ecoGizmo

There's nothing quite like an old rocking chair for finding your center and chilling out. Originally thought to have been developed as garden furniture, the rocker has now come full circle with the development of the SOFT Rocker by Professor Sheila Kennedy and architecture students from MIT. Installed at the Institute's Killian Court for the Festival of Art+Science+Technology (FAST), the teardrop-shaped outdoor rocking lounge chairs have solar panels over the top to provide power for up to three USB devices, and some after-dark lighting to allow the party to go on after the sun goes down. Read More

There's more to environmentally-friendly architecture than solar-panels and thermal mass, it's also about designing buildings that are not at-odds with their surroundings - particularly if the building is in the middle of a picturesque landscape. This example form Make Architects ticks both boxes - it uses on-site renewable energy to achieve a zero-carbon design and blends almost seamlessly into the landscape by ignoring convention and, like the residents of The Shire, going underground. Read More

Currently the brightest options for those looking to ditch their incandescent light bulbs in favor of the longer life and more energy efficient LED variety are those equivalent to 60 watt incandescent bulbs, such as the GeoBulb II. Things got a little brighter last month when California-based Switch Lighting announced its 75 watt-equivalent LED bulb and now the company has gone one better with the announcement of what it claims is the world's first 100 watt-equivalent LED bulb. Read More

Hydrogen is certainly one of the big candidates when it comes to finding cleaner fuels to replace petroleum. While it only produces water when burnt as fuel, the process of obtaining hydrogen from natural gas is not quite so eco-friendly – it consumes a lot of energy, and creates carbon dioxide. Now a new process being developed at the Netherlands' Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) promises a much more efficient, innocuous alternative. Read More

When most people think of wind power they think of large-scale wind farms with fields of huge three-bladed horizontal axis turbines. With such farms requiring lots of room they are generally unsuitable for placement in or even near large cities. Smaller turbines tailored for urban environments such as AeroVironment's Architectural Wind System, the Honeywell Wind Turbine and the Windspire represent a growing sector though, and the latest to catch our eye is the IMPLUX – a vertical axis turbine designed to harness the power of the wind blowing from all directions. Read More

Scientists at Stanford have developed a battery that uses nanotechnology to create electricity from the difference in salt content between fresh water and sea water. The researchers hope to use the technology to create power plants where fresh-water rivers flow into the ocean. The new "mixing entropy" battery alternately immerses its electrodes in river water and sea water to produce the electrical power. Read More

Of all the things that people traditionally discard, one that most of us likely think the least about repurposing is human feces and urine. Sure, we recycle our plastic and paper, and compost our fruits and veggies, but ... that stuff? Actually, there are various worldwide projects aimed at using municipal raw sewage for things such as fertilizer or a power source. While those projects only come into play once the waste has been flushed, however, the UK’s Loowatt system gets users involved from the bottom up (sorry), collecting waste directly from the toilet and using it to create biogas and fertilizer. Read More

Last year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that they had successfully used carbon nanotubes for "funneling" and concentrating electrons in photovoltaic cells – this meant that smaller solar cells created using the nanotubes could produce as much or more electricity than larger conventional cells. Now, the efficiency of these nanotube solar cells is being boosted further ... with the help of a virus. Read More

For years, people living in high-altitude or coastal arid countries have been collecting drinking water by harvesting fog. More specifically, they've mounted pieces of fine netting over top of containers, left the setup overnight, then collected the fog droplets that got caught in the net and rolled down its fibers into the container. While it might sound like a rather insubstantial way of acquiring water, under the right conditions it can yield a surprisingly large amount of liquid. Now, inspired by the Namib Beetle, a chemical engineering graduate student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is looking to improve on the technique. Read More