Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Battling World Hunger Through Innovative Technology

July 12, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Battling World Hunger Graphic

Topics like farm industrialization and genetic modification seem to dominate discussion of technology's role in addressing world hunger. Beyond them, however, are new and exciting frontiers. From mobile apps to interactive games, technology is reshaping our understanding of and approach to world hunger. To see the illustration of these innovations that appeared in the July-August 2011 issue of Miller-McCune magazine, click the image below. Robotics Whereas the plant breeder's pursuit of an ideal seed has traditionally been time-consuming and resource-intensive, new technology is vastly ... Read More

Scholars and The Big Lebowski: Deconstructing The Dude

July 11, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

A bowling alley. A severed toe sporting a neatly polished nail. An aging hippie and his best friend, a Vietnam War veteran with a hair-trigger temper. If those images don't add up to anything for you, feel free to flip the page. If they do, it means you're familiar — perhaps intimately so — with one of the most analyzed, deconstructed and eclectically interpreted films of recent decades: The Big Lebowski. Joel and Ethan Coen's subversive comedy, in which a slovenly slacker (Jeff Bridges) in modern-day L.A. gets caught up in a convoluted kidnapping case, was neither a critical nor a ... Read More

The Exploitation of Muggles in Harry Potter’s World

July 8, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Every so often, we find a study that makes us question our place in the cosmos. Zakir Husain's paper in the Journal of Creative Communications, "Wizards, Muggles and Economic Exploitation Dependency Relations in the World of Harry Potter," is one such treatise. In it, the Delhi University economist posits that "the Wizarding world remains an epitome of the colonial society prevailing in the pre-World War I era, tightly bound within through blood, lineage and money, and sustained through exploitation of the peripheral non-magical world. Muggle lovers like Mr. Weasley may clash with ... Read More

Celebrants Offering More Meaningful Funerals

July 6, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Diane Meily planned her own funeral as she lay dying of cancer. She met with the mortician at her bedside, chose her own casket and videotaped a farewell message. She was a high school teacher; it was meant to be an inspiration for her students. She envisioned a personal, uplifting service to convey the spirit of her life, capped by the playing of her favorite song, Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up." But Meily's pastor of 15 years had his own ideas about her funeral. In a call with the family following her death, he turned down several of her last requests, including the song. Meily's family ... Read More

Can Computers Predict Crimes of the Future?

July 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

It's great when cops catch criminals after they've done their dirty work. But what if police could stop a crime before it was even committed? Though that may sound like a fantasy straight from a Philip K. Dick novel, it's a goal police departments from Los Angeles to Memphis are actively pursuing with help from the Department of Justice and a handful of cutting-edge academics. It's called "predictive policing." The idea: Although no one can foresee individual crimes, it is possible to forecast patterns of where and when homes are likely to be burgled or cars stolen by analyzing truckloads ... Read More

Green Habits Stay Home on Vacation

July 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

School's out, and many people who diligently bike or take the bus to work have bought their plane tickets for vacation. They may not know or care that flying will dramatically increase their carbon footprint. Using a kind of "moral accounting," people who thriftily save fuel getting to work may feel they've done "their fair share" and can indulge themselves in their time off, says a Norwegian study titled, "Troublesome Leisure Travel." This is the unintended side effect of building compact cities, promoting environmental awareness and telecommuting — three of the most common policies for ... Read More

Can Cigarette Butts Be Recycled?

June 30, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Nearly 2 billion pounds of trash is thrown on the ground every year in the form of cigarette butts — 4.5 trillion cigarette butts, composed largely of filters made from cellulose acetate, a non-biodegradable plastic. But what if all these cigarette butts had a value? What if you could trade them in for cash? Would they then disappear from streets, beaches and parks? Curtis Baffico, a San Diego stock trader who moonlights as an environmentalist, asked himself these questions and decided to create a recycling system to try to answer them. Baffico raises money on his website, Ripplelife.org, ... Read More

Invasion of the Unregulated Chemicals

June 29, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Legally Poisoned

Let's say you want to live a healthy life. You eat organic food to avoid pesticides, and you buy free-range chicken to steer clear of antibiotics. You stay away from swordfish because of the mercury warnings. You move out of the smoggy downtown. But hard as you try, you will not be safe, says Carl F. Cranor, author of an unnerving new book, Legally Poisoned: How the Law Puts Us at Risk from Toxicants. Since 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has measured 219 environmental chemicals in the bodies of Americans. Most of the population carries around measurable levels of lead ... Read More

Legal Services Wanted; Lawyers Need Not Apply

June 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

"Law is too important to be left to lawyers." Paraphrasing the famous adage about war and generals, Mark Chandler, general counsel at Cisco Systems Inc., shared this observation with me in the spring of 2007. We were speaking over Cisco's stunning TelePresence video-conferencing system — he traveling on the East Coast, me on the West — while he grabbed a quick sandwich between meetings. Others had referred to Chandler as one of the most innovative senior lawyers in Silicon Valley, and I was picking his brain about the impact of law on innovation as part of the early phases of a research ... Read More

Alcoa and Corporate Social Responsibility — Rhetoric vs. Reality

June 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Corporate Social Responsibility, Meet Transparency

On a Web page labeled "vision and values," Alcoa says it intends to be "the best company in the world — in the eyes of our customers, shareholders, communities, and people." And Alcoa has made Fortune magazine's list of Most Admired Companies and the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index, but the aluminum company's rhetoric doesn't always match its performance. INTEGRITY vs. BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS The Rhetoric: "Alcoa's foundation is our integrity. We are open, honest and trustworthy in dealing with customers, suppliers, coworkers, shareholders and the communities where we have an ... Read More