Lyft is now offering rides in self-driving cars in a major US city
Lyft has begun offering self-driving rides in Boston. The autonomous vehicles have human backup drivers ready to take the wheel if any problems Read More...
Solar energy helps African village connect to the Internet for almost nothing
While new telecommunications has brought on much positive change in rural South Africa, the cost of data and airtime for these are amongst the highest in the world. One survey found that people spend up to 22% of their total income on telecommunications. That’s why a team of researchers have Read More...
Why shipping used clothes to East Africa has become a burden for locals
East Africa no longer wants your old clothes. For decades, countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda have received shipments of second-hand clothing from North American and European charities. These charities gather donations from well-meaning citizens who were Read More...
US health care is incredibly wasteful. To clean it up, we should look to India
We may not think about it much, but the medical industry produces plenty of waste from treatments, tossing disposable gowns, caps, booties, gloves and blankets, in addition to using loads of energy to drive machines needed in diagnosis and surgery. And that's not even talking anesthesia, which is a Read More...
Scientists have discovered a massive “carbon sink” in the Congo
Deep in the heart of the Congo rainforest, Congolese and British scientists have made an extraordinary discovery. What they have come across is a huge basin of peat, a mud-like material that builds up over centuries and stores carbon that would normally be released into the atmosphere during Read More...
Ten strategies to build your resilience against pervasive angst
A feeling of angst can be found in all corners of society, but it doesn’t need to be this way. The truth is we are all responsible for the level of calmness within the community. We can all play a role in either raising or lowering the level by the way we conduct ourselves and interact. See here Read More...
Bob Geldof and John Cleese join Sleep in the Park event for homeless
More than 8,000 people braved freezing temperatures to sleep outside in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh on Saturday night with the ambition of ending homelessness in Scotland. Billed as the world’s largest sleep-out, Sleep in the Read More...
How solar power changed the lives of Syrian refugees in Jordan
Azraq refugee camp in Jordan recently became the first solar-powered refugee camp on earth. "Thanks to solar energy, we now feel like we have rejoined the 21st century," said one refugee after solar power ended frequent power Read More...
Doable daily experiments to test the boundaries of your independence
High in the unincorporated Santa Cruz mountains in California, deep in the redwood forest, is a tiny cabin. It was built in 1950 for vacationers, and sits precariously over a hill on crooked wooden Read More...
How an underground urban farm in Sweden is heating the building above it
Like many indoor farms, a subterranean urban farm in Stockholm will grow greens in vertical towers under LED lights. But what makes this urban farm different is that it will capture the heat from the lights and send it into a heat storage system for the office building above. Usually that heat Read More...