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Greening the Temporary

Reuse. UA Engineering Professor Uses Aerospace Materials to Build Endless Green Pipeline. Shortlisted: Nick Ross's Bioharvester Entry for the James Dyson Award. In an idealistic version of ID, you'd never set out to design "a pair of headphones;" you'd aim to design "a way people can hear their music, hands-free, while performing a variety of activities.

Shortlisted: Nick Ross's Bioharvester Entry for the James Dyson Award

" In other words you'd start with the problem and design the solution with no predetermined form factor. In the real world, of course, chances are slim you'll have this luxury when your firm is contracted by a company in the business of making headphones. Design competitions, on the other hand, hew more to that ideal state of ID. The danger there is that absent hardnosed clients and budget constraints, rigor goes out the window and the fanciful predominates.

But industrial designer Nick Ross' entry in the James Dyson Award, the Axolotl Selective Bio-Harvester, hits that sweet spot: It attacks the problem of deforestation based on rigorous research, not just preconceptions, and the proposed solution is meant to solve that problem the way an industrial designer would solve it. Hybrid copper-gold nanoparticles convert CO2.

Copper — the stuff of pennies and tea kettles — is also one of the few metals that can turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels with relatively little energy.

Hybrid copper-gold nanoparticles convert CO2

When fashioned into an electrode and stimulated with voltage, copper acts as a strong catalyst, setting off an electrochemical reaction with carbon dioxide that reduces the greenhouse gas to methane or methanol. Various researchers around the world have studied copper’s potential as an energy-efficient means of recycling carbon dioxide emissions in powerplants: Instead of being released into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide would be circulated through a copper catalyst and turned into methane or methanol — which could then power the rest of the plant by combustion, or be converted to chemical products such as ethylene. Such a system, paired with energy from solar or wind, could vastly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired and natural gas-powered plants. Going small Hamad-Schifferli worked with Yang Shao-Horn, the Gail E. Scientists Propose Creating Clouds to Slow Warming. Mary Witzig/CC BY 2.0 As unusually harsh droughts continue to grip much of the United States, and new record-breaking weather events seem to strike with increasing regularity, the push to find solutions to global warming has never been more urgent -- so much so that even the most unconventional ideas are being given a second look.

Scientists Propose Creating Clouds to Slow Warming

Scientists from the University of Washington recently unveiled a new take on an old proposal to cool the Earth by artificially producing cloud cover over swaths of ocean to reflect away light, part of a process known as 'marine cloud brightening'. The concept is actually fairly simple: a fleet of boats equipped with sprayers large enough to project particles of sea-salt into the atmosphere where they would facilitate the formation of clouds. The resulting cloud cover, if dense enough, could to reflect enough heat-producing sunlight back into space to lead to cooling at the surface. © University of Washington. Lightbulb Wars Review: Phillips Ambient LED A21, 75-Watt Equivalent Test Lab. Previous image Next image Phillips Ambient LED A21, 75-Watt Equivalent Light Bulb: Phillips Ambient LED A21, 75=Watt Equivalent Price: $39.97 at Home DepotHousehold Use:overhead, spot, or ambient] Light Appearance: daylight, 2700K Incandescent It Replaces: General Electric Soft White 60w Overall Rating: Strong Recommend* I was a little concerned that this bulb would not omit a white light when I saw its yellow appearance but I was very pleasantly surprised once I turned it on.

Lightbulb Wars Review: Phillips Ambient LED A21, 75-Watt Equivalent Test Lab

Not only was this LED nearly indistinguishable from its incandescent control bulb, but it was brighter. The Test Control Bulb: General Electric Soft White 60wPrimary Use: living room, kitchen, bedroom, task light or overhead lightTime of Day Tested: 4:45 p.m. How It Performed: I tested it in a fairly closed light fixture and could barely tell the difference in the light quality between the control bulb and the Phillips LED. This 17 watt bulb is clearly better than a 60 watt incandescent. More Facts About This Light Bulb. Daylighting System and Tubular Daylighting Devices for residential or commercial daylighting and sunlighting needs are the smart, green and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional skylights.

Biobulb is a bacteria-powered light bulb. A group of students at the University of Wisconsin have come up with a way for us to light up our houses without electricity. Called the Biobulb, the technology relies on living bacteria to provide illumination. Discovery News reports that the Biobulb will include a genetically engineered species of E. coli bacteria, the kind living inside the intestines of humans and other animals. "Normally, these bacteria don’t glow in the dark, but researchers plan to introduce a loop of DNA to the microbes that will give them the genes for bioluminescence. The bacteria will glow like lightning bugs, jellyfish and bioluminescent plankton. " “The Biobulb is essentially a closed ecosystem in a jar,” biochemistry major Michael Zaiken said in their Rockethub pitch.

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