Human Nature: Science, Technology, and Life.

Napping, Sex, and Abstinence

Which is more important: food, sleep, or sex? My instinct is to go with sleep, on the grounds that if you try to avoid all three, sleep is the one that will overtake you first. It's the one you need most. If that's true—and if we know that it's unreasonable and dangerous to insist that people abstain from sex—then isn't it stupid to expect pilots to abstain from sleep?

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Mini Soda: The New Light Cigarette?

You'll drink Coke mini for the same reason you already drink Coke: to sate your addiction. And if you don't get enough "sparkle" from the smaller can, no problem. Just open a second 7.5-ounce can, and you'll get 20 percent more sparkle than you used to get from a 12-ounce hit.

You'll also get 20 percent more calories. But you'll feel better about yourself, because now you're practicing "portion control" and "a healthy lifestyle." Just like you felt better about smoking light cigarettes.

More here.

Green Gridlock

Solar power is good for the environment, right? Eh, sort of. Marla Dickerson reports in the Los Angeles Times:

Rows of gigantic mirrors covering an area bigger than two football fields have sprouted alongside almond groves near California 99. This is a power plant that uses the sun's heat to produce electricity ... At least 80 large solar projects are on the drawing board in California ...

Critics fear that massive solar farms would create as many environmental problems as they purport to solve. This new-age electricity still requires old-fashioned power towers and high-voltage lines to get it to people's homes. A proposed 150-mile transmission line known as the Sunrise Powerlink that would carry renewable power from Imperial County to San Diego has run into stiff resistance from grass-roots groups and environmentalists. Solar plants require staggering amounts of land, which could threaten fragile ecosystems and mar the stark beauty of America's deserts.

No problem. We just need to put these huge arrays on the moon.

Now, about the energy cost of getting them there ...

Over to you, John Tierney.