ecoGizmo

Aside from arable land, most farm crops require significant amounts of water, fertilizer, nutrients and pesticides to grow. While specialized breeding is often used to help produce plants that require less of these inputs, Purdue University researcher Burkhard Schulz has found a way to create tiny versions of plants that suffer no reduction in yield through the addition of a cheap and widely available chemical. Read More

Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, whose body of work is mostly based on light installations, last week presented a small solar powered light during the World Economic Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Olafur collaborated with engineer Frederik Ottesen to create Little Sun, which they hope can help bring indoor lighting to those people who lack access in developing countries. Read More

If you're on a cycling holiday where you spend all day in the saddle, there's nothing like getting back to your accommodation and flopping down in front of the TV for a well deserved rest. But for guests at one UK bed and breakfast, it really is nothing like that ... because Cottage Lodge in Brockenhurst has installed a bicycle-powered television in one of its rooms. Read More

Following Gizmag's coverage of GE Lighting's 27 W Energy Smart and Switch Lighting's 100 W-replacement LED light bulbs, Osram Sylvania has been in touch to tell us about its 100 W-replacement LED light bulb, joining its Sylvania Ultra series: a 20 W, 1600 lumen light bulb with a warm, "incandescenty" color appearance of 2700 K. With Philips also to release a 100-W equivalent this means the big three manufacturers of light sources are joining Switch Lighting in offering high-output LED light bulbs for the home, but all things considered, Osram Sylvania's may prove the pick of the bunch. Read More

GE Lighting has announced that it is getting in on the 100 W-equivalent LED replacement act. The 27 W Energy Smart LED bulb joins its range of incandescent bulb replacements that already includes 40 W and 60 W equivalents. And like an incandescent bulb, GE claims its LED bulb emits light evenly in all directions. But how does the 100 W equivalent stack up performance-wise? Read More

Should you rip it off fast or slow? Researchers at Penn State may have found the elusive third, painless option. Professor Greg Ziegler and research assistant Lingyan Kong have developed a process that spins starch into fine strands, creating fibers that could be woven into low-cost toilet paper, napkins and biodegradable bandages that don't need to be ripped off at all. Read More

If anything good came out of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, it was that it got people thinking about technologies for cleaning up future spills. While things like magnetic soap, nanosponges, and autonomous robots are all in the works, a group of scientists recently announced the results of their research into another possibility – oil droplet-gathering microsubmarines. Read More

Grid-powered street lighting is something that many of us take for granted, but there are parts of the world where electricity is a scarce resource and when the sun goes down, local pedestrian traffic in areas where public lighting is not abundant can all-but cease due to safety concerns. In searching for an inexpensive off-grid solution for places like the Colombian city of Cartagena, designer Alberto Vasquez looked to the wind for help. His Flow concept makes use of readily-available bamboo for the construction of a vertical wind turbine in a similar vein to the Power Flowers concept, but with LED light modules at the end of each blade. As the wind catches the blades, the LEDs light up the walkway beneath. Read More

Its idea may be simple, but that did not stop Radiator Labs winning the MIT Clean Energy Prize with its controllable box that can be retrofitted to radiators to boost the efficiency of hot water and steam heating systems. The heavily insulated housings physically cover the radiator, trapping heat in the system, and strictly controlling the amount that is let into the room. This prevents homes becoming over-heated, and wasteful heat loss as people open windows to compensate. Read More