Climate-friendly makeover will turn California desert into clean energy paradise
What would you do with a 10-million-acre area of California desert? The Obama administration just announced it will use a piece of federally-owned land for two purposes: renewable energy development, and preservation of the unique and valuable desert ecosystem. The so-called Desert Renewable Read More...
This company grows ethical diamonds and could lure business away from 'blood diamonds'
It was Leonardo DiCaprio who played a diamond smuggler in the movie Blood Diamond, a 2006 thriller about the violent diamond trade during the Sierra Leone civil war. Now the actor is investing in a startup called Diamond Foundry, which says it can grow real diamonds in just a matter of weeks. Read More...
6 simple ways to cut down on your food waste
Food waste is the world’s third largest carbon polluter. When food goes to waste, so do all the resources spent on producing it, which is significant considering countries like the U.S. throw around 40% of it in the trash. Consumers are responsible for more wasted food than any other part of the Read More...
How mindfulness meditation can transform health care
The cost and access to health care has been a controversial issue for as long as I can remember. While it is debatable whether recent legislation has fixed the problem, statistics show that the rise in health care cost has outpaced the rate of inflation for 9 of the last 10 years. And if this trend Read More...
Study: Preschoolers need more outdoor time at child care centers
A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds child care centers play a pivotal role when it comes to the physical activity levels of preschoolers. Yet few children get to experience outdoor recess time as it is scheduled. Only 3 in 10 children had at least 60 minutes Read More...
Shoppers don't want processed, pre-packaged food anymore
A drastic change in the way people shop and eat is having a huge impact on Big Food, which is scrambling to catch up. Big Food is having a panic attack. Sales are plummeting steadily because shoppers are simply not interested in what big food companies have to offer. McDonalds’ sales per Read More...
No beef allowed: inside the schools that have banned meat
School dinners are a minefield, as Jamie Oliver discovered when he came up against mothers defiantly pushing burgers through the fence to their chicken-nugget deprived offspring. It’s fine to change your curriculum, sack your headteacher, flatten buildings and replace them with uglier ones, Read More...
How gentrification may benefit the poor
When a poor neighborhood attracts higher income residents, expensive cafes and pricy vintage clothing stores move in, making daily living more expensive. The narrative is that gentrification displaces low income residents and in the worst case scenario causes homelessness. Now, a new storyline is Read More...
Mindfulness meditation reduces pain more effectively than placebo, study shows
A new scientific study shows that it is possible to train your mind to feel less pain. To the surprise of the researchers conducting the study, mindfulness meditation reduces pain more effectively than a placebo. Brain scans show that mindfulness meditation produced very different patterns of Read More...
The price of energy from floating wind farms set to plummet
Floating offshore wind farms offer clean energy without the aesthetic drawbacks of having a turbine close to shore. Yet, its development around the world, especially in the U.S., hasn’t been all too fast considering it's more expensive than most energy sources. That will all change however, after Read More...