Latest Articles
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How to turn one piece of recycled cloth into 14 outfits and a bag
So the Lorax movie may be effing up left and right, but take heart, nostalgia-trippers: you can still own a real-life Thneed! The Versalette is a cylinder of domestically sourced, domestically made, recycled, organic fabric, whose ingenious construction allows it to turn into a dress, skirt, top, poncho, scarf, or bag. You can also almost […]
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Critical List: Olympia Snow retires; more people believe in global warming
Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican who believed in global warming and even tried to do something about it, is retiring from the Senate. Since it’s getting warmer, more Americans believe in global warming, because of “personal observations of the weather.” Sigh. That’s not the correct reason to believe global warming is happening, but we’ll take […]
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Why your iThings don’t have to be weCruel
Does Apple really have no choice but to build your iPad and iPhone unsustainably, exploiting workers and resources? Not once you realize how the devices' costs break down.
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Hot tram! Old trolleys are the new classic cars [SLIDESHOW]
After nearly going extinct in the ’60s, vintage streetcars are returning to the rails in downtowns from Philly to San Francisco. Here's what it looks like when mass transit goes retro.
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Soup & Bread: Inspiring a community of giving [Recipes]
Check out an excerpt from a new cookbook that celebrates a popular winter food tradition, and the community event it inspired.
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Myhrvold finds we need clean energy yesterday (and no natural gas) to avoid being cooked
Former Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold built a specialized set of models to answer the question: What effect will deployment of clean energy have on global temperature? The results are in ... and grim.
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Terrifying video envisions a world where education is anti-science
Step for a moment into this chilling alternative reality, in which fine young men and women believe “gravity is just a theory” and “cigarettes aren’t addictive”: The video is from the Climate Reality Project, Al Gore’s current climate-change fighting outfit. What do y’all find the most terrifying moment? I lose it around “Scientists are, like, […]
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Liquid battery electric vehicle could charge in three minutes
“Flow” batteries, i.e. batteries filled with a liquid electrolyte that can be pumped out and replenished, have the potential to transform the process of charging an electric vehicle into something that more closely resembles filling it up with gas.
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New revelations about how Fukushima almost forced the evacuation of Tokyo
During the most dire period in the Fukushima meltdown, the president of Japanese utility company Tepco tried to evacuate all workers at the stricken reactor. If that order went through, it would have precipitated a worst-case scenario and ultimately the evacuation of Tokyo.
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Peel-off solar panels could make solar competitive with coal
Ultra-thin solar cells that can be "peeled off" from larger pieces of silicon like delicious fruit roll-ups could be the key to making solar competitive with coal, say researchers at MIT.
