Environment

Passive Solar Still

Engineers at ETH Zurich have developed a passive solar still that can extract 4.6ml of water from the air per day using a 10cm wide surface requiring no power.

Environment

Innovation

Science

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Ocean Microplastic Satellite Detection

#268

Researchers at University of Michigan have discovered a technique to detect the build-up of microplastics in the ocean by measuring ocean surface roughness using the Cyclone Global Navigational Satellite System (CYGNSS).

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Tricking Birds With Magic

#266

Researchers at Cambridge studied how well hand based magic tricks work on Eurasian Jays. The clever birds saw through two of the three magic tricks, possibly because the birds had no expectations around human hand mechanics.

Environment

Life

Science

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Birdsong Spectrograms

#266

Soundshader published on Github a study of using the DFT shift theorem to generate spectrograms from birdsong and compare them to spectrograms generated from musical instruments.

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Single Piston Hydrogen Engine

#264

Aquarius Engines in Israel have developed a small single piston engine that runs on hydrogen, without the need for a more complicated hydrogen fuel cell. Applications for the clean burning engine with a small 10kg footprint are being explored by Nokia to power remote communicatinos towers.

Environment

Innovation

Tech

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Slow TV

#264

Slow TV is a TV format popular in Norway that shows scenes or movement at the rate at which you experience them or that they happen naturally, as opposed to the speed of normal TV. Examples of Slow TV are long slow train journeys, watching sheep grazing, or a log fire burn in real time.

Environment

Video

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Podcast of the Week: NPR Shortwave on Cutting Carbon Emissions At Home

#262

This episode of Shortwave looks at the key things that can be done to reduce carbon emissions at home, from using smart plug boards to heat pumps.

Environment

Podcast

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Irish Company Emissions

#262

Noteworthy.ie published an interesting deep dive into the emissions data of Irish companies. They look at the trend in company emissions since 2013 and highlights the gaps in the data available.

Business

Data Vis

Environment

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Podcast of the Week: Armchair Expert - Bill Gates Book Talk

#260

In a recent episode of The Armchair Expert podcast, Dax & Monica interview Bill Gates about his new book How To Avoid A Climate Disaster. The interview is a frank and informative discussion about the scale of what is needed to tackle the climate crisis, with a fair bit of high level detail from Bill Gates about the different areas that need to be progressed, whcih are described in detail in his book.

Environment

Podcast

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Cork Harbour Sea Shanty

#258

Sound art duo Softday released As I Roved Out One Morning, a sea shanty musical piece in collaboration with Sirius Arts Centre, Hannah Fahey, and the Softday Deep Water Singers that highlights the dangers of the proposed incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour. The duo worked with the Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment to gather information, field recordings, conversations, and transcripts of An Bord Pleanála oral hearings to use as input to the piece.

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