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There's been a lot of saber rattling between Japan and China in the last few months over minor islands of little value.

The Senkaku Islands dispute is less about dick waving and ultimately more about oil reserves. International maritime law allows for exclusive economic zones for some distance off a country's territorial shores. Thus, these otherwise-worthless islands actually have some value beyond distracting both countries' populations from domestic issues. Also, like every good territorial dispute requires, both sides have their own preferred "true name" for the disputed territory.

This dispute is somewhat analogous to the US' Aroostook War over Maine's borders or the Oregon Boundary Dispute ("54 40' or Fight!")—both of which were solved without war despite the bellicose rhetoric.

but you still need wires to transfer the power to devices

Wires or bicycles:

"A 60-watt solar panel charges a battery that is taken to the village on the back of a bicycle."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729075.500-send-a-text-message-to-charge-your-cellphone.html

Ah, don't believe me, eh?

Small amounts of caffeine and other chemicals such as nicotine are present in the nectar of more than 100 plant species. Plants use these often nasty-tasting chemicals to deter predators, but Wright's work suggests that they also use them to keep pollinators loyal to their flowers. It's a matter of getting the dose right; leak just the right amount into their nectar to lure in the bees, but not too much so that the bitter taste puts them off.

A number of reviewers have noted that the methodology is somewhat flawed in that the temporal resolution of the proxies used to reconstruct ancient temperatures is very low - up to 500 years, whereas the modern global temperature data that is appended to produce the hockeystick graph is at high resolution.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23247-true-face-of-climates-hockey-stick-graph-revealed.html

This, along with the averaging effect of combining numerous noisy proxy data streams has the effect of removing significant features such as the medieval, roman, minoan warming periods where temperatures rose by as much as 2C for periods of 1-300 years. It also removes similar long duration temperature dips.

So ultimately the picture presented of historical temperatures is not realistic, if we were to apply the same temporal low pass filtering to the modern temperature record as well you would not even see the recent temperature rise, and the little ice age would probably disappear as well. Eg look as Gisp2 ice core temp data for a reasonably good picture of historic temperatures:
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6063/gisp2.jpg
shows same general trend as this paper, just preserves the frequent 1-500 year temp oscillations

But, looking at a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night, I'm not sure that would amount to much of a threat.

There must be some truly incredible skies there for stargazing. I would think looking up and seeing that every night for your entire life would instill a sense of humility and scale or something.

Dear Glorious Whatever,

Look, little fella, I know you have something to prove and all, but really hope you didn't buy into your father's bullshit. Believe it or not the U.S. has absolutely no interest in restarting the Korean War. Frankly, we're kind of warred out right now. So please stick to playing basketball with Dennis Rodman and leave us out of your grandstanding and dick waving. We've already got enough of that at home.

We'll be happy to keep sending you D-list celebrities if you'll just STFU.

Yours truly,
The American People

P.S. I would point out the obvious fact that the U.S. will bomb your country back to the stone age if you try to attack anyone with nukes. But, looking at a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night, I'm not sure that would amount to much of a threat.

And we wonder why they dont like us /rollseyes

Its always the "AMERIKANS!!!!" that constantly poke jokes at other people, make sarcastic remarks and wont shut up that make us all look like dickheads. And much like a true AMERIKAN!!!!! you have to bring up some idle threat about how we will bomb them.

Just shut up already, you make the real Americans look bad.

Dear Glorious Whatever,

Look, little fella, I know you have something to prove and all, but really hope you didn't buy into your father's bullshit. Believe it or not the U.S. has absolutely no interest in restarting the Korean War. Frankly, we're kind of warred out right now. So please stick to playing basketball with Dennis Rodman and leave us out of your grandstanding and dick waving. We've already got enough of that at home.

We'll be happy to keep sending you D-list celebrities if you'll just STFU.

Yours truly,
The American People

P.S. I would point out the obvious fact that the U.S. will bomb your country back to the stone age if you try to attack anyone with nukes. But, looking at a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night, I'm not sure that would amount to much of a threat.

I assume your post is in jest, but supposedly there is a product that allows you to do just that.

I'd imagine that there are some maintenance, etc concerns though.

Perhaps but that DNA may end up in the mother too, how many adventurous human women are that adventurous? :
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22312-sons-dna-found-inside-mothers-brain.html

Fetal DNA can enter a mother's brain and remain there for decades, according to autopsies of female brains.

To investigate this, Nelson and her colleagues autopsied 59 brains of deceased women â" 33 of whom had Alzheimer's disease. They amplified the DNA that they found, creating many more copies, and looked for the presence of a male Y chromosome.

They found it in 63 per cent of the brains. This male DNA showed up in many different brain regions and some of it had been there for a very long time: one brain that contained the male DNA was from a 94-year-old woman.

Many mental traits are genetic, so it might be a very mind altering experience ;).

10 years ago, they were able to do the same trick with electrons.
  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1888-teleporting-larger-objects-becomes-real-possibility.html

cheers

"Hmm, ion engine Isp of 20000, say. Thrust of 10 newtons. All-up spacecraft mass of 75 tons. Time to escape speed from LEO, about 22 months.

Next generation ion engines produce far more thrust.. (`~833 newton/sec).. reducing time to escape orbit to a little over week.. Fringe benefit, the space craft would only consume ~4 kg of xenon to accomplish that task..

That leaves all other propulsion tech, including nuclear in the dust so to speak..

"Recent estimates suggest that 16 per cent of the energy consumed in the US is used to produce food. Yet at least 25 per cent of food is wasted each year..."

"There are nearly a billion malnourished people in the world, but all of them could be lifted out of hunger with less than a quarter of the food wasted in Europe and North America. In a globalised food system, where we are all buying food in the same international market place, that means we're taking food out of the mouths of the poor."

In this context, a food evacuator for pampered fat people seems like the height of absurdity as if were something taken directly off the page of a Monty Python or Yes Men script.

39 days to Mars with ion propulsion? Show me your "calculation."

They're talking about VASIMR

To travel to Mars in 39 days, however, the engine would need 1000 times more power than solar energy could provide. For that, VASIMR would need an onboard nuclear reactor...."That would be quite a ways down the line," Squire says.

A large amount of the trouble with patents comes from the fact that:

* The patent office doesn't have the resources to properly validate platent claims. They basically grant anything, and assume that validity will be litigated in the courts.

Except that 90% of patent applications are initially rejected. A far cry from "they basically grant anything".

* The courts tend to assume that anything granted must be valid.

So, why not change it to:

* The patent office merely registers the patent filing. It acknowledges the inventor's name, and publishes the details. but, at this stage, the patent is not deemed valid.. * When there is an actual patent suit, this is the time when the patent is carefully examined, and the question of validity can be debated in court.

Think of this as "lazy-evaluation" for patents.

There are registration-only systems in a few countries: Hong Kong, for example, and you can imagine how solid patent rights are there. Another one is Australia - they have a two-method patent system in which you can either get a real patent with examination and prior art search and a presumption of validity... or you can get an invention registration, as you suggest... And Slashdot simply loves to make fun of the result.

Nuclear will be a necessary evil for the next 50-100 years.

What's "evil" about clean, safe, cheap power?

My beef is when they argue that nuclear is 'safer' than coal. Not true in any sense unless you exclude what 'could' happen.

It's true in the very real sense that coal causes thousands of deaths worldwide every year, while nuclear doesn't. What's the horrible death toll from Fukushima again?

Here's an article compariing various energy source's mortality rates.

Here's another touting nuclear as much safer, pointing out that coal pollution claims over 13,000 lives a year just in the US.

The tiger by the tail situation is that we need to get off fossil fuels basically yesterday, and the only available option for grid scale right now is nuclear. But we need to be investing in renewable now at the same time and usually the argument is that nuclear is the 'answer' and it isn't.

Nuclear is a fine answer, especially the next-gen and thorium based plants. I'm all for end-user solar as it becomes more cost-effective, but wind power is a loser that needs go away ASAP.

We can all hope that LENR pans out - that will mean colonization of the solar system, and flying cars for all! ;-)

I read a few articles showing benefits of intestinal flora transplants from one individual to another. For example, this article discusses how it was shown to ease Parkinson's in certain cases (just the abstract, sorry):

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927962.600-faecal-transplant-eases-symptoms-of-parkinsons.html

Le Monde had an in depth article on Bitcoin just a few days ago. I think if you really researched it you'd find the same to be true for most countries. Bitcoin has entered public consciousness.

http://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2012/11/29/payer-et-vendre-sans-les-banques_1798066_1650684.html

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/dollar-less-iranians-discover-virtual-currency
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628925.200-virtual-economy-looms-as-digital-cash-grows-up.html?full=true
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20510447
http://www.ftd.de/finanzen/maerkte/:kunstwaehrung-das-bitcoin-virus/70118697.html

That could work, though having a patent as prior art might make it easy enough top find that even a patent clerk can.

FUD. That wasn't a patent as we understand them. Australia implemented a registration-only system a few years back. There's no examination and no presumption of validity or novelty. All you get is a filing date.

That could work, though having a patent as prior art might make it easy enough top find that even a patent clerk can.

There were three images. The third one showed education levels.

It's not just the overall birth rate, but also the break down of birth rate to various segments of population that matters.

The linked article displays population projection from now to 2050, broken down by segments. It also shows the education levels of each segment. What it imply is we will end up with a less educated work force moving forward unless we are doing some heavy investing now.

So, your $20 in 1969 may turn into $0 (albeit in 2050) unless we can somehow shore up "the kids these days".

Hell, even if you forget global warming - humans are raising sea-levels by simply pumping billions of gallons of water out of the ground. It doesn't get replenished on any human timescale.

linky 1
linky 2

Dams have held back some of this, but are reaching their limits for continued storage of an increasing amount.

it is incredibly foolish to believe that humans are responsible for the melting of the polar icecaps. one volcano eruption puts off more CO2 than all of the emmissions that humans have put out since there were humans.

That statement is factually incorrect. Volcanos do not emit more CO2 than humans-- they emit less, by orders of magnitude.

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html
http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf
http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html

From http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/06/scienceshot-volcano-co2-emission.html :
"A popular myth among climate change skeptics is that volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide dwarf those generated by humans. But a new report in today's issue of Eos reveals precisely the opposite: In a mere 2 to 5 days, smokestacks, tailpipes, and other human sources of CO2 spew a year's worth of volcanic emissions of that greenhouse gas. According to the paper, five recent studies suggest that volcanoes worldwide (such as Alaska's Shishaldin, shown) emit, on average, between 130 million and 440 million metric tons of CO2 each year. But in 2010, anthropogenic emissions of the planet-warming gas were estimated to be a whopping 35 billion metric tons. Individual events—such as Mount Pinatubo, whose major eruption in 1991 lasted about 9 hours—can produce CO 2 at the same rate that humans do, but they do so only for short periods of time. It would take more than 700 Mount Pinatubo-sized eruptions over the course of a year to emit as much carbon dioxide as people do, the study notes."

Let me note that it is misinformed statements like this that tend to make real scientists dismiss global-warming deniers as crackpots. If you really want skepticism of anthropogenic global warming to be taken seriously, you need to have a basic understanding of the real world.

Too late:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html

It's not a patent as we'd think of them, but just a registration that says "you filed these papers on this date". They're never examined and have no presumption of patentability. Unlike examination systems, it actually really is a literal rubber stamp.

Too late:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html

The last one I saw was this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14829
and: http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-how-to-make-anything-disappear

In many places, e.g. the US, plant coverage is growing, not shrinking.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10521-forest-growth-is-encouraging-say-researchers.html

This is mainly caused by advancements in agriculture, which include things that environmentalists hate, like genetically modified crops, and otherwise non-organic foods, the later of which has been proven to be insufficient for human needs in the long term - the time, resources, and eneergy required to produce organic foods is much greater than that of non-organic foods, and the landmass required to go all organic would require cutting down more forests. Ironic, isn't it? One thing they promote is at odds with another thing they promote.

Here, take a look.

Other nonsense patents include a kids' swing. It happens all the time. That's a broken system.

but the fish has been gobbled up by Microsoft and it's redirecting to Microsoft's translation service.

Which might not be so bad, since Ms has been demoing some interesting on-the-fly translation recently.

(Yes, Ms is still evil, but their research department produces some interesting stuff now and then.)

The cyberweapon that could take down the internet
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20113-the-cyberweapon-that-could-take-down-the-internet.html

More on BGP Attacks â" Updated
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/08/how-to-intercep/

http://dankaminsky.com/2008/08/27/the-emergence-of-a-theme/

Why are they using a rat sized robot? Why not an actual robo-rat?

Why do I not believe that 1% of global electrical production goes to powering wireless base stations.

Probably due to the fact that all of IT consumes about 1% of all power globally

[citation needed] - yours is the only estimate I have seen which is so low.

Unbelievably ignorant comment. The 12.5 kW is running through the free space between the cat's electrons and nuclei with only a tiny tiny fraction of it impacts anything in the cat, none of it having any physiological effect. It's been long established that magnetic fields are basically inert to biological matter. In 1997 they levitated a frog using 16 Tesla field, which is orders of magnitude stronger than anything used here, and the frog had no subsequent physiological problems: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15420771.600-frog-defies-gravity.html The rate of change of the magnetic field is far too slow with this mechanical rotation to create an appreciable electric field--there's no measurable charge separation that can be induced in the cat. There's also no EM waves anywhere in the vicinity due to an extremely long wavelength, putting the whole system including the car, cat, and rotating magnets in a near field situation.

Yep, at end of last year when my newly bought feature phone 'buzzed' for no reason while hanging with a 'friend' in his garage mancave, that's when I started to investigate phone security. Googled 'forced bluetooth hack' and read links like http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7461-new-hack-cracks-secure-bluetooth-devices.html AND this http://hassam.hubpages.com/hub/Types-Of-Bluetooth-Hacks-And-Its-Security-Issues and I could go on ......

The paper was about a test. They tested bones of moas (a recently extinct flightless bird from NZ) that were between 600 and 8000 years old. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628864.600-dnas-halflife-identified-using-fossil-bones.html

Part of the reason a DNA half-life has been so elusive is that it is hard to find a large enough cache of samples that have been exposed to similar conditions. The moa bones were all between 600 and 8000 years old, and came from a 5-kilometre-wide area of New Zealand's South Island, key factors for the researchers to identify a regular pattern of decay.

With an estimated burial temperature of 13 ÂC, the DNA's half-life was 521 years - almost 400 times longer than expected from lab experiments at similar temperatures.

The conclusion is not just that some bonds decayed in 521 years, but the data over the time frame sorta fit an exponental decay model (R2 = 0.39) from which you can say there is such a thing as a half-life (as opposed to some other decay process). For those not versed in statistics, that R2 isn't great fit, but somewhat speculative (1.0 is perfect fit, 0.5 sorta means about 1/2 of the variation can be explained by exponential decay).

For completeness, they also only measured mitochondrial DNA decay (aparently 242 base pairs), and extrapolated from other studies that nuclear DNA degrades twice as fast as mtDNA. mtDNA used for this because there are generally many more copies per cell (each cell can have several mitochondria, but only 1 nucleus). Also, it would be impractical to extract from chromosomes and measure all the bonds that broke in a nuclear DNA sample with current technology.

I think it was behind a paywall in new scientist, either http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623721.100-will-physics-crack-the-market.html or http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15621114.900-trust-me-im-an-expert--would-you-allow-a-machine-to-play-the-stock-market-with-your-life-savings-well-the-people-in-the-know-are-doing-just-that-says-clive-davidson.html

I think it was behind a paywall in new scientist, either http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623721.100-will-physics-crack-the-market.html or http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15621114.900-trust-me-im-an-expert--would-you-allow-a-machine-to-play-the-stock-market-with-your-life-savings-well-the-people-in-the-know-are-doing-just-that-says-clive-davidson.html

Reaction time to a specific, anticipated event, you're likely right. But there's one crucial element to navigation that humans can do that computers currently can't - make arbitrary, seemingly illogical decisions in the heat of the moment. Take GP's hypothetical about the cliffside road - most humans, thanks to self-preservation instinct, will choose to rear-end the other car rather than drive off the ledge; what would a computer that is programmed to "avoid contact with other cars at all costs" do in that situation? Hyperbole aside, there's no way of knowing until we put one in that real world situation.

Yes. Humans would never drive off a cliff, thanks to this self-preservation instinct. A self-driving car, on the other hand, could make such mistakes, because the engineers would never think of a scenario slashdotters come up with 5 seconds after seeing a story about self-driving cars. They would certainly never put their algorithms to the test. If it compiles, ship it. Right?

Relevant quote from the last link:

So confident is Volvo in this safety mechanism, it says that if the lead vehicle were to drive off a cliff, the next vehicle could stop before reaching the edge.

As far as psychologically addictive, there is no such thing. Addiction is bio-chemical. You cannot be "addicted" to gambling, shopping, masturbation, etc. These are compulsive behaviors - they are NOT addiction. That is not meant to insult sufferers, compulsive behavior patterns are an illness and are FAR worse to deal with than simple physical addition. With physical addiction, you simply need to detox.

Recent research seems to indicate that the brain reacts the same to psychological addiction as to substance addiction. So both seem to be physically addictive.

From http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528810.200-the-people-who-are-addicted-to-addiction.html:

Addiction researchers have turned to neuroscience to understand the mechanisms underlying different addictions. But the more they have tried to tease apart substance and behavioural addiction, the more similarities they find. For one thing, the brains of people with addiction look similar whether the addiction is to a substance or to a behaviour. When the brains of addicts are scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they are shown videos of the addictive behaviour or of people using their drug of choice, the same reward centres are activated, says Robert Malenka, a Stanford neuroscientist who studies addiction.

China even already has a strain of red algae in the mountains. Though it's probably not that one, since it only grows in one (large) area.

Does the bacterium have the information for that functionality encoded within its DNA? No? Then yes, it's starting with "nothing", and ends up with "something".

Well, according to your definitions (which are quite silly), here's something from your so-called 'nothing': Bacteria Evolve New Ability The information was not there one day, and there the next. You might even say a number of small minor changes built up into something more complex later.

... Once you have started something, you can get all kinds of stuff out.

If.

Really? You're going to call millions of molecules a nothing/null to serve your argument?

Secondly, your definition of filter needs work. Filters don't always only remove information, sometimes they just move it around. Ultimately you should think of the selection part of evolution not like a filter, but more like an informational version of Maxwell's demon. When a useful bit of information shows up, it's trapped. The more useful the information is the stronger the walls of the trap. Get past those points and you'll be OK.

However you use them, filters do not add information. They find subsets, not supersets.

*sigh* That's what I said. Also look up Maxwell's demon, seriously.

But is nature really searching for a fur-less biped with an affinity for lolcat videos?

Why on earth would you assume we're the only possible result of evolution. If you're going to jump to conclusions, at least be reasonable and say evolution could be looking for something alive. There are one or two examples that aren't humans.

Can you find me a genetic algorithm that found something it wasn't searching for?

Why sure, here we found an entirely new way to use an FPGA, look here. The original paper is sourced in the reference section. The telling part is that the ultimate implementation was beyond the understanding of the experimenter. How could he be the source of the information if he didn't have it in the first place? Sure he had an idea how to test for what he was looking for but that doesn't mean he knew all the structures possible to use. In the original paper (it's not listed on the TO website unfortunately, but the paper is cited and published for reading) there were temperature sensitive effects that were not anticipated and not looked for as well, but existed in the final output.

Finally see the inset here Keane and Brown 1996 It's also a cited published paper. The Algorithm was designed to look for structures that fit criteria like stronger, flexible, etc. The result looks curiously like a biological bone structure and would probably be closer, but in 1996 computing power was tough to come by, so low number of iterations. That structure was not planned or built in. Like it or not, information CAN and DOES appear out of your theoretical "no-where", but it's not free and doesn't violate entropy.

You seem to be hung up on the creation of information/violation of entropy. Never fear, the creation of this information does cost energy, and lots of it, entropy is still preserved.

We were made this way for very good reasons, even if we don't understand them.

And notice, their conclusion comes from studying the effects of circumcision within the context of AIDS and other STDs.

It doesn't say for instance, how this will effect the incidence of prostate cancer. So assuming circumcision really does reduce the frequency of masturbation among the male population, it would stand to reason that the incidence of prostate cancer may possibly increase because of circumcision.

And of course, a truly randomized controlled trial in the US would probably give us an definitive objective answer to this question, but American parents would never stand for that kind of study, so it could never be truly random. Apparently, this pediatric association keeps on mentioning "randomized controlled trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda", so they probably did find some African parents who were willing to exchange their rights to choose for the good of science (or perhaps in exchange for $$$), but one could argue that this kind of selection wouldn't be random at all. For one thing, only the poor would probably be willing to forego their rights like that. And a second thing, those African countries are different than the US. The average life expectancy in Uganda for instance, is 53 years old. In the US, it's 78 years. And one would assume that there are lower incidents of prostate cancer in Uganda simply because they're dying much earlier than we are.

The study showed that these same effects are absent when used by adults.

Actually no it didn't. The effects among the most persistent users was present even among those who started after 18.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22213-teenage-cannabis-use-leads-to-cognitive-decline.html

But pot use after age 18 doesn't have long-term affects on IQ, only for the time immediately after consuming the drug.

Actually the most significant effects were found among those who were persistent users regardless of what age they started with an average IQ decline of 6 points. Within that group of persistent users those who started before 18 had an average IQ decline of 8 points.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22213-teenage-cannabis-use-leads-to-cognitive-decline.html
BTW New Scientist consistently does a better job reporting science issues than the mainstream media like the BBC article linked above.

Not just theoretically -- University of Washington researchers crafted an MP3 that let them at the CAN via the MP3 player: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/03/how-an-mp3-can-be-used-to-hack.html

My hunch is that at least some of the GP's post was computer generated nonsense and subsequently edited. There is certainly some superficially convincing computer generated nonsense out there, and plausibly some of this post this could have come from a similar algorithm using a more vitriolic set of training text - just seems to have that kinda feel.

Also, curiously, the style reminds me a little of the text of OT III.

Define stopped.

I'll use it in a sentence.
Global warming stopped in 1998

(The warmest Junes were in 2012, over the land; in 2010, over both land and sea; and in 1998, over the oceans.)

Horseshit.

Almost all of that was done by wireless telegraph operators decades before RTTY radio geeks, probably one of the earliest being the lewd and suggestive poems inserted into the stream of Marconi's new-fangled "secure" wireless transmission device.

I see your young wipper-snapper and raise you a 1903 old timer.

Apparently, not so bad: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16058-prophesy-of-economic-collapse-coming-true.html

I have not read the 1972 book, but I think the main point was that economic growth has to stop at some point (because the planet won't support it) and we have to go for a steady-state economy. The problem with that is, while it is perfectly possible to do, it apparently still just doesn't fit into the heads of the people responsible.

All this automation is great and everything but when does it actually translate into a benefit for humanity in general? I'm so glad some business can now churn out more crap to purchase at cheaper prices.

Are custom-made prosthetics for the disabled not 'noble' enough for you?

Ok. Here's something to make housing more affordable.

What else were you complaining about? Oh, yes. Humanity's presence in the solar system. Well, they've printed airplanes, so with a modicum of imagination, you can imagine printing space shuttles.

I'll leave examples of "reducing the environmental footprint" as an exercise for the reader.