Category Archives: Technology, science, and math

Hacking voting machines

Posted on August 17, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

I’m just going to leave this here. Google and Apple invite hackers to find flaws in their code and offer hefty rewards to those who find them. It’s a common practice in the industry. The government’s done it too, with programs like “Hack … Continue reading →

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More birth control by mail options

Posted on August 12, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Good to see. “We want women to see us and say, ‘These are people who believe that if you want birth control you should have it,’” said Hans Ganeskar, co-founder and CEO of Nurx, a California-based site founded in 2015 … Continue reading →

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Let’s use mutant mosquitoes to fight Zika

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

What could possibly go wrong? The Bayou City’s teeming mosquito population spawns in dark, wet nooks and carries a slew of deadly tropical diseases that could ravage the region. So Houston is pondering a sneak attack, something akin to a … Continue reading →

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To the moon!

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

If this is on your bucket list, you may be in luck. SpaceX, the ambitious rocket company headed by Elon Musk, wants to send a couple of tourists around the moon and back to Earth before the end of next … Continue reading →

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Still talking vaccines and measles

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Because it keeps needing to be talked about. Earlier this month, Dr. Peter J. Hotez, a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, detailed a disturbing prediction for 2017 in … Continue reading →

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Trump and the anti-vaxxers

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

In case you needed another reason to dislike Donald Trump. President Trump’s embrace of discredited theories linking vaccines to autism has energized the anti-vaccine movement. Once fringe, the movement is becoming more popular, raising doubts about basic childhood health care among politically … Continue reading →

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Some things never evolve

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

The SBOE, for instance. The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday voted preliminarily for science standards that would keep in language that some say opens the door to creationism. The votes came a day after the board heard from … Continue reading →

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More on the STAR Voting System

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron updates us on the latest in modern voting technology. The drumbeat of election rigging and foreign hacking of voting machines have energized ongoing efforts to develop a new model of digital election equipment designed to produce instantly verifiable … Continue reading →

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Fire ant-killing robots

Posted on January 14, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Let’s just luxuriate in the glory of that headline for a moment, shall we? Harley Myler is working on a “war of the worlds.” That’s what the Lamar Electrical Engineering Department chair calls his latest project: a walking robot that … Continue reading →

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Plague vaccines

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Cool. More than six centuries after the Black Death wiped out more than a third of the population of Europe, a University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston team has shown that in experiments with rodents, their three vaccines effectively … Continue reading →

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The coming measles outbreak

Posted on December 17, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

I hope we’re wrong about this. Peter Hotez used to worry mostly about vaccines for children in far-away places. An infectious diseases researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Hotez is developing shots against diseases in poorer countries … Continue reading →

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We’re going to be fighting about vaccinations for a while

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

I wish it weren’t so, but it is. Texas is one of 18 states that allow non-medical exemptions to the vaccines required for school attendance. California had a similar law allowing non-medical exemptions, until last year when it enacted a law that … Continue reading →

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Who wants to go to Mars?

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

I imagine that sounds like a pretty good option to a lot of people right about now. Wealthy business leaders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are creating buzz around and making progress toward the exploration of deep space, experts … Continue reading →

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As long as we’re talking about improving our voting machines

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Then this is what we should be talking about. [Travis] County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir called Rice University computer science professor Dan Wallach, who has been poking holes in voting-machine security for years. He’s testified before Congress on the subject. Now … Continue reading →

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Texas versus the feds: A Series Of Tubes edition

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Ken Paxton will never run out of reasons to sue the Obama administration. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is jumping into Ted Cruz’s fight to stop what the U.S. senator calls President Barack Obama’s illegal internet “giveaway.” Paxton and three … Continue reading →

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Rice prof wins MacArthur grant

Posted on September 25, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Awesome! Babies were dying in the Malawi hospital and there was little Rebecca Richards-Kortum could do about it. For Richards-Kortum, a bioengineering professor at Rice University, it was a heartbreaking realization, one that haunted her as she toured the modest … Continue reading →

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Too many kids are not getting vaccinated

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

We let this happen, thanks to the fervor of a vocal minority. The number of Texans who exempt their children from vaccination for non-medical reasons rose nearly 9 percent last school year, continuing a now 12-year-long trend that public health … Continue reading →

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Want to know how close you live to a polluter?

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

There’s an app for that. More than two million Texans live within a half-mile of an oil and gas facility, putting them at risk of exposure to toxic fumes, according to a new app released Wednesday by national environmental groups. … Continue reading →

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If we can’t ban it, we’ll BS about it

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

The “it” in question is of course abortion, with the state of Texas lying to women about its effects and risks. Death and infertility were just two of the risks a doctor described to Kryston Skinner when she chose to … Continue reading →

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Another bad year for Kemp’s ridley turtles

Posted on July 22, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

This does not look good. The nesting season for the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is ending with zero nests found on either Galveston Island or the Bolivar Peninsula for the first time in at least a decade, although the … Continue reading →

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First baby affected by Zika born in Texas

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Won’t be the last, unfortunately. A baby boy born with microcephaly in Harris County is the first Zika-affected infant in Texas, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced Wednesday. The baby’s mother contracted Zika in Colombia, and the baby … Continue reading →

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Building a better mosquito trap

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

I love this story. Harris County officials are teaming up with tech-giant Microsoft to find and research mosquitoes that could carry the Zika virus or other mosquito-borne diseases, the county public health department said Tuesday. As part of “Project Premonition,” … Continue reading →

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Our bioscience future

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Looking bright. Biotechnology continues to grow in Texas, contributing to the state’s overall economy by adding jobs, making strides in research and innovation and last year attracting $1 billion in federal funding for research, a new report on business development … Continue reading →

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Remembering Buckyballs and the Nobel Prize they won

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Twenty years ago, two Rice University chemists won the Nobel Prize for a revolutionary idea about carbon molecules. The discovery of Buckyballs, a new form of carbon that ushered in the era of nanotechnology and won a Nobel Prize, happened … Continue reading →

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Use of abortion pill rises

Posted on May 7, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Until the Lege reconvenes, anyway. There’s been a sharp increase in the number of Texas women who are using the abortion pill to end their pregnancies now that federal officials have eased restrictions on the drug, according to officials at … Continue reading →

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Here come the drones

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Look! Up in the sky! Companies in Austin and Addison on Wednesday became the first two firms to become officially credentialed to operate unmanned aircraft systems under a new training and safety program that officials said promises to boost Texas’ … Continue reading →

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Anti-vaxxers gain ground in Texas

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

There’s a lesson in here that we need to learn. On a Friday night little over a year ago, a Texas mother of three was attending a school dance when she got a text message that stopped her cold. A … Continue reading →

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Find those leaks

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

I don’t care how. A pair of state and federal government inspectors spent two weeks traveling around northern Colorado’s oil and gas fields in early 2012, filming with an infrared camera. Air pollution was rising in the region, and attention … Continue reading →

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Dan Wallach: 2016 Electric Power Usage Update

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Note: From time to time, I solicit guest posts from various individuals on different topics. While I like to think I know a little something about a lot of things, I’m fortunate to be acquainted with a number of people … Continue reading →

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Fighting pertussis

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Sure hope these folks can make a lot of progress in their work. Of the more than 30,000 children hospitalized with pertussis in the United States each year, 10 to 20 will die. Worldwide, pertussis infects more than 16 million … Continue reading →

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An app to help the homeless

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

This is a great idea. A shower. A meal. A place to sleep. Those basic needs come to mind when most think of the homeless. Our Calling, a Dallas nonprofit, has given the homeless an iPhone app. The faith-based nonprofit … Continue reading →

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It’s hard out here on a recycler, part 3

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

A story in the WaPo about the ongoing struggles of the recycling business. Once a profitable business for cities and private employers alike, recycling in recent years has become a money-sucking enterprise. The District, Baltimore and many counties in between … Continue reading →

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Ambulances and ERs

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Very interesting story about the overuse of ambulances in Houston and how the city is trying to deal with it. But in truth little works in a system that has been broken for years. Over the past generation, patients began … Continue reading →

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It’s hard out here on a recycler, part 2

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

As if they didn’t have enough to deal with. As low commodity prices have left recyclers short on cash to invest in technological upgrades, product manufacturers are coming out with new types of packaging that make business even tougher. These … Continue reading →

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