Tag Archives: Culture

Robotic Plants Serve an Altruistic Purpose (Video)

Photo via Designboom Japanese artist Akira Nakayasu’s specialty is robotic plants. He creates things like sunflowers that react to human movement, making the flower seem to communicate with the people around it. His latest work is called “Plant,” an interactive piece that was inspired by grass blowing in the wind. With 169 artificial leaves that react independently to the presence of a human’s body, such as a hand waving over it, the unarguably interesting and relatively cool piece begs the question, “What’s the point?”… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Robotic Plants Serve an Altruistic Purpose (Video)

Newly Discovered Wood-Eating Catfish Has Spoon-Shaped Teeth

Photos via The Nature Conservancy , credit: Paulo Petry Turns out deep sea crabs aren’t the only underwater wildlife to eat wood. An Amazonian armored catfish does too. A new species with teeth shaped like spoons for scooping up wood from fallen logs has been discovered by freshwater scientist Paulo Petry in the Fitzgarald arch, a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon. And, in what seems to be the daily narrative of newly di… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Newly Discovered Wood-Eating Catfish Has Spoon-Shaped Teeth

Protesters Create "Oil Slick" on Major Roads, or Did They?

Image credit: Climate Camp From beautiful images of a climate camp protest in Wales , to skepticism over protesters’ targeting of offset companies —the ever growing Climate Camp movement never fails to get a reaction—both here on TreeHugger and elsewhere. But it seems the latest Climate Camp protests have garnered atten… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Protesters Create "Oil Slick" on Major Roads, or Did They?

A Little Black Dress that Functions as Your Cell Phone, Too

Photo: CuteCircuit via Ecouterre Always misplacing your mobile? CuteCircuit makes it easy to catch calls on the go with their forthcoming M-dress (Mobile Phone Dress), which I read about in Ecouterre . The hip-hugging soft-circuitry cellphone dress has a built in antenna — conveniently concealed in its hem — and accepts a SI… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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A Little Black Dress that Functions as Your Cell Phone, Too

World’s Smallest Hydroponic Grow Box: Twitter Enabled

Image credit: PocketGrow Whether we are talking about open source, automated garden monitors , more efficient industrial monocultures , or discussing whether soilless farming can be organic , many of our readers seem to have a strong dislike of overly techno-fix approaches to growin… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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World’s Smallest Hydroponic Grow Box: Twitter Enabled

Is Hauling Your Own Trash Green?

Image credit: RocketJim54 (Creative Commons) When I took up the rural green life (elitist or not) , there was an inevitable trade-off between bee keeping , large-scale composting , mushroom growing ,

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Is Hauling Your Own Trash Green?

US Army Finds 3D Printing + Shipping Container = Instant Parts

Images via Clegg Industries 3D Printing is a great way to reduce inventory shipping costs and make good design accessible to anyone anywhere; PSFK writes that the US Army has been demonstrating the benefits for a couple of years. But there are not a lot of computerized machine tools and 3D printers in Afghanistan, so the Army ordered up the Mobile Parts Hospital , (MPH) with a computerized machine tool inside a shipping container sized box…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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US Army Finds 3D Printing + Shipping Container = Instant Parts

Global Warming-Loving Beetle Threatens World’s Coffee Supply

Photo via Plinkk This year’s coffee prices area already at a 12-year high due to low crop yields in South America, but it looks like prices could tighten again in the future if a particular beetle continues to bask in warming weather. Arabica coffee, a climate-sensitive plant, is grown in Ethiopia and Latin America. However, Ethiopia and other regions have seen a slow but steady rise in average temperatures, more variable rain fall, and what could be mos… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Global Warming-Loving Beetle Threatens World’s Coffee Supply

Fast Track Program for Green Tech Patents Gets Snubbed

Photo via Steve Snodgrass Back in December we learned that green tech companies were receiving a fast track through the US patent process in order to boost innovation among start-ups and innovators. The first 3,000 applicants would sail through the process in just 12 months, as opposed to 40 months. We asked if zipping through the patent process would really move green tech forward. Turns out, it doesn’t. The fast track program is already off course for filling up the 3… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Fast Track Program for Green Tech Patents Gets Snubbed

Northwest And Northeast Passages Are Open

Arctic sea ice extent image for August 24, 2010, as compiled by The University of Illinois Cryosphere For the fourth year in a row, and for the fourth time in recorded history, the Northwest passage is completely open. For only the third time, both the Northwest and Northeast passage (north of Russia) are open. If you had a fast enough boat you could race right around the North Pole and Greenland. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Northwest And Northeast Passages Are Open