According to PC World benchmarks, the fastest Windows Vista notebook they they've ever tested is the MacBook Pro from Apple.
This 17″ Apple notebook is not just the fastest Vista computer, it is also the lightest 17-inch notebook available at 6.6 pounds and just 1 inch thick. Wish there was a Tablet version of the MacBook.
Last year, Gearlog dubbed Apple MacBook Pro as the fastest Windows XP Core Duo notebook in the market. Thanks David.
A novel MIT study concludes that increasing levels of ozone due to the growing use of fossil fuels will damage global vegetation, resulting in serious costs to the world's economy.
The analysis, reported in the November issue of Energy Policy, focused on how three environmental changes (increases in temperature, carbon dioxide and ozone) associated with human activity will affect crops, pastures and forests.
The research shows that increases in temperature and in carbon dioxide may actually benefit vegetation, especially in northern temperate regions. However, those benefits may be more than offset by the detrimental effects of increases in ozone, notably on crops. Ozone is a form of oxygen that is an atmospheric pollutant at ground level.
The economic cost of the damage will be moderated by changes in land use and by agricultural trade, with some regions more able to adapt than others. But the overall economic consequences will be considerable. According to the analysis, if nothing is done, by 2100 the global value of crop production will fall by 10 to 12 percent.
"Even assuming that best-practice technology for controlling ozone is adopted worldwide, we see rapidly rising ozone concentrations in the coming decades," said John M. Reilly, associate director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. "That result is both surprising and worrisome."
While others have looked at how changes in climate and in carbon dioxide concentrations may affect vegetation, Reilly and colleagues added to that mix changes in tropospheric ozone. Moreover, they looked at the combined impact of all three environmental "stressors" at once. (Changes in ecosystems and human health and other impacts of potential concern are outside the scope of this study.)
They performed their analysis using the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, which combines linked state-of-the-art economic, climate and agricultural computer models to project emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone precursors based on human activity and natural systems.
Results for the impacts of climate change and rising carbon dioxide concentrations (assuming business as usual, with no emissions restrictions) brought few surprises. For example, the estimated carbon dioxide and temperature increases would benefit vegetation in much of the world.
The effects of ozone are decidedly different.
Without emissions restrictions, growing fuel combustion worldwide will push global average ozone up 50 percent by 2100. That increase will have a disproportionately large impact on vegetation because ozone concentrations in many locations will rise above the critical level where adverse effects are observed in plants and ecosystems.
Crops are hardest hit. Model predictions show that ozone levels tend to be highest in regions where crops are grown. In addition, crops are particularly sensitive to ozone, in part because they are fertilized. "When crops are fertilized, their stomata open up, and they suck in more air. And the more air they suck in, the more ozone damage occurs," said Reilly. "It's a little like going out and exercising really hard on a high-ozone day."
What is the net effect of the three environmental changes? Without emissions restrictions, yields from forests and pastures decline slightly or even increase because of the climate and carbon dioxide effects. But crop yields fall by nearly 40 percent worldwide.
However, those yield losses do not translate directly into economic losses. According to the economic model, the world adapts by allocating more land to crops. That adaptation, however, comes at a cost. The use of additional resources brings a global economic loss of 10-12 percent of the total value of crop production.
Global estimates do not tell the whole story, however, as regional impacts vary significantly.
For example, northern temperate regions generally benefit from climate change because higher temperatures extend their growing season. However, the crop losses associated with high ozone concentrations will be significant. In contrast, the tropics, already warm, do not benefit from further warming, but they are not as hard hit by ozone damage because ozone-precursor emissions are lower in the tropics.
The net result: regions such as the United States, China and Europe would need to import food, and supplying those imports would be a benefit to tropical countries.
Reilly warns that the study's climate projections may be overly optimistic. The researchers are now incorporating a more realistic climate simulation into their analysis.
Reilly's colleagues are from MIT and the Marine Biological Laboratory. The research was supported by the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
It is part of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), an Institute-wide initiative designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the challenges of the future. MITEI includes research, education, campus energy management and outreach activities, an interdisciplinary approach that covers all areas of energy supply and demand, security and environmental impact.
The verdict: It works flawlessly.
The performance: Like we said, the Eye-Fi works flawlessly. Setup takes roughly five minutes (you program the card through your computer and bundled card reader). From there, you simply snap pics in the range of your router, and chances are, by the time you go back to your computer, the pictures will be viewable. If your router dies, you turn off your camera, or even if you take out the card and put it back in, the photos will upload when you get things sorted out again. It's actually a normal 2GB memory card underneath all of the other functionality and can work as such.
The catch: We figured it must drain more battery—but apparently in-camera SD power standards dictate that this extra consumed power needs to be minimal, to the level of not being noticeable to the end user. Unfortunately, the product doesn't support hotspots.
The price: $100
The verdict Part II: Sure, the Eye-Fi is basically a cradle replacement. But snapping photos and automatically uploading them in real time to share is truly fantastic, especially when the images can be better than one's camera phone. And the entire product experience is built with simplicity. If you can get over the price and are sick of cords, we strongly recommend the purchase. Available now. [eye-fi]
The effects of climate change are turning the outlook for long-term food production into an increasingly dire one, according to an MIT study released this week and a report delivered last week by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Food.
UN expert Jean Ziegler is calling for a five-year global moratorium on converting agricultural land into biofuel crop acreage. The use of food crops for production of biofuels, notably corn, he argues, has sent food prices rocketing in a world where the majority of African countries have to import food. Obviously such a move would have a negative impact on the world biofuel market, even if the U.S. were to ignore the advice, as we likely would.
It might seem strange for an advocate for poor African countries like Ziegler to oppose biofuels, considering that many (like the UN ) are quick to point out that climate change would have a disproportionately negative impact on poor communities living in marginal ecological areas. But in many regions, as the MIT report points out, increased carbon dioxide levels would actually be good for crops and soil. Seen purely through a food production lens, a warm, CO2-heavy world might not be such a bad thing.
Still, the desire to head off climate change without starving people living on 50 cents a day is a catch-22 for defenders of our world's poorest populations, and not one that's likely to go away.
But there was bad news for crop production out of the MIT report that biofuel and food proponents can fret about together. The MIT researchers project that ozone would cut crop yields per acre by 40 percent by 2100 if nothing is done to stop its increasing concentration in the atmosphere.
While we normally think about ozone in terms of keeping it intact high in the atmosphere (ah, the hole in the ozone layer ), at ground level it's actually is a nasty pollutant that damages lungs and plants alike. A 2006 Yale study found that even low concentrations of ozone cause higher mortality rates among people.
So, what's causing increased ozone concentrations? Surprise: burning fossil fuels. Scrubbing ozone out of our lives seems like a great challenge for cleantech entrepreneurs looking for fresher fields in which to lay seed capital.
Guess the 3 sites. What can we learn? Think about what is super viral yet no one publicly talks about…
Winner gets a $1 check mailed to them:)
Posts
