Latest Articles

Check out this high-tech prosthetic for amputee cyclists

The Cadence leg prosthetic looks like something Chell from Portal might wear, but it's actually specially designed for riding a bike. Design student Seth Astle just won the James Dyson award for Cadence, which helps give below-the-knee amputees the fluid leg movement necessary to pedal a bike efficiently. 

Feeding frenzy: Who's behind the unsavory food stamp parodies

Two sensationalist videos about government food assistance have gotten the attention of conservatives recently. One may not be what it seems.

Oil drilling wastes 100 million cubic feet of natural gas a day

Every day, oil companies burn 100 million cubic feet of natural gas -- not to power anything, but just because it's not oil and they don't need it. According to The New York Times, the North Dakota landscape is full of will-o-the-wisp plumes of fire where natural gas is burning off. 

More than 100 tar-sands activists politely arrested in polite Canadian protest

On Monday, at least 400 protestors stormed -- or, more accurately, walked gently up to and tapped on the shoulder -- the Canadian parliament building in Ottawa to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Over 100 people were arrested, charged with trespassing, and barred from coming near the parliament building for a year. But everybody was REALLY, REALLY POLITE about it.

Chow-to: Make your own sea salt

Homemade sea salt captures the flavors of different coastlines in just a few tiny grains. A DIY salt maker shares her tips and tricks.

Grow a real garden in a LEGO greenhouse

Well, here's an innovative urban gardening solution -- a greenhouse made of transparent LEGO bricks that grows real plants in LEGO mulch.

People know how to eat better, they just can't afford it

We know, we know -- you just got done patting yourself on the back over that New York Times graphic showing that healthy food is cheaper than fast food. If you were operating on a really tight budget, we're sure you'd be able to pull off super-wholesome eating for your whole family! Here's the thing, though: For most actual poor people, it's not that simple.

German small solar cheaper than big U.S. solar

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. The U.S. has a hodge-podge of utility, state, and federal tax-based incentives. The Germans have a comprehensive feed-in tariff, providing CLEAN contracts (in the U.S. parlance) to anyone who wants to go solar (or wind, or […]

How DIY and the ‘IKEA effect’ make us green

The "IKEA effect" says that we value things we have built ourselves (even if those things are frankly a little crappy). I'd propose an extension -- call it the "DIY effect," which says we tend to hold onto, repair, and upgrade things we build ourselves, breaking us out of the consumerist cycle of trashing what's old so we can capitalize on the (often-illusory) advantages of the latest and greatest.

Navy Secretary says getting off fossil fuels is just like ditching sail power

Ray Mabus, Secretary of the U.S. Navy, has a refreshing historical perspective on the Navy's efforts to end its dependence on our increasingly expensive and environmentally destructive supplies of oil. From a speech he recently gave at the National Clean Energy Summit 4.0:

In the 1850s, we went from sail to coal. In the early 19th century, we went from coal to oil, and in the 1950s, we pioneered nuclear.