Monthly Archives: April 2013

Samaritans in Taiwan turn plastic junk into items for the needy

"At the station operated by Taiwan’s largest charity group Tzu Chi Foundation, hundreds of volunteers help sort and recycle plastic waste along with used glass bottles and electronic appliances. Tzu Chi runs 5,400 recycling stations across Taiwan with the help of more than 76,000 volunteers and has distributed more than 460,000 blankets made from plastic bottles since 2007 for relief use at home and abroad. For the volunteers in charge of crushing the plastic bottles, who are from two nearby nursing homes for the mentally ill, the recycling work has also become part of their therapy." Continue reading →

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Entrepreneur Works With Coke’s Distribution to Deliver Medicine to Remote African Villages

"In the 1980s, entrepreneur Simon Barry was an aid worker in remote villages in Zambia, and he became aware of how easy it was to grab a Coke nearly every place he went, but he also noticed how many basic necessities were missing. Barry got the idea to somehow use Coca-Cola's distributing success to deliver lifesaving supplies to the countries most in need. Unfortunately, the idea did not become a reality until about five years ago, with the help of Facebook and the Internet. The joint efforts resulted in a test program, called ColaLife. The program gets medical aid to Zambia using the extra space in Coke crates." Continue reading →

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Peru’s engineers ‘make’ their own drinkable water in response to shortages outside of Lima

"The fresh, pure water on offer along a busy road in this dusty town some 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Lima, has been extracted, as if by magic, from the humid air. Within the enormous, raised, double-paneled billboard inviting all takers is concealed a tube, wires and mechanical equipment that draws the water from the air and purifies it. Inhabitants from far and wide who flock here toting liter bottles and buckets say this purified water is a wonderful alternative to the stagnant well water that used to be the only water source for many in this town." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPeru’s engineers ‘make’ their own drinkable water in response to shortages outside of Lima

Artificial Leaf Generates 100 Watts of Power from Dirty Water

"This development all of a sudden makes it practical to bring this solution to places like Africa, where power is undependable. Each one of these artificial leaves is capable of producing 100 watts of power, enough to keep the lights on at night, and a few more will keep a small refrigerator running. In the first world, putting these at the waste water outflows on houses can help with a household’s power needs and ease up on the grid. We’re still a few years away from seeing this as a viable solution on large scales, but hey, but the time the artificial leaf does hit the market, you should be able to run 15 light bulbs from a single plate. Isn’t that something?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingArtificial Leaf Generates 100 Watts of Power from Dirty Water

U.S. Regulations Require Use of Biofuel That Doesn’t Exist

"What is really crazy is that the law caps the amount of ethanol allowed at around 15 billion gallons. The law requires refiners to blend advanced cellulosic biofuels, despite that they are not being commercially produced. Up until this year, the requirement has been relatively minimal ~500 million gallons, but by 2017 the amount reaches 5 billion gallons. The US produces about 3 – 3.5 billion bushels of soybeans annually. A bushel of beans yields 11lbs of oil, and a gallon of biodiesel weighs ~7.3 lbs. Therefore even if we devoted all of the soybeans produced (3.015 bb) in the 2012/13 season it would only amount to 4.5 billion gallons. Where is all this biofuel going to come from?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingU.S. Regulations Require Use of Biofuel That Doesn’t Exist

Estonia launches national car-charging network

"Estonia’s reputation as one of the most wired-up countries in Europe has been boosted further with the opening of what is being billed as the world’s first nationwide electric car charging network. The network of charging points, which was opened officially on Wednesday but has been running for several months, uses direct current (DC) to charge cars in less than 30 minutes, rather than the alternating current (AC) technology used by most which can take up eight hours to recharge a car’s battery. There are believed to be around 650 electric cars in Estonia, more than 500 of which were Mitsubishi i-MiEVs given to social workers by the government in 2011." Continue reading →

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American teenager designs compact nuclear reactor

"The American teen, four years after designing a fusion reactor he planned to build in the garage of his family’s home, has designed a small reactor capable of generating 50-100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power as many as 100,000 homes. The reactor can be made assembly-line style and powered by molten radioactive material from nuclear weapons. The relatively small, modular reactor can be shipped sealed with enough fuel to last for 30 years. His reactors are designed to spin turbines using gas instead of steam, meaning they operate at temperatures lower than those of typical nuclear reactors and don’t spew anything if there is a breach." Continue reading →

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Flamboyant Australian tycoon unveils plan for Titanic replica

"Flamboyant Australian tycoon Clive Palmer unveiled his plan Tuesday for building a perfect replica of the Titanic — plus a lot of extra lifeboats. More than a century after the original, supposedly unsinkable ocean liner hit an iceberg and went down in the North Atlantic, Palmer thinks the time has come to complete the unfinished journey to New York. Featuring the same rigid divisions as in 1912 between first, second and third class, passengers will eat either in an ornate dining room or at a long common table. Passengers in the luxury section will enjoy the identical grand staircase and reproductions of the original Titanic’s Turkish bath and swimming pool." Continue reading →

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How Inventor Paul Vo Created a Little Black Box That Could Change Guitars Forever

"The Vo-96 Acoustic Synthesizer is one of the most innovative musical instrument products created in years. Strap one onto any acoustic guitar and you can transform the way it sounds by breaking—or at least manipulating—the laws of physics. Here's the story of how inventor Paul Vo made a device that sounds like magic. The Vo-96 changes the very physics of how a guitar makes sound to begin with. How do you do that? The device has what Vo calls a 'two-way conversation' with the guitar strings. It listens to the strings and then applies a precisely calculated magnetic energy back to the strings to change how they sound." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow Inventor Paul Vo Created a Little Black Box That Could Change Guitars Forever