Author: Daniela

  • Khadi – An Art That Gives Life

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    Khadi means handspun and handwoven cloth. In 1918 Mahatma Gandhi started his movement for Khadi as a relief program for the poor masses living in India’s villages. Spinning and weaving was elevated to an ideology for self-reliance and self-government. “Every village shall plant and harvest its own raw-materials for yarn, every woman and man shall…

  • Nanoscavengers – the next generation of water purifiers?

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    This new technology could be the answer to water pollution. Among its many talents, silver is an antibiotic. Titanium dioxide is known to glom on to certain heavy metals and pollutants. Other materials do the same for salt. In recent years, environmental engineers have sought to disinfect, depollute, and desalinate contaminated water using nanoscale particles of these active materials. Engineers call them nanoscavengers. The hitch…

  • Robo Raven

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    After years of experiments, Dr. S.K. Gupta along with students Eli Barnett, John Gerdes, Johannes Kempny, Ariel Perez-Rosado, and Luke Roberts finally succeeded in  building a bird with completely independent wings.  By programming them with arbitrary motion profiles, the group can try new in-flight aerobatics that would not have been possible before. For example, the mechanical bird…

  • Should Human Genes Be Patentable?

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    Reposted from Andrew Sullivan’s blog “The Dish.” Florence Williams asks why a company should be allowed to patent the genes  that prompted Jolie’s double mastectomy: Although they reside in our bodies, the BRCA genes are effectively owned by a bio-tech giant, Myriad Genetics, which patented the genes in the mid-1990s. Should a single corporation control access to DNA…

  • Seven Beautiful Spots Saved by the Environmental Movement

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    Jennifer Weeks’ article reminds us of why the environmental fight is so worth it.  Enjoy! To celebrate Earth Day, visit a spot that was almost flooded, polluted, or paved over. By Jennifer Weeks|Posted Friday, April 19, 2013, at 7:47 AM   Storm King Mountain on the banks of the Hudson River in New YorkCourtesy of Ahodges7/Wikimedia…

  • Beyond Capitalism – Gar Alperovitz

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  • New App Lets You Boycott Koch Brothers, Monsanto And More By Scanning Your Shopping Cart

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    By: Clare O’Connor, Forbes Staff Buycott shows you a product’s corporate family tree while you shop. In her keynote speech at last year’s annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burnerpitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The former Microsoft MSFT +1.51%programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe…

  • Indian man single-handedly plants a 1,360-acre forest

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    Jadav Payeng turned a barren sandbar in northern India into a lush new forest ecosystem. By Stephen Messenger Fri, Dec 21 2012 at 1:20 PM Forests & Trees, TreeHugger The forest, called the Molai woods, is a safe haven for numerous birds, deer, rhinos, tigers and elephants — species increasingly at risk from habitat loss. (Photo:…

  • The Maker Movement

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    Although this aricle on the “Maker Movement”  is interesting , it comes across mainly as an ad for the 3-D printer. Collaboration and transparency are at the heart of Anderson’s new book, Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. Here’s its argument: After the personal computer revolution and the Internet revolution, the latest tech upheaval is the “Maker”…

  • Is Organic Better? Ask a Fruitfly.

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    When Ria Chhabra, a middle school student near Dallas, heard her parents arguing about the value of organic foods, she was inspired to create a science fair project to try to resolve the debate. Three years later, Ria’s exploration of fruit flies and organic foods has not only raised some provocative questions about the health…