It’s a giant image, or I’d paste some sample text here, but click through to read my writeup of delectable French pastries in the Washington Post Magazine!
Author Archives
Rachel
Compost Cab Helps City Dwellers Turn Garbage to Soil
from National Geographic’s Green Guide If you live in a city, you might have a window box or a pot of tomatoes on your balcony. You might even be lucky enough to have a small backyard garden. But do you compost? Probably not: composting in a small space is tough, not to mention smelly. You … Continue Reading
RoboCup 2010: Could Robot versus Human Be Far Behind?
As the World Cup races forward in South Africa a different kind of soccer tournament recently kicked off in Asia. And whereas debates in Cape Town and Johannesburg may center on the Jabulani ball’s aerodynamics or the vuvuzela’s “unique” sound, in Singapore coaches are more likely to worry whether their favorite player has blown a fuse.
Freelance Ethics Part 2
I had the opportunity earlier this month to be a panelist at the Vocus User Conference here in Washington DC. All the flacks wanted to hear what the Future of Media looks like from a freelance perspective…and out of all the freelancers in the DC area, they chose me. I’m humbled. I’ll be honest with … Continue Reading
Shanghai’s European Suburbs
A decade ago, as Shanghai’s population approached 18 million and housing prices skyrocketed, the city decided to act. City planners developed an initiative called “One City, Nine Towns”—satellite suburbs would be built on farmland outside Shanghai to house one million people by 2020.
Youngest Planet Confirmed; Photos Show It Grew Up Fast
by Rachel KaufmanPublished in National Geographic News2010-06-10 They’re not the most aww-inspiring baby pictures, but new infrared images prove the youngest known planet outside our solar system does in fact exist—and that planets can grow up fast—a new study says. Probably only a few million years young, Beta Pictoris b is already fully formed, despite … Continue Reading
Crocodiles Body Surf to Hop Between Islands
Published in National Geographic News Saltwater crocodiles in the South Pacific travel between islands by body surfing, according to new research designed in part by late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin. The world’s largest living reptile, the saltwater crocodile is found in brackish and freshwater habitats extending east-west from East India to Fiji and north-south from … Continue Reading
Planets Found With Crisscross Orbits—A First
Published in National Geographic News A “super Jupiter” and its sibling world have been found circling their parent star with steeply tilted orbits—the first time such a configuration has ever been spotted, astronomers say. All eight planets in our solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane, an imaginary disk that extends from … Continue Reading
3 Future Oil-Spill Fighters: Sponges, Superbugs, and Herders
Amid efforts to cap the seafloor leak, cleanup workers have been using boat-based skimmers to pick up the oil, booms to gather the slick for burning, and chemical dispersants to break the crude into smaller droplets—all parts of the oil-fighting toolkit for decades. Soon, though, tech of the future could be cleaning up spills like this one.
Neuromarketers get inside buyers’ brains
Frito-Lay studied women’s brains to help develop an ad campaign, and Campbell Soup (CPB, Fortune 500) just unveiled a packaging redesign based on consumers’ “neurological and bodily responses” to different mockups. By hooking customers up to EEG or MRI machines, a company can learn about what’s really going on inside a buyer’s brain — possibly even before the buyer knows it.