Jan 13, 2009
TOP 10 Ideas of 2008
Came across this pretty read post on NY Times. I read all of them and the list was very impressive. Here is the list of 15 top ideas, ofcourse according to me. And frankly while reading you will go, woooo (nice), ahhhhh (why didn’t I get it), grrrrrr (BS), sigh (I still don’t get it)
# Biomechanical Energy Harvester -
A knee-brace-like gadget developed by a Canadian scientist harnesses the power of the human gait, generating enough wattage from your daily walking to power a cellphone or two-way radio and then some.
# Brickley Engine -
Five years ago, Brickley, a self-taught “engine inventor” in Austin, Tex., decided to give it a try. He realized that one of the biggest drags on engine efficiency is friction: whenever two parts interact with each other, they generate heat and drain energy out of the system. So he began designing a new type of engine that reduced friction by doing away with several traditional parts. In the Brickley Engine — as he calls it — there are no piston skirts and several fewer crankshaft and crankpin bearings.
In an effort to provide residents with more nutritious choices, the L.A. City Council adopted landmark legislation in July mandating a one‑year moratorium on the building of new fast-food eateries in a 32‑square‑mile area.
# Gallons Per Mile -
The problem with m.p.g., argues Richard Larrick, who wrote the article with his business-school colleague (and carpooling partner) Jack Soll, is that it leads consumers to significantly underestimate the gains in fuel efficiency that can be achieved by trading in very low m.p.g. vehicles — even for one that gets only a few more miles per gallon.
Van Peer realized the need for such a device while working on sanitation projects in South African townships; many of the township residents have difficulty washing their hands because they lack easy access to water.
An experimental program that transforms the school bus into a mobile classroom.
Jan Vinzenz Krause, a 31-year-old German entrepreneur, says that condoms should be more like shoes. “You go into a shop, tell them your size and you get shoes that fit your feet,” he says. “Not so with condoms.”
One of the big debates in education today is over teacher quality: how do you reward successful teachers, get rid of unsuccessful ones and attract more high-performing applicants? Michelle Rhee, the young, controversial new chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools, thinks she has the answer.
“Klein designed the machine so that when the crows searched for the missing peanuts, they pushed the coins out of a dish into a slot, causing more peanuts to be released into the dish. The Binghamton crows quickly learned that dropping nickels and dimes into the slot produced peanuts, and the most resourceful members of the flock began looking for more coins. Within a month, Klein had a flock of crows scouring the ground for loose change.”
# Wine from China -
Don’t laugh just yet. China is already the world’s sixth-largest producer, with some 400 wineries. And it has been making grape-based wine for at least 2,000 years. True, most Chinese wine today is unremarkable, even undrinkable to Western palates. And reports abound of counterfeiting and labeling imported wine as Chinese. But China’s 1.3 billion citizens are developing a taste for wine, which experts say will drive better winemaking. Producers are taking steps to raise quality, too, bringing in wine consultants from Australia, France and
other regions. “None of us were drinking wines from Chile or Argentina 50 years ago,” notes Bartholomew Broadbent, an importer and co-owner of Dragon’s Hollow, a winery in China’s northern-central Ningxia Hui region. “Why not China?”