Kalundborg Symbiosis The Venus Project The Venus Project is an organization that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, one that works towards a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It outlines an alternative to strive toward where human rights are no longer paper proclamations but a way of life. We operate out of a 21.5-acre Research Center located in Venus, Florida. When one considers the enormity of the challenges facing society today, we can safely conclude that the time is long overdue for us to re-examine our values and to reflect upon and evaluate some of the underlying issues and assumptions we have as a society. This self-analysis calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, what it means to be a member of a "civilization," and what choices we can make today to ensure a prosperous future for all the world's people. At present we are left with very few alternatives. Experience tells us that human behavior can be modified, either toward constructive or destructive activity.
Fundación Centro Experimental Las Gaviotas Un Nuevo Renacimiento en el Trópico Por: Paolo LugariDirector GeneralFundación Centro Las Gaviotas “Todo viene de todo, todo está hecho de todo y todo regresa a todo”Leonardo Da Vinci En Gaviotas, empezamos nuestros ensayos, diciendo que un texto sin contexto, es un pretexto. Pongámonos, pues, en contexto: Gaviotas nació por casualidad, pasando de la utopía a la topía, es decir del sueño a la realidad, disfrutando la belleza de la extrema dificultad. Siempre que disertamos sobre el microcosmos de Gaviotas, asentado en la altillanura cálida colombiana, aquende el Soberbio Río Orinoco, como lo llamara ese suspirador de futuros, Julio Verne, es como si pronunciáramos una conferencia diferente para cada asistente, quien la interpreta de acuerdo a su manera de pensar. El hombre en su arrogancia le escribe las leyes a la naturaleza, la clasifica en reinos, con cierta nostalgia monárquica. Pasemos a explicar, en lo posible, nuestra forma de pensar: En lo que respecta a biocombustibles, proponemos:
Sustainable, economical and architecturally inspiring: the rise of timber as a modern construction material | Construction Global Sustainable, economical and architecturally inspiring: the rise of timber as a modern construction material Timber is often regarded as one of the most sustainable materials for mainstream construction projects, while at the same time often criticised as being expensive and architecturally restrictive. Yet new thinking has meant timber can now be approached as an economically viable option for large scale projects that does not mean sacrificing on architectural creativity. Leading the way in a new timber revolution is cross-laminated timber (CLT). In illustrating just how economical, sustainable and creative timber can be, we believe the recent work completed by Ramboll at William Perkin High School in West London offers a clear example of why timber should now be a serious contender when selecting building materials. William Perkin High School, Greenford The £20 million school building opened just this year, with a total floor area in excess of 13,000m2 and space for over 1,200 students.
This Mexico City Building Eats Smog For Lunch There are plenty of architects these days who are doing their best to design buildings that are energy efficient and utilize green technology. And then there’s Allison Dring and Daniel Schwaag of the Berlin-based firm Elegant Embellishments. For Torre de Especialidades, a hospital with a new tower currently under construction in Mexico City, the duo has developed a tile called proSolve370e, which will cover the façade of the building. Yes, that’s right, this building will literally eat pollution. Dring tells TakePart that Elegant Embellishments was formed in 2006 as a kind of architectural start-up to self-initiate projects that incorporate new and often invisible technologies. She adds that, “A common thread in our work is the visual articulation of technologies that have the potential to alleviate the ecological impact of cities but often require a reexamination of current practices. What’s even more cool about Dring and Schwaag’s tile is that it’s actually quite beautiful.
We’ve made the Ebola crisis worse So why was this epidemic not contained long ago, like previous ones? It didn’t help that it hit countries with few medics: Liberia was left with only 30 doctors when its civil war ended in 2003, compared with 2,000 beforehand. It is also down to the poorly resourced countries to report outbreaks; this one was not identified until March, three months after the first victim is thought to have caught Ebola from a fruit bat. But previous, controlled episodes of the plague also occurred in poor African countries. This time, however, the world was slow to react. That may have reflected budget cuts. $1 billion from its planned two-year budget. This week, the Commons International Development Committee condemned the Government for cutting aid to Liberia and Sierra Leone, saying this may have helped compromise their health systems. In all, the crisis has revealed huge deficiencies in how the world responds to epidemics. New houses mustn’t ruin our glorious old towns
Transition Culture Interstellar (2014) Movie Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here. Untitled Steven Spielberg Space Travel Project Post-Production: Filming completed; editing sound, music and effects as of December 14, 2013. Have an update? Send it in! Storyline The film will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding. A sci-fi film that delves into Caltech physicist Kip Thorne's theories of gravity fields. Additional Notes: The script is based on scientific theories developed by a Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist, a gravitational physicist and astrophysicist at Caltech. The film will be co-produced and distributed by two studios, with Paramount Pictures handling Domestic distribution and Warner Bros. Few details are known about Matthew McConaughey's character,
Forget Wall-E—Make Room for ERO, the Concrete-Eating Robot The robot revolution has begun—and it is going to save Earth. Omer Haciomeroglu, an innovator at Sweden’s Umea Institute of Design, has constructed what is called a hydro-demolition robot, or “ERO,” which uses water to take down concrete walls and structures. If it wasn’t already awesome enough that the bot uses water rather than disruptive and debris-producing force to dismantle concrete, ERO also recycles what it levels. The demolition droid does the duty by blasting concrete with water at high pressure, a technique referred to as “hydro-demolition,” to break down and strip the concrete from its reinforcing structure. ERO’s unique design also does not create violent vibrations that could damage different sections of a building and doesn’t destroy the fortifying rebar structures. Still not cool enough, you say? Haciomeroglu writes that once a fleet is plunked down within a doomed construction, “they scan the surroundings and determine a route with which they will execute the operation.
Tomorrow's cities - what happens when lights go out? In the first of an eight week series of articles about how technology is changing our cities, Jane Wakefield asks whether a city that is plugged into the network is vulnerable to hackers. The nightmare scenario that has had government leaders and city bosses biting their fingernails for decades has come true. Chicago has been hacked. The traffic lights have ceased to function, leaving roads in chaos. The city has no electricity. If the scenario sounds far-fetched, you'd be right - for now at least. It is in fact just a scene from recently released video game Watch Dogs, which features a near-future Chicago in which players control Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled hacker who can break into the urban operating system that controls the infrastructure of the city. But as cities become ever more connected to the network, with sensors in everything, including the roads, traffic lights and even the bins, could it really happen? Cities under attack Source: F-Secure Drone attack Miniature hacking
Smog-Eating Sidewalks, They Do a Body Good The eco-makeover of urban surfaces continues. First came white roofs. Then so-called cool pavement. Yup, sidewalks with a taste for filthy air. Eindhoven University of Technology scientists have installed air-purifying cement onto a city block in Hengelo, Netherlands, and published the results, which found that it reduced nitrogen oxide air pollution up to 45 percent in ideal weather conditions. The concrete, dubbed “photocatalytic,” is made with run-of-the-mill cement sprayed with a chemical—titanium oxide—that neutralizes air pollutants, the researchers’ abstract states. “[The concrete] could be a very feasible solution for inner city areas where they have a problem with air pollution,” said researcher Jos Brouwers in 2010 to CNN, when the pavement was in its early stages. So, what’s the world waiting for? Well, like most public work projects, it all comes down to cost.
Crime-fighting surveillance planes provoke privacy controversy 12 October 2014Last updated at 19:41 ET By Ed Ram BBC News WATCH: How US surveillance planes are able to spot murders on the streets A US company has developed a way to monitor entire neighbourhoods, using a technology originally developed for the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But while police forces are excited by the prospect of getting access to the tech, privacy campaigners see it as a threat to citizens' constitutional rights. Bang. A shot is fired and someone has been murdered. Such killings happen almost every day in the US - and when no witnesses come forward, it can be hard and very costly to convict the perpetrators. Now, one company says it has an answer. By flying a special manned plane over a city, Persistent Surveillance Systems (PSS) says it is able to view and record everything that is happening on the ground across a 25-mile (40km) area. The PSS named the high-resolution camera system mounted on the plane Hawkeye II "It's like opening up a murder mystery in the middle.