Tesla is getting competition in the market for affordable electric cars
In the near future, electric cars will no longer be the domain of the luxury-car owner. According to Automotive News, Volvo Cars’ North America CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, told reporters at the Geneva auto show that the company’s first fully electric vehicle will likely have a price range of about Read More...
We can officially collect solar energy without solar panels
The discussion on climate has persisted for decades since we first discovered that there is a man-made influence on the environment. From then, many researchers have come together to finagle innovations that reduce our industrial carbon footprint. One such innovation is the molecular leaf. Read More...
Three solar thermal plants in Chile could generate electricity 24 hours a day
The Chilean government recently gave the go-ahead on a massive solar thermal plant that is expected to produce electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week—a considerable feat for a plant that depends solely on solar energy. The plant, proposed for a site in Chile’s Tamarugal province, Read More...
Microbes measure ecological restoration success
The success of ecological restoration projects around the world could be boosted using a potential new tool that monitors soil microbes. Published in the journal Molecular Ecology, University of Adelaide researchers have shown how the community of bacteria present in the soil of land that had been Read More...
How will the rise of crowdfunding reshape how we give to charity?
Last September, a Chicago resident named Joel Cervantes Macias spotted an 89-year old man named Fendicio hawking Mexican ice pops–they’re called “paletas”– out of a street cart. The man looked too old to be working, but Macias only had so much spare cash (and so much Read More...
How to use meditation to beat social anxiety in 5 minutes flat
We've all been there: a social situation where our nerves get the best of us, and we find ourselves at a loss for words. We racked our brains, but we just couldn't think of anything worth saying. It might have been meeting a new potential friend, a client, or love interest. Or maybe it was trying Read More...
Solutionary Rail: Turning America’s railroads into a climate solution
To this editor, who was born in The Netherlands where it was recently announced that the railways are completely powered by wind energy, the image above doesn’t look very innovative. And, yet, electrified railroads powered by renewable energy can make a big positive environmental solution to the Read More...
Preventing food loss in Africa with these low-tech cooling units
In most of Africa there are no refrigerators. As a result, a third of the food produced on the continent is never consumed. It is a very painful loss for the millions of people in Africa who are food insecure or undernourished. A young IT graduate developed a solar-powered, walk-in cold room that Read More...
9 big ideas to change the world for the better in 2017 and beyond
More on big, groundbreaking, world-changing ideas: Here’s a list put together by Fast Company. Global democracy driven by technology. A new fish-based food system to solve both hunger and climate change. How the aging population in the western world can be turned into an economic powerhouse. 100 Read More...
MIT presents: The first-ever Disobedience Award
Breakthroughs seldom come from continuing business as usual. That’s why it is so strange that most children are still pushed through very rigid educational systems that mostly teach what we already know. To get to a new solution, you have to step out of the system. “You don’t change the world Read More...