TAG RESULTS FOR: plants

Jim Ruck’s indoor aeroponic garden, simply titled “Breathe,” has completely eliminated the need for soil. Which is sort of disappointing, because what am I going to feed my kids for breakfast now? Oh well, I guess I can start buying cat food again. This innovative vegetation system comprises misters under the structure that fed water and nutrients to the plants through their root. Aside from allowing a non-soil environment for growing fresh vegetables, it offers periodical water flow to the... Continue reading

Even more architecture that resembles the “arcologies” of Sim City 2000 are sprouting up, this time in Singapore. Here, eco-minded architecture firm TR Hamzah & Yeang is designing this skyscraper it’s calling the EDITT (Ecological Design In The Tropics) Tower. This 26-story skyscraper will be constructed using various recycled and recyclable materials. Not only that, but the tower will include the most eco-friendly technologies ever to be incorporated into a high-rise building. You name it, this thing’s got it. Besides the... Continue reading

Finding new ways to make eco-friendly biofuels is going to be crucial to surviving this whole global warming thing. That’s why it’s so exciting that someone’s figured out how to power jets with alga. A synthetic biology company named Solazyme has figured out how to make jet fuel using oil produced by caged marine microorganisms. Other companies are researching algal jet fuel, but Solazyme’s formula is the only one that’s passed government tests for Aviation Turbine Fuel. Link (via)

Your house plants are withering. You have two options: put them out in the sun or build a gigantic robotic arm that takes up half of your living space. Lively plants at the cost of sleeping in the bathtub doesn’t sound too bad either. The Bartlett School of Architecture showcased their “Experiments in Time” exhibit, which included this steel monstrosity strapped with an Arduino Lilypad controller to tilt a disc into sunlight.  Seriously, all you have to do is pick... Continue reading

If you’re a real Dead-head and you just so happen to be redecorating your home. Livinglass.com proposes a eco-friendly alternative to glass paneling decor. OK, so it’s not as eco-friendly as the trash recycler, but at least it isn’t hurting the environment. From the official site: “Livinglass is the leading manufacturer of decorative transparent and translucent laminated glass panels, capturing an array of natural materials between sheets of real luminous glass. Livinglass is proud to offer ecologically responsible products which... Continue reading

Device artist and interaction designer Ryan Wolfe has invented a new kind of plant: a cybernetic one. Well, alright, maybe it’s not “cybernetic,” but it can survive indefinitely without sunlight. The plants have had surgically implanted LEDs put into them and these same LEDs mimic sunlight and moonlight depending on the plant and the time of day. This “internal sunshine” allows for photosynthesis, keeping the plant alive and at the same time. Not only that, the plant looks cool to... Continue reading

A self-sufficient aquarium? To an extent, that’s what one could probably call Local River. The latest project from French designer Mathieu Lehanneur features a small aquarium with untrained fish swimming around at the bottom. Various plant life grows around the tank and the fish feed off it as they please. In turn, the plants provide nutrients for the fish and purify the water. I’m not a botanist, so don’t ask me the scientific details. All I know is that Local... Continue reading

Not since Audrey the talking plant from Little Shop Of Horrors exclaimed “Feed me, Seymour!” have we heard of talking plants. Though, Botanicalls brings us one step closer to having flower-to-person communication (F2P?). Botanicalls is essentially a soil moisture sensor implanted in your flower pot, made with only two nails and a circuit, which sends information about the plants vitals from an arduino board which then passes the information to an Xbee network. A Xport is then used to send... Continue reading