As a recent New York Times article observes, the kilogram is officially defined as “a unit of mass equal to the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram.” Well, it turns out that the prototype, a chunk of platinum and iridium housed at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France, has lost […]

Newsweek reports that Sitka, Alaska is looking at selling 3 billion of gallons of water for bottling in Mumbai India shipped via tanker.  This will mark one of the first major water transfers of this sort, making water a globally traded commodity.  It also brings up some interesting questions around climate change and how it. . .   Read More

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

Burr Heneman suggests that the increasing empowerment of women around the world will have impact for generations to come.

Just a few weeks ago the U.S. marked the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave. . .   Read More

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

At a recent Long Now seminar, Ed Moses mentioned in passing that we now produce enough bullets each year to kill every person on the planet — twice. We are a violent species; we hunt, we organize in. . .   Read More

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

It’s obvious energy will be one of the great challenges of this century. But it’s possible to hope that the current BP oil spill might help prompt a broader conversation about possible alternatives.

Over the. . .   Read More

Is There Good News About Energy?

In the face of the BP disaster, it would be all too easy to lose hope about our energy future. But it’s possible there might be a silver lining in that oily cloud: if we’re lucky, the spill may prompt a deeper conversation about the need to. . .   Read More

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

It used to be thought that what defined us as human is the fact that we make tools. But in the past few decades, toolmaking has also been observed in chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, otters, octopuses, and several. . .   Read More

Stewart Brand sent in this fantastic graph that shows how “big” a given news story of the past decade was and then also notes how many lives were lost because of it.  To see the full size image click through to the wonderful Information is Beautiful Blog.  Of course the interesting bits are the real […]

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

The woman in this picture just celebrated her 100th birthday. But she’s far from the oldest living American: that’s Neva Morris, of Ames, Iowa, who’s 114. They’re just two of the 84,000. . .   Read More

Kirk Citron, the man behind Long News here on this blog, was invited to give a short talk on it at this years TED conference in Long Beach.  They just posted the video which you can see above.  Congratulations to Kirk, and big thanks for coming to us with the idea and doing such a. . .   Read More