The NewScientist has an article titled Rainforests may pump winds worldwide, which may shake up the climate and environmental skeptics. It seems large forests are the heart, lungs and kidneys of our living planet. Large forests may be responsible for pumping moisture laden air across continents helping rainfall far inland…
Cool factoid of the day from the article: “More moisture typically evaporates from rainforests than from the ocean. The Amazon rainforest, for example, releases 20 trillion litres of moisture every day.”
How can forests create wind? Water vapour from coastal forests and oceans quickly condenses to form droplets and clouds. The Russians point out that the gas takes up less space as it turns to liquid, lowering local air pressure. Because evaporation is stronger over the forest than over the ocean, the pressure is lower over coastal forests, which suck in moist air from the ocean. This generates wind that drives moisture further inland. The process repeats itself as the moisture is recycled in stages, moving towards the continent’s heart (see diagram). As a result, giant winds transport moisture thousands of kilometres into the interior of a continent.
April 2nd, 2009 | Tags: clean, climate, ecology, environment, green, impact, terraforming, water | Category: all, conservation, nature, science | Leave a comment
Treehugger has a great article on the hybrid car technology turning 100. Actually about a 100 years ago there were more electric or hybrid cars than pure gasoline / petrol driven cars.
March 4th, 2009 | Tags: footprint, green, hybrid, oil dependence, transportation | Category: all, conservation, invention, science, social, technology | Comments (2)
Google just announced a new service for pushing Gmail contacts and Google Calendar updates to mobile devices. This is neat!
February 9th, 2009 | Tags: technology | Category: all, content distribution, personal, technology | Leave a comment
Cleantechnica has a post on Forward Osmosis. It is better explained here. The authors description in a gist:
…conventional desalination and reuse technologies use substantial energy. “forward osmosis,” exploits the natural diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane. Their process “draws” pure water from its contaminants to a solution of concentrated salts, which can easily be removed with low heat treatment — effectively desalinating or removing contaminants from water with little energy input.
The concentrated salt solution is probably a mixture of ammonia and/or carbon dioxide dissolved in water. The ammonia and CO2 are later easily boiled off and reused. The energy required for this quite less even low-cost solar heaters may be sufficient.
February 5th, 2009 | Tags: clean, development, eco-living, environment, green, impact, recycling, technology, water | Category: all, conservation, discovery, invention, science, social, technology | Leave a comment
CNN reports that scientists after over 10 years of research have successfully developed a new strain of flood-tolerant rice through precision breeding. Read the article to know more about the inspiring work being done to positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions.
January 31st, 2009 | Tags: development, social | Category: all, discovery, invention, nature, science, social, technology | Leave a comment
This could prove to be a breakthrough for bio-ethanol based fuel cells. Current fuel cells are mostly methanol based which is a toxic chemical and have low efficiency.
Here is the ScienceDaily (2009-01-29) article:
Scientists have developed a new catalyst that could make ethanol-powered fuel cells feasible. The highly efficient catalyst performs two crucial, and previously unreachable steps needed to oxidize ethanol and produce clean energy in fuel cell reactions.
January 31st, 2009 | Tags: electricity, electronics, fuel-cell, green | Category: all, invention, technology | Leave a comment
Aaron Patzer (CEO and founder of Mint.com) has posted an article titled The Economy According To Mint on Techcrunch. This is probably one of the best real looks at the real economy. Mint.com is a personal finance site used by close to 1 million US consumers to keep track of their spending. Mint’s data is a snapshot of the consumer economy.
From the article:
Consumers are hurting, but if Mint’s data is indicative of the economy as a whole, it is not as bad as you might think….(mint.com customers) are spending $400 less each month than they were a year ago, have burned through half of their savings, and on average have taken on an additional $5k in debt.
Fortunately credit card debt has not gone up substantially yet but we may still need to watch out for a credit card crisis as job losses continue. On the other hand, a robust spending by the government could replace consumer demand by government demand and in turn put people into work and money into their pockets. Theoretically, this sounds good, but only time can tell if it is possible practically.
January 30th, 2009 | Tags: economy | Category: all, social | Leave a comment
The article does a much better job of describing one of the great questions facing humanity - ‘How do we fit in?’ Maybe we need to ask native cultures around the world the answer to this mystery. Anyway here is the article from Treehugger.
January 30th, 2009 | Tags: climate, ecology, footprint, human, impact | Category: all, conservation, discovery, nature, personal, science | Leave a comment
Local communities can probably leverage ideas like these to implement open-source design democratized green urban housing. BTW, how can you make a paper house fireproof? I understand that by using resin / coatings you make it waterproof but how it be made fireproof like bricks and not just fire-resistant?
Your thoughts / comments are welcome. Here is the link to the recycled paper house.
January 23rd, 2009 | Tags: eco-living, green, housing, recycling, urban | Category: all, invention, social, technology | Leave a comment
Vaibhav sent me this today, please donate any amount however small
Thanks,
Sayan
www.helpgaurav.com/
Gaurav Tandon is a 34 year old professional working with Datacraft Asia (a private IT firm) in Mumbai, India. His small family comprises wife, a 6 year old son. He has two elder sisters both are happily married and a brother who is serving as Captain in the Indian Army.
Gaurav was detected with AML (a type of Blood Cancer) in November 2008. He has responded well to chemotherapy, but must get a Bone Marrow Transplant as the only possibility for a cure. Unfortunately the HLA typing test of his siblings is negative. Doctors have therefore strongly recommemded a Non-Related Allogenic transplant. Since such transplantations are rarely performed in India, there is a high chance that we have to take him to places like Singapore, UK or the USA.
The estimated cost of the treatment in Singapore and UK is around 1.5 Crore Indian Rupees (around US$ 333,000), whereas in the US is around of 2 Crore Indian Rupees (around US$ 444,000).
In order to meet the steep cost of the said operation, Gaurav and his family have decided to sell their solitary flat at Thakur Village Complex, Kandivili, Mumbai. However, this is not going to be enough, since the amount required for the treatment is huge and time is less.
Let us all come together to help Gaurav. Together we can reach out to our communities and remind them that we - members of Gaurav’s family, community and country have a responsibility to help. Let us all remember that Gaurav is also a son, a brother, a father and a husband. We should all see ourselves in Gaurav and realize that he deserves the same support we would wish for member of our own family or even ourselves.
www.helpgaurav.com/
January 22nd, 2009 | Category: all, personal, social | Leave a comment
