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No energy technology is more tantalizing than fusion, but no energy technology has proved more disappointing. So how has a fusion company in Southern California raised nearly half a billion dollars from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Paul Allen? Does it actually see a way to build a reactor that could generate vast amounts of clean power, even while other fusion projects have perpetually remained 20 years away from reality? In search of the answers, I visited the headquarters of Tri Alpha Energy in the spring. The coastal fog was lifting from the rolling hills in Foothill Ranch as...

KT Boundary and Iridium Ever dreamt of hiking over the landscape and finding a mineral vein rich with ores, perhaps even silver or gold glittering in the sunshine, like in the Hand of Faith vein in Australia? How about joining the gold rush fever—without trekking up the Chilkoot Pass as thousands of prospectors did well over 100 years ago? The chances of finding a “mother lode” are slim, even when trying hard. They are similar to winning the jackpot in a big lottery. But don’t give up just yet; there is a new “horizon” for your exploration activity—the new frontiers...

** not to be republished without donation to FR and appropriate credit to author ** The author is in fact a climate scientist of a sort, although not of the modern variety or persuasion. I graduated in 1971 with a degree in geography specializing in climatology. That's what it took back then to enter the field of climate science. As it happens, I have taken a strong interest in meteorology and forecasting and have become a recognized forecaster over the many years since that education, but almost everything I learned about forecasting was among actual meteorologists at private weather companies....

I now Understand... What’s so enticing about the (just-around-the corner) self-driving cars? In view of my slightly advanced age, I may be forgiven to be a bit slow in learning—but now I understand: It’s all about what happens in the back seat! Special: Do You Like Entering Contests & Big Prize Sweepstakes? As the Globe and Mail reports, Kirk, of the Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence, told the Canadian Press on Monday that “… once computers are doing the driving, there will be a lot more sex in cars.” Another (biased ?) pundit, Sergio Marchionne, is claimed to have...

It's hard to imagine contemporary society without Oedipus complexes, defence mechanisms, Freudian slips, and the psychiatrist's couch. But Catholic, Dutch psychologist Gerard van den Aardweg is not cracking the champagne on Sigmund Freud's 150th birthday. [This is Freud's 160th.] MercatorNet interviews Dr. Van den Aardweg on the impact of Freudian theories on modern psychology and views on sexuality. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was born on May 6, 1856, 150 years ago. In New York, it was Sigmund Freud Day; in Austria, it was Sigmund Freud Year. For his supporters, the 20th century was the Sigmund Freud Century....

Asperger's syndrome. A myth. An invention by government to punish its victims for government's failures. This is because the government is supposed to always be right to the left. But far from it the government even in its efforts to conceal its failings and the failings of socialism and public education continues to fail and continues to injure innocent people in the name of the greater good. Instead of punishing bullies, instead of allowing educational alternatives, the government has invented a phony and dubious illness called Asperger's syndrome to punish the victims of bullying so our lazy teachers and...

For those of us who remember bits and pieces of Greek mythology, or who play lots of role playing video games, a Chimera was a monstrous hybrid creature often depicted as part lion, part goat, and part snake. In today’s world however Chimeras are very real and in this writer’s humble opinion, very disturbing. The word Chimera today refers most often to animals that are gene spliced with other animals creating a kind of hybrid species. As if this attempt at playing God isn’t alarming enough, human cells are being added to pigs, sheep, goats, mice, and other animals that...

A groundbreaking trial to see if it is possible to regenerate the brains of dead people, has won approval from health watchdogs. A biotech company in the US has been granted ethical permission to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead from a traumatic brain injury, to test whether parts of their central nervous system can be brought back to life. Scientists will use a combination of therapies, which include injecting the brain with stem cells and a cocktail of peptides, as well as deploying lasers and nerve stimulation techniques which have been shown to bring patients out...

An impressive array of brainpower —“Fat? Blame your genes, say doctors” —“Overweight? Maybe you really can blame your genes” —“Blame your genes for obesity” Headlines such as these have become a staple of science and health journalism. Are they right? Are obese people really helpless victims of their genes? Let us begin by distinguishing between “monogenic” obesity and what scientists call “common” obesity. Monogenic obesity, as the name implies, is caused by a mutation in a single gene, which is inherited in a Mendelian fashion, just as conditions such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are. In the case of...

For the New Criterion, Ben Weingarten, commentator and Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media sits down with Mark Steyn, international bestselling author, political pundit, cultural critic and hardened climate change dissenter Mark Steyn for an in-depth interview. During their discussion, Weingarten and Steyn discuss the chilling of free speech by the climate alarmists and their enablers in the political and legal system, the stakes of the defamation suit filed against Steyn by climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann over a critical blog post, why it is the scientific community that resembles a racket rather than demonized “Big Oil,” the misogyny...

In the face of a monolithically climate alarmist academia, media and government, several courageous individuals are working to unsettle the purportedly “settled science” of climate change, arguing that carbon dioxide atmospheric enrichment provides manifold benefits for mankind, that flawed economic models are being used to justify anti-capitalist and destructive public policies, that mild warming of the planet ought to be celebrated and fighting back courageously against those who wish to chill free speech by using the law to litigate science. This is their story. Featured speakers include Mark Steyn, international bestselling author and commentator, Dr. Craig Idso, Founder Former President...

Researchers from the Cybernetics Department of the Military University of Technology in Warsaw and the Optoelectronics Department of the Silesian University of Technology have been using 3D printed heart models for research purposes. 3D printing, like any burgeoning area of technology, has both its champions and its skeptics. But whatever one’s position on the industry as a whole, there is one area in which its usefulness is rarely doubted: medicine. Over the last few years, additive manufacturing has been used by medical professionals and researchers to create a variety of models, surgical guides, and bioprinted body parts, contributing to the...

Thirty-five dollars: As I write, that’s the price for a barrel of oil. We’re extracting like crazy and burning like there’s no tomorrow, for real, pumping carbon dioxide into the air we all share. Meanwhile, very few pumps are turning a profit. Ten thousand dollars: that’s what I would have offered a climate change denier pundit, who prefers to be called a climate change “doubter.” I was ready to pay Marc Morano $10,000 if 2016 turns out not to be one of the 10 hottest years ever recorded. He didn’t take the bet, because 2016 will indeed be among the...

It takes a bold person to declare that interstellar travel is now within our grasp. Physicist Stephen Hawking has shown that he is just that, taking part in the Breakthrough Starshot initiative. The project has announced a $100m research programme to investigate the technology of using light to propel spacecraft out of the solar system to explore neighbouring stars. For the first time in human history, interstellar travel is a realistic and achievable aspiration, and not just the playground of science fiction. So what has changed that makes interstellar travel achievable? First of all, clear expectations. This is not about...

Jacki is joined by Dr. David Grantham, senior research fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis to discuss how oil and antiquities from terrorist networks has made its way to America and what we can do to stop it. Jacki also speaks with Brendan Williams to talk about the importance of energy issues in the upcoming Presidential election. Lastly Jacki is joined by Doug Domenech, director of the Fueling Freedom Project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, to talk about the history of Earth Day.

Jacki Talks With Dr. Grantham About How ISIS Oil Has Made Its Way To the USA

THE JACKI DAILY Show! Listen live at 2PM Eastern! The host of the Jacki Daily show has had an impressive career in energy, law, and politics.Most recently, Jacki served as General Counsel to an engineering firm specializing in energy, national security and environmental cleanup. Previously, she served many years as legal counsel on Capitol Hill to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and the former Ranking Member of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, advising on the oversight of federal agencies. Prior to her career in Washington, she worked as a corporate litigator, and as an Assistant Vice...

Crystal balls at the South Pole. (Photo: Eli Duke/CC BY-SA 2.0)It sounds like the premise for a riddle: At the South Pole are two crystal balls that provides unfailingly accurate information—not about the future, but about the past. This is no trick. It's just meteorology. The dual glass spheres at the South Pole are Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorders, orbs that capture the number of hours of direct sunlight each day, as well as its intensity.Sunshine recorders first came about in the 1850s, thanks to John Francis Campbell—the Campbell in Campbell-Stokes. Around 1853, Campbell, a Scottish author who focused on Celtic folklore, developed a desire to quantify...

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- Northeastern University will create a consortium of private companies and universities to develop smart sensors and other nanomaterials, or extremely small components that are built by “nanoscale” printing processes. Northeastern President Joseph Aoun announced the plan Tuesday at the university’s Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security on its Burlington campus. The consortium will be housed there, as well as at Tufts University and University of Massachusetts Boston. Nanomaterials are crucial to the so-called “Internet of Things,” the emerging network of objects that can collect and share data. Possible commercial applications could include highly precise monitoring of premature...

@JackiDailyShow talks with Marc Morano of @ClimateDepot discusses his movie Climate Hustle @climate_hustle. https://soundcloud.com/jacki-daily/jacki-talks-with-marc-morano-about-the-movie-climate-hustle