Looking up at the thousands of street lights that illuminate our cities, former town planner and designer Danny Bettay has always asked one simple question: “Do we really need this, or is this overkill?”. “Historically, street lights were designed, indirectly for people, but designed for technologies, essentially for horse and carriage,” Mr Bettay said. “And…
A new study from North Carolina State University researchers finds that conversion of forests to urban development or agriculture near streams can have harmful effects on water quality downstream, presenting both health concerns and raising the cost of water treatment. Using a model called the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, researchers mapped out the current…
A few nights before Mom died, my brother, sister and I lay in bed with her, doorman and women of her soul, for we knew she was going to go but not when and we wanted to be there at the threshold when she did. It is fitting, my brother said, that we spend her…
Ever since humans first learned to grow their own food, farmers have been saving seeds to produce the next crop. This practice has been essential for over a millennium since it encourages sustainability and stronger crops. Unfortunately, the relatively new idea of copyrighting seeds has all but put an end to this traditional relationship. Large…
Vertical farming can do more than lettuce. A research team headed by TUMCREATE, a research platform in Singapore, led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has investigated the cultivation of six food groups in vertical farming: Crops, algae, mushrooms, insects, fish and cultivated meat. In this study, the researchers show the positive effects of…
The ambient temperature has a profound impact on the physiology and behaviour of most species. In regions where individuals rely on low temperatures to hibernate effectively, global warming is likely to significantly affect their survival. A team of scientists studied how ambient temperatures shape the energy expenditure of common noctule bats and built a model…
The number of species does not increase evenly when going from local ecosystems to continental scales – a phenomenon ecologists have recognised for decades. Now, an international team of scientists, including researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), has developed a new theory to explain…
Researchers have announced that they’ve successfully identified a new cannabinoid—cannabielsoxa—produced by the marijuana plant as well as a number of other compounds “reported for the first time from the flowers of C. sativa.” The team of government and university researchers out of South Korea also evaluated 11 compounds in cannabis for antitumor effects in neuroblastoma…
Increasing urban vegetation by 30 per cent could save over one-third of all heat related deaths, saving up to 1.16 million lives globally from 2000 to 2019 according to a 20-year modelling study of the impact of increasing greenness in more than 11,000 urban areas. The study, led by Monash University Professor Yuming Guo and…
Microplastics in the heart, in the human brain, in the liver, or in the kidneys… International scientific reporting on the subject is steadily increasing—almost as rapidly as the microscopic plastic particles accumulating in our bodies. And the outlook is not optimistic. The human body is contaminated by microplastics in various ways. They have been found…