The £10 cardboard bicycle you CAN ride in the rain By Mark Prigg Published: 11:15 GMT, 17 September 2012 | Updated: 15:34 GMT, 17 September 2012 A bicycle made of cardboard may seem an unlikely form of transport - but one inventor claims to have developed one that costs just £10 to make. By folding over sheets to double their strength, he claims the machine is durable, waterproof and costs very little to produce. Everything apart from the brakes and chain is cardboard - including the seat. Scroll down for video The £10 cardboard bicycle that could revolutionise third world transport. It is covered with a waterproof resin then painted. That means it could become a cheap form of transport in rural Third World regions as well as being the ultimate green machine. Israeli-based engineer Izhar Gafni now has financial backing from a company called ERB which is an active partner in managing all the business and financial aspects of this project. Izhar got the idea after he heard about a man who had built a cardboard canoe. 'Not a bicycle.'
The Shelf Life of Food Foods unopened, COUNTER/PANTRY REFRIGERATOR FREEZER uncut or uncooked unless stated otherwise 1 DAY 1 MONTH 1 DAY 3 MONTH 1 MONTH 1 YEAR MACARONI & CHEESE 3-5 days PIZZA 3-4 days SALAD WITH DRESSING 3-5 days SANDWICHES 1-2 days SPAGHETTI & MEAT BALLS 1-2 days What's the Deal with Expiration Dates? The little dates you find food packages refer to quality, not safety, if properly stored, you can eat food beyond its expiration. USE-BY & BEST BEFORE Provided voluntary by the manufacturer to let you know how long the product will remain at its absolute best. EXPIRES ON Found on perishables like meat and diary. SELL-BY This is usually found only on baby food or other products the government regulates with regard to dating. DESIGN Lindasy snow osborn HAPPY EATING FOREVER visual.ly
Eco-Friendly DIY: Egg Shell Candles If you remember our Top 10 Reuse Ideas on Flickr story, you probably recognize this darling candle craft made from old egg shells. Perfect for baby and bridal shower gifts, this clever reuse project repurposes your food waste (along with un-burnable candles from around the house) into a useful and attractive accent that’s sure to draw some attention. Want to give it a try at home? Biologist, crafter and reuse-aholic Thoey (aka EcoMonster) will show you how it’s done. Homepage Image: Thoey/EcoMonster Photo: Thoey/EcoMonster You’ll only need a few basic materials (and the egg shells left over from this morning’s omelette) to complete this adorable candle craft. Supplies Needed: a. b. c. d. e. f. You can probably find most of these materials around the house, but you may want to head to your local crafts store for the candle thermometer and melting pour pot – which will come in handy for candle crafts for years to come.
Steak made from human poop passes taste test If you prefer your steak to be cooked rare, you may want to reconsider that choice after hearing about the latest advancement in food technology to come out of Japan: an edible steak made from human feces, reports Discovery News. (Update: Discovery News is now unsure if the story is real and wondering if they were duped. It reminds us of this "Yes Men" poop burger hoax.) Take a moment to let that gag reflex subside. The steaks were first envisioned by Japanese researcher Mitsuyuki Ikeda after he was approached by Tokyo Sewage to come up with a solution for the city's overabundance of sewage mud. After isolating those proteins in the lab, Ikeda's team then combined them with a reaction enhancer and put them in an exploder. "Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with this," said Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University. The official composition of the lab-grown steak is 63 percent proteins, 25 percent carbohydrates, 3 percent lipids, and 9 percent minerals.
25 Most Beautiful Animals Photography on StumbleUpon I think the most beautiful pictures are those made in nature. Nothing compares with the expression of a tiger, the majestic flight of an eagle or the strength of a white bear. Below you can see 25 the most beautiful animal photographs that will capture your attention, and were stumbled on StumbleUpon. 8 creepy mystery ingredients in fast food Would you like a cow eyeball with your burger? One of the more-enduring urban legends about McDonald’s is that their hamburgers contain cow eyeballs. While this has not proven to be the case, the company's Baked Hot Apple Pie does contain duck feathers, or at least an ingredient commonly derived from such. Truth can be just as strange as fiction. How have duck feathers become a viable ingredient in apple pie? And although the powers that be deem these food-additive chemicals safe, the science fiction of it all is a bit unsettling. 1. You thought duck feathers sounded bad? Although originally the primary source for L-cysteine was human hair, many manufacturers seem to have moved away from hair-derived L-cysteine and on to the more-palatable duck feathers. And not to be sensationalist here, the resultant additive is far-removed from its original source — but still. 2. Silicon dioxide, also known as silica (also known as sand!) 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Also on MNN:
Whale-Shaped Floating Garden Cleans the World's Rivers Vincent Callebaut, visionary behind the Lilypad and Dragonfly, has created a whale-shaped floating garden designed to drift through the world’s rivers while purifying their waters. The Physalia is a self-sufficient ecosystem that generates all the power it needs from the sun and works to reduce water pollution through bio-filtration. Callebaut’s designs are certainly fantastical, but it’s a treat to ponder them and hope that someday this type of utopian technology will actually exist. His newest vision is a floating environment filled with gardens and covered by both a green roof and thin-film solar panels. Hydro-turbines generate power from the moving water underneath the boat, thus, all of the boat’s energy is generated from renewable sources. The craft’s exterior features a layer of TiO2, which reacts with ultraviolet rays to clean the water. Physalia was inspired by the “Physalia physalis” jellyfish, whose name translates roughly to “Water Bubble”. + Vincent Callebaut Via Freshome
McDonald’s Invests $6.5 Million in Sustainable Guatemala Coffee McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), the world’s largest restaurant chain, will invest $6.5 million over five years to help about 13,000 coffee growers in Guatemala produce more high-grade beans from sustainable farms as demand grows. The investment will help secure supplies of arabica beans, which the company uses in a premium-roast coffee business that has doubled in sales since 2006, Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s said today in an e-mailed statement. Farmers will be trained on certified growing methods that boost yields and incomes while preserving land and the environment. Hot and cold coffee represents about 7 percent of U.S. sales, Sara Senatore, a senior restaurant analyst with Sanford C. The company, which buys coffee from Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil and Sumatra, said it already gets all of its Rainforest Alliance Certified espresso from sustainable farms. “There are no immediate plans in the U.S. to launch packaged coffee,” Casillas said.
Clean The World Recycles Soap And Saves Lives That tiny sliver of soap you leave behind in your hotel shower can cut disease in the developing world by 60%. That tiny sliver of soap you leave behind in your hotel shower can cut disease in the developing world by 60%. You probably haven’t spent much time thinking about what happens to complimentary hotel room soap and shampoo once you’ve used it. The Orlando based non-profit was created by Shawn Seipler and Paul Till in 2009 in an effort to reduce the waste created by discarded soap and sha mpoo products. Yep, that’s right, simple hand washing is the best defense against disease. Basic hygiene, like hand washing with soap, can significantly reduce the impact of two fatal diseases, acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease. So when Clean The World collects, sorts and sanitizes discarded hotel hospitality items like soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion and redistributes them to people in need, they’re making the world a cleaner place, literally. So get involved.
Human Tissue Found in Meats - But Eating It Is "No Threat" Amanda Warren, ContributorWaking Times The horse meat fiasco in Europe has prodded scientists to look a bit deeper into what else we might be consuming. A team of South African scientists have just found traces of human tissue in meat meant for public consumption from 9 provinces. The issue was revealed to parliament, almost as a side note, during meat inspection briefings on Tuesday. A University of Stellenbosch scientist and his team conducted a microbial analysis that revealed traces of human elements, but said that slaughterhouse workers sometimes cut themselves . . . or other things . . . which could lead to the findings. “If I walked into a factory and the sample I randomly selected to test was a meat sample of which the person de-boning the meat had just picked his nose and then touched the meat, I would get a totally different microbial reading,” he said. Delicious. “In the labelling regulations it clearly states that allergens have to be mentioned and noted,” said Hoffman. Great.
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