Blogs / Discoblog

Atlanta was hit hard with heavy rains and severe flooding last week. But for a part of the country that was in such a deep drought the governor resorted to praying for rain, it makes sense that the good citizens of the ATL aren’t letting this newfound water go to waste. In fact, the conservationists at 5 Seasons Brewing Company in Atlanta are using their collected rainwater to make beer.

From The Huffington Post:

The local brewery uses 100% filtered rainwater that’s captured on-site to create their “green beer” (not to be confused with the St. Patrick’s Day type). The brewers believe that rainwater is cleaner and softer than city water, which makes their beer even better.

And here’s the video, from CNN:

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Image: flickr / brendan.wood

Let it not be said that no one is using eye-catching stunts to raise awareness about global warming. The activist group the Yes Men is distributing 85,000 free copies of a “special climate edition” of the New York Post throughout New York City today, with the goal of, well, terrifying people into action against climate change.

The full paper is available online here, and each article is also online. Here’s an excerpt from the front-page story:

It’s official. It’s getting hot down here. And if we don’t stop burning oil and coal, the Big Apple will be cooked.

According to a high tech study commissioned by a concerned Mayor Bloomberg and generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, climate change caused by human-created greenhouse gases is threatening the health, livelihood and security of New Yorkers—especially those who take the subway to work…

According to the panel’s report, if all nations don’t drastically cut their carbon emissions, then Gotham will suffer in the following ways:

• Deadly heat waves will become more frequent, more intense and longer. Because cities are a lot hotter than their surrounding areas, we’ll see more of the sorts of heat events that killed 600 people in 5 days in Chicago in 1995…

• With coastal flooding, our water supply will be in trouble…

• Along with coastal flooding, droughts will also increase…

• The strain on our power grid will be drastically increased during the summer months.

Granted, there is some light at the end of the pitch black tunnel:

So what can we do about it? Plenty. And it’s not even that hard.

On the City level, NASA scientists have the answers, and they’re simple: plant lots more trees (to cool the air through “evapotranspiration” and shade), and paint the roofs white to reflect the sun’s heating rays (See “New York’s all white with me”).

But MOST IMPORTANTLY, we need to put pressure on government—local, state and federal—to convert our entire energy systems to sustainable sources like solar and wind.

Well, lets hope all those stimulus checks can kick that process into gear.

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Image: Courtesy of The Yes Men

Fashion has been beefing up its  environmental conscience (if not its models) over the past few years—and with good reason. The production, transport, and disposal of clothing is a serious source of pollution, with the textile industry holding steady as the third largest consumer of water, and the source of up to 20 percent of industrial pollution.

This year, it’s fabric dye that’s getting the Green treatment. Coloring a pound of fabric can take up to 75 gallons of water, and a single dress or pair of pants can use up to 25 gallons.

So what if we could dye all our clothes without water? That was the idea tackled by Colorep, a California-based technology development company that created a new way to color fabric using air rather than H2O. Called AirDye, the process applies non-plastisol-based inks within garment fibers, rather than as a layer on top (which is how it’s done with water).

This Fashion Week (yup, it’s going on now—you can tell by all the hungry-looking Eastern European waifs roaming the streets) the AirDye system made its debut at the Costello Tagliapietra show, in which the clothes (see photo) were dyed almost entirely without water.

Granted, until this new dyeing method hits jeans and T-shirts, your DISCOVER staff likely won’t be testing it out ourselves.

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Image: Courtesy of LLR Consulting

We here at Discover rarely look out the window, so enthralled are we with the daily goings on of the science-related interwebs. But a tipster (the tech guy, who actually does go outside) informed us that a strange, unexplained phenomenon was occurring outside our office: Foam is falling from the sky.

It looks like snow, only it’s not anything that nature could drum up. Where it’s coming from and why remain a mystery. Exploded dry cleaners? Cargo plane dropping mattresses?

Our crack research team (aka Brett the Intern) is out collecting samples for analysis. Pictorial evidence here:

and:

If you have any insider info on the strange foam assault, email us at mlafsky@discovermagazine.com.

UPDATE: We will have video shortly.

UPDATE 2: The Forbes.com people are also concerned about the foam tempest. (Yes, Forbes, we r in ur buildingz, watching u make galereez.)

UPDATE 3: The foam appears to be soap that’s being shot from the building ventilation system or water pipes. The soap was created by men who felt the need to wash the roof of 90 Fifth Avenue. In the pouring rain.

Thanks to all the tipsters who have written in, offering theories from rampant laundry room emergencies to September 11th pranks.

And the trophy goes to…Picher, Oklahoma! Years of lead and zinc mining have left the town so polluted that “the soil is poisoned, the water runs orange and the air has been ruled unsafe,” according to MSNBC. The effects on residents include a variety of cancers and birth defects. Watch the full report here:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The dress code in Bangladesh just got a lot more casual, thanks to an effort to cut the nation’s energy usage. According to the prime minister’s orders, men can no longer wear ties, jackets, or suits to work. The new rule is part of a plan to combat the power shortage the country is facing. And during the year’s hottest months (March through November), men need only wear pants and shirts, which can even be untucked(!).

Bangladesh has taken other measures to decrease energy usage, according to BBC:

Officials and ministers have also been told not to turn their air-conditioners below 24C [or 75 degrees Fahrenheit]. In June, the government introduced daylight saving, and the clocks moved forward by one hour, in another attempt to cut energy consumption.

It has said it will also soon spend $6bn (£3.6bn) on new power plants, operated by private companies. The current state-owned plants have not been able to keep up with Bangladesh’s large population and its economy, which has been growing at about 6% annually for the past five years.

Seems like this idea could be, well, suitable for other heat-drenched places such as the southern United States. After all, it’s actually pretty ridiculous to bundle up for work, then use valuable energy to keep the buildings we work in comfortably frigid.

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Image: flickr /skyfaller

If astronauts can drink water recycled from their urine and Orange county residents can sip on recycled sewage water, then surely people can drink water from their shower, too.

Four French design school students came up with a clever concept: They proposed using a plant system made of sand, reeds, rushes, a mesh filter, water hyacinths and lemnas, and a carbon filter that can be placed underneath the tub to recycle the water used during a shower. After the water goes through eight filtering steps, the contaminants in the water, like shampoo and soap (and your newly-removed dirt), can be turned into tasty, drinkable water.

The Daily Mail reports:

[Designer Jun] Yasumoto, 34, said: “These plants have been proven to be able to remove the chemicals from your shampoo.”

Using a natural filtering principle called phyto-purification, the bathroom becomes a mini-eco-system by recycling and regenerating the wastewater.

The designers put their drawings online—and, not surprisingly, people soon wrote to them and asked how they could purchase the system. But sadly, the concept has not actually been built yet. On the bright side, there are other ways of conserving water in the bathroom—like peeing in the shower.

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Image: flickr/ cool3c

Looking for an example of irony? Here’s one, compliments of the oil industry: A solar-powered oil field. Yes, that’s right—sunlight will be used to make the petroleum easier to extract on a Chevron oil field, instead of the natural gas that traditionally does the job.

The New York Times’ Green Inc. blog reports:

The 100-acre project’s 7,000 mirrors will focus sunlight on a water-filled boiler that sits atop a 323-foot tower to produce hot, high-pressure steam.

In a conventional solar power plant, the steam drives a turbine to generate electricity. In this case, the steam will be injected into oil wells to enhance production by heating thick petroleum so it flows more freely.

Is using alternative energy to fuel oil production a step in the right direction? Seems like power produced by solar technology could perhaps be used a liiiittle more efficiently.

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Image: flickr / richardmasoner

Could part of the solution for global warming fit inside an ice cream cone? Maybe—at least, that’s what the developers of so-called “ambient” ice cream are hoping.

Unilever, the world’s largest ice cream producer (and owner of perhaps the world’s best ice cream, Ben & Jerry’s), is trying to figure out how to produce a new kind of frozen treat that can be shipped and sold at room temperature, before being frozen at home once purchased. The goal is to reduce the carbon that is needed to keep today’s ice cream from turning into a sloppy mess. The Times Online reports:

A spokesman for Unilever said that warm, or so-called ambient, ice cream was a “very interesting idea” but one that posed tough challenges that its scientists were trying to solve. “The key question which has yet to be fully answered is: how do you ensure that, when the ambient ice cream is frozen at home it will have the right microstructure to produce a fantastic consumer experience?”

The new ice cream may be the tastiest part of an overall program to help Unilever cut down on the impact its products, such as dishwashers and refrigerators, have on the environment. Of course, an even bigger way to reduce carbon: Eat less ice cream.

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Image: flickr / lilivanili

Navy chemists are claiming they can take seawater and turn it into hydrocarbon fuel—which, if it ever happens, would be great, since the ocean contains 140 times the amount of carbon dioxide held in the air. But right now, the notion of an endless supply of jet fuel from the Atlantic seems too good to be true.

Granted, the idea is gaining ground: Researchers are working on the process of taking carbon dioxide from ocean water and mixing it with hydrogen that has been split from water molecules. And Naval Research Laboratory chemist Robert Dorner has even been able to create fuel from refined seawater by tweaking a process that normally uses coal to produce hydrocarbon fuel.

But before seawater can become a gasoline resource, the researchers will have to figure out the right catalyst to use. In general, too much methane is produced when the wrong catalysts are used in fuel-making, causing fewer hydrocarbons to form—which means less fuel is produced.

So assuming it all gets ironed out, what are the chances this would ever work? Well, scientists have been able to take just about anything and turn it into oil, including turkey, poop, and human corpses—but these alternative sources still haven’t become anything close to major sources of fuel.

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Image: flickr/ Matza74