Solar-powered plane completes historic flight over Pacific – video
The solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 accomplished a 56-hour, record-setting flight over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday night. Pilot Bertrand Piccard guided the plane from Hawaii to San Francisco. The solar aircraft began its journey in March 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It is the first […]
Mushrooms, whales and hurricanes: how bio-inspiration boosts energy efficiency
As bio-inspired engineering comes into its own, we take a look at the innovative technologies using nature as a blueprint This week, the Biomimicry Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to bio-inspired engineering, announced the seven finalists in its first Biomimicry Global Design Challenge. The competitors, who come from around the globe, sought to develop efficient, nature-inspired […]
Solar Impulse 2 lands safely in San Francisco after historic flight over Pacific
Plane powered only by sun flies over Golden Gate Bridge after spending 56 hours coming from Hawaii on riskiest leg of its journey around the world A solar-powered plane accomplished a 56-hour, record-setting flight over the Pacific Ocean, flying by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and landing in Mountain View, California late Saturday night. Related: […]
Is divesting from fossil fuels the best tactic for tackling climate change?
Earth Day will see calls on college campuses to pull funds from carbon-producing fuels but activists should consider positive ways to change energy policy It’s April; your taxes are filed (hopefully); the cherry blossoms are out (hopefully), and Earth Day has rolled around once more. And in what is becoming yet another April ritual, on […]
Trees make our lives better in unquantifiable ways | David Ferguson
One company is trying to measure exactly how much urban trees are worth. But some things defy calculation There are a few colors that I adore. I love the first dark flashes of Baltic blue-black on the horizon when I’m driving toward the Gulf of Mexico. I love the glaring green of a “go” traffic […]
Jeremy Buckingham sets Condamine river on fire, blaming fracking – video
New South Wales Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham posted a video to Facebook on Friday showing him lighting the surface of the Condamine river, causing flames to rise up around his boat. He says the flames are a result of methane gas buildup, linked to the coal seam gas industry and fracking operations nearby. The government-funded […]
You can buy a cheap chicken today, but we all pay for it in the long run | Patrick Holden
Industrial agriculture comes with a high cost to the environment and people’s health, says a leading sustainable farmer Have you ever asked yourself why an everyday “value” chicken can now be cheaper, pound for pound, than bread? Cheap chicken has become the “healthy” meat of choice for most shoppers and sales are booming, up 20% […]
If consumers knew how farmed chickens were raised, they might never eat their meat again
The debate about animal welfare has intensified The year 2012 marked a leap forward for animal welfare in the European Union. Farmers were no longer allowed to keep egg-laying hens in barren battery cages smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. Instead, the minimum requirement now is that hens are kept in a cage the […]
Olafur Eliasson and the power of the sun
First Olafur Eliasson invented the Little Sun solar-powered lamp for parts of the world without electricity (and Glastonbury). Now the artist has come up with a solar-powered phone charger Installation artist Olafur Eliasson was born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Icelandic parents. He is best known for creating a giant sun in Tate Modern’s Turbine […]
River on fire in Greens MP's video is natural, not fracking, says CSIRO
Jeremy Buckingham says scientists ‘making excuses’ for CSG industry after footage shows him touching off sheet of flame on the Condamine river The CSIRO has defended its independence after a Greens MP, whose footage of burning methane on a Queensland river went viral, accused the government-funded research body of “making excuses” for the coal seam […]