks were okay.  I do enjoy the stories about people who's lives were saved because of biotechnology and I agree that the focus of the summit, research and discovery are important, but I can't help thinking about the missing piece. For the past ten years, I've been involved in a national experiment to help build an educated workforce for biotechnology. Through that time, I've learned about one glaring area where Washington state is missing out. There's one word for the missing piece.…

Support children, support the DREAM Act

A few weeks ago I heard a story from a friend in Oklahoma. She works with high school science teachers, helping them learn how to add biotechnology to their courses. One teacher, in particular, has taken the new science activities to heart. Her students did so well, they won a science competition and were asked to fly somewhere to accept the prize. For many of those students, this would be their first trip on an airplane and their first trip outside of rural Oklahoma. It was pretty exciting! But there were some unexpected problems. Some of these children were illegal. Just like the…

Middle School Essay Contest 2006-2007

How does biomedical research impact you? Have you (or has someone in your family) benefited from vaccinations, pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, surgery, or transplants? How does biomedical research affect the health of your dog, cat, or other pet? How might biomedical research touch your life in the future? Do you know any middle school students who are interested in the life sciences? If they can write an essay, they might be able to win a prize. If you know any middle school students or teachers in Washington, Idaho, Montana, or Oregon, let them know about the NWABR middle school…

Hang on, just let me make a quick clone fall

I mean phone call. Because, if I thought he remembered me, I would call and say "thank you." Because of the time I spent in his lab, I know that cloning started long before Dolly. The first vertebrate animal was cloned over 50 years ago. And it wasn't a sheep. Raising Rana pipiens Several years ago, I had the good fortune to work as a student intern for one of the kings of cloning, Robert McKinnell, now an emeritus professor in the Cell Biology and Genetics Department at the University of Minnesota. Reminiscing on history a bit, reminds me how grateful I am that he gave me the chance to…

Ebola: Horror and Hope for a Cure

As an unprecedented outbreak of Ebola crosses borders in West Africa, people are asking new questions about the virus and its potential to turn into a global pandemic (hint: it's not gonna happen). Greg Laden writes "The disease is too hot to not burn itself out, and it has no human reservoir. Ebola accidentally broke into the human population earlier this year or late last year." The current numbers from the WHO suggest 1800 confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola so far with a mortality rate edging down toward 55%. Last week some in the U.S. objected to bringing two American patients back…

The Dead Planet

Ethan Siegel calls Mars "the obvious first step in our journey to the stars" and "part of our dreams for reaching out into the Universe." Last year thousands of people applied to join Mars One, a proposed colonization effort slash reality show that plans to put humans on the red planet in 2023. But unless Mars One wants to achieve ratings by broadcasting the death of its crew, it may want to cool its jets. Ethan says that without some heretofore unknown, top secret-technology, there's no hope for safely landing a capsule-full of "sensitive meatbags" (aka bachelors 1 through 3) on the surface…

Bjørn Lomborg Switches Sides

Last week, "The Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjørn Lomborg announced that he was skeptical no more. Timed with the release of his new book "Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits" Lomborg now says that the world needs an investment of $100 Billion a year to fight global warming. Lomborg denies this is a total reversal of his position, considering he never denied the reality of climate change, just the severity of its impacts and cost-effectiveness of attempts to mitigate it. Nevertheless, Lomborg's switching sides has made headlines, though Class M's James Hrynyshyn…

Farewell to Effect Measure, Hello to The Pump Handle

As one clever commenter at Effect Measure's farewell post observed, the past tense of Revere is "Revered." And while we're sad to see one of the longest running ScienceBloggers go, Revere's departure is matched with the arrival of The Pump Handle, fantastic public health group blog, principally maintained by George Washington University's Liz Borkowski and Celeste Monforton. Their timing is impeccable; as another new recruit has noted, the growing environmental disaster in the gulf coast is also a public health disaster, with a toxic stew of oil and clean-up chemicals coming in contact with…

Tomorrow, go vote and be prepared!

Bring your cell-phone with you (if you have one). Bring your camera (if you have one). Bring family or friends along to serve as each others' witnesses in case something happens. And if you notice anything wrong with the way elections are going or your vote is counted? What do you do? You need to respond immediately. Take a picture or a movie of the offense (discreetly if deemed neccessary). Then, you need to respond loudly enough that everyone in the building hears about it. Immediately complain to the election officials and do not back down until the problem is resolved. Inform…

International Carnival of Pozitivities - call for submissions

The fifth edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities will appear right here on this blog on November 10th, 2006. This is what Ron Hudson, the founder of the carnival wrote: One of the aims of the ICP is to present a true picture of what it is like to live with HIV/AIDS in today's political and social climate in a way that everyday people can understand the disease. We hope to reopen dialogue about the disease, to demystify it, to destigmatize it and to prevent its future spread through education. In the era of a US administration that funds programs based upon religious principles…

Anton Zuiker's article in today's N&O

Anton Zuiker got a nice article (about blogging and the local blogging community) published in Raleigh News & Observer. The article is here and Anton's personal version can be found here. Smartly, the article contains the URL of Blogtogether, so perhaps people will see it and register for the Science Blogging Conference or show up at the next meetup. Oh, while there, you can also see two additional pictures of me from ConvergeSouth that Anton took - one with Elizabeth Edwards and the other with Maryam Scoble. Addendum: Since I did not get my hardcopy of N&O (yet, I will soon), I did…

Let them be wild!

Mark Pruett wrote something I heartily agree with: Raise children with a wild streak: A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics stresses the importance of childhood playtime. It reinforces my own belief that many young adults have been cheated by years of excessive schoolwork and teamwork, too many extracurricular activities, and a straitjacketed "just say no to anything risky" upbringing. I am convinced that modern childhood generally does not build enough independence and thirst for knowledge. --------------snip--------------- Is this someone that I'd be excited to have in my…

I dreamed I was memed

And I was. It was the dreaded Seven Random and Weird things meme! It's on the loose and I've been tagged. The rules are: Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. 1. Who tagged me? Greg Laden of the kingdom of Linux. 2. 7 random or weird things about me. Random thing #1: I unconsciously memorize song lyrics and they pop into my head at random times.…

Let's not forget the pets!

Lots of new and curious gift selections are available this year for those of you who had a dog or know a dog owner. All kinds of interesting doggie presents are showing up, like doggie DNA tests and special nutrigenomic doggy diets. And of course, nothing tops the gift of fake testicles for the dog who's never quite recovered from the big operation. It's true, the Bleiman brothers were the first to bring up the idea of presents for pets by suggesting the kitty toilet trainer as a holiday gift. Really, though, is that kind of gift that you give to the cat? or the owner? I just don't think…

Gadget Lust

It was only a couple of weeks ago but it seems like years. I had spent a month learning how to use most of the features on my shiny new phone and we were in Alaska using Google maps to find our way around Fairbanks. My thumbs were getting sore, but so what? I could a give a slide show on my phone, I could read my Gmail messages, and we could find a friend's house in the Google map satellite view and amaze our older relatives with the thrill of technology. I'm not even a materialistic, gadgety sort of person, but I was in love. And now, well, maybe you guessed it. tags: chromatograms,…

Using Bioinformatics to Study Evolution: reading assignments

The first research assignment for our Alaska NSF Chautauqua course has been posted. Your task is to find a wound-inducible plant gene, learn something about it, and post a description in the comment section. We've already had one excellent answer, but I know there are at least 54 wound-inducible genes, so I expect to see more. Once we get our genes in order (and possibly before), we'll talk more about designing an experiment for detecting gene expression. In the meantime, I have some pre-course reading assignments to help you prepare. tags: plants, Alaska, NSF Chautauqua courses,…

A great interview with Joe Felsenstein

If you've ever looked at an evolutionary tree, contemplated phylogeny, cladistics, or the like, you're probably aware that Joe Felsenstein is one of the leaders of the pack. And you will certainly enjoy, this interview that Blind Scientist has posted. I wouldn't advise reading the interview to learn about doing phylogenetics, but you will learn a bit about the social anthropology of the field. Felsenstein does a wonderful job of supplying historical context to phylogenetic arguments and filling in the missing details. A phylogenetic tree is a kind of model or hypothesis that's put forth…

Doing the right thing isn't always enough

Decan Butler, the Reveres, and Nature have written that verdict is in. The scientific evidence has been shunted aside. The nurses and doctor who traveled to Tripoli on a humanitarian mission have been sentenced to death. There is still a chance, but it seems to be slim. Two articles in Nature, with free access (I think) discuss the case and present some additional shocking news. To quote the main article (Europe condemns Libyan trial verdict): The six medical workers were sentenced to death on 19 December by the Benghazi Criminal Court for deliberately infecting more than 400 children…

Tripoli 6: turning the pages in the final chapter?

As Declan Butler reports on his blog, the Tripoli 6 case is reaching its final phase. To summarize briefly, The Tripoli 6 are five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor who have been imprisoned in Libya for 7 years and then condemned to death by firing squad on charges they deliberately infected some four hundred or more children with HIV in the hospital in Bengazi. Scientific work later demonstrated they could not have been the source of the infection. You can find previous posts we did on this here. On December 19 a new trial, called as a result of an appeal to the Libyan Supreme…

Let's just believe everything

We all know it is possible for people to hold two contradictory ideas in their head at the same time. Evolution and creationism are a case in point. Apparently in a recent USAToday/Gallup Poll, a majority of my fellow citizens responded they believe both are likely explanations for life on earth. Two-thirds in the poll said creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true. More than half, 53%, said evolution, the idea that humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, is definitely or…

The military and pandemic flu

The US military didn't plan for the aftermath of Iraq. You know, controlling the civilian population? So they've learned their lesson. You gotta plan for it: The US military has begun to plan for a possible avian flu pandemic that could kill as many as three million people in the United States in as little as six weeks, a Pentagon planning document said. The Defense Department's "Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza," which was posted Wednesday on a Pentagon website, lays out guidelines and planning assumptions for US military services and combatant commands. Possible scenarios include…

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: dog is god spelled backwards

I don't believe in God, but I think I know how God would feel if he or she or it or they actually existed. Because we have a dog. Having a dog is like having your own small, pious believer. Unconditional love. Total dependence. True, obedience is just fair, but our dog worships us no matter how we treat her. And we treat her disgracefully -- that is, better than we treat our fellow humans. Mrs. R., of course, understands the pooch better than I do because it's "her" dog and if you ask Mrs. R. the best dog in the world: Pet owners notoriously make excuses for their own animal's bad behaviour…

More evidence of a public health leadership void

The American Public Health Association is the organizational voice of American public health. I've been a member for almost 40 years and served on its Governing Council and on one of its top policy boards. Admittedly I've not been very active for the last number of years, especially as APHA has become neutered and politically marginalized. But I have a soft spot in my heart for it and its tens of thousands of members, mostly dedicated, hardworking and underpaid public sector professionals. So it pains me to say their just announced pandemic flu "prescription" is a prescription for an obsolete…

Because a great country deserves great (big) dogs

We have a lap dog. She is bred to be a companion to people and she excels at it. We were going to name her "EPA" after her function (lapdog), but chose a more human name instead. After all, she's a dog. Despite the fact that she doesn't get much exercise, she isn't fat. But obesity is a problem for dogs, too, it seems. So a drug for obesity in dogs is a potential ATM. Nobody sees an ATM like Big Pharma. And their lapdog, the FDA. A drug specifically designed to treat canine obesity has been approved for the first time by the US Food and Drug Administration. The drug's developer, New York-…

A few brain cells here, a few brain cells there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real . . .

Mercury is a neurotoxin. Neurotoxins are bad for developing nervous systems. Therefore . . . Five "hotspots" of mercury contamination posing a risk to human health have been found in the eastern states of the US and eastern provinces of Canada. Average mercury concentrations in many of the region's freshwater fish exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recommended level for safe consumption by up to 20 times. [snip] The EPA safety limit for the consumption of mercury is 0.3 parts per million, yet perch in some locations contained a concentration of about 5 parts per million…

Quotes Of The Day - Tesla

Today's Quotes of the Day: Nikola Tesla was born at Smiljan in the Lika region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an area now in Croatia. After studying electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic at Graz, Austria he became the chief electrician at the phone company in Budapest, then worked for Continental Edison at Paris. His supervisor there gave him a letter of recommendation which Tesla presented to Thomas Edison in 1884, the letter said only "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." When Edison failed to honor a promised incentive award, Tesla left…

Teaching Update

This Monday night I taught lecture #7 of the 8-week Intro Biology course (adult education at a community college). First, I gave them their Exam #2 (on Diversity, see my lecture notes on those topics here, here and here). The flat distribution of the first exam has now turned bimodal: some students are making big improvements and I will probably end with a nice cluster of As and Bs, while other students are falling and may end up with a few Ds and Fs, with nobody left in-between. Then, I continued with the physiology topics. The week before, I covered nervous, sensory, endocrine and…

Swine flu: hospital surveillance data

Influenza surveillance in the US has at least five component parts (depending on how you count it is as many as seven). We discussed the virologic surveillance system in another post. CDC has two surveillance sub-systems that look at hospitalized cases with laboratory confirmed influenza, the New Vaccine Surveillance Network (NVSN) and the Emerging Infections Program (EIP). The NVSN is confined to cases in children less than five years old, while the EIP covers all ages. Let's take a look at the most recent EIP data. EIP doesn't cover the entire country. Instead it collects data from 60…

Tropical depressions as a cause of poisoning

We don't usually think of power outages as an important cause of poisoning but it is. Electrical power has become such a necessary part of basic needs -- think of light at night and refrigeration -- that if it is interrupted for more than a few hours people will turn to gasoline powered generators to provide it. Apparently, though, the fridge and the light bulb are not the only necessities. Experience with recent disasters is revealing that people have new kinds of imperatives: Hours after Hurricane Ike roared ashore in Texas, more than two million homes were without power, which left some…

Swine flu contaminated with spam

If you've ever wondered how spammers got your email address, the answer might be that you gave it to them by following a link you thought had important or interesting information. We all know the kind of "interesting" information people will follow. Sex is the biggest business on the internet. But spammers have also learned that breaking news events can also be a lure, especially if there is public anxiety and uncertainty. About things like swine flu: About five per cent of global spam volume mentions 'swine flu' to trick people into opening the e-mail message, say security experts. As the…

Disappointment

It was not an auspicious start to the day. Before we could even leave for my son's commencement at UW Madison, we had to clear the 6"-8" of snow that had fallen overnight from our driveway. Then we had to flounder through unplowed roads to the highway. Then we discovered near-blizzard conditions of blowing snow on the road, but we persevered. We told ourselves that it would get better the farther east we went — Minneapolis always has wimpier weather than we do. Then we got to the freeway…and it got worse. The roads were icy and slick, everyone was limping along at half the speed limit (except…

"One donut, decaf, no glaze, no powdered sugar"

About a year and half ago, in a post entitled "One donut, black", I noted the claim of a food company that it would soon be able to sell donuts spiked with caffeine. I wasn't sure I would ever see such a thing, but I was too skeptical. Not only is that company still on track with its product, but another company has now announced its intention to put caffeine into bakery goods. All for our benefit, of course: After announcing the development of a proprietary way to encapsulate caffeine for foods using vegetable-derived lipids last year, the company has worked in collaboration with bakery…

ScienceOnline2010 - Friday Tours

We are in the final stretch - it is getting really exciting! I'll introduce a few more registrants tomorrow (lucky waitlisters - there were a couple of cancellations this week), but today I'd like to remind you, if you are registered for the conference, to add your name (by editing the appropriate wiki page) to one of the Friday Tours. Coffee Cupping at Counter Culture Coffee It's cold in the morning, and nothing helps better than the smell of fresh, hot coffee. And learning some science of coffee: from how it is grown to how it gets to the final consumer. If you are interested in this tour…

Another edition of stupid creationist questions

I know it's a teaching cliche that there is no such thing as a stupid question…but it's not true. There really are stupid questions. So moms are everywhere in nature. Females often go to great lengths to feed, save, and protect their young. Many construct homes and shelters...(all without knowing/understanding she's even pregnant) and do so with great care and attention to detail. So I've got two questions about this: 1) What is the evolutionary advantage of mothers doing everything they can to feed/protect their young? And remember, mothers often give food to their young that they might…

And South Carolina must be the most blessed state in the whole blessed union

Speaking of too incredibly stupid to be believed, here's a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of the fine state of South Carolina. "I think everything ought to be taught ... and let people decide for themselves. There is no science to support trans-species changes, in other words, a monkey becoming a man," the Republican said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "A bunch of amoebas didn't get together and design all this," Jordan said, referring to the human body. "We'd be operating on people ... looking at their hearts, their liver and their lungs, I'd tell the techs, 'Can you…

Bloody, stupid, criminal, insane. And indefensible.

War's travel companion, Disease, is stalking Baghdad. This disease, cholera, is totally preventable and easily treatable under ordinary circumstances. Of course these aren't ordinary circumstances. Thanks to the invasion and the subsequent US occupation and the resistance to it there has been a total breakdown in civil order. The result is the kind of epidemic disease one associates with Victorian London or mid-19th century America, not a 21st century (once) developed country: A cholera epidemic in northern Iraq has infected approximately 7,000 people and could reach Baghdad within weeks as…

The wild bird conundrum

What seemed pretty obvious at first, that wild birds could be and were long distance carriers of H5N1 is, like the birds themselves, still up in the air. The problem is that existing data on migrating wild birds has failed to show convincing evidence they are infected: FAO officials last year voiced concerns that bird migration patterns might have spread disease Asia and Europe to Africa. But as elsewhere in the world, very few cases have been found among wild birds in Africa. The Wildlife Conservation Society Field Veterinary Program Director William Karesh is among those attending the…

My Picks From ScienceDaily

High Melatonin Content Can Help Delay Aging, Mouse Study Suggests: A study carried out by researchers from the University of Granada's Institute of Biotechnology shows that consuming melatonin neutralizes oxidative damage and delays the neurodegenerative process of aging. In this study researchers used normal and genetically-modified mice which were subjected to accelerated cell aging. Researchers believe their results can also be applied to humans. Hibernating Bears Conserve More Muscle Strength Than Humans On Bed Rest Do: A new study in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology…

A Circadian Clock that works in a test-tube explained

One of the big questions in circadian research is how does the transcription/translation feedback loop manage to get stretched to such a long time-frame: 24 hours. If one took into account the normal dynamics of transcription and translation, the cycle would last a couple of hours at best. The usual answer is that, probably, interactions with a variety of other cellular components slows down the cycle. And this may be correct in Eukaryotes, but a paper came out a couple of years ago showing that placing three cyanobacterial clock genes and some ATP into a test-tube results in a 24-hour…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Crows Can Recognize The Calls Of Relatives: Most of us would know our mother's voice on the phone from the first syllable uttered. A recent Cornell study suggests that crows also can recognize the voices of their relatives. By recording and analyzing the alarm caws of American crows, Jessica Yorzinski '05 found seven subtle acoustic differences in features that differed among individuals -- differences that the crows could potentially use to recognize one another's calls. She also found that female crows had higher-pitched calls than males. Yorzinski is now a graduate student at the…

Chew on this for the afternoon

Need something to talk about while I'm on the road? I think Atrios's post on positive things for progressive bloggers to advocate (which is also echoed by Drum) is an excellent starting point. These are good things that set us apart from them; these are the kinds of ideas we should be talking about. Any right wing trolls want to oppose any of these proposals? Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration Repeal the estate tax repeal Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one) Increase CAFE standards.…

New local independent paper - introducing Carrboro Citizen

There used to be two big independent papers in the Triangle: Spectator and Independent. The former was full of information about local events, movies, restaurants. The latter had some of the best political and social writing anywhere. Then, several years ago, the two papers fused into one and Independent Weekly was born, putting together the best of both worlds. It is an indispensable weekly read for the Triangle folks. Chapel Hill has its own local indy paper - the Daily Tar Heel (which I should get into the habit of getting regularly). Now, Carrboro is getting its own - the Carrboro…

History Lessons Forgotten

They are the last ones who should be playing with this fire: Croatia probes Hitler likeness, jokes on sugar packets: Small packets of sugar bearing the likeness of Adolf Hitler and carrying Holocaust jokes have been found in some cafes in Croatia, prompting an investigation, the office of the state prosecutor said on Monday. "The local district attorney in (the eastern town of) Pozega has opened an investigation and is currently looking at the matter," said Martina Mihordin. The Novi List daily newspaper reported that officials at a small factory in Pozega have confirmed the sugar packs were…

Edwards' Plan To End The War In Iraq

Last week, John Edwards put forward his healthcare plan which got pretty positive reviews - not an all-out single-payer system, but a good step in the right direction, pitting private and state providers in direct competition with each other (and since state can provide better care more efficiently for less money than any business, in the long run it should become popular enough to displace private health insurance from all but the richest people's plans) which should reduce the cost of healthcare over time. Unfortunately, the Right-wing attack on bloggers on the matter of science and…

How to build a smart, safe car

This (from March 09, 2006) was a precursor to this... -------------------------------------------- Every now and then I see articles about the "future of the car", like this one. I am trying to figure out what is so smart about the mindset of the people who think these things up. Leaving comfort, speed, entertainment, information, fuel efficiency and environmental impact aside and just focusing on safety, what are these "futurists" thinking? They have two general ways of thinking about this. The first is: make the car bigger, heavier and built of stronger metarials so that it can withstand…