An eclectic assortment of stuff: food, archaeology, fun, books, history, geekery, etc.
Posted in environment, food, history & archaeology on Dec 18th, 2009
From Hurriyet Daily NewsAncient seed sprouts plant from the past.
A 4,000-year-old lentil seed found during an archeological excavation has germinated, exciting scientists as the event might lead to invaluable data for comparisons between the organic and genetically engineered plants of today. It would be the first seed from very old times whose genes were never [...]
Posted in environment on Oct 2nd, 2009
Now this, this is amazing. It’s a BBC article about what William Kamkwamba did when he was a teenager in Malawi.
Unable to attend school, he kept up his education by using a local library.
Fascinated by science, his life changed one day when he picked up a tattered textbook and saw a picture of a windmill.
And [...]
Posted in environment on Jul 1st, 2009
From the Beeb: From bush to bike – a bamboo revolution .
On the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, next year’s crop of bicycles is being watered by Benjamin Banda.
We planted this bamboo last year, he says, and now the stems are taller than me. When it’s ready we’ll cut it, cure it and then turn it [...]
Posted in environment on Jun 11th, 2009
From the Guardian: British ‘Searaser’ invention promises green power revolution on the waves.
Alvin Smith had his eureka moment not in the bath, but in the swimming pool. ‘I was swimming round the pool, making little waves, and it struck me how much power there was in the displacement of the water,’ he remembers. ‘You [...]
Posted in environment on Apr 9th, 2009
From CNN: Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven.
When Jon Bohmer sat down with his two little girls for a simple project they could work on together, he didn’t realize they’d hit upon a solution to one of the world’s biggest problems for just $5: A solar-powered oven.
The ingeniously simple design uses two cardboard boxes, [...]
Posted in environment on Mar 6th, 2009
From The Telegraph: Scientists discover the ‘No Parking’ tree.
The tree, a deciduous hybrid related to the rowan, was first noticed in a small lay-by at Watersmeet in North Devon in the 1930s with a no-parking sign tacked to the bark.
It is only recently that scientists have undertaken a biochemical analysis to confirm the tree is [...]
Posted in environment on Feb 23rd, 2009
From the LA Times: Simple elixir called a ‘miracle liquid’.
It’s a kitchen degreaser. It’s a window cleaner. It kills athlete’s foot. Oh, and you can drink it.
Sounds like the old "Saturday Night Live" gag for Shimmer, the faux floor polish plugged by Gilda Radner. But the elixir is real. It has been approved by U.S. [...]
Posted in environment on Jan 17th, 2009
From the Vancouver Sun: Commercial Drive banners gain second life as bags.
In an age when showing up at the grocery store without a reusable bag is akin to showing up at a dinner party without your pants, the type of bag you carry can say a lot about you.
One bag — it’s been so popular [...]
Posted in animals, birds, insects, etc, environment on Jan 5th, 2009
From Newsweek: It’s Survival of the Weak and Scrawny.
Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada, is home to a population of bighorn sheep, whose most vulnerable individuals are males with thick, curving horns that give them a regal, Princess Leia look. In the course of 30 years of study, biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet of the University of Sherbrooke [...]
Posted in environment on Jan 1st, 2009
From the Huffington Post: New Zealand’s Biofuel Plane Uses 50-50 Blend.
Air New Zealand has tested a passenger jet powered partially with oil from a plum-sized fruit known as jatropha, in efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and cut its fuel bill.
With its test flight Tuesday, the airline became the latest carrier experiment with alternative fuels, [...]
Posted in coffee, environment on Dec 21st, 2008
From EurekAlert: Waste coffee grounds offer new source of biodiesel fuel.
Researchers in Nevada are reporting that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel for powering cars and trucks. [continue].
See? Espresso can power more than just my mouth.
Posted in environment, history & archaeology on Dec 7th, 2008
From The Independent: Ancient skills ‘could reverse global warming’.
Ancient techniques pioneered by pre-Columbian Amazonian Indians are about to be pressed into service in Britain and Central America in the most serious commercial attempt yet to reverse global warming.
Trials are to be started in Sussex and Belize early in the new year, backed with venture capital [...]
Posted in environment on Nov 12th, 2008
From The Guardian: The woman with a tiny carbon footprint.
We all know we are meant to be reducing our carbon footprint, but I suspect that many people wouldn’t be prepared to go as far as Joan Pick. She hasn’t driven a car since 1973 and has only been in a petrol-guzzling vehicle twice since then [...]
Posted in environment on Nov 4th, 2008
From The Guardian: Tree fungus could provide green transport fuel.
A tree fungus could provide green fuel that can be pumped directly into tanks, scientists say. The organism, found in the Patagonian rainforest, naturally produces a mixture of chemicals that is remarkably similar to diesel.
"This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce [...]
Posted in environment on Oct 26th, 2008
From the New York Times: Up, Up and Away.
Shara and Scott Di Valerio wanted to build a deck for their hot tub, a place to relax in the woods on their five acres east of Seattle. But at some point, as they found themselves up in a stand of fir trees with a majestic [...]
Posted in environment on Oct 26th, 2008
Well, what do you think? Would you want to live in any of these container houses?
Posted in environment on Sep 26th, 2008
From the Globe and Mail: Montreal rolls out bike-sharing plan.
Paris has Vélib, Barcelona has Bicing, and as of today, Montreal will start to showcase its own European-style bike-sharing program with a fetching name: Bixi.
The city better known for Grand Prix racing and automobile worship rolled out a green, two-wheeled alternative that civic officials hope will [...]
Posted in environment on Sep 24th, 2008
From The Guardian: Isle of plenty.
Jorgen Tranberg looks a farmer to his roots: grubby blue overalls, crumpled T-shirt and crinkled, weather-beaten features. His laconic manner, blond hair and black clogs also reveal his Scandinavian origins. Jorgen farms at Norreskifte on Samso, a Danish island famed for its rich, sweet strawberries and delicately flavoured early potatoes. [...]
Posted in environment on Sep 12th, 2008
From csmonitor.com: Are towns really safer without traffic lights?.
BOHMTE, GERMANY — When Ulrike Rubcic heard that her town would take down all of its traffic lights, she rolled her eyes in disbelief.
Tucked between cornfields and cow meadows, the main street in this bucolic northern German community was also a thoroughfare with thousands of cars [...]
Posted in environment on Sep 12th, 2008
From the BBC: Earthworms to aid soil clean-up.
Scientists have discovered how metal-munching earthworms can help plants to clean up contaminated soils.
Researchers at Reading University found that subtle changes occurred in metals as worms ingested and excreted soil.
These changes make it easier for plants to take up potentially toxic metals from contaminated land.
Earthworms could be the [...]
Posted in environment on Sep 9th, 2008
From the LA Times: 100 goats turned loose on a downtown L.A. plot.
The hills were alive with the sound of munching.
In fact, the only things that seemed missing Monday when a herd of goats climbed up a weed-choked lot in the Bunker Hill high-rise district were Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp family singers.
Leaders of [...]
Posted in environment, strange stuff on Sep 2nd, 2008
This has to be the strangest form of housing I’ve seen in a while. From the 24 Hour Museum: Danish artists create life-size walking house for Wysing Arts Centre near Cambridge.
With oil prices rocketing and mortgages plummeting, visionary Danish artist collective N55 has solved the joint problems of transport and housing by building a home [...]
Posted in environment on Sep 2nd, 2008
From The Guardian: Seawater greenhouses to bring life to the desert.
Vast greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.
The Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated [...]
Posted in environment on Aug 28th, 2008
From the Guardian: To Greece, by car, on grease.
A group of British eco-enthusiasts have just pulled off the greenest and grubbiest car rally ever, driving from London to Athens in vehicles powered exclusively on waste vegetable oil.
The team motored with unexpected ease across Europe on the proceeds of the grease thrown away by restaurants and [...]
Posted in environment, outdoors on Aug 25th, 2008
From the National Post: Smokey got it wrong.
Splashed with drops of burning fuel gel, trailing from a helicopter concealed by a roiling column of smoke overhead, the giant pines of Mount Nestor fire up like roman candles. A few kilometres away, on the eastern slope of Mount Nestor, Kevin Topolnicki’s team unleashes a necklace of [...]