Miscellaneous
Sweden is close to nearly zero road deaths per year
In the 70s road deaths in Sweden were prevalent—58 children under-seven died in a road related accidents in 1970 alone. Now, Sweden has one of the lowest road related mortality rates of any country, just three per 100,000—compared to 5.5 in the European Union, or 11.4 in the US. So how did they Read More...
Algae used to clean old mines
Old mines are full of exposed chemicals like arsenic and cadmium. Mines are also often close to water sources, and cleaning the surrounding water from toxic contamination can seem like an insurmountable task. Now British researchers are testing a way to clean heavy metals from the water by using Read More...
New York crime rates hit record lows
In New York City crime rates in just about every category are declining substantially—particularly murder rates. 2014 saw murder rates at the lowest number in more than 50 years—since accurate figures started being recorded. This last year capped a two-decade fall in the Big Apple’s crime Read More...
Be The Change!
Amidst challenges, setbacks and painful events, many, many more things in our world go right than wrong. Enjoy this compilation. And share it: While we are spreading the better news, we're making it as Read More...
Paraplegic man walks again
In a scientific first, cells from a patient’s own body have been used to heal his spinal cord, allowing him to walk again. The procedure was carried out on Darek Fidyka, a 40-year-old Polish man who in 2010 fell victim to a knife attack that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Polish surgeons Read More...
Device keeps produce fresh without a refrigerator
For small farmers in developing countries up to half of their crops rot before making it to market. The Wakati solves that problem and keeps crops fresh without needing lots of electricity or cold. Basically the Wakati is a tent made of insulated fabric and a small solar powered fan on the side. Read More...
The art of receiving
During a visit to Paris, my mother bought me a gift and dropped it in the mail. I didn’t receive it very well. I tore away the brown paper packaging and, at the first sign of pink, let the package fall to the floor. She had sent me a gray cotton scarf with pink flowers. Pink. When I told my Read More...
Gecko inspired grippers to clean space
There’s human debris floating around the earth, and cleaning it up is posing to be a challenging task. Researchers from NASA’s laboratory in Pasadena, California have come up with a gripping device that could be affixed to robots to clean space. The gripping pads work the same way a gecko Read More...
Progress made on Elon Musk’s Hyperloop
Last year Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, released a 50 plus page white paper about a ‘Hyperloop’—essentially a high-speed train that travels around 800 miles per hour. Along with the release was a note saying he didn’t have the time to take on such a project, but anyone who Read More...
Why we need disruptive digital currencies
Uber, Lyft and Airbnb have opened the rapidly expanding sharing economy empowering citizens and at the same time shaking fundamental services providers like the hotel and taxi industries to their bones. How far does the sharing economy reach? Could money become a citizens’ tool too—like it was Read More...