Photo via the New Republic It's a widely held notion that politicians have long been in the pocket of Big Oil. And there's good reason for that perception: oil companies' huge campaign donations, vast lobbying power, and close ties to politicians have ensured that their taxes remain low , that hidden subsidies are around to provide extra funding, and that they receive preferential treatment in US energy policy. But there could be a new, ... View original post here: The Next Big Oil: Big Smart Grid?
So there really isn't anything that deep to this image. It's just a (more or less) life-sized blue whale eye. And on the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society site you can educate yourself/be mesmerized/ waste some time for a while staring at it while the entire life-sized animal scrolls across your browser window. Believe me, it's way cooler than you might think:... Read more from the original source: Ever See a Blue Whale Life-Sized on Your Computer? Now You Can
published October 16, 2009 and has No Comments
photo: Kyknoord via flickr. There's lots of cool stuff going on with biomimicry these days and on Wednesday I got to see one of the coolest things I've seen in this arena in a while: Experimental superhydrophobic coatings for wind turbine blades. Inspired by the way water balls up on certain types of leaves, these promise more eff... Read ...
Read more...published September 28, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo via tanakawho NASA is taking a hint from biomimicry and looking at lotus leaves for inspiration for a special coating that will prevent particles from sticking to surfaces of spaceflight equipment. The many tiny spikes covering the surface of the leaf are idea for minimizing the amount of surface area where dust and other matter can accumulate. It's ...
Read more...published September 28, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo via Axel Rouvin We have viruses and worms that infect our computers, reflections of nature in our digital world that are anything but pleasant. Now we might get another dash of nature in our computers, this time coming to the rescue. Computer security experts are devising ways to protect our computers by mimicking ants and how they swarm ...
Read more...published July 6, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo: Wikipedia , Public domain Heigh-Ho! Heigh-Ho! Breaking Down Dead Leaves! Leaf-cutter ants, fungi and bacteria are playing as a team when it comes to the most energy possible out of dead leaves, and scientists think that by studying this 50-million years old "symbiotic bioreactor" they can figure out how to make biofuels more effectively. But they can't just ...
Read more...published June 3, 2009 and has No Comments
Designboom presents cool things from the DMY Design Festival in Berlin. Nominees for the DMY Award include the Idea of a Tree from Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler. it is a machine that "starts producing when the sun rises and stops when the sun settles down. After sunset, the finished object can be ‘harvested’."... Go here to see the ...
Read more...published May 1, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo by Janet Wood During the last weekend in April, a group of volunteers laid the final necessary pieces into Withers Estuary to reintroduce oysters to their native ecosystem. The project is part of the Withers Estuary Community Collaborative (WECC), a partnership of leaders in Myrtle Beach , South Carolina . Th... View original here: Oysters are Restored to Waters ...
Read more...published April 27, 2009 and has No Comments
TreeHugger is big on Biomimicry, " the practice of developing healthier, more sustainable technologies inspired by ideas from Nature." Janine Benrus's Biomimicry Institute has acolytes all over the world, including TreeHugger's Tim McGee and Carl Hastrich of Toronto, who I met at the Green Living Show. He is holding a model of an impeller that is changing the way ...
Read more...published March 26, 2009 and has No Comments
Image credit: Reuters According to Spanish newspaper El País last weekend, British scientists have developed a 1,5 meter long robot fish that will swim around the Spanish north coast to detect contamination in the water. ... Read more: Robot Fish Detects Contamination in the Sea in Northern Spain
Read more...published March 19, 2009 and has No Comments
Bee photo by vagawi We all know that bees represent an extremely efficient social networking system. Using that buzzing example, a Toronto start-up is figuring out how to network a building's equipment in order to avoid big spikes in energy use, and therefore steer clear of big bills for peak-demand energy consumption. ... Read the rest here: Self-Organizing Equipment Will ...
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This hand operated gramophone is as simple as it gets. Original post: Minimalist Gramophone Makes Playing Music Super Simple
Contrary to previously held notions of how whale songs are shared between neighboring populations, a surprising study finds that whales living the same ocean basin are singing different songs. Read the original post: Study: Humpback Whales Living in Same Ocean ...
