Ming Tang came up with this brilliant idea of constructing these varied origami-inspired foldable bamboo houses after China had been struck by a severe earthquake of 7.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, last May killing 69,000 people.

After hearing that the Chinese government is planning to invest to build some 1.5 million temporary homes for the least fortunate, Ming Tang decided to design a shelter that was easy to produce, cheap and environment friendly. That’s how he got these beautiful geometrically shaped bamboo houses which are lightweight and easy to install thanks to using basic bamboo poles for the recycled paper covered structure. Because of all these, they are very easily adaptable to any kind of situation.

This year’s Re: Construct competition sponsored by San Francisco’s Urban Re:Vision, honored these Origami-inspired Foldable Bamboo Houses. So do we! – via Inhabitat

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It seems there is an intelligent greenhouse (as opposed to a stupid one, I reckon) in Tianjin, China. The greenhouse is built to show off new agricultural technologies like soilless culture and drip irrigation.

Huge pumpkin growing in an intelligent greenhouse in Tianjin

The greenhouse is meant to be a model of modern sightseeing agriculture. It grows huge sweet potatoes, enough lettuce to clothe hundreds of PETA girls and the world’s largest potential Halloween Pumpkin. So, if a pumpkin is raised in an intelligent greenhouse, does that make it an intelligent pumpkin? And a pumpkin grown in a patch, what kind of pumpkin would that be? – via Sina

With 60-percent jurisdiction under Switzerland and 40-percent under France, Lake Geneva is the second largest freshwater lake in Central Europe when it comes to surface area (582 km² – 225 mi²). The crescent-shaped lake is second just after Lake Balaton, in Hungary, has a maximum length of 73 km (45 mi), a maximum width of 14 km (8.7 mi) and has a maximum depth of 310 m.

Lake Geneva From A Peddle Boat

Since many of you wondered what do the Swiss call Lake Geneva, we decided to take a deep look into it and came up with a more complex answer. The fact is that Switzerland is a multi-lingual country where people speak German, French, Italian and a little Romansh, meaning the lake has not just one name, but more.

Lying on the Rhone River that descends from the Rhone Glacier near the Grimsel Pass, in German it’s called Genfersee or Genfer See, in Italian it’s Lago Lemano, or Lago di Ginevra and in French it’s called Lac Léman or Lac de Genève. Actually Lac Léman is what most of the people in the country call it these days.

Vineyards and Lake Geneva

From 1960 to 1980, water pollution levels were so severe that it wiped out almost all fish and it got to the point where it became dangerous even to swim in the lake. However, using modern anti-pollutants the lake is now considered safe these days and allows major leisure activities that include sailing, wind surfing, rowing, scuba diving and bathing.

The sad twist in this story is that the lake had to be cleaned up at all. Why is it that we can only learn from our mistakes? Why can’t we NOT have to ever clean things up because we kept them clean from the outset? That would be good stewardship of our planet, make that the best stewardship.

Wonder no more what do the Swiss call Lake Geneva? Now you know. If you’ve been there, just tell us how it is to see it live.

Images courtesy of douglasamcintosh and pictureshots

After the incredible commercial on global warming with animals that “give up”, I think it’s refreshing to take a look at some babies … cubs, kitties, little fellows. There’s something about the hope in the eyes of a newborn, human, animal or otherwise that gives us reason to think that everything can still be okay IF we change our ways.

Two Persian leopard twin cubs made their debut at the Budapest Zoo, last week. One of the little fellows came out shouting: “I want a world to grow up in! Please stop destroying our world. We live here, too!”. Or some other sentiments to that affect.

Seriously, is there anything else that can make us feel better about the world than something as precious as these youngsters? If so, please put a link here in the comments to tell us about it. – via Sina

We like animals here at GP. I think I have written those words dozens of times if not more. But, there’s a line over which I do NOT want the animals to cross. At least not into my world. You can have them, take them away and enjoy them to your heart’s content. Just keep them away from me.

Who doesn’t like a massage? Except when it is given by snakes. That’s right! Snakes!

For $70 you can get a massage by large and small reptiles. It’s called, very uncreatively, snake massage. The large fellows give deep tissue massage while the little ones are ideal for delicate areas … like the face. Not other delicate areas, I hope.

To be honest you could not pay me $70 to get one of these massages. Wouldn’t do it for $700 either. It’s supposed to cure aching muscles and joints. But, the tension in the shoulders will kill me. Isn’t there some place these over-sized worms need to be?

Snakes!!?? Check out the video below.

I thought cats were afraid of the water. I thought big cats were big afraid of the water. Apparently not. A one-year old tiger jumped in with a female trainer to do a water dance in South Carolina. Yeah! If she called me into the water to dance, I’d go, too.

Wouldn’t it be cool if animals and people could ‘dance’ together in all areas of life? And not just in the pool? Well, it’d be great to get along with all God’s critters except for snakes wanting to give me a massage. I’ll pass on that. Write to GP and let us know how you think animals and people can get along better. Any ideas?

Images source DailyMail – Copyright Barry Bland / Barcroft Media

Usually seeing a sensitive movie is not really getting me, but this commercial by Quercus – a non-profit trying to raise awareness of Portuguese environmental problems and campaigns against nuclear power, is more than enough for a day.

Created by McCann Erickson Portugal and produced by the Seagulls Fly Sao Paulo, the commercial was posted last month on QuercusTV to make people conscious of global warming and the effects it has on the living creatures that inhabit our planet.

It’s kind of depressing seeing a monkey, a polar bear and a kangaroo giving up, but if it can get people aware of the danger of global warming, than I call it a success. – via Greendaily

The Naha Harbor Diner in Okinawa, Japan, is comfortably perched atop an amazing life-size banyan tree structure, also known as gajumaru, with protruding arms that securely hold this pan-Asian restaurant in place.

Overlooking the vast ocean below, this 20 foot banyan tree is built at the entrance of the Onoyama Park in the appropriately named Banyan town shopping center.

The café which is accessible by both a spiral stairway and an inbuilt tree trunk elevator specializes in locally grown and organically harvested foods brought straightaway from the farms. It dishes out fresh vegetables, juicy chickens and pork and native salts thereby cutting down the expenses of shipping and packaging along with a reduction in carbon and plastic wastes.

Even if you are not adventurous enough to try out the local food, the place is definitely worth paying a visit just for its scenic beauty. – via Inhabitat

The Portuguese have come up with an innovative technology that can generate energy from the waves created on the sea surface, and the Agucadoura is one such wave farm built off the Portugal coast.

The wave farm, which is the first of its kind in the world, consists of three Wave Energy Converters that can generate a total of 2.25MW of energy.

The extended metal contraptions dip up and down with the waves while the internal pistons attached to the sea bed remain stationary and pump hydraulic fluid which in turn runs the electric generators producing energy that is brought ashore by underwater electric cables providing power to 1,500 homes.

If a large scale installation of these orange giants is carried out around all the oceans of the world, who knows, we might be able to fight the crisis of our fast-dying power resources. – via Dvice

Romania is a small country in Eastern Europe, with not much of a success in making the world a better place when it comes to the environment.

However, steps are being taken and young people get more and more actively involved in promoting greener technologies and solutions for the cities they live in.

With the help of many foundations and eco clubs in Timisoara – 2nd/3rd largest city in Romania, the Green For Bicycles campaign will start off with the first gathering on Saturday 25th in front of the Dan Paltiniseanu Stadium at 11 o`clock sharp.

Dubbed “Bike Counting” the initiative is meant to teach people that bicycles are great alternatives for a crowded city like Timisoara, and to make sure the authorities will notice their existence, hence building more special lanes for bicyclists.

I’m very upset because I miss it this time, but I’ve got my sources in and will get some pictures from the “parade” when everything ends.

I sure hope weather will be with them, because it’s kinda cloudy in Romania at the moment and tomorrow is not going to be much better.