The Ocean Cleanup System begins removing the great pacific garbage patch
A Dutch non-profit organization announced they were working on advanced technologies in an attempt to remove the plastic waste from the world’s oceans. The Ocean Cleanup launched in September the cleanup system called “System 001” from the San Francisco Read More...
‘School is very oppressive’: why home-schooling is on the rise
Every morning Ben Mumford starts his school day with maths. At the age of 10, he is already working at GCSE level, but he doesn’t always bother to get out of his pajamas in time for the Read More...
China has record electric car sales month
After a few months threatening to break the all-time record (102,635 units, set last December), the Chinese plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market finally hit a new high, with some 104,900 plug-in vehicles being registered in September, up 66 percent and in line with previous months’ growth Read More...
Is it possible for an oil company to help fight climate change?
A year ago, Royal Dutch Shell, now the largest oil company in the world, acquired NewMotion, a company with thousands of electric car charging points throughout Europe. A month later, Shell started installing fast chargers at some of its largest gas Read More...
Bionic leaf is 10 times better at photosynthesis than real plants
Plants take in carbon dioxide, water, and sunshine to create a sugary fuel. Now researchers have done the same, but even Read More...
In Norway, an ambitious new standard for green building is catching on
In Drøbak, Norway, there’s a little school that’s one of the most unique — and possibly the greenest — in the world. On top, solar panels face the sun at a 33-degree angle, and beneath, energy wells tap geothermal Read More...
This researcher rode 5,000 miles with Uber to understand the gig economy
If you’re a frequent passenger of Lyft or Uber, there’s a good chance you’ve met your fair share of drivers. But probably not as many as Alex Rosenblat, an ethnographer and researcher at Data & Society, a nonprofit in New York that studies the social and cultural issues created by new Read More...
Finding the heart
How do we heal the heart? As a historian of religion, I often return to the Gnostic Gospels, an astonishing cache of more than fifty sacred texts, discovered in Egypt, in 1945. Many of them speak to this question: How do we gain the courage to overcome grief and despair? In one story, Jesus’s Read More...
Fungi research lifts lid on shy organisms that break down plastic
Could fungi help us deal with our plastic addiction? Scientists at London’s Kew Botanical Gardens think so. The first ever State of the World’s Fungi, produced by Kew Gardens and a team of around 100 scientists from 18 countries, reports that fungi successfully degrade polyurethane in a Read More...
Waymo can test fully driverless cars on California roads
Get ready to see mysteriously vacant cars roaming around California streets. The state DMV has granted Waymo a permit to test fully driverless vehicles (not even an observer) on public roads, making it the first company in the state to receive Read More...