Think the best place for solar panels is the desert? Think again. In Antarctica, the sun shines 24 hours a day
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Feed SubscriptionRenewable Rubber The Next Step For Truly Oil-Free Cars
Replacing the oil that we use to make our car parts is just as important as replacing the oil we use to power our cars. Our vehicles are made from, and run on, petroleum.
Read More »Once Fish Come Back, It’s Tempting To Just Start Catching Them Again
The 800-pound Goliath grouper was near extinction before conservation measures brought it back from the brink. What happens when it starts being harvested again? The fisheries in the Atlantic ocean--from North Carolina to the Caribbean--are best characterized by what's missing: snappers, groupers, redfish, lobster and the host of other species that once patrolled hundreds of miles of the Gulf Stream
Read More »New Technology To Save–Not Just Catch–Marine Life
After decades of more and more powerful fish-catching innovation, scientists are now developing ways for fisherman to catch just the amount, and type, of fish they need. Technological advancement on the high seas has advanced almost in lock step with the decline of healthy fisheries around the globe. Since the 1950s, fishery collapse has been predictably preceeded by new advances that allow fisherman to hoover up ever-increasing catches: floating freezer ships, 30-mile drift nets, and open season in international waters
Read More »Visualizing The Carbon In Our Built Environment
Architecture 2030's plan is for all buildings to proudly announce how many emissions it required to build them, to operate them, and to eventually tear them down. Architecture 2030 , a non-profit architecture and design group, intends to transform the global building sector--a source of about 10% of the world's greenhouse gases (GHG), and almost half when you include the emissions from operating buildings. The Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products, will visualize how much energy is "embedded" in
Read More »An MFA Degree For Designers Who Want To Change The World
So you want to change the world? Cynics may send you off to Wall Street or a white-shoe law firm. Those with gumption will look for another way.
Read More »How To Catch A Poacher? DNA
New techniques in DNA retrieval from dead animals might change the balance in the often fruitless quest to stop the poaching of endangered species.
Read More »German Scientists Plan to Halve The Cost Of Electric Vehicles
Chevy Volts currently cost upwards of $30,000, but to make EVs truly mainstream, that price has to come down. A team of German engineers is looking at every step of EV manufacturing to do just that
Read More »Zambikes Bamboo Bikes Turn Heads In The U.S., Fight Poverty In Africa
An African bike company builds bikes for the poor, funded by selling you a super-light sweet bamboo ride. In Zambia, bicycles grow on trees, or rather bamboo, the primary building material for many Zambikes .
Read More »Powering A City With Its Subways And Massive Spinning Wheels
Coming to a city near you soon: By adding giant flywheels to subway systems, cities are able to harness the power created by thousands of braking trains, using it to accelerate other trains or feeding it back into the grid. Every time a train starts and stops, it draws or dissipates several megawatts of energy, enough to power more than a thousand homes. This happens thousands of time per day, every day, in commuter rail systems across the country.
Read More »MIT’s Free Urban Planning Software Will Help Build The Cities Of The Future
If we are to improve the quality of life in our cities--27 of which are expected to have more than 10 million people by 2020--we will have to find a better way to build them. MIT's new software will help.
Read More »Making Agriculture Preserve Land, Not Destroy It
Combining principles of conservation with the needs of agriculture might be the only way to keep growing enough food to feed an exploding global population.
Read More »An "Ebay For Science" Promises To Transform The Business Of Research
Instead of being held captive by massive startup and infrastructure costs, Science Exchange allows anyone to have an experiment performed for them--for a fee. Scientific research is an expensive proposition.
Read More »Engineering Buildings To Promote Good Bacteria
Microbes are everywhere, and most are harmless. But tightly sealed buildings--like hospitals or offices--create places where only dangerous bugs survive
Read More »When Communities Identify Their Own Poor, Aid Has The Most Effect
By asking peers to decide who deserves the most government aid--instead of using empirical measurements--money can have more lasting effects. When governments and NGOs plan on giving assistance to the most needy, how do they know who needs the most assistance? It's a question people are at great pains to answer, yet social welfare programs around the world are still plagued by error and abuse
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