Chiba University architecture students have built the Omotenashi House as the sole Japanese entrant to the 2012 European Solar Decathlon. Constructed in only a fortnight, the house is impressing crowds with its obvious respect for Japanese tradition, a conscious effort to integrate with its natural surrounding, and of course, some serious hi-tech gadgetry! The design of the house remains simple, but it is filled to the brim with wonderful ideas that make the structure the classic sum of all its parts.
The Japanese automaker entered a souped-up Nissan Leaf in an all-electric-vehicle race at Japan’s Sportsland Sugo earlier this month, with hopes of knocking off proverbial favorite Tesla in the 50-kilometer race.
The most extreme climate “alarmists” in U.S. politics are not nearly alarmed enough. The chances of avoiding catastrophic global temperature rise are not nil, exactly, but they are slim-to-nil, according to a new analysis prepared for the U.K. government.
A secret operation in San Francisco disregards city regulations and grafts fruit branches onto non fruit-bearing public trees, hiding farm-fresh produce in an urban environment. Officials have banned fruit trees from the city sidewalks in the hopes that it will help keep urban areas clean and avoid messy situations as a result of fallen fruit. But Tara Hui and Miriam Goldberg have found a way around that law.
Russell E. Train, the conservative bureaucrat who had a massive hand in shaping the E.P.A., passed away today.
In the wake of the Cuyahoga river fire, the Santa Barbara oil spill, the concerns with DDT, and the early Earth Day demonstrations, President Nixon knew he had to address the loudening calls from the American public to enact environmental protections. Train was the guy who built much of that policy, and pushed Nixon to make it stronger. And yes, he was a Republican.
When new technological advances come along like new turbine designs or tweaks to the blades or motors that can increase power generation, replacing entire wind turbines would be very costly. Because of that, Siemens has developed a set of wind turbine blade attachments that increase power generation without having to fully replace any part of the turbine.
The coolest part of these add-ons? They’re inspired by dinosaurs.