Category Archives: Web Article Review

Edible Infrastructures

Just an interesting site I came across in random web surfing. If you really had a clean slate and could turn a computer loose to design an efficient city for you, it might look something like this.

Edible Infrastructures is an investigation into a mode of urbanism which considers food as an integral part of a city’s metabolic infrastructure. Working with algorithms as design tools, we explore the generative potential of such a system to create an urban ecology that: provides for its residents via local, multi-scalar, distributed food production, reconnects the traditional waste-nutrient cycle, and de-couple food costs from fossil fuels by limiting transport from source to table.

Our research is conducted through the building up of a sequence of algorithms, beginning with a Settlement Simulation, which couples consumers to productive surface area within a cellular automata type computational model. Through topological analysis and interpretation of the simulation output, we explore the hierarchical components for a new Productive City, including: the structure and programming of the urban circulatory network, an emergent urban morphology based around productive urban blocks, and opportunities for new architectural typologies.

The resulting prototypical Productive City questions the underlying mechanisms that shape modern urban space and demonstrates the architectural potential of mathematical modelling and simulation in addressing complex urban spatial and programmatic challenges.

 

warmest month ever

Eric Holthaus continues his entertaining, slightly sensationalist climate change coverage in Slate:

All this warmth on land is being driven by record-setting heat across large sectionsof the world’s oceans. The NOAA report notes that the warmest 10 months of ocean temperatures on record have occurred in the last 16 months. This is mostly due to a near-record strength El Niño, but the current state of the global oceans has little historical precedent. Since it takes several months for the oceanic warmth of an El Niño to fully reach the atmosphere, 2016 will likely be warmer—perhaps much warmer—than 2015. And that poses grave implications for the world’s ecosystems as well as humans.

We’ve recently entered a new point in the Earth’s climate history. According toreconstructions using tree rings, corals, and ice cores, global temperatures are currently approaching—if not already past—the maximum temperatures commonly observed over the past 11,000 years (i.e., the time period in which humans developed agriculture), and flirting with levels not seen in more than 100,000 years.

But this is the scary part: The current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than at any point since humans first evolved millions of years ago. Since carbon dioxide emissions lead to warming, the fact that emissions are increasing means there’s much more warming yet to come. What’s more, carbon dioxide levels are increasing really quickly. The rate of change is faster than at any point in Earth’s entire 4.5 billion year history, likely 10 times faster than during Earth’s worst mass extinction—the “Great Dying”—in which more than 90 percent of ocean species perished. Our planet has simply never undergone the kind of stress we’re currently putting on it. That stunning rate of change is one reason why surprising studies like the recent worse-than-the-worst-case-scenario study on sea level rise don’t seem so far fetched.

fear the walking dead

AMC is producing a (predictably pro-weapon) prequel show called Fear the Walking Dead. An excerpt is provided by Fresh Air:

KIM DICKENS: (As Madison) So why the knife? Hey – I could expel you just for crossing the threshold with that thing.

LINCOLN A. CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) No. Please. We’re safer in numbers.

DICKENS: (As Madison) Safer from what? Tobias, please, don’t screw yourself like this. You’ve been working your ass off. You’re on track to go to college.

CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) Yeah. No one’s going to college. No one’s doing anything they think they are.

DICKENS: (As Madison) What? What are you talking about?

CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) Can I get my knife back, please?

DICKENS: (As Madison) No, you can’t get your knife back.

CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) They say it’s not connected. They say that, but I don’t believe them. It is – from reports in five states. They don’t know if it’s a virus or a microbe. They don’t know, but it’s spreading.

Ah, fun stuff.

 

zero waste

How could you have a zero solid waste (aka garbage) lifestyle?

Now, take a look into your trash can. If you mostly see food packaging and food scraps…not good.

There’s an easy fix to this, and it’s called a zero waste lifestyle. Today, I’ll share my tips on how to avoid this kind of garbage – and hence – reduce the amount of your trash that ends up in the landfill.

THE ZERO WASTE SHOPPING ESSENTIALS

Zero Waste shopping requires some preparation and a little investment. You’ll need:

  • Reusable grocery bag. It’s no surprise that plastic bags are enormous harm to our environment. It’s easy to make the switch to reusable bags. Just be sure to stash a few where you’ll remember to take them before shopping.
  • Cotton/Hemp Muslin Bags. These are great for produce, nuts, beans, grains, etc. You can find them on Amazon.com or DIY.
  • Glass/Stainless Steel containers. They work best for meat, seafood and poultry by keeping food fresh.

I love the idea. I have trouble seeing myself washing glass containers (how many fit in my dishwasher?), lugging them back to the store, and convincing someone to refill them. That sounds heavy for one thing, and I go to the store on foot. I tend to think my not driving to the store negates the environmental harm of a few plastic bags. Still, I like the idea. As we travel to stores less and have more stuff delivered, it could start to make sense. You have a standardized container for everything. At the same time the delivery company delivers your new containers full of stuff, it is willing to pick up your dirty used containers and take them away to be washed, sterilized, and reused. We used to all do this with glass bottles, of course, but the economics of plastic packaging seems to be more advantageous. Of course the economics work, in part, because the consumer rather than the manufacturer is paying the disposal cost, and we are all collectively paying the environmental cost. If we had the political will, we could regulate or tax these external costs and see if that tipped the system back towards reuse. Or we can wait and see if automation and the increasing popularity of home delivery tips the economics again.

making carbon fiber from atmospheric CO2

Here is some research on making carbon nanofibers directly from atmospheric CO2. Sounds like a good idea both because you are absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and because you can make all kinds of light, strong materials from nanofibers, which would allow lighter, safer, more energy efficient vehicles among other things.

Licht estimates electrical energy costs of this “solar thermal electrochemical process” to be around $1,000 per ton of carbon nanofiber product, which means the cost of running the system is hundreds of times less than the value of product output.

“We calculate that with a physical area less than 10 percent the size of the Sahara Desert, our process could remove enough CO2 to decrease atmospheric levels to those of the pre-industrial revolution within 10 years,” he says.

cancer-sniffing dogs

Here’s an article on cancer-sniffing dogs.

The samples come to the dogs — the dogs never go to the patient. At the moment, our dogs would be screening about between a .5- to 1-ml drop of urine [or 1/5 to 1/10 teaspoon], so a very small amount. In the early days, of course, we know whether the samples have come from a patient with cancer or if the patient has another disease or condition, or is in fact healthy.

They come to the dogs at our training facility. They’re put into a carousel, and the dogs go around smelling samples. If they come across a sample that has a cancer smell, they’ll stop and stare at the sample and wait. They won’t move on.

One thing this reminds me of is that the organic compounds in our bodies, our food, and the rest of nature are just incredibly complex. When we try to measure and recreate them, we tend to miss the mark. A vitamin pill is not as good as a salad, baby formula is not as good at breast milk, and food grown with synthetic fertilizers is probably not as nutritious as food grown in healthy soil (although the evidence on this is not entirely conclusive). So it makes sense that when we try to devises a test for a particular compound, we may only be testing for some of what is actually there.

global slowdown?

Over the past day or two, the BBC headlines have been expressing some pessimism about the global economy.

Tough outlook for emerging markets

Three long trending factors that have supported economic growth – and financial market returns – across the developing economies appear to be either reversing or slowing…

Add together slowing world trade, collapsing commodity prices and less easy global financial conditions, and you’ve got a recipe for a tough time for emerging economies. Not necessarily for a 1997-style meltdown, but certainly for an environment for lower growth and lower returns for investors.

Chinese economic winter ‘cooling’ world economy

There are growing fears about the health of the global economy after a day of market turmoil.

Across the world share prices and currencies have fallen and the London stock exchange has dropped to its lowest level for seven months.

The slowdown in China, the world’s second largest economy, is being blamed.

US stocks hit by global growth fears

Stocks on Wall Street fell sharply on Thursday as worries about global economic growth continued to hit markets around the world.

The Dow Jones closed down 358.04 points, or 2.1%, at 16,990.69.

 

bees

Here’s a nice example of how diversity is related to resilience. As honeybees are having more problems, farmers are learning to use combinations of other bees, including bumblebees, to get the same pollination effect.

just like in the apple orchards, scientists are finding that between those two kinds of bees, farmers can probably get by without using honeybees. It’s all part of a new strategy of diversification that entomologist Shelby Fleischer affectionately refers to as Plan B.

“I think the key to remember is resilience,” Fleischer says. “So don’t just aim for any one species. Historically, there’s been a lot of emphasis on making honeybees our pollinator, and resilience suggests that we should try and support a community of bees.”

more on the internet of things

Here is another Brookings article talking about the “internet of things” and productivity.

Nearly 30 years ago, the economists Robert Solow and Stephen Roach caused a stir when they pointed out that, for all the billions of dollars being invested in information technology, there was no evidence of a payoff in productivity…

By the late 1990s, the economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Lorin Hitt had disproved the productivity paradox, uncovering problems in the way service-sector productivity was measured and, more important, noting that there was generally a long lag between technology investments and productivity gains.

Our own research at the time found a large jump in productivity in the late 1990s, driven largely by efficiencies made possible by earlier investments in information technology. These gains were visible in several sectors, including retail, wholesale trade, financial services, and the computer industry itself. The greatest productivity improvements were not the result of information technology on its own, but by its combination with process changes and organizational and managerial innovations.

So we can expect a delayed productivity effect. The real question to me is not just whether this will happen, but whether the productivity gain will translate into better quality of life for most people. If productivity per hour of work goes up, that would mean economic growth if people keep working the same amount. But it can instead mean there are fewer jobs for people to do. A small number of companies and individuals might then reap the benefits, and it might not benefit the average person.