An Urbanizing Planet

Welcome to a three part series of kitchen appliance design using unconventional and sustainable materials. 

Part one of the series is a toaster designed using steam-bent bamboo plywood, glass toasting trays, a 2″x1″ touchscreen and quick-cooling coils embedded within the glass toasting trays. Gone is the bizarre popup mechanisms of toaster’s past – the toaster features wide, easy access slots. The heating coils feature quick-cooling technology and the UI tells the user when its safe to grab their toasty treats. Bamboo and glass are both sustainable and renewable and the design uses no plastic and minimal metal.

(via Bamboo and Glass Toaster Design)

Breathtaking Images of Underwater Life Captured by Freediving Photographers Alex Voyer and Alex Roubaud

ADB Finances Renewable Energy Transmission System in India

Breathtaking Images of Underwater Life Captured by Freediving Photographers Alex Voyer and Alex Roubaud

The Companies That Are Doing The Most (And Least) About The Climate

Governments aren’t doing much to halt global warming but there is hope in the business world. Here are the companies that are facing up to the challenge.

Not my usual climate post. But, BMW is #1.

The World's Commercial Shipping Routes

by Grolltech on Wikipedia: 

This map of shipping routes illustrates the present-day density of commercial shipping in the world’s oceans.

Via Reddit and Wikipedia, data from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis 

When’s the last time you thought about the revolving door? This modest invention—something you likely encounter with a sense of dread while rushing off to the office or airport—is something of a modern miracle. Every time a revolving door rotates, it generates enough electricity to power a 60-watt light bulb for 23 minutes, equalizes indoor temperatures, and reduces carbon output—ultimately slowing climate change.

Revolving Doors Are an Energy Powerhouse. Why Don’t We Use Them? | GOOD

The Moon Parka - A jacket made of synthetic spider silk

Remember the Japanese biomaterials company Spiber? In 2013, they presented a cocktail dress made of Qmonos (from the Japanese word kumonosu meaning ‘spider web’), their present 11-year-10-design-iterations-and-656-gene-synthesis synthetic version of stronger than steel and more flexible than nylon lightweight spider silk.

Snip from geek.com:

The end result of all that research is a method for producing artificial spider silk through a fermentation process using bioengineered microorganisms to produce the silk proteins. A real spider can only produce so much silk, but an engineered cell that does nothing but spit out silk proteins can be used to scale production up quickly.

Now they presented in collaboration with The North Face a new prototype called The Moon Parka, which is currently touring North Face stores across Japan. It’s intended to show that practical applications of spider silk are possible (cost is now 1/53,000 of what it was in 2008). Spiber aims to deliver the final product next year. Presumably only in Japan. But fingers crossed for a worldwide rollout at reasonable prices.

Watch their promo-launch video below:

[North Face x Spiber] [Spiber] [picture by North Face]

 This is just great.

Why I'm Naming a New Plant Species After The Martian

Truth be told, while much of what my fellow botanists and I do is pretty cool (and often challenging), there isn't much that would find its way into a blockbuster hero film. That is, until now.

So, a new plant related to the potato is being named after Mark Watney and this makes me very happy.

“My lab group has decided to name this new species Solanum watneyi after Mark Watney, the book/film character who shows us all that botanists can be cool, too.” - Dr. Chris Martine, Professor at Bucknell University