An apartment with a view is coveted property. After a hard day at work, sitting down in front of a panoramic window while sipping a glass of wine is a wonderful way to unwind.

A decent view is hard to come by. Not only that, but when actually given options, it may be hard to decide between the ocean view, city view, west side, or east side facing apartments. The answer: Individual rotating floors. Just make a choice and viola! The apartment slowly turns to face whatever you are in the mood to see that day.

Dubai, home to 1/3 of the world’s cranes, is constantly expanding. High rise buildings, hotels and skyscrapers are popping up like daisies. The latest technology and newest ideas are often used in the building process here, so it is no wonder that the revolutionary, rotating Dynamic Tower, designed by architect Dr. David Fisher, will break ground in Dubai.

The 420 meter (1,380) high tower will be constructed of 80 individual floors, which are divided into luxury apartments, small villas, offices and a hotel. Each section will rotate at various speeds, depending on the owners specifications. This amazing building will take on a life of its own as the individual sections slowly turn next to one another, constantly revolving and never looking exactly the same.

The Rotating Dynamic Tower (Image: Rotating Tower Technology International Ltd.)

This skyscraper isn’t just going to look pretty, either: It is meant to generate electricity thanks to the wind turbines that will spin between each floor.

The construction technique is yet another feat in itself, making the complicated design amazingly quick to build. Fisher explains that the Dynamic Tower will be “the first skyscraper to be built entirely from prefabricated parts that are custom made in a workshop, resulting in fast construction and substantial cost savings. This approach, known as the Fisher Method, also requires far less workers on the construction site. [To put things into perspective, 2000 workers are typically needed on sites as big as this, but only 80 technicians are required for the tower].” In the end, it only takes 7 days to complete each floor!

Dynamic Tower should be opening its doors as soon as 2010.

Most of the world’s caverns, rivers and boulders were carved out by glaciers hundreds of thousands of years ago. Massive ice sheets-often 3 kilometers thick-flowed over the earth’s crust, eroding and crushing the land underneath. Animals evolved to deal with the harsh climate, the most famous of which is arguably the woolly mammoth.

This hairy pachyderm roamed the tundra in search of grasses, oblivious to the cold, thanks to a large layer of fat, wool (hence the name) covered in course hair and sebaceous glands that secreted insulating oils through the skin. Eventually though, the ice-age passed and the glaciers melted away, leaving behind only bones as evidence of the animals that once lived in the region.

It is unclear whether hunting, climate change, or disease killed off the animals that flourished during the ice age and this has been the topic of dispute between scientists for decades. Sergey Zimov, Director of the Northeast Science Station, has gone so far as to start a Pleistocene Park in Siberia, to prove his theory that hunting eliminated all wildlife as opposed to a natural disaster being the culprit. Yakutian horses, bison, reindeer and musk ox have been brought into the area. But the biggest surprise is that this park may eventually also be home to a wooly mammoth?!

A frozen mammoth recovered from Siberia has provided researchers at the Pennsylvania State University Genome Project with a genetic sample for recreating the animal’s genome. The result is being compared to the DNA sequence of the closely related African elephant to make sure that everything is order.
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The Woolly Mammoth (Photo: Wikipedia)

The project is discussed in detail via press release: “The researchers suspect that the full woolly-mammoth genome is over four-billion DNA bases, which they believe is the size of the modern-day African elephant’s genome. Although their dataset consists of more than four-billion DNA bases, only 3.3 billion of them - a little over the size of the human genome - currently can be assigned to the mammoth genome.  

Some of the remaining DNA bases may belong to the mammoth, but others could belong to other organisms, like bacteria and fungi, from the surrounding environment that had contaminated the sample.  The team used a draft version of the African elephant’s genome, which currently is being generated by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, to distinguish those sequences that truly belong to the mammoth from possible contaminants.”

Obviously there are still a few kinks that need working out, but the big news is that a woolly mammoth may eventually get born into the 21^st century.

Reintroducing the mammoth species to the world may provide an insight to what causes extinction but not without controversy: The natural process of extinction happens for a reason (and isn’t always caused by the human factor). However, many positive thinkers are wondering if the genome project symbolizes a hope that recently extinct or endangered species may have a chance to survive thanks to the cloning process.

As of right now, the genome project has provided a greater insight to the world of an animal that has fascinated children, adults and scientists since its discovery, and this mammoth task is definitely something to keep an eye on.

With renewable energy sources like wind and solar constantly on hand, it is no wonder that everyone wants to harness this energy with constantly evolving technology. Cars and buildings are going solar, why not boats and massive cruise ships?

Solar Sailor, an Australian company that owns the patented ’solarsail’ technology, has developed devices comparable to ‘wings’ that attach to ocean-going vessels to harness the ever-popular wind and solar energy. Both sources of energy are especially abundant when floating on the ocean.

This hybrid marine power (HMP) technology comes in the from of a ’solar wing’, which typically rests on top of the ship like a solid metal sail (to take advantage of wind) and is covered with shimmering solar panels that rotate according to the sun’s position in the sky.

Boats have less design restrictions than cars, which is why giant solar panels can’t be strapped to the roof of vehicles that end up swerving around on a small road. Boats have no problem with these huge appendages and the extra weight of the attached chargeable batteries are not a problem either. In fact, they act as a ballast and improve the whole boating experience.  

The main safety issue with boats are storms. Heavy winds and giant waves are incredibly dangerous, and in these situations, the solar wings fold down against the boat and out of harm’s way. According to Solar Sailor, the system is “engineered to operate in 40 knots of wind, with 300% margin of safety.”
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Photovoltaic sails harvest energy from the wind and the sun. (Photo: Solar Sail Holdings, Ltd.)

Captains of a boats equipped with solar sails have the option of controlling the airfoil wings automatically with a computer or manually.  SolarSailor explains that “in automatic mode the computer generally gets 3-6 knots of boat speed in a 20-knot wind depending on the wind direction on tourist cruises. Experienced sailors adjusting the wings manually have achieved steady 8-10 knots of boat speed - so we know there is further potential there.”

A boat equipped with HMP technology is typically 20-30% more expensive than vessels without the winged design. But, as with most green technologies, the design eventually pays for itself. In this case, payback occurs in as little as 3 to 5 years.

Solar Sailor technology is incredibly efficient and CEO of the company, Dr Robert Dane is certain that the solar wings will soon be a given when designing any ship: “We are confident we can build everything up to ocean liners and in fifty years time,” says Dane on the company’s homepage, “people will look back at boats of the 20^th Century and they’ll say “where are the wings?”.

Nobody likes a dirty workspace, but the chemicals splashed onto counters, mirrors and walls often leave a toxic residue that can cause more damage than the grime you clean off. Half of our lives are spent indoors. Who wants to spend that time inhaling unpronounceable chemical ingredients that float through the air?

According to California’s Green Initiative (a government funded directive) “Each year about six out of every 100 professional janitors are injured by the chemicals in the products that they use. Burns to the eyes and skin are the most common injuries, followed closely by breathing toxic fumes. Repeated long-term exposure may cause chronic illnesses or allergic reactions to workers who are exposed to chemicals regularly.”

The toxic fumes aren’t the only problem. Millions of mop heads, dirty sponges, soaps and bleach mixtures end up in the trash or flow to our rivers and even our crops!. The Green California website continues to explain that “Californians [not unlike everyone else in the world] wash tons of liquid cleaners down the drain, which may eventually flow into our rivers and ocean, or end up on agricultural land. For example, researchers found that approximately 75 percent of the antibacterial hand soap ingredient, triclocarban, persists during wastewater treatment and accumulates in municipal sludge, which later is used as fertilizer for crops”.

Chlorine-free diapers (Photo: Seventh Generation, Inc.)

Companies like Seventh Generation and Tuway provide alternative cleaning methods to reduce environmental damage and product costs.

Seventh Generation offers an impressive assortment of cleaning products made without bleach or fragrances and with more delicate detergents. The company also warns that many items claimed to be “fragrance free” actually use yet another chemical to MASK a scent that would be quite obvious without this masking agent.

With nothing to hide, Seventh Generation discloses all of their ingredients which are made with natural oils, botanical extracts and of course the occasional dash of hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate (still a far cry from the immense list of chemicals in traditional cleaners).

Tuway, on the other hand, focuses on the cloth cleaning materials such as sponges and mops. Their microfiber mops last three times longer than conventional mops (made from the floppy synthetic and cotton blended yarn that tends to fall apart so easily). Tuway’s microfiber has tiny cross-sections on every fiber which lift and trap moisture and bacteria with seven times the absorption rate of traditional mops. Microfiber mops reduce the amount of bacteria in the area by 99%, which is substantial when compared to the 30% absorbed by regular mops. All this reduces mop costs, water usage, chemical costs and labor.

There are options to clean house without having to sacrifice air quality. Contrary to popular belief, harsh chemicals aren’t always necessary to get things clean.

(On a side note, there are a few plants homeowners can put in their homes to help remove contaminants from the air such as spider plants, English ivy, potted mums and Peace lilies. )

Solar panels have been the topic of thousands of articles over the past couple of years. It seems like everyone is going pro-solar, but there is one thing that few people have addressed: Dirt. Solar panels glisten in the sun after first being installed, and make any building look modern, shiny and new when viewed from above. But after a little while, these panels reflect a little less and don’t function as well. Tree branches hanging overhead drop sap onto anything below, flocks of birds leave behind a mess after spending the night overhead while dust, grime and mold adds to the layers of dirt already coloring the solar panels a splotchy brown.

Dirt is a major problem with solar panels, and letting it accumulate over a few months may reduce a solar panel’s efficacy by almost 25%. It is suggested that solar panels are cleaned on a regular basis, but this can be time consuming and even dangerous.

OCS Energy has developed a practical solution with the use of an automated cleaning system. In a recent press release, the company explains why they came up with the novel idea:

“After receiving numerous maintenance inquiries from clients over the years, and seeing no practical cleaning solutions, Rich O’Connell, CEO of OCS Energy, developed the SolarWash system. The patent pending SolarWash system provides a complete solar cleaning solution including maintenance free nozzles, a web‐based interface, and a programmable logic controller (PLC). The end‐to‐end solution allows operators of large PV systems to effectively manage their resources, initiating the washing of panels without the need to schedule a maintenance crew.”

Panel performance declines without regular cleaning - OCS Energy has an automated solution. (Source: OCS Energy, Inc.)

Buyers of solar panels often assume that the work is over after the panels are installed.

Obviously this isn’t the case when cleaning crews need to be hired on a regular basis in order to keep the panels functioning properly.

SolarWash isn’t exactly cheap, but it will pay for itself in under five years by eliminating cleaning costs and increasing the amount of energy absorbed by the panels.

Solar panels will now really be maintenance-free with SolarWash’s fully automated fanning nozzles spraying the panels down whenever they get too dirty.

Imagine trekking through the snow in one of the most remote places in the world. Wind whips around your whole body. Your fingers and toes are numb from the cold. A thick fur lined hood obstructs your peripheral vision, but there is nowhere to walk but straight ahead, anyway. When it comes time to call in for help, the satellite phone fails to pick up a signal. Then the unthinkable happens…the battery dies.

A dying cell phone in the remote wilderness is a disaster. A dead mp3 player, camera or GPS system is not as serious, but also an incredible annoyance.

Solio, the world’s most advanced hybrid solar charger, has ensured that no one has to ever be without power. The lightweight design of the oval shaped device makes it perfect for travel, and when unfolded, the fan-like solar panels provide the Solio with an impressive charge: just one hour of sunshine will provide about 20 minutes of cell phone time. This is especially important for travelers or adventurers in the middle of an emergency.

The Solio Hybrid 1000 charger - 198 x 68 x 18mm, .6 watt output (Photo: Solio)

A fully charged Solio Classic model, has enough energy to charge an ipod for 20 hours. It is definitely worth it to bring a Solio on camping trips if you enjoy listening to music while sitting under the stars or on a secluded beach in the middle of nowhere.

If an outlet is available, the Solio will easily plug into a wall. The gadget comes with a variety of adapters which work for most devices. This eliminates the need to pack all the charging cables for the psp, Nintendo, camera or iphone that we can’t live without.

There is no need to worry about needing to replace your Solio any time soon, since its lithium ion battery lasts for 350-500 charges. The ‘internal fuel gauge’ indicates its current charge and figuring out the charge is pretty straightforward: Once the start button is pressed, a green light flashes 4 times verifying that the Solio is fully charged. A full charge takes about 8 hours to achieve with the help of direct sunlight.

Solio has given many individuals a chance to be less dependant on electricity. In Kenya, for example, the local Masai use a donated Solio to charge a cell phone used for medical emergencies.

This little device really is a lifesaver.

Few plants show up on the table in as many forms as the soybean. This hairy legume has been an important component of various foods and drugs in asia for over 5,000 years. In that time, it has been squeezed, pressed, boiled and engineered into soymilk, tofu, edamame, sprouts, flour, or vegetarian cheeses. Soybean oils are also found in soaps, cosmetics, plastics, clothes and biodiesel. Soy is everywhere and now we can literally surround ourselves with the stuff by using it as foam insulation in our homes.

Insulation is appealing to homeowners because it reduces energy costs: A properly insulated home will stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter since the flow of heat is restricted. This cuts down immensely on heating and cooling costs. Not only that, but thicker, insulated walls absorb sound, so neighbors yelling at the traffic passing by won’t wake you up at night.

Most traditional insulation materials are non-biodegradable polystyrene and polyurethane blends, which require petroleum for production. A soy based foam, on the other hand, is just as easily sprayed throughout the home and besides having the highest percentage of renewable resource ingredients, it is also biodegradable.

Ohio based Emega technologies proudly states that “EMEGA Soy-based Spray Foam Insulation is manufactured from renewable American grown soy beans. Among its best features is that it expands to 100 times its volume to completely fill every space and void creating a barrier and thermal seal. The EMEGA thermal seal keeps your heating and cooling costs low. The barrier keeps pollutants out of your home and greatly reduces noise pollution. As an inert substance EMEGA Soy-Based Spray Foam Insulation retains its structural integrity for the life of your home. It is not effected by moisture, mold, insects or rodents.”

Bio Based Insulation is another company specializing in Soy based insulation. Their success is obvious, with an article about the company finding its way into magazines on a regular basis since 2003. They developed the first water-blown, closed-cell spray foam, which eliminates the need for spraying agents than contain harmful chemicals. Once sprayed, the foam does not shrink or settle and is comparable to, if not better than, other insulation products.

An average home requires about 2 acres of soybeans for full coverage. The foam lasts practically forever, and with a 30-50% reduction in energy usage per home because of added insulation, these beans are definitely being put to good use.