New Florence. New Renaissance.

Gravity as energy storage

The concrete blocks are slowly hoisted upwards by motors powered with electricity from the Swiss power grid. For a few seconds they hang in the warm September air, then the steel cables holding the blocks start to unspool and they begin their slow descent to join the few dozen similar blocks stacked at the foot of the tower. This is the moment that this elaborate dance of steel and concrete has been designed for. As each block descends, the motors that lift the blocks start spinning in reverse, generating electricity that courses through the thick cables running down the side of the crane and onto the power grid. In the 30 seconds during which the blocks are descending, each one generates about one megawatt of electricity: enough to power roughly 1,000 homes.

This tower is a prototype from Switzerland-based Energy Vault, one of a number of startups finding new ways to use gravity to generate electricity. A fully-sized version of the tower might contain 7,000 bricks and provide enough electricity to power several thousand homes for eight hours. Storing energy in this way could help solve the biggest problem facing the transition to renewable electricity: finding a zero-carbon way to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Wired UK

 

 

Patient-centered hospital design

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is one of the most recent examples of this trend in patient-centered design; in October, they opened a new pavilion to house the emergency department and in-patient care for the cardiology, neurology, neurosurgery, oncology, and transplant departments. “One of the things we know is that sleep is really, really critical to healing,” says Reich, who was one of many hospital employees who worked with the architects to finalize the design. So the new more-than-500-room building uses an “onstage/offstage” design to minimize noise and disruption. Private patient rooms are “onstage,” lining the outside of the building. Supply and medication rooms and staff break rooms are “offstage,” clustered in the core. Separating the two reduces noise and gives staff more private space, too. Each nursing specialty is now housed on the same floor, making it easier for nurses to coordinate care instead of having to travel between floors to consult about a patient.

Wired

The Centro Hospitalario Serena del Mar in Cartagena, Columbia

 

Restoring Jeddah’s Al-Balad old town

I have walked through that part of the world a few times in the 80s when I did some projects in Saudi Arabia.

Conde Nast Traveler describes efforts to rejuvenate the historic quarter

"We’re sitting streetside at Foul Fattah, a restaurant that has been feeding Jeddah for more than 40 years with dishes influenced by the seaside city’s cosmopolitan spirit. For centuries, Jeddah’s old town, Al-Balad, was the main point of entry by sea for Hajj pilgrims heading to the holy city of Makkah 40 miles away, and a major port on the Indian Ocean trade routes. A multicultural community sprung up to cater for the travelers’ needs, and many stayed. But Al-Balad has seen better days, and I’m here with Bakhsh to learn how the Ministry of Culture—and a new 15-year project supported by a grant as part of Vision 2030, the country’s ambitious masterplan to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and reduce dependency on oil—is transforming the district from a place that had been left to fall apart into somewhere that people want to come back to."

 

COVID reshaped city streets

Globally, more than 200 other cities launched similar programs early in the pandemic, rethinking how streets could be better used by people on bike or foot. Some roads closed to cars. Some parking spaces turned into outdoor dining. Other cities lowered speed limits, or gave out free bikes, or, in at least one case, experimented with one-way sidewalks to help with social distancing. Not all of the changes have lasted—and since the pandemic still hasn’t ended, it’s still too early to judge how many will ultimately stay in place. But there are also already examples of permanent change.

Fast Company

Example from Berlin, Germany – pop-up bike lanes

 

2022 30 under 30

Forbes annual list – here are 20 of what it calls "standouts"

 

The Big, untapped Data of Medical Records

Details on the medical care of hundreds of millions of patients are piling up in electronic health records in clinics and hospitals around the world, comprising a growing treasure trove of real-world data on the daily practice of medicine—patient diagnoses, treatments and outcomes. Hardly anyone has sought to tap the knowledge sequestered in those digital vaults that might benefit future patient care. Until now.

Aided by advances in artificial intelligence, search capabilities and other analytics, researchers are now probing the huge databases for rapid insights into the performance of the healthcare system.

For example, closely held Epic Systems Corp., maker of one of the most widely used electronic health record systems, searched a segment of its database in the spring of 2020 to find that routine breast, colon and cervical cancer screenings in the U.S. had each dropped by more than 85% during the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report helped spur efforts to persuade people to make up for missed screenings.

WSJ (sub required)

Here is a cancer specific database from ASCO

 

 

Giant kite as energy for ships

Founded by former Airbus engineers, Airseas has designed a 10,000-square-foot kite system dubbed Seawing. It can be deployed at the touch of a button and help tow large cargo ships by harnessing the power of the wind. Think of it like an epic kitesurfing setup, where the kite is operated by an automated flight control system first developed for the aerospace industry—and the kitesurfer is, well, a 50,000-ton cargo ship.

Fast Company

 

The vibrant world of Digital Health startups

From CB Insights

The 2021 Digital Health 150 cohort has raised approximately $14.9B in aggregate funding across 522 deals since 2016 and includes startups at different investment stages of development, from early-stage companies to well-funded unicorns.

The companies were selected by CB Insights’ Intelligence Unit from a pool of over 11,000 companies, including applicants and nominees.

Handy Travel Apps

Hopefully 2022 will allow a lot more travel, so Travel and Leisure has a list of 22 handy apps such as Dayuse.

If you find yourself in the middle of a long layover, Dayuse can get you into a hotel room for a few hours for up to 75 percent less than what the typical overnight rate would be. The app features 5,000 hotels in 23 countries, and allows you to make free cancellations at the last minute, in case you manage to catch an earlier flight.

Others include TripIt – more in video below

 

Drives of a Lifetime

Margaret and I love to do 3-4 day driving trips – we have done so in several US states like Arkansas, New Mexico, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming and abroad – in Canada, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Scotland among others.

So, I was delighted to get as a Christmas present the National Geographic book which highlights 500 spectacular drives around the world

Brought back lots of good memories from many of our drives and ideas for future trips.  

And as you can imagine with National Geo, the photography is stunning.