Saint: Mongolia Ulaanbaatar, the country’s capital, is building an ice shield to protect against sweltering summers. This winter, engineers are drilling holes into a frozen river, allowing water to seep up and freeze into thick ice blocks that should melt slowly and naturally cool the city come summer.
Sinners: 3-D Printing Criminals Three-dimensional printing is awesome, but it can also be used for malicious purposes. Last year police in Los Angeles discovered a 3-D printed account-stealing device discreetly attached to an ATM. It recorded data from debit cards and had a small hole for a camera that captured customers keying in their PINs.
Saint: Institute of Medicine In December the institute recommended that the United States severely curtail its use of chimpanzees, man’s closest relative, in medical research. The National Institutes of Health is reassessing current and proposed trials that use chimps.
Sinner: Robert Bryce In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the Manhattan Institute senior fellow illogically argued that if Einstein can be wrong (as evidenced by last year’s discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos), then climate science must not be settled. In fact, his reasoning supports the opposite conclusion: Science is designed to challenge conventional wisdom, yet study after study continues to support the theory that humans are contributing to climate change.
