Lifeboat Foundation

A team of organizations has completed construction of a ground-breaking eco-building in Morocco that combines hemp construction with a high-tech solar energy system for total independence from the electrical grid.

The SUNIMPLANT project, designed as a single-family dwelling, was created as an entrant in the recent “Solar Decathlon” organized by the United States Department of Energy and Morocco’s Centre de recherche en Energie solaire et Energies nouvelles. The biannual international competition challenges teams of students to design and construct solar-powered buildings. The most recent edition was hosted in Ben Guerir, Morocco, the first time the competition has been held on the African continent.

“This ‘space-ship’ is advanced in time and reflects a turn not only in North Africa but in hemp construction, which doesn’t have comparable prototypes anywhere in the world,” said Monika Brümmer, a German architect and natural builder who led the project.

Europe’s largest steel mill is in the city of Taranto in southern Italy. In its heyday, the ILVA steel plant produced more than 10 million tons of steel every year—about 40 percent of all the steel made in Italy—and it currently employs about 12,000 people.

This is no small deal in an area where unemployment is north of 20 percent; indeed, the local economy of Taranto, population 200,000, is almost entirely dependent on the steel mill —which is also one of the biggest and most deadly polluters of anywhere in the Mediterranean.

The plant is a notorious source of dioxin, and dust from the plant is believed to be the reason why Taranto has a lung cancer rate 30 percent higher than the national average. It’s so toxic that farmers have been forbidden from raising livestock within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant; in 2008, the government ordered the slaughter of thousands of sheep and other animals that were found to have excessively high levels of dioxin.

A new nanotechnology promises to make future concrete stronger and more resilient.

Plans to create a high tech link between French and Netherlands capitals are under discussion after a study suggests the project could be economically viable.

Astronomers have never seen a cosmic wind storm like this one.

Drone attack kills refugees in Syria. It is unclear whether the drones are remotely controlled by humans or whether they drones are autonomous.

“Turkey has launched a deadly drone strike on a refugee camp in Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region…air defense detected a Turkish drone breaching the Iraqi airspace and firing a rocket on Maxmur refugee camp near the town of Makhmour on Wednesday…Two women were killed in the raid, the statement said. Iraqi media later reported that the death toll had risen to three.”

A Turkish drone strike on a refugee camp in northern Iraq has killed three women, sparking condemnation from Iraqi officials.

Remember those tales of drones harassing northeastern Colorado back in December?

If they ever come back, the Air Force may have a new way to zap them from the sky. The service announced Monday it is ready to test its first high-energy lasers for use against enemy drones overseas.

“(Troops) will utilize this system as an operational asset against small unmanned aircraft systems for the duration of the field assessment,” said Michael Jirjis, who headed development of the laser for the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio.

One of the U.S. Navy’s newest and smallest warships is the latest to receive a laser weapon system. The USS Little Rock, which made the news last year after being trapped in Canada by ice, will get a laser during an upcoming deployment sometime this year. The laser is one of the most powerful military lasers yet and should give it the ability to damage or destroy small boats, drones, and aircraft.

According to U.S. Naval Institute News, defense contractor General Dynamics will install a 150 kilowatt laser weapon system aboard the littoral combat ship USS Little Rock. The ship is based in Mayport, Florida and will likely join the Navy’s 4th Fleet, responsible for Central and South America.

Brig. Gen. Yaniv Rotem at the Israeli Defense Ministry forecast that Israel will demonstrate the laser capabilities in the field this year. To be clear, Rotem appears to be referring to a demonstrator and not a fielded system. Regardless, this timeline may prove challenging. While the development represents a significant R&D milestone, it is important to understand the technology’s promise — as well as its limitations.