Biologists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich are finding ingenious ways to help people living in arid regions find and develop new sources of water. Bellavista, a small, hillside settlement near Lima, Peru that is unconnected to the municipal water supply is enveloped in fog through most of the winter. There, the pair designed a fog-catching system that captures and collects fog-water for use by......read more
What's the number one cause of disease in the world, causing more death than all forms of violence combined? If you guessed unsafe water, you're correct. Your reward is this sweet charity: water PSA. Check out the time lapse at 1:30, fantastic! ...read more
This is the discovery that could put the College of Wooster on the map: glass that swells like a sponge. Put together like a nano-matrix, the new glass can unfold to hold up to eight times its weight. The glass binds with gasoline and other pollutants containing volatile organic compounds but it does not bind with water, so it acts like a “smart†sponge, capable of picking and......read more
New York artist Roni Horn makes sculptures, drawings, photographs, and books informed by her frequent excursions to Iceland. The island nation's volatile geology, the volcanoes and the hot springs, the ice and the sea, suffuse Horn's work, which deals with metaphors of climate change and shifting identity. In one piece, columns of glacier water harken the core samples drilled by climate......read more
Visualizing the spill: From our friends at GOOD, an animated simulation of a 25,000-barrel oil spill — less than half the estimated daily amount gushing into the Gulf. Dropping the ball: A scathing account of the U.S. Interior Department's handling of the offshore oil industry. Oh phew, at least there's that: Oil-Splattered BP Promises Uninterrupted Flow of Art Funding. The......read more
In London, the "seriously water stressed" UK capital confronts summer water shortages with a creative — and very British — solution: A new bio-diesel desalination plant that will run partly on used vegetable oil from fish-and-chip shops. Also in London, the newly erected Speedo Swimsuit Pavilion is made from obsolete swim suits. True story. Upgrade the grid: The US......read more
Plug and play: The Yves Behar-designed GE WattStation will juice up electric vehicles and spruce up the streets. Oh, the humanity! When Humans Ruled the Earth explores the human consumption machine in animated form. An efficient water solution in the rural West: Farmers and ranchers are replacing windmills with solar power wells. Want to take an exotic holiday AND help the environment? Try one......read more
We know you're bummed it's Monday so here are some tranquil images of water to daydream about. Pictory is an interesting web project that lets click-happy photographers showcase their snaps by submitting a photo and caption to any of Pictory’s editorial themes. This is the latest, In Deep, a collection of photos of bodies of water from people in the Pictory community. Some......read more
“I think you have to paint the stick orange." - Canadian designer Bruce Mau, asked whether a carrot or stick is the more effective way to change people's habits. The Massive Change author discussed sustainability and rebranding climate change on Need to Know. An ordinary car did something extraordinary in Europe last week, when a production model Volkswagen Passat set a world......read more
Ryan McGinley's latest exhibition Life Adjustment Center features the photographer's trademark nudes posing with live, wild animals. Flavorwire has a slideshow of the strangeness. The book is available from Dashwood. We know you love the "The Bike Song" by Mark Ronson because how can you not? Now, the nice people at The Fader are giving you the chance to win a custom Republic......read more