When a plant is outdoors and surrounded by 360-degrees of sunlight, its auxin (plant hormone) levels are evenly distributed, and it can grow straight up towards the sky. But when you put a houseplant indoors by a bright window, it only gets light from one side. This causes the plant to grow Read More...
Bharati Chaturvedi is the founder of Chintan, an Indian-based organization that cuts waste and consumption. While speaking at a plenary discussion at Circularity 20 last week, she raised a good point: If waste collectors play such a pivotal role in the plastic supply chain, why aren’t they valued Read More...
Before flying down to Brazil for the winter, a flock of rare Purple Martins has chosen a rather unusual place to rest up: the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in downtown Nashville. Okay, a flock of birds roosting in an urban area isn’t all too uncommon, but did we mention how many Purple Martines Read More...
When it comes to offsetting carbon emissions, Microsoft has set a new precedent for companies around the world. Instead of trying to offset more emissions than it produces on a yearly basis, the company has committed to erasing its historical carbon footprint. In other words, Microsoft will capture Read More...
When you coil a spring, you load it with a bunch of potential energy that gets released when you let go. Using the same basic principle, a Scottish company called Gravitricity is creating an energy storage facility that uses weights instead of springs to store energy. The idea is to hold 500 to Read More...
Overprotective parenting can potentially have lasting negative consequences for kids. After all, kids need to learn on their own how to deal with tricky situations and learn from mistakes in order to prepare for what life may throw their way. If you have a tendency to be overprotective of your Read More...
Although rainforests are vital for capturing carbon from the atmosphere, their efficiency hardly compares to that of seagrass. According to the United Nations Environment Program, seagrass can capture carbon an incredible 35 times faster than rainforests. The only problem is seagrass covers just Read More...
Uncertainty about the future, being distant from friends, challenges with mental and physical health, and constantly staying in the same environment have all been aspects of life during Covid-19 that have affected people's ability to focus on daily responsibilities, let alone tackle them with any Read More...
When Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed a great influx of refugees in 2015 rather than denying them at the border, she received overwhelming criticism for opening the country’s borders to migrants. Germany was suddenly the country with the second-highest population of refugees in the Read More...
With their fresh taste and numerous health benefits, it’s not all too hard to understand why salmon is such a sought-after fish. But unfortunately, overfishing and polluted waterways have diminished populations globally. On top of that, we also waste a whole lot of the salmon we do end up Read More...