a collaboration for good
Colombia is solving its severe housing shortage by using the Crane WASP (World’s Advanced Saving Project), which is known as “the infinity 3D printer.” The WASP, employing technology used by the Mason Wasp, an insect that uses mud to build its nests, uses locally sourced materials, such as clay, mud, sand and even agricultural waste…
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Rooftop gardens and solar panels can play a significant role in helping cities meet their needs for vegetables and electricity, but it must be one or the other — not both. So how does one decide which is the best choice? What should we do with the world’s rooftops…produce food or energy? https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2024/10/what-should-we-do-with-the-worlds-rooftops-produce-food-or-energy Related…
Scientists tell us that heat is the deadliest type of extreme weather, so they are finding ways to turn people’s clothes into tools against extreme heat. The latest example is a way to apply a chalk-based coating to clothes that reduces the temperature underneath those clothes by up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. Coating clothes with…
Countless studies of what policies work best to improve the climate have concluded there is no single answer, no one silver bullet that could solve all our problems, but scientists have concluded that there is a single best solution: adopting a combination of policies. What climate policies work best? A new study has answers https://grist.org/economics/climate-policy-emissions-study/…
Raw sewage, which helped imperil the Arizona’s Santa Cruz River, now may help save it — if used strategically. Scientists are doing just that, and the result is that large invertebrates are flourishing after only two years. Just add sewage: How a bone-dry river bed became a thriving haven for desert wildlife https://www.salon.com/2024/09/03/just-add-sewage-how-a-bone-dry-river-bed-became-a-thriving-haven-for-desert-wildlife/ Related…
Americans pay four times more than Chinese pay to buy electric vehicles, and two times more than Europeans do. But help is on the way and might arrive as soon as next year. When Will America Get Its $25,000 Electric Car? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-17/when-will-america-get-its-25-000-electric-car Related Reading
New research is finding that tiny creatures with tiny brains can perform very complex activities that essentially are based on thinking, as opposed to actions that are based on instinct. Spiders, in other words, are smarter than you think. Spiders are much smarter than you think https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2021/are-spiders-intelligent Related Reading
People use lithium batteries for a virtually endless number of reasons, but one key component of lithium batteries is graphite, and therein lies a problem. Graphite is largely supplied by China, which gets almost 60 percent of its electricity from burning coal, which creates toxic pollution that can cause extreme weather events and harm plants, animals, the economy and our…
Maritime shipping, which uses 300 million tons of fuel every year, causes 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. To combat that, a state-owned company in China has built a 10,000-ton containership that is fully electric, and it recently put the ship into service. A fully-electric 10,000 ton container ship has begun service equipped with…
Zircons may be best known as a birthstone of December, but they also record time much like tree rings, can tell the origin stories of planets, perhaps discover precious minerals beneath the Earth’s surface, even infer when continents rose from the oceans. Indeed, without zircons we would know very little about the Earth. Keeping time…