What Asteroid Mining Could Mean for Developing Countries
Guy Consolmagno fears that the future of celestial mining will sink developing countries even deeper into poverty… Can you put a price tag on an asteroid? Sure you can. We know of roughly 750 S-class asteroids with a diameter of at least 1 kilometer. Many of these pass as near to the Earth as our … Read more
Nokia is World's Most Sustainable Tech Company
The Dow Jones named Nokia has the world’s most sustainable company in its 2009-2010 Sustainability Index. After leading for several years in Europe and Communications, it has been bumped up to “World Technology Supersector Leader” making it number one across the entire global technology sector. ITNewsAfrica reports:
Watermelon: a New Source of Biofuel?
Every year, millions of watermelons are left rotting in American fields as famers select only the most perfect looking to go to market. Between 20 and 40% of the total crop is judged unworthy, over 360,000 tons of leftover melon. A new study shows that the leftover watermelon could be converted into 9.4 liters of … Read more
Clay Refrigerator Preserves Food without Electricity
A Nigerian teacher and Ashoka fellow, Mohammed Bah Abba has invented an earthenware refrigeration system for preserving perishables in arid climates. Because the system preserves food, families that have used them have seen a drop in disease and an increase in income. The pot-in-pot is simple, affordable, and made form local materials, and so can … Read more
GSM securing lives on Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake and the source of Africa’s longest river, Nile. The lake provides livelihoods for more than 3.5 million people in 3 countries (Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya). It’s used for transport and trade across east Africa. It has a booming fish industry worth USD 590Million annually. The lake is also one … Read more
Schools in Japan Get Solar Boost as Part of Stimulus
A project to convert schools to solar power by 2020 has been launched by the Japanese government as part of their stimulus plan. CrunchGear reports: Solar energy remains a hot topic (no pun intended) in Japan. As part of a huge economic stimulus plan, the government plans to convert all of the country’s 32,000 public … Read more
Africa Could Feed and Fuel the World
Two recent articles point to the scientific realities of the African continent and the potential it has for tremendously enhancing the sustainability of the growing world population. The first, published last year argues that the vastly uninhabited regions of the northern continent where the Saraha desert stretches, could be used to build massive solar farms … Read more
The Micronutrient Initiative
“No other technology offers as large an opportunity to improve lives … at such low cost and in such a short time.” – The World Bank When a pregnant woman doesn’t have enough iodine in her body, her child may suffer irreversible brain damage and could have an I.Q. that is 10 to 15 points … Read more
