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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 578

Apr 15, 2017

Solar-powered device turns air into drinkable water

Posted by in categories: space, sustainability

Scientists literally pulled this out of thin air.

Engineers at MIT and the University of California Berkeley have designed a system, powered by sunlight, that can turn air into liters of drinkable water.

This box has the potential to help drought-stricken communities, desert explorers or — someday — astronauts traveling to dry, dusty planets. The report was a href=” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/04/12/science.aam8743” target=”_blank”

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Apr 14, 2017

How to condense water out of air using only sunlight for energy

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

A water harvester designed and built at MIT condenses water from air. The harvester uses sunlight to heat metal-organic framework (MOF) material (inserted just below the glass plate on top), driving off the water vapor and condensing it (in the yellow and red condenser sitting at the bottom) for home use. (photo credit: Hyunho Kim/MIT)

MIT scientists have invented a water harvester that uses only sunlight to pull water out of the air under desert conditions, using a “metal-organic framework” (MOF) powdered material developed at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley).

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Apr 14, 2017

Entrance to Mars: How this fascinating Dome-Space-Elevator grows in all directions

Posted by in categories: engineering, environmental, space, sustainability

Architecture has evolved and has become much more than just a design realized in concrete and modern building material. It has been transformed to help humanity in achieving all kinds of sustainability.

The eVolo Magazine for Architecture has been organizing another round of Skyscraper Competition in 2017 to honor those visionaries that try to realize a future that benefits humanity and the one Earth we all need to cherish and sustain.

A team from Spain with aspiring architects Arturo Emilio Garrido Ontiveros, Andrés Pastrana Bonillo, Judit Pinach Martí and Alex Tintea is thinking of a hybrid solution, that ensures Humanity’s survival in the early days of Mars’ colonization. The skyscraper design is both clever and beautiful, combining existing technologies with many practical ideas to open up and terraform more red soil as we understand the planet. It’s a genesis of Mars and a revival of form following function.

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Apr 13, 2017

Scientists Have Created a Device That Sucks Water Out of Thin Air, Even in the Desert

Posted by in categories: materials, sustainability

When it comes to future challenges, one of the biggest will be water scarcity — on a warming planet we’re going to have plenty of seawater, but not enough fresh, clean water in the right places for everybody to drink.

And while a lot of research has focussed on desalination, a team of scientists have now come up with another possible solution — a device that pulls fresh water out of thin air, even in places with humidity as low as 20 percent. All it needs is sunlight.

It might sound too good to be true, but so far the research is solid. Called the ‘solar-powered harvester’, the device was created by teams from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, using a special type of material known as a metal-organic framework (MOF).

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Apr 13, 2017

Climate change, other concerns fuel scientists’ in-your-face activism

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, government, sustainability

While many scientists have shied away from explicitly political actions in recent decades, the community throughout history has spoken publicly on a wide variety of social, technological and ideological issues.

That has included everything from opposing fascism, nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War to sitting on government panels that advise elected leaders on stem-cell research involving human embryos.


In U.S. history, scientists have been vocal about fascism, nuclear proliferation, the Vietnam War, stem cells and more.

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Apr 11, 2017

What is a city? The SDGs depend on an answer — By Brendon Bosworth | GreenBiz

Posted by in categories: business, economics, environmental, governance, sustainability

“This month, urban thinkers from the United Nations, the European Commission and other organizations are meeting in Brussels to continue a curiously complex attempt: developing a universal definition of the “city.””

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Apr 8, 2017

Lab-grown meat may save a lot more than farm animals’ lives

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Keeping up with the demand for meat worldwide could one day ruin the planet. But teams of scientists are hard at work growing animal-free burgers, chicken, turkey, and fish that are sustainable, healthy, and, some say, pretty delicious.

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Apr 8, 2017

California is getting so much power from solar that wholesale electricity prices are turning negative

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

The spikes also have a big effect on wholesale energy prices, which dipped to zero or even to negative territory this spring during certain hours in California, the EIA said.


The extraordinary success of solar power in some pockets of the world that combine sunshine with high investment in the technology mean that governments and energy companies are having radically to rethink the way they manage—and charge for—electricity.

California is one such a place.

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Apr 8, 2017

Climate change to increase SEVERE plane turbulence

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

Reminds me of the 2004 film “The Day after Tomorrow” : in which Jack Hall, paleoclimatologist, must make a daring trek across America to reach his son, trapped in the cross-hairs of a sudden international storm which plunges the planet into a new Ice Age.


CLIMATE CHANGE will increase severe plane turbulence by 149 per cent, according to scientists.

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Apr 7, 2017

This Is the World’s First 3D-Printed “Supercar”

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, sustainability, transportation

Divergent 3D has shown off the Blade Supercar, the first-ever 3D-printed sports car capable of reaching 97 km (60 mph) in 2.2 seconds. The car is made from a more sustainable approach to materials that, if widely adopted, could help alleviate the carbon footprint of automakers.

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