Entrepreneurship – Page 5 – artdiamondblog.com

Researchers and Entrepreneurs Experiment with Once-Taboo Geoengineering Projects to Reverse Global Warming

(p. A3) Dumping chemicals in the ocean? Spraying saltwater into clouds? Injecting reflective particles into the sky? . . .

These geoengineering approaches were once considered taboo by scientists and regulators who feared that tinkering with the environment could have unintended consequences, but now researchers are receiving taxpayer funds and private investments to get out of the lab and test these methods outdoors.

. . .

In Israel, a startup called Stardust Solutions has begun testing a system to disperse a cloud of tiny reflective particles about 60,000 feet in altitude, reflecting sunlight away from Earth to cool the atmosphere in a concept known as solar radiation management, or SRM. Yanai Yedvab, Stardust chief executive and a former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, wouldn’t disclose the composition of the proprietary particles.

Yedvab said Stardust has raised $15 million from two investors and has conducted low-level aerial tests using white smoke to simulate the particles’ path in the atmosphere. After the company completes indoor safety testing, it intends to conduct a limited outdoor test of the dispersion technology, monitoring devices and particles in the next few months, Yedvab said.

. . .

Experiments aimed at cooling the atmosphere by reflecting sunlight away from Earth are an attempt to mimic what happens when a volcano erupts. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo, an active volcano in the Philippines, spewed sulfur and ash into the upper atmosphere, lowering the Earth’s temperature by .5 degrees Celsius (.9 degrees Fahrenheit) for an entire year.

For the full story, see:

Eric Niiler. “New Experiments Aim to Cool Planet.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, February 15, 2024): A3.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date February 14, 2024, and has the title “Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions to Cool the Planet.” The online version says that the title of the print version was also “Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions to Cool the Planet.” But my print version has the title “New Experiments Aim to Cool Planet.”)

Isaacson Reprises His Themes of “Science, Genius, Experiment, Code, Thinking Different” in Book on CRISPR

(p. 12) The landmark research that brought Doudna and Charpentier to the pinnacle of global acclaim has the potential to control future pandemics — either by outwitting the next viral plague through better screening and treatment or by engineering human beings with better disease resistance programmed into their cells. The technique of gene editing that they patented, which goes by the unwieldy acronym of CRISPR-Cas9, makes it possible to selectively snip and alter bits of DNA as though they were so many hems to take up or waistbands to let out. The method is based on defenses pioneered by bacteria in their ages-old battle against viruses.

. . .

The CRISPR history holds obvious appeal for Walter Isaacson, a biographer of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. In “The Code Breaker” he reprises several of his previous themes — science, genius, experiment, code, thinking different — and devotes a full length book to a female subject for the first time.

. . .

Isaacson keeps a firm, experienced hand on the scientific explanations, which he mastered through extensive readings and interviews, all of which are footnoted.

For the full review, see:

Dava Sobel. “Deus Ex Machina.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, March 21, 2021 [sic]): 12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 8, 2021 [sic], and has the title “A Biography of the Woman Who Will Re-Engineer Humans.”)

The book under review is:

Isaacson, Walter. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Federal and State Regulatory Thicket Thwarts “Permitting, Siting, Construction and Operation” of New Energy Infrastructure and Technology

(p. C5) Environmentalists have long argued that tackling climate change will require regulations to discourage fossil-fuel use, such as a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program. In reality, there is no plausible path to a low-carbon economy without a serious deregulatory program. Today’s thicket of environmental regulation at the federal and state levels thwarts permitting, siting, construction and operation of virtually every class of new infrastructure and technology. There are simply too many veto points and opportunities for obstruction, at too many procedural and jurisdictional levels, to conceivably embark on a rapid mission to remake the nation’s energy economy.

. . .

The U.S. can no longer continue to neglect its compounding infrastructure and clean-energy needs. We aren’t going to regulate our way to a thriving low-carbon economy and a more stable climate. America needs to get back to building again.

For the full commentary, see:

Ted Nordhaus. “For a Clean-Energy Future, We Need Deregulation.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, February 19, 2022 [sic]): C5.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date February 17, 2022 [sic], and has the same title as the print version.)

“Momentum Around Solar Geoengineering Is Building Fast”

(p. A19) A few years ago, the idea of deliberately blocking the sun to combat climate change was taboo for scientists. But a lot can change in a short time.

As the disastrous effects of climate change mount, Congress has asked federal scientists for a research plan, private money is flowing and rogue start-ups are attempting experiments — all signs that momentum around solar geoengineering is building fast. The most discussed approach involves spraying tiny particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. Other proposals include injecting sea salt into clouds to increase their reflectivity or using giant space parasols to block the sun.

It might all sound like dystopian science fiction, but some techno-futurists, like OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, are already normalizing it: “We’re going to have to do something dramatic with climate like geoengineering as a Band-Aid, as a stopgap,” he said in January [2024] at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

No one fully understands the risks of these technologies — which could include calamitous disruptions in weather — or how significant the benefits could be. I’m increasingly convinced that we should do more research on solar geoengineering.

. . .

. . . science is fallible precisely because it is a practice, a cooperative human activity. And as the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre reminds us, engaging in a practice well requires exercising its virtues — which for science include transparency, honesty, humility, skepticism and collaboration.

For the full commentary, see:

Jeremy Freeman. “Let’s Find Out if This Can Cool the Planet.” The New York Times (Tuesday, March 19, 2024): A19.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 17, 2024, and has the title “The Best Way to Find Out if We Can Cool the Planet.”)

Texas Is “One State” Whose “Streamlined Permitting Process Allows Wind, Solar and Battery Projects to Get Built and Connected”

(p. A1) Something unusual is happening in America. Demand for electricity, which has stayed largely flat for two decades, has begun to surge.

Over the past year, electric utilities have nearly doubled their forecasts of how much additional power they’ll need by 2028 as they confront an unexpected explosion in the number of data centers, an abrupt resurgence in manufacturing driven by new federal laws, and millions of electric vehicles being plugged in.

Many power companies were already struggling to keep the lights on, especially during extreme weather, and say the strain on grids will only increase. Peak demand in the summer is projected to grow by 38,000 megawatts nationwide in the next five years, according to an analysis by the consulting firm Grid Strategies, which is like adding another California to the grid.

“The numbers we’re seeing are pretty crazy,” said Daniel Brooks, vice president of integrated grid and energy systems at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit organization.

In an ironic twist, the swelling appetite for more electricity, driven not only by electric cars but also by battery and solar factories and other aspects of the clean-energy transition, could also jeopardize the country’s plans to fight climate change.

To meet spiking demand, utilities in states like Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are proposing to build dozens of power plants over the next 15 years that would burn natural gas. In Kansas, one utility has postponed the retirement of a coal plant to help power a giant electric-car battery factory.

. . .

(p. A15) At the same time, investment in American manufacturing is hitting a 50-year high, fueled by new federal tax breaks to lift microchip and clean-tech production. Since 2021, companies have announced plans to spend at least $525 billion on factories for semiconductors, batteries, solar panels and more.

In Georgia, where dozens of electric vehicle companies and suppliers are setting up shop, the state’s largest utility now expects 16 times as much growth in electricity demand this decade as it did two years ago.

Millions of Americans are also buying plug-in vehicles and electric heat pumps for their homes, spurred by recent federal incentives. In California, one-fifth of new cars sold are electric, and officials estimate that E.V.s could account for 10 percent of power use during peak hours by 2035.

. . .

So far, one state that has kept pace with explosive demand is Texas, where electricity use has risen 29 percent over the past decade, partly driven by things like bitcoin mining, liquefied natural gas terminals and the electrification of oil fields. Texas’s streamlined permitting process allows wind, solar and battery projects to get built and connected faster than almost anywhere else, and the state zoomed past California last year to lead the nation in large-scale solar power.

“Texas still has problems, but there’s a lot to learn from how the state makes it easier to build clean energy,” said Devin Hartman, director of energy and environmental policy at the R Street Institute.

For the full story, see:

Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich. “Energy Appetite in U.S. Endangers Goals on Climate.” The New York Times (Monday, March 17, 2024): A1 & A15.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 14, 2024, and has the title “A New Surge in Power Use Is Threatening U.S. Climate Goals.”)

Musk Fights for Right of Individuals in Sweden to Enter into Contracts

(p. A15) Sweden is the West’s most corporatist society. Powerful interest groups, often described as “social partners,” use collective bargaining to set rents for apartments and wages earned in labor markets.

This model is being challenged by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is refusing to enter into collective wage agreements with Swedish trade unions. The unions have responded with strikes and blockades on Tesla operations in the country.

. . .

Liberal democracy presupposes fundamental rights and freedoms. Some of these, such as the freedoms of opinion, press and expression, are enshrined in the Swedish constitution. But the right of the individual to enter into contracts isn’t similarly guaranteed.

. . .

Liberal democracy is being threatened globally by growing populist and illiberal movements. The government in Stockholm should counteract this threat by strengthening people’s individual rights and freedoms in the Swedish constitution. If this happens, Mr. Musk will have given Sweden a great gift.

For the full commentary, see:

Lars Jonung. “Musk Fights Sweden’s Unions.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, February 14, 2024): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date February 13, 2024, and has the same title as the print version.)

By Serendipity and Persistence, Epstein Found the Epstein-Barr Virus That Can Cause a Cancer

(p. A23) In March 1961, Dr. Anthony Epstein, a pathologist at Middlesex Hospital in London, almost skipped a visiting physician’s afternoon lecture about children with exceptionally large facial tumors in Uganda.

. . .

Despite Dr. Epstein’s initial reluctance to attend the talk — he sat in the rear so he could make a quick escape — his excitement grew the longer Dr. Burkitt spoke. By the time the lecture was over, he knew that he would drop all of his ongoing projects to find the cause of that unusual malignancy.

. . .

“To have the insight and to be able to follow his hypothesis, with a little acknowledged serendipity, and identify the novel virus was pioneering,” Dr. Darryl Hill, who heads the University of Bristol’s School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine in England, said in an email.

. . .

When the 50th anniversary of E.B.V.’s discovery was celebrated in 2014, Dr. Epstein told an interviewer with the BBC what he had been thinking as he listened to Dr. Burkitt speak in 1961.

“I thought there must be some biological agent involved,” Dr. Epstein said. “I was working on chicken viruses which cause cancer. I had virus-inducing tumors at the front of my head.”

. . .

The discovery of the virus was not quick. Dr. Burkitt sent tumor biopsies to London from Kampala, Uganda, but Dr. Epstein couldn’t find viruses in the early specimens, according to Dr. Hill, who wrote a remembrance of Dr. Epstein for the University of Bristol.

When another biopsy shipment was diverted from Heathrow Airport to another airport, in Manchester, England, because of fog, the sample seemed doomed, Dr. Hill said.

“By the time the sample reached Tony, it had gone cloudy — usually a sign of bacterial contamination that would consign it to the bin,” Dr. Hill wrote in his tribute. “Tony did not throw it away but examined it carefully.”

“He discovered, to his surprise, that the cloudiness was due to lymphoid tumor cells that had been shaken off the biopsy in transit and were now floating merrily in suspension.” He continued, “Tony exploited this chance finding to grow cell lines, derived from the tumor, in culture. He showed that these stayed alive indefinitely.”

Studying his new sample with a powerful electron microscope, Dr. Epstein was able to spot the distinct viral signature of a herpes virus. Dr. Hill called the discovery a eureka moment.

For the full obituary, see:

Delthia Ricks. “Dr. Anthony Epstein, 102, Who Discovered Epstein-Barr Virus, Dies.” The New York Times (Friday, March 8, 2024): A23.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated March 11 [sic], 2024, and has the title “Dr. Anthony Epstein, Pathologist Who Discovered Epstein-Barr Virus, Dies at 102.” Where there are minor differences in wording between versions, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Apple’s Bold “1984” Super Bowl Ad, Had Failed Marketing Test

(p. C4) Conceived by the Chiat/Day ad agency and directed by Ridley Scott, then fresh off making the seminal science-fiction noir “Blade Runner,” the Apple commercial “1984,” which was intended to introduce the new Macintosh computer, would become one of the most acclaimed commercials ever made. It also helped to kick off — pun partially intended — the Super Bowl tradition of the big game serving as an annual showcase for gilt-edged ads from Fortune 500 companies.

. . .

FRED GOLDBERG The original idea was actually done in 1982. We presented an ad [with] a headline, which was “Why 1984 Won’t Be Like ‘1984,’” to Steve Jobs, and he didn’t think the Apple III was worthy of that claim.

. . .

HAYDEN Steve Jobs was excited but frightened by it. Steve Wozniak offered to pay to run the commercial himself.

SCULLEY Before the commercial ran, we had to take it to the board of directors. The board sees the commercial, and then there’s just dead silence in the boardroom. They turn and look at me, and [a board member] says, “You’re not really going to run that thing, are you?”

HAYDEN As the closing credits scrolled up, the chairman, Mike Markkula, put his head in his hands and kind of folded over the conference table, and then slowly straightened up and [proposed hiring a different ad agency].

SCOTT I made it. I thought it was pretty good. But I was thinking, “Really? They’re going to run this on the Super Bowl? And we don’t know what it’s for?”

GOLDBERG I had them do a theater test. We get back the results, and it’s the worst business commercial that they’ve ever tested, in terms of persuasiveness.

SCULLEY The board said, “We don’t think you should run it. Try to sell the time.”

GOLDBERG And it was Jay Chiat who told us to drag our feet, basically, when we were told to sell off the time on the Super Bowl.

HAYDEN At long last, it came down that we would run the “1984” commercial once.

For the full story, see:

Saul Austerlitz. “The Super Bowl’s Big Ad Touchdown.” The New York Times (Saturday, February 10, 2024): C4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added. The bracketed words in comments from Goldberg, Sculley, and Hayden were in the original.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Feb. 5, 2024, and has the title “40 Years Ago, This Ad Changed the Super Bowl Forever.” In the print and online versions, the names of panelists were in capitalized and bold fonts.)

Apple’s bold and famous “1984” Super Bowl ad could only be understood by those who were familiar with:

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York: The New American Library, 1961 [1st published in 1949].

A PC Industry Run “By Middle-Manager Types” Is No Longer “Fun”

(p. B10) John Walker, a groundbreaking, if reclusive, technology entrepreneur and polymath who was a founder and chief executive of Autodesk, the company that brought the ubiquitous AutoCAD software program to the design and architecture masses, died on Feb. 2 [2024] in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

. . .

AutoCAD — the “CAD” stands for computer-aided design — was based on a program called Interact created by Michael Riddle, another company founder. With the contributions of Mr. Walker as well as Greg Lutz, who was also a founder, and the rest of the team, AutoCAD would go on to revolutionize industries including architecture, graphic design and engineering by allowing design professionals to ditch their pencils and paper and render their creations on a screen using an inexpensive personal computer.

“To him goes the credit for the Second Design Revolution,” the California software executive Roopinder Tara wrote in a tribute to Mr. Walker on the site Engineering.com. The “First Design Revolution,” as Mr. Tara called it, was the creation of earlier CAD programs that ran on expensive mainframes or minicomputers. But, he wrote, it was with AutoCAD, which “burst onto the scene in 1982, after the advent of the IBM PC, that the computer actually started to deliver on the promise.”

. . .

“In 1977, this business was fun,” Mr. Walker wrote in a book-length history of Autodesk that he published on his site. “The sellers and the buyers were hot-shot techies like ourselves, everybody spoke the same language and knew what was going on.”

“Today,” he added, “the microcomputer industry is run by middle-manager types who know far more about P/L statements than they do RAM organization.”

For the full obituary, see:

Alex Williams. “John Walker, 74, Recluse Who, as a Tech Mogul, Popularized AutoCAD.” The New York Times (Thursday, March 7, 2024): B10.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date March 6, 2024 and has the title “John Walker, Tech Executive Who Popularized AutoCAD, Dies at 74.” In both the online and print versions, the word fun is in italics.)

“If You Burn Out, Relight the Fire”

(p. A11) Dr. Gladys McGarey, 103, continues to consult, give talks and podcast interviews after nearly eight decades in the medical field. She started an Instagram account that has nearly 47,000 followers.

“If you burn out, relight the fire,” says McGarey. She ran a clinic while raising six children and had to start a new one when her husband and clinic partner left her when she was 69 and married one of their colleagues.

. . .

Not everyone wants to work in their later years, says Dr. Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

“It’s not burnout. It’s just ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ ” says Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a longitudinal study on how people thrive.

As people get older, they are better at discerning what really matters, he says, and what they can let go of. The goal isn’t necessarily an 80-year career, but finding purpose in whatever we chose to do in our 80s and beyond, whether that is taking care of a grandchild, playing the piano, or joining a community theater.

For many, there is passion, purpose and love in the work.

. . .

Like others who have remained engaged in their careers in their later years, she says the secret is to find things that make life important and our “hearts sing.”

For the full commentary, see:

Clare Ansberry. “At 103, Work Still Makes Heart Sing.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024): A11.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date December 29, 2023, and has the title “TURNING POINTS; How to Work—and Love It—Into Your 80s and Beyond.”)

The memoir by McGarey mentioned above is:

McGarey, Gladys. The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age. New York: Atria Books, 2023.

Is Bill Gates Correct in Saying Money Is “The Most Important Thing in the Fight Against Disease”?

Money is important. But I believe that what is even more important is giving doctors and patients the freedom to choose and act, within a system of innovative dynamism.