What an amazing new way to get the news from where it is happening to you. Crowdsourcing is becoming the catalyst for all kinds of innovations and this is the one that tops our list today!
Media outlets spend a lot of money, time and effort to dispatch news crews and helicopters to catch breaking news — but often, they arrive too late and wind up covering the aftermath instead of the actual event…
Inventors today have got it easy. If they want to patent something, all they have to do is file some paperwork. Before 1880, however, if you wanted to patent a better mousetrap, you actually had to build it – or at least a miniature version to help patent inspectors understand why you actually deserve the patent…
Chinavision’s “Complete Car Bluetooth Rearview Mirror Kit” is a replacement rear-view mirror that can play videos (including a video-feed from a rear-mounted parking camera), display status-messages from your phone, provide turn-by-turn GPS, and otherwise distract and delight drivers in ways ranging from useful to suicidal…
If I stumbled across the world’s largest 3D street art in London, my knees would buckle, pee would tinkle down my leg and I’d probably even cry. That’s because the 3D art transforms a regular street into a frighteningly deep gaping pit straight into the middle of the Earth. Just look at it…
The Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant in Þingvellir, Iceland.
In absolute terms, lithium is not particularly rare on Earth. It’s the 25th most abundant element, close to nickel and lead. Bolivia alone is estimated to have enough lithium to make batteries for 4.8 billion electric cars, and since lithium is not destroyed in use – unlike fossil fuels – old batteries can be recycled into new ones, or used to smooth out the output of wind farms.
So the question isn’t: Will we have enough lithium? Rather, it’s more like: As demand for it explodes, can we ramp up production rapidly enough, at a low enough cost, and while keeping it as environmentally-friendly as possible. It’s still probably going to be much better to make a battery once and then use it for years with progressively cleaner electricity (as the grid incorporates more and more renewable energy) rather than fill up a gas tank with non-renewable fossil fuels from halfway around the world every week, but even in that scenario, it’s going to be better if we can get the lithium cleanly and close to where we’ll use it. That’s where geothermal power plants enter the picture…
Just a bunch of random squiggles on walls, you say? Just wait till you find the right perspective from on this artwork by design studio Truly Design, and you’ll see something so stunning it may just turn you to stone…
Buckminster Fuller only designed about a dozen of domed structures to begin with, and many have either been torn down in lieu of new construction or simply left to rot. But not the dome at Materials Park in Ohio, it just received a $7 million facelift and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)…
The video is released today, and it does not disappoint.
Succinctly but effectively, Annie Leonard tells the story of how our tax dollars are being misappropriated to prop up an ailing, energy intensive, resource hungry and ultimately counterproductive “dinosaur economy”. And she then goes on to make the case of how we could do things better…
In 2008, Czech master glassblower Michal Zahradník built a steam engine entirely out of glass! There are no seals here, just snug-fitting glass. This is a replica of an early locomotive steam engine designed by George and/or Robert Stephenson…
Building a brighter tomorrow for all earths inhabitants.
Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters building the Global Village Construction Set — a modular, DIY, low-cost, open source, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts…
Did you know that hard candy is technically a glass? Dr. Richard Hartel is a professor of food engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Watch him make lemon drops and act like it’s a chemistry lesson…
Kina Grannis’ In Your Arms videoclip was animated using 288,000 jelly beans. The effect is great, but the behind-the-scenes how-to video really gives an idea of the gigantic dimension of this project…
