Intellectual Ventures - Intellectual Ventures Lab

Intellectual Ventures Lab

Intellectual Ventures launched a prototyping and research laboratory in 2009 called Intellectual Ventures Lab, hiring prominent scientists to perform invention including Robert Langer of MIT, Leroy Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology, Ed Harlow of Harvard Medical School, Danny Hillis of Applied Minds, and Sir John Pendry of Imperial College. The Sunday Times reported that the company applies for about 450 patents per year, in areas from vaccine research to optical computing and, as of May 2010, 91 of the applications had been approved. Internally developed inventions include a safer nuclear reactor design (which won the MIT Technology Review Top 10 Emerging Technologies in 2009) that can use uranium waste as fuel or thorium which is plentiful and poses no proliferation risk, a mosquito targeting laser based on Strategic Defense Initiative Star Wars technology, and a series of computer models of infectious disease.

Their efforts to promote a method to reverse or reduce the effects of global climate change by artificially recreating the conditions from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption gained media coverage following the release of the book SuperFreakonomics. Information in the fifth chapter of the book about global warming proposes that the global climate can be regulated by geo-engineering of a stratoshield based upon patented technology from Nathan Myhrvold's company.

The chapter has been criticized by some economists and climate science experts who say it contains numerous misleading statements and discredited arguments, including this presentation of geoengineering as a replacement for CO₂ emissions reduction. Among the critics are Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, The Guardian, and The Economist. Elizabeth Kolbert, a science writer for The New Yorker who has written extensively on global warming, contends that "just about everything they have to say on the topic is, factually speaking, wrong." In response, Levitt and Dubner have stated on their Freakonomics blog that global warming is man-made and an important issue. They warn against the exaggerated claims of an inevitable doomsday; instead they look to raise awareness of other, less traditional or popular, methods to tackle the potential problem of global warming.