perso

Bamboo flooring is NOT green

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/11/14/pumas-new-tack-sustainable-consumption-compostable-clothes

In the last 18 months or so, Puma has hit the ground running with a number of industry-leading (and, truthfully, world-leading) sustainability initiatives. From their groundbreaking environmental profit-and-loss statement to green packaging plans to a commitment to zero toxic pollution by 2020 , the sportswear company has made big strides on addressing its environmental impacts. But as with all consumer-facing companies, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is what happens to your goods when your customers no longer want them. Another sustainability-minded brand, Patagonia, recently took steps to get people to buy used clothes first , but Puma is taking a different tack: Making their clothes compostable.

Puma's New Tack on Sustainable Consumption: Compostable Clothes

Editor's Note: This article, originally published on November 15, 2011, was updated today with a response from Kimberly-Clark Professional. It's a question that bedevils facility managers. What's the most environmentally conscious and cost effective way for people to dry their hands in company and public restrooms?

What's the Greenest Way to Dry Your Hands?

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/11/15/whats-greenest-way-dry-your-hands

An Uninvited Thanksgiving Guest: BPA

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/11/15/uninvited-thanksgiving-guest-bpa

We've reported on Bisphenol-A extensively at GreenBiz.com, including how the gender-bending chemical is pervasive in everyday products, ranging from receipt paper and baby bottles to the epoxy lining of cans used as food packaging. So it was not much of a surprise to see a study released today concluding that many families may receive a hearty serving of BPA alongside their Thanksgiving turkey next week. The chemical mimics estrogen and has been linked to reproductive and developmental problems. The Breast Cancer Fund tested BPA levels in seven products that frequently make their way to the Thanksgiving table.

iFixit, bless their hearts, have taken a Kindle Fire to pieces , though as it turns out, there aren’t too many pieces to begin with. The battery is one huge unit, and all the processing and I/O occurs on a single PCB at the bottom of the device. Those expecting a carbon copy of the Playbook both outside and in will be disappointed: the layout, batteries, PCB, and all the components are different, making the form factor more or less the only real similarity between the two devices. That said, it is possible they share a processor unit; reports had TI as the supplier, and 1GHz sounds about right. Curiously, it’s not visible on the surface of the PCB, or is integrated in such a way that it can’t be identified without a more invasive teardown. But TI provided the transceivers, power manager, and so on, so it’s a safe bet.

Kindle Fire Gets Torn Down – No Surprises Here

By Sarah Jane Keller Steve Fyffe Paul Hegarty teaches students how to program applications for iPads and iPhones in a free online course that's the most popular download on Stanford's iTunes U site, with more than 10 million views. Students may covet seats in Stanford's popular iPhone and iPad application development course, but you don't need to be in the classroom to take the course. Anyone with app dreams can follow along online. Stanford has just released the iOS 5 incarnation of iPhone Application Development on iTunes U , where the public can download course lectures and slides for free.

s latest iPhone and iPad apps course now free on iTunes U

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/itunes-apps-class-111511.html

Taylor Fravel Photo: Dominick Reuter When Taylor Fravel was a teenager, his father, an engineer for Bechtel, accepted a job in Taiwan. It turned out to be a significant career move for both of them. Up until that point, the younger Fravel had barely been outside of his native Michigan.

Taylor Fravel decodes China’s foreign policy

Could cold fusion technology revolutionize energy generation? Editor’s Note: I wouldn’t bet on it… Cold fusion is considered by many to be the Holy Grail of energy production: a contained, low-energy nuclear reaction that could theoretically produce endless, self-sustaining, and incredibly cheap energy. But, just like the Holy Grail, it has been more myth than reality.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/11/14/is-cold-fusion-heating-up/

Cold Fusion Heats Up | CleanTechnica

http://boucherie-ovalie.org/2011/03/24/pierre-villegueux-livre-sa-liste-des-30-ideale/

Après l’Equipe, le Midol ou même PoteauFeu , à mon tour de délivrer ma liste des 30 idéale pour aller à la Coupe du Monde. Quelle différence avec les listes précédemment citées ? Et ben, la mienne est meilleure. Piliers : (4) Nicolas Mas: Un des meilleur du monde à son poste.

Pierre Villegueux livre sa liste des 30 idéale

Chris Huhne: UK's nuclear policy is most expensive postwar failure - 14 Oct 2011

Opportunities in Mobile Health (August 16, 2011)

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/opportunities_in_mobile_health

The United States and other industrialized countries can learn from experiments in the developing world that use the humble cell phone as a platform for innovation. (Illustration by Keith Negley) More than three-quarters of the world’s 5.3 billion mobile phones are located in the developing world. These increasingly powerful devices are proving to be a lifeline for people who need improved access to health services. The trend of using mobile phones for health—known as mHealth—represents an unprecedented opportunity for improving public health. Much of the innovative thinking in mHealth is coming from programs that target populations outside the United States, often in developing countries.

Shopping 2.0: Interactive Hangers Used In Japanese Clothes Store (Videos)

Shopping 2.0: It’s no surprise that “interactive hangers” [scroll down for an explanation in English] are first introduced in Japan, a country obsessed with service, shopping, fashion and technology. Vanquish, the shop in question, is located in a department store in central Tokyo called 109MEN’S . The way it works is pretty simple: every time a shopper picks up a hanger, a computer screen above the item displays relevant pictures and videos, for example showing how a T-shirt looks when worn or other clothes that would fit the item chosen. The trick is an sensor placed inside the hanger that automatically triggers the action but can also be used to instantly change the background music or light in a store, for example: The maker of the interactive hangers, Tokyo-based Team Lab , started experimenting with the concept last year. Trend consulting firm Cscout Japan has tried the hangers out:

Carbon-Based Cable Achieves Milestone | CleanTechnica

I have been hearing about carbon nanotubes for a while now, and they are indeed very promising, as this news proves: Rice University researchers have developed a carbon-nanotube-based cable that is able to carry as much electric current as copper, and it is lighter. This has potential sustainability, durability and efficiency advantages.

Everybody’s a winner

Two students who invented a window that can automatically deploy a set of internal blinds to prevent a room from overheating on hot summer days won the $10,000 first prize in this year’s Making And Designing Materials Engineering Competition (MADMEC), which took place Thursday evening. The window, called iReflect, developed by graduate students Elizabeth Rapoport and Ahmed Al-Obeidi of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), has strips of infrared-blocking film in the space between its two panes. When warmed by sunlight, the strips unfurl to block some of the incoming light — especially the infrared light responsible for most heating — while still allowing occupants to see out. The principle is simple, and similar to the bimetallic strips used in typical thermostats: Two materials with different thermal characteristics (the rate at which they expand when heated) are bonded together.

Engineering Professor Donald Dunn is dead at 85

Stanford University Donald Dunn Donald A. Dunn, professor emeritus at the Stanford School of Engineering, died at Stanford Hospital on Sept. 27 after a long illness. He was 85 years old.

IF11: The Value Proposition Driving Recyclebank's Explosive Growth

We talk a lot at GreenBiz.com about engaging employees for sustainability, but what about consumers? How do you engage them to change behavior when pocketbook issues have moved sustainability issues to the back burner? Reward them. That's the innovative approach Recyclebank takes to engaging consumers to eliminate waste and take other environmentally friendly action. Also, don't forget the value proposition. "Unless they feel like they're making a tangible, real-world improvement in their day-to-day lives, you've got nothing," said Recyclebank CEO Jonathan Hsu.

Graphene shows unusual thermoelectric response to light

Graphene, an exotic form of carbon consisting of sheets a single atom thick, exhibits a novel reaction to light, MIT researchers have found: Sparked by light’s energy, the material can produce electric current in unusual ways. The finding could lead to improvements in photodetectors and night-vision systems, and possibly to a new approach to generating electricity from sunlight. This current-generating effect had been observed before, but researchers had incorrectly assumed it was due to a photovoltaic effect, says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, an assistant professor of physics at MIT and senior author of a new paper published in the journal Science . The paper’s lead author is postdoc Nathaniel Gabor; co-authors include four MIT students, MIT physics professor Leonid Levitov and two researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan.