Good Thinking

When creating new companies has become passé, why not start creating countries? So is the case for Paypal co-founder and billionaire Peter Thiel, who is currently the Seasteading Institute's "most generous funder." His support constitutes a bold move towards creating floating autonomous states. The initiative is inspired by the idea of creating cities that are free from political agendas and social construction. These "floating cities will allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for government," says the Seasteading Institute. "The most successful can then inspire change in governments around the world." Read More

It was a puzzle that had thwarted scientists for almost a decade, but a collection of gamers was able to solve it in just three weeks. What the scientists wanted to know was the structure of retroviral proteases, a class of enzymes that play a key part in the maturation and proliferation of the AIDS virus. The mystery was crowd-sourced to the gaming community within an existing online game known as Foldit, by researchers from the University of Washington. The game challenges players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. Read More

Launched in 2009, MIT's "1K House" project challenges designers to come up with affordable, sustainable housing solutions that can improve conditions for the billions of people in the world living on less that $1 per day. The "Pinwheel House" designed by MIT graduate student Ying chee Chui is the first prototype. Read More

Too busy to cook, too tired to go out and sick of eating pizza, Thai and India takeaway? Well that is where UK entrepreneur Simon Prockter wants to step in with his latest venture housebites.com, a website that links customers with cooks and chefs in their local area to provide restaurant quality food delivered to the door. Read More

This futuristic design by Australian architects Lacoste+Stevenson was submitted for the Busan Opera House competition. Resembling an enormous pebble perched at the end of the promenade (or an alien spaceship), the design dubbed "Open Suseok" hopes to resonate with the Korean tradition by drawing inspiration from local stone art (or Suseok). Read More

Australian architecture firm LAVA exhibited its inhabitable "Origami Cave" as part of The Emergency Shelter exhibition, which was held in Sydney earlier this month. The exhibition featured architects from around the globe including Ateliers Jean Nouvel, PTW Architects, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, Cox, Koichi Takada Architects, Sou Fujimoto and Terunobu Fujimori. Each architect was asked to create a shelter that would not only protect people from the elements during an emergency situation, but would also provide a space that was secure and comfortable in the aftermath of a disaster. Read More

Perhaps you’ve performed that old camping trick before, where you created a lantern by shining a flashlight into a water-filled bottle. While that may have helped you find your marshmallows in the dark, imagine how much brighter that bottle would have been if it were lit directly by the Sun. Bright enough, it turns out, that it could brilliantly light up the interior of a one-room house. That’s the idea behind the Isang Litrong Liwanag (A Liter of Light) project – it’s bringing daytime indoor lighting to the homes of the poor in the Philippines, by installing water-filled plastic pop bottles through holes in their roofs. Read More

Set thirty meters (100 feet) underground, deep within the bedrock and in what was once used as a Swedish atomic bomb shelter, lies this high security internet center. What sounds like the perfect hideout for a CIA facility or a film set for the next Jason Bourne film, is actually the HQ for the Swedish internet server provider, Bahnhof. Named "Pionen, White Mountain," the internet service facility is centrally located in Stockholm, directly below the Sofia Church, where the cave-like formation houses server halls and offices. Read More

The votes have been tallied in the Electrolux Design Lab 2011 and coming out on top in a field of over 1,300 entries received from over 50 countries is Slovakian design student Adrian Mankovecký for his Portable Spot Cleaner. Comprising two components that are separated and placed on either side of a garment, the pint-sized washing machine would be powered by a sugar crystal battery and use negative ions and steam to clean stains. Mankovecký will receive a prize of 5,000 euro (approx. US$7,025) and a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design center. Read More