Discoblog » Pollution Solutions (& Disasters)

When Good Flowerbeds Go Bad: A Story of Chemistry in Action

Veronique Greenwood — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:43:32 +0000

White gates turning black in Belgrade.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a fortress of white limestone was built between the River Sava and the Danube in what is now Serbia. It later gave its name—Belgrade, or “white fortress”—to the city that sprang up within and outside its walls, and in the twenty-first century, after more than a millennium of attacks by Huns, Bulgarians, Byzantines, more Bulgarians, Turks, and what-have-you, Belgrade fortress met its harshest enemy yet: fertilizer.

Our story starts with scientists trying to figure out why the fortress’s legendary white walls were turning black . They took samples of the corrosion and examined it with a number of chemistry techniques to determine what it was made of, finding, as they had expected, that the black hue was partly due to sulfur dioxide released by the coal-burning fires heating the surrounding houses. Too much sulfur dioxide in damp air will trigger a chemical reaction in limestone, causing white calcium carbonate to convert to black calcium sulfate.

But the researchers also found a substance called syngenite, which incorporates calcium, sulfur, and potassium. And that was strange, because syngenite, which often forms on medieval stained glass ...

The Greatest Threats to da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”: Milan’s Dirty Air & Visitors’ Oily Skin

Douglas Main — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:19:50 +0000

Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” has survived since the late 1400s on a wall in the Santa Maria delle Grazie Church in Milan, weathering centuries of change and intrigue, such as a World War II bombing. Worried about soiling from air pollution in the city, one of Western Europe’s most heavily polluted, curators installed a ventilation and filtration system to protect it in 2009. The system worked well at reducing levels of fine and coarse particulate matter within the church (according to a new study), which should save the painting from worst effects of air pollution.But a significant threat remains: fatty lipids and organic compounds, such as those emitted from the skin of the 1,000 people that visit the painting each day.

Researchers found elevated levels of lipids and organic compounds (including squalane) inside the chapel, compared to outside. These compounds can combine with soot and stick to and soil the painting, says University of Southern California researcher Nancy Daher. These organic compounds come from visitor’s skin, fire retardants, cleaners, and even wax used in earlier restorations of the painting itself. The researchers recommend finding a way to reduce airborne levels of these chemicals, ...

If You Build a Ghost Town in the Desert, the Geeks Will Come

Veronique Greenwood — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:19:27 +0000

Ghost town available, no apocalypse required.

New Mexico has a lot of land and a lot unemployed folks, and the state government has apparently been casting around for some combo deal that lets them use one to fix the other. And they must have been successful, because a DC-based engineering consultancy recently announced that they will be starting a $200 million construction deal there, building a city large enough for 35,000 on public land. A ghost city. No people allowed.

The ghost town will have all the modern conveniences, including new buildings, old-style buildings, houses, apartments, schools, commercial blocks, and traffic lights. But it will not have all the usual users of such conveniences, including dental hygienists, CEOs, angst-ridden teenagers, commuters, soccer moms, tax lawyers, and executive assistants. In fact, the only people allowed will be scientists and engineers. It’s a scientists-only ghost-town club.

What will the scientists be doing? Testing new technology, of course–Pegasus-Global Holdings got the idea when they had trouble testing their clients’ smart energy tech in a realistic environment and, like many movie producers before them, decided to just build the durned place themselves. They’re calling it The Center. Which isn’t creepy ...

Blue Goo to the Rescue in Japan Clean-Up [Gallery]

Veronique Greenwood — Tue, 31 May 2011 20:15:47 +0000

Click here to view gallery

Officials Use Blue, Peelable Goo to Decontaminate Japan

Veronique Greenwood — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:35:05 +0000

Just pour and peel! Also slices and dices.

Put away that Swiffer—when you’ve got a real mess to clean up, turn to this blue goo.

Japanese officials looking to clean up radioactive contamination are applying a product called DeconGel to the problem. The usual method is distressingly Stone Age: soap and water applied by human beings. As you can imagine, there are a number of problems with this, like what to do with all that radioactive water, which has a tendency to leak all over the place, and what to do about radiation exposure of said human beings.

DeconGel, 100 buckets of which were donated to the relief effort by its manufacturer, CBI Polymers, looks to be a handy way to bypass all that. A radiation-mitigation expert working with Japanese officials put them on to it: “I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” he says, “and there’s nothing comparable to DeconGel out there that I know of today.” (via CNNMoney)

If you’ve ever used a lint roller, you’re familiar with the basic mechanics of DeconGel. The viscous blue goop is poured onto the contaminated surface, allowed to dry, and then peeled off like masking tape from a ...

Small Particles Can Flow Up Waterfalls, Say Tea-Drinking Physicists

Veronique Greenwood — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:45:04 +0000

When the height is right, tea leaves zip up the
waterfall and go for a swim in the upper container.

It’s not just salmon that can leap nimbly up waterfalls, according to a new study in the physics arXiv: wee particles like tea leaves and industrial contaminants can flow upstream if conditions are right.

Cuban scientists first noticed this strange phenomenon while brewing yerba mate by decanting pure water from one container into another containing the tea leaves. Mysteriously, tea leaves sometimes appeared in the water container.

They investigated and found that when a waterfall from one container into another is no more than a centimeter high, the water’s flow generates a counterflow along the edges of the channel that goes in the opposite direction, drawing chalk powder and tea leaves up into the higher vessel. While scientists knew that such counterflows could form, the idea that they might persist even after the water goes over a waterfall is a kooky new take on it.

This map of the velocities of particles on the water’s
surface shows the counterflow in red and the main flow in blue.

It’s not all fun and water ...

An Underappreciated Weapon Against Air Pollution: Our Dead Skin

Patrick Morgan — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:21:58 +0000

We humans have a whole lotta skin: The average adult human body has about 22 square feet of it. If you could step out of your skin and plop it on a scale (kids, don’t try this at home), it would weigh 8 pounds. And every minute, 40,000 of your dead skin cells flake off your body and join their brethren among the dust that accumulates in your home. Knowing how much dead skin we slough off, some scientists decided to test what that skin is up to, discovering that the oils in dead skin cells actually help reduce indoor air pollution.

The idea of linking skin cells with air pollution doesn’t take too much of a mental leap: Past research has shown that the natural organic compound known as squalene, which is found in human skin, hair, and clothing, chemically reacts with ozone and neutralizes it. “More than half of the ozone removal measured in a simulated aircraft cabin was found to be a consequence of ozone reacting with exposed, skin, hair, and clothing of passengers,” according to the American Chemical Society.

In this ...

Call Off the Crazy: Quake Prediction Falsely Attributed to Decades-Dead Quack Was Wrong

Patrick Morgan — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:37:27 +0000

It’s said that all roads lead to Rome, but on May 11, the opposite was true as thousands of Romans fled the Eternal City for fear of a massive earthquake. The mass exodus was spurred by internet rumors that said an Italian pseudoscientist predicted a devastating quake on this date over thirty years ago. It goes without saying, but here’s why you probably shouldn’t trust the seismic predictions of someone who thought earthquakes were caused by planetary alignments:

Meet Raffaele Bendandi, a “scientist” who believed that aligned planets could change Earth’s gravitational force and trigger earthquakes. He’s thought to have correctly predicted a 1915 earthquake in Avezzano, Italy, but he didn’t become famous until he “correctly” predicted a January 4, 1923 earthquake in Le Marche. (He was actually two days off.) It was close enough for Benito Mussolini, though, who later granted Bendandi a knighthood.

While Bendandi might’ve gotten lucky a couple of times, it’s well established that planetary alignments don’t cause earthquakes. “The force from aligned planets is irrelevant compared to the tectonic forces of the Earth’s plates whose movements create ...

A Toast! To Scottish Homes Powered by Whisky

Patrick Morgan — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:36:28 +0000

If you live in Scotland, the same whisky that energize your visits to the pub may also energize your home: Contracts are underway to construct a combined heat and power plant that runs on the leftovers of some of Scotland’s most famous distilleries. Scheduled to be up and running by 2013, this particular alcohol-powered project is Scotland’s first whisky-fueled energy project that will provide electricity to the public.

Sixteen whisky labels located in Speyside, Scotland—including Glenfiddich, Chivas Regal, and Famous Grouse—will contribute material to the new power plant. They’ll transport their spent grains (or draff) from the distilleries to the biofuel plant, where it’ll be combined with wood chips and burned, generating over 7.0 MW of power. This energy output—about the same as two large wind turbines—is expected to power at least 9,000 homes. In addition, the residue called pot ale, which accumulates in the distilleries’ copper stills, will be turned into animal feed and fertilizer for nearby farmers.To minimize the energy used to run the plant and ensure the process is energy efficient, no draff will be collected from distilleries farther than 25 miles away. Still, while Sam ...

If the Catastrophic Weather Events Don’t Get Us, the Irrationality Might

Valerie Ross — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:24:27 +0000

What global warming?

What the weather’s like affects some people’s beliefs about global climate change, a new study found: On hot days, they’re all over it, but on cold days, they’re not so sure.

This is not impressive, people. It’s called “global,” meaning not just what you personally felt when you walked out the door this morning. “Climate” also means something different from “weather”, and “change” could mean things will get warmer, colder, or just plain different. On unusually chilly days, these climatically labile folks are 0 for 3.

If only that was the worst of it. A string of studies have shown that people are comically bad at consistently thinking, well, anything when it comes to climate change. Even miniscule differences in what we’re up to at the moment or how we’re asked can have a big effect on what people think of climate change and what they’re willing to do to help. Here are five more ridiculously simple things that get people to change their minds:

What’s on TV. I’m sure you all remember the 2004 hit film The Day After Tomorrow, in which global warming throws Earth into a new ...

Ultimate Green Burial: Frozen & Vibrated Into Dust, Kinda Like a Terminator

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:52:52 +0000

Sure, your life is pretty green. You bike to work, recycle, and use energy-saver light bulbs. But what about after you are done all that living? How can you turn your green lifestyle into a green deathstyle?

Two words: liquid nitrogen. A sweedish company, called Promessa Organic Burial says they’ve discovered the greenest possible way to bury your loved ones: freeze them in liquid nitrogen and then use sonic waves to shatter their body, a la T-1000 in Terminator 2.

The website describes the process and even provides a nice illustration:

Within a week and a half after death, the corpse is frozen to minus 18 degrees Celsius and then submerged in liquid nitrogen. This makes the body very brittle, and vibration of a specific amplitude transforms it into an organic powder that is then introduced into a vacuum chamber where the water is evaporated away.

The powdered, dehydrated remains of your body are then packaged neatly into a small cornstarch box and buried to rot away and be reabsorbed into the earth within 12 months.

As biologist and Promessa’s head of operations Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak puts it

$10,000-Gizmo Lets You Turn Plastic Bags Back Into Petroleum

Patrick Morgan — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:43:59 +0000

You could be spared the guilt of forgetting your eco-friendly cloth shopping bag on the trip to the grocery: A Japanese inventor has created the first home recycling system that can convert all those extra plastic bags back into oil.

His name is Akinori Ito, and his invention is now for sale through Blest Corporation. According to the website, one model–the Desk-top Waste Plastic Oiling System–weighs a mere 110 pounds. But the best part is that this non-polluting conversion process is also highly efficient: two pounds of plastic can be converted into one quart of oil using a mere kilowatt-hour of energy (a cost of roughly 20 cents).

It works by capturing the vapors released by heated plastic, and then funneling them through a network of pipes and water chambers, which gradually cool the vapors until they coalesce back into crude oil–where the plastics originally came from.

That process creates oil that can power certain types of stoves and generators–and more refining can turn it into gasoline. But as Clean Technica duly notes:

Of course, the end product of this conversion system is still fuel that must ...

Video: See the First Aerial Footage of an Uncontacted Amazonian Tribe

Patrick Morgan — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:41:19 +0000

In the rainforest along the border between Brazil and Peru, an indigenous tribe is ignoring the 21st century and living life the old-fashioned way. Experts believe this “uncontacted tribe” has had no direct contact with mainstream society, but the Brazilian government has known about the tribe for 20 years and routinely flies above the settlement to check on the inhabitants’ well-being.

NOw, the BBC has released the first ever video footage of this tribe, which had previously only been seen in photographs:

The footage was filmed in cooperation with the Brazilian government, and was featured on the BBC’s Human Planet series. It was shot in the summer of 2010 along the Peru-Brazil border using a zoom lens that allowed the crew to film from more than a half-mile away.

The Brazilian government flies over the settlements once a year to check on the tribe. As José Carlos Meirelles, the Indian-affairs specialist who led the video expedition, explains to National Geographic:

“They always get scared when they see an aircraft, but this tribe is used to seeing commercial flights—Boeings and local jets—flying over the region…. I prefer to get them scared once a year—and make sure they are healthy, growing ...

To Help Reindeer Thrive in a Globally Warmed World–Castrate Them?

Patrick Morgan — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:46:49 +0000

The chain of cause and effect seems clear: climate change causes Arctic temperatures to fluctuate, which causes ice build-up as snow repeatedly thaws and refreezes. And to Arctic reindeer herders–who want their herds to continue to eat the nice lichen underneath all that ice–the next link in this chain is also clear: castrate your reindeer.

That’s what researchers have decided will help the Arctic’s indigenous people–the Sami–thrive as our world continues to warm up. As Reuters reports:

“Males castrated in the traditional way would have an increased chance of survival over other males since they maintain body weight and condition during the rutting season,” according to a research document by Eli Risten Nergaard of Sami University College.

But that’s not all. Researchers have found that castrated male reindeer are larger than their un-castrated brethren, are therefore better able to pound through the thick Arctic ice; they’re also more willing to share their food with calves. In other words, castrated male reindeers facilitate the survival of the entire herd–that is, assuming they’re not all castrated.

From Reuters:

“To make herds more resilient in ...

Beef Fat Spill Turns the Houston Ship Channel Into a Clogged Artery

Jennifer Welsh — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:38:13 +0000

Fat is in the news: Not just because of the world’s obesity problems, but because one agriculture company accidentally fattened up the Houston Ship Channel on Tuesday by spilling 15,000 gallons of beef tallow into it.

The fat was in an onshore storage tank owned by agricultural company Jacob Sterns and Sons, which for unknown reasons leaked about 250,000 gallons of animal fat. About 15,000 gallons seeped into the channel through a storm drain, and immediately solidified after hitting the water, Coast Guard spokesman Richard Brahm told The Wall Street Journal:

“Luckily the stuff is easy to clean up,” Mr. Brahm said. “It solidifies at room temperature, so as soon as it hit the water it just kind of sat there.”

The floating fat looks like a collection of dirty little icebergs (officially called “patties”), but is causing some problems. Three quarters of the northern end of the channel had to be shut down for the cleanup effort–luckily it didn’t block tanker traffic along the waterway.

The US Coast Guard helped clean up the fat in the channel, and finished pitch forking and booming the ...

Unwanted Christmas Trees Find a Home–at the Bottom of a Lake

Eliza Strickland — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:53:52 +0000

Oh Christmas trees, oh Christmas trees, what should we do with your corpses?

Here’s an idea that seems to be working well: Use them as fish habitats. Surprisingly, the trees are prefect for the job, Pete Alexander told The New York Times:

“Christmas trees are perfect — just the right size and weight,” said Mr. Alexander, the fisheries program manager for the East Bay Regional Park District, which is based in Oakland, Calif. “And we get them free, because vendors want to get rid of them.”

After the holidays are over, the group gets leftover trees from vendors, ties a bunch of trees together, and sticks them at the bottom of a lake. The trees quickly grow algae and attract fish to the area–which also attracts fishermen. Every year the workers build a habitat in a new lake, and The New York Times reports that the structures last about five years:

“They last a pretty long time — about five years in the lake,” said Lee Mitchell, a natural resource specialist for the Army Corp of Engineers, who is leading a similar campaign ...

What to Do With Troublesome Invasive Species: 1) Eat Them, 2) Wear Them

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:53:38 +0000

Sick of invasive snakes eating through your wiring and biting your babies? Don’t have any tylenol-doped mice to lob at them? You might be in luck, we have a few ideas of what to invasive species that insist on making pests of themselves.

Idea #1: Make Them Into Dinner

Become a part of the “invasivore” movement by ingesting some tasty lionfish (pictured) or asian carp, and by nomming on some kudzu or Japanese knotweed. One “almost serious” invasivore, Rachel Kesel, blogged on the subject and talked to The New York Times:

She said in an interview that she was studying in London when she wrote the post, which grew out of conversations about diet and ecology. “If you really want to get down on conservation you should eat weeds,” she decided. And so she blogged. She now works for the parks department of San Francisco and said she did indeed pursue the vegetable side of the diet she proposed. “I’m really looking forward to some of our spring weeds here,” she said, notably Brassica rapa, also known as ...

GM Recycles Oil-Soaked Booms From BP Spill Into Parts for Chevy Volt

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:00:54 +0000

The Chevy Volt is taking aim at the green market. Not only did it nab the 2010 green car of the year award, but it’s also helping to clean up the mess that big oil company BP made in the Gulf of Mexico.

GM is recycling 10,000 pounds of oil-soaked booms from the gulf into parts for the Volt. Instead of sending the booms to landfills, their absorbent polypropylene (which bears plastic-recycling #5) filler will be cleaned and recycled, GM said in the press release:

“This was purely a matter of helping out,” said John Bradburn, manager of GM’s waste-reduction efforts. “If sent to a landfill, these materials would have taken hundreds of years to begin to break down, and we didn’t want to see the spill further impact the environment. We knew we could identify a beneficial reuse of this material given our experience.”

The used booms will be resurrected as an auto part that deflects air from the radiator; boom material will make up 25 percent of the part, with 25 percent coming from recycled tires and the ...

Are Gun-Toting Climate Skeptics Taking Pot Shots at Wind Turbines?

Jennifer Welsh — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:01:46 +0000

It seems wind turbines aren’t just stirring up energy, but a fair bit of emotion, too. And when that emotion comes in the form of gunshots, it makes the news.

In early December someone sabotaged poor wind turbine number 8 in a wind farm in Bingham township, Michigan by taking out its transformer. The Huron Daily Tribune reports:

A hole found in the transformer’s radiator resulted in damage, which caused oil to leak out. The exact amount of damage to the $50,000 transformer was not reported. The hole in the transformer, according to police, appears to be from a small caliber firearm…. Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson said the damage to the transformer appears to be “intentional sabotage.”

The hole in the wind turbine’s transformer caused it to break down, which resulted in the turbine overheating and automatically shutting down. The shooter remains on the lam, and his motives are not clear, says Treehugger:

We can’t be sure that the shots fired near Ubly, Michigan, were indeed by a wind power opponent, or coal lover. Maybe ...

How to Prep for Oil Spills: Dump 210,000 Gallons of Popcorn in the Water

Jennifer Welsh — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:55:30 +0000

One large bucket of popcorn, please, hold the salt, oil, and butter. Actually, make that 210,000 gallons of popcorn. We have an oil spill to re-enact.

Brazilian oil spill clean-up experts leapt into action last week to clean up a popcorn spill that makes movie theater accidents seem pretty tame. It turns out that popcorn makes a good approximation for spilled oil, explains the EFE, a Spanish news agency:

Although it sounds quaint, popcorn has been used to replace oil in simulations for over ten years by [Petrobras]. After testing seeds and grains, the experts found several positive factors in the popcorn: it is biodegradable–prepared without salt and no cooking oil–gives good flotation and serves as food for fish.

The popcorn spill was set up in the Rio Negro outside of Manaus, Brazil by the oil company Petrobras and the Brazilian navy. The organizations were keen to test their readiness to respond to spills because oil companies drill in the nearby Amazon, and transport their oil through the river’s delta. Petrobras’ spokesperson explained to EFE:

“Major emergencies ...

Is This the Peak of Peak Panic? Peak Chocolate, Peak Maple Syrup, & More

Jennifer Welsh — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:26:42 +0000

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The Sweet Sound of Seepage: Listening to the Oil Spill

Jennifer Welsh — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:10:58 +0000

We all heard about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But what if scientists could have actually HEARD it?

In the wake of the disaster, several scientists are working to develop new ways to spot and monitor spills over time using sonar–by propagating sonic waves through the water and bouncing them off oil droplets. Some of this research is being done by Thomas Weber and will be presented today at the Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics.

Sonar is useful because it can monitor large and deep swaths of the ocean, and could reduce the need to take individual samples or to visually track oil on the water’s surface. Weber and his team were the first to try using this technology to visualize the oil, going out on several trips to the site, Weber told ScienceNOW:

“We were really doing crisis science…. There were no proven methods for doing this.”

Weber’s team used sound waves to probe below the ocean’s surface. They found that frequencies around 200 kilohertz were best for tracking the type of oil droplets released ...

Chatbot Debates Climate Change Deniers on Twitter so You Don’t Have to

Jennifer Welsh — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:41:33 +0000

Sick of chasing down climate denialists himself, Nigel Leck put his programming skills to use for him. He created the Twitter bot @AI_AGW, who also goes by the name “Turing Test.”

Every five minutes the bot searches Twitter for tweets relating to climate change denialism, and automatically responds to the posters using a database of hundreds of rebuttals, which include links to information and videos. Christopher Mims at Technology Review talked to Leck about the project:

The database began as a simple collection of responses written by Leck himself, but these days quite a few of the rejoinders are culled from a university source whom Leck says he isn’t at liberty to divulge.

Some of @AI_AGW’s debates have gone on for hours or days, with the recipient not knowing they are talking to a bot, even though its handle says AI and it includes a link to the Wikipedia page on the Turing test. The program is smart enough to run through a list of responses, which is especially helpful when debating with people who keep throwing the same arguments at ...

“Octopus Head War” Pits Korean Health Officials Against Fishermen

Jennifer Welsh — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:16:11 +0000

Charges by South Korean health officials that octopus heads contain large and unhealthy amounts of the heavy medal cadmium have sparked a war with the fishermen who profit from the $35 million-a-year trade.

Octopus heads are a popular delicacy in South Korea, revered by locals for their health benefits and their supposed role as an aphrodisiac. About 12 million octopuses are sold for eating every year, says the LA Times:

Nakji, a dish featuring baby octopuses, head and all, is a popular snack at sporting events. Another dish, sannakji (“live octopus”), features squirming tentacles dipped in a sesame oil and salt sauce. Enthusiasts have been hospitalized after a wiggling tentacle lodged in the throat.

The Seoul city government tested octopus heads for cadmium and found that the delicacy had dangerously high levels of the toxic metal, almost 15 times higher than the recommended 2 milligram per kilogram limit set by the government. Ingestion of high levels of cadmium can lead to liver and kidney poisoning, and the metal is a known carcinogen. After the findings were announced, the price of octopus fell substantially and turmoil ...

2 Ways to Keep an Eye on Illegal Logging: Watch on Tiger-Cam; Bug the Trees

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:24:18 +0000

Motion-activated cameras have been used to catch bad nannies and adulterers for years. But in the forest, a high-tech, heat-detecting nannycam has caught video not just of the rare tigers that were its intended targets, but also of some unexpected forest-dwellers: illegal loggers.

In the video to the right, you can see a rare Sumatran tiger (one of only 400 left in Indonesia) strolling up to the forest spy camera and saying hello in Indonesia’s Riau Province. Seven days later a beast of a very different kind awakens the camera: a bulldozer leveling the forest.

The next day, another tiger passes by the spot, across the front of the clear-cut forest. The forests are being cleared for palm oil plantations, according to the WWF:

“Because of its status, both as a protected area and limited production forest, the area cannot be developed as a palm oil plantation, therefore any forest clearance, including bulldozing activities to clear the path, strongly indicates this excavation was illegal,” said Ian Kosasih, director of WWF-Indonesia’s forest and species program.

The forest in this area, called Bukit Batabuh, is protected because it serves as a corridor between two wildlife parks. Continued bulldozing in this area is ...

Green Living Meets Vertical Farming in Wacky “Edible House” Design

Jennifer Welsh — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:32:53 +0000

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Climate Change Activists’ Head-Exploding Ad May Have Gone a Bit Far

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:40:35 +0000

Warning: Some viewers might find the video below disturbing and graphic.

In a move that some are calling a misguided publicity stunt, the environmental activist group 10:10 Climate Change Campaign produced and released a gory and disturbing short film, similar to Plane Stupid’s “Polar Bear” video (warning: also gory), to promote the climate change action day scheduled for October 10, 2010 (or 10/10/10).

In the video above, people who don’t pledge themselves to 10:10′s cause (including school children and Gillian Anderson) are exploded into red, chunky goo with the press of a button. It was released last week and has resulted in a media backlash, including Sony’s retraction of support of the cause. It even inspired a cartoon.

Not only does the video offend and disgust, but the New York Times’s Dot Earth Blog summarized another main problem with the video–the dark shadow the negative publicity has spread over the entirety of the climate change debate:

If the goal had been to convince people that environmental campaigners have lost their minds and to provide red meat (literally) to shock radio hosts and pundits fighting curbs on greenhouse gases, ...

The World’s Fastest Lawn Mower, a Fire-Throwing Bike, and More Bizarro Vehicles

Jennifer Welsh — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:35:10 +0000

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Bicycle Bubble/Monorail Transportation System—Crazy or Genius (or Both)?

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:54:40 +0000

A human-powered monorail system called Shweeb won $1 million from Google’s 10^100 innovations contest.

The company that manufactured the Shweeb is one of five to be awarded a total of $10 million from the competition. They will use the money to develop the Shweeb for use as a city commuter transport option.

The Shweeb efficiently uses human power from a rider sitting in the recumbent seat, pedaling the bubble-shaped pod through the air. This vision for public transportation is a little out there, but the Shweeb has some promise, says Gearlog:

Like all truly forward thinking ideas, Shweeb seems completely nuts at first glance. As a tech blogger I’d love nothing more than to mock Google and it’s choice of Shweeb with its poor-man’s take on the Jetsons opening sequence. But the more you read about it, the more Shweeb’s innovative take urban transport makes a whole lot of sense.

The pod gives you your own personal space (literally a personal bubble) while traveling and allows you to choose where you need to stop – without adhering to a timetable, like a subway or bus. The ...

It’s a Bra! It’s a Dust Mask! It’s Both! And Now, It’s for Sale

Jennifer Welsh — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:44:42 +0000

The Emergency Bra, which won both the Ig Nobel prize in public health and a spot on TIME’s list of the Worst Inventions of 2009 is now available through the website, www.ebbra.com for $29.99. CNET explains its intended use:

The bra is, of course, meant to be taken off, something most adults presumably have experience with. Once removed, it separates into two masks which, when placed over the nose and mouth, filter out particles….

While the emergency bra has both fans and haters, it didn’t take much effort to change an everyday undergarment into an emergency survival tool. While there is additional filtration (let’s just call it padding) built into the bra, the main additions are the extra clasps that enable it to divide into two masks, each with their own bands and and an adjustable nose pincher. As the inventor, Elena Bodnar, notes in her IgNobel acceptance speech:

It takes only 25 seconds for the average woman to use this personal protective device. Five seconds to remove, convert and apply your own ...