Eco-friendly
Naked Bike Riders Protest Car Pollution
I can think of a couple of hundred reasons to drive a car instead of walk, bike, or inline skate. Pollution, smution... In Madrid, Spain, protesters stripped down and rode naked on bicycles to protest against the expansion of automobile use instead of riding a bike. I'm only seeing the backside in these pix, but from what I do see, I am not ...
Lycra-trimmed, ultra-mini Salmon-Skin Bikini. Are you serious?
Claudia Escobar is an eccentric Chilean fashion designer or at least that's what she is demonstrating here with her new creation. It's swim wear and clothing made from discarded bits of Scottish salmon skin. Her Lycra-trimmed, ultra-mini salmon-skin bikini are durable and elastic (how else?). They are also now part of a luxury clothing line and go for £250 (~ $495). Smells fishy? ...
Sharp Launches Sunvista, New Solar Cells with Highest Conversion Rate
Osaka's Sharp Corp has a new residential solar cell panel (polycrystaline) that Sharp says has the highest solar-to-electric conversion rate to date. The new environmentally friendly product is called SunVista and will be released on Jun 18th. The addition of a third main electrode instead of the conventional two is the difference. Sharp's conversion rate will be 14.4% compared to the ...
Beer Bottles Used to Create a Solar Water Heating System
In the do it yourself category we have Ma Yanjun, a farmer in Mizhi county, Shaanxi province in China, that managed to build a solar water heating system using empty beer bottles. The reason he did it, was to allow his 73-year old mother to take a warm bath every day. Since there was no warm water in the area ...
Underwater “Wind Farms” will Create Energy from Ocean Currents
After completing their $6 million capital raise the Australian company, BioPower Systems, is working hard on testing what could be the undersea equivalent of a wind farm that will turn wave energy into clean, eco-friendly, renewable electricity. Using a lightweight design in harmony with the ecosystem, the bioWAVE and bioSTREAM devices will reside beneath the water surface, moving and swaying ...
“House” Made From Umbrellas
Though they have their reasons, I can't figure out why they've built such a big umbrella "house". The project uses modified umbrellas and was put up by Kengo Kuma who did it for the Milan Triennale Museum of design. The umbrellas are zipped together along their outer edges to form the modular shape you can see in the pictures, and each ...
The Flintstones, Got Arrested in Brussels
Not sure what you will think but the pre-historic family we all know, The Flintstones, got arrested in Brussels, Belgium, while driving towards the European Parliament building. It wasn't Fred or Wilma to get the penalty, but six Greenpeace activists dressed as cavemen driving the "Flintstone car", that protested on the influence of the auto industry on proposals to curb carbon ...
Wind Power: Norway Could Become Europe’s Battery
World's number 5 oil exporter, Norway has big energy resources and by 2025 it could become "Europe's battery". The island of Utsira, Norway - image by tualatin A recent study talked about developing sea-based wind parks that would allow access up to 8,000 megawatts of renewable energy, equivalent to about eight nuclear power plants. Exporting green energy would actually help the ...
Tokyo the Least Eco-minded City?
A recent survey on 2,600 participants from the top eight richest cities in the world, Tokyo, New York, Paris, London, Milan, Moscow, Toronto and Frankfurt, revealed that Tokyoites "don't want to sacrifice a convenient lifestyle to prevent global warming." Though Japan is at the cutting edge of green technologies, its citizens are the least eco-minded in the world. They came last ...
[New] Oldest Living Tree in the World is in Sweden
Scientists have found the (new) oldest tree in the world. It is a 16.4 feet tall spruce, found in Fulu Mountain in the Dalarna province of Sweden, that was carbon dated by Miami researchers to be 9,550 years old. Under the crown they've also found four generations of spruce remains in the forms of cones and wood produced with the same ...
