The Story of Stuff, originally released in December 2007, is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the Stuff in your life forever.

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Story Of Stuff, Referenced and Annotated Script By Annie Leonard

Credits
The Story of Stuff was written by Annie Leonard, Louis Fox, and Jonah Sachs, directed by Louis Fox and produced by Free Range Studios. Executive Producers included Tides Foundation and the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption.

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Proponents of clean energy will soon have a new source to add to their existing array of solar, wind, and hydropower: osmotic power. Or more specifically, energy generated by a natural phenomenon occurring when fresh water comes into contact with seawater through a membrane.

Researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology have developed an osmotic power generation system that delivers never-before-seen yields. Their innovation lies in a three atoms thick membrane used to separate the two fluids. The results of their research have been published in Nature.

The concept is fairly simple. A semipermeable membrane separates two fluids with different salt concentrations. Salt ions travel through the membrane until the salt concentrations in the two fluids reach equilibrium. That phenomenon is precisely osmosis.

If the system is used with seawater and fresh water, salt ions in the seawater pass through the membrane into the fresh water until both fluids have the same salt concentration. And since an ion is simply an atom with an electrical charge, the movement of the salt ions can be harnessed to generate electricity.
The rest of this story can be read here.

Take a leaf out of this book. A common desert moss sucks water directly out of the air instead of from the ground. The discovery could be used to inspire ways of collecting clean drinking water in developing countries.

Most desert plants, including cacti, rely on extensive root systems to mop up scarce groundwater. But the desert moss Syntrichia caninervis collects fresh water straight from the atmosphere.  Tiny fibres attached to the tips of the moss leaves, known as awns, allow S. caninervis to harvest fog and mist droplets, says Tadd Truscott of Utah State University, who filmed the plant's drinking behaviour.

Truscott and his colleagues used an environmental scanning electron microscope and camera to study how these delicate awns, which are between 0.5 and 2 millimetres long, capture atmospheric water.  They studied S. caninervis growing in the Great Basin in the US and in the Gurbantünggüt desert in China, but it is also widely found in other northern hemisphere deserts.

The camera images show water vapour condensing on nano-sized grooves on the surface of the awns. Miniature barbs then push this water into larger droplets that move along the length of the awn into the leaf.  "The droplet can travel from the awn to the leaf as fast as 10 to 20 millimetres per second," says Truscott.

Two other plant species have previously been found to possess fog-harvesting abilities - the cactus Opuntia microdasys and the alpine plant Cotula fallax - but S. caninervis is the first species in which a detailed mechanism involving barbs and grooves has been elucidated.

Clean water

Scientists can try to replicate these plants' mechanisms in order to build novel water collection systems, says Truscott. "Our lab has already started making artificial awns to determine if these structures can be man-made," he says.

The greatest beneficiaries of fog-harvesting devices would be people in developing countries with limited access to clean drinking water, says Jas Pal Badyal of Durham University, who is trying to mimic the mechanisms of C. fallax.

Even dry places like the Namib desert in Africa have regular fog episodes, meaning that clean water vapour could be harvested and stored, he says. "The idea is to trap pure water from air."

Journal reference: Nature Plants, DOI: 10.1038/nplants.2016.76

Many of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs and inventors never fit the typical mould and have made their marks on the world after abandoning standard education. From India, Mansukhbhai R. Prajapati is one such person, and even though he never finished high school, he has built a very successful and forward-thinking company that provides needed jobs in his community manufacturing products that are changing the world for the better.

Mansukhbhai R. Prajapati grew up more interested in sports and fun than in learning, but after working in the clay industry for some time as a potter he started his own company and first revolutionized the way clay roof tiles were made.

"During his childhood, he saw earthen pans/hot plates being manufactured manually on the potters wheel. Using this, one person can only make about 100 units per day. He had seen roof tiles being manufactured in large quantity on hand press, which made him think why cannot earthen pans be made the same way?  In 1988, he left his job and took a loan from a money lender to start his own earthen plate manufacturing factory. He purchased a small piece of land for the factory, dyes and presses, soil mixing machine, electric potters wheel and other scrap objects. Then he modified the roof tile making hand press and developed a hand press machine having capacity to produce 700 earthen pans per day." [Source]

While very successful with this idea, his ingenuity led him to develop a line of products that is even more revolutionary than his industrial tile maker. Mitti Cool, as his company is called, produces an entire line of kitchen products made from clay.

"He has developed an entire range of earthen products for daily use in the kitchen. These products include water filters, refrigerators, hot plates, a cooker and other such items of daily use." [Source]

The refrigerator he designed uses the science of water evaporation to keep food cold in a small earthen fridge that uses no electricity and is already being sold in several countries. 

His idea is taking off globally, and Mitti Cool is receiving much international attention, so much so, that Mansukhbhai has even met with important public figures and he has been featured in televised talks to explain his green products that are changing the lives of many poor people.

The rest of the article, together with two videos, can be found here.

Let’s Remember ALL Water is Sacred

Join us as we come together to Bless The Water around the World and take the first step towards cleaning and restoring the world's water. On the Equinox, Saturday March 19th at 5pm Pacific, we will join together in a Synchronized Meditation and Water Blessing all around the world. Join us!

Join us here online for a special guided meditation and the FREE world premiere of the new film 'Water is Sacred', created by UPLIFT, that will be broadcast from the banks of the Sacred Ganges river in Rishikesh, India.

It begins with a Blessing. It continues with restoring, replenishing and cleansing the World’s Water.  In support of:

Due to the inaction of state and federal officials, thousands of people in Flint have been exposed to unsafe levels of lead in their water. Now a group of union plumber are taking matters into their own hands.  On Saturday, 300 plumbers from unions across the country descended on Flint to install new faucets and water filters for free. Many Flint residents needed new faucets because their existing faucets were so old they could not accommodate water filters provided by the state. 

The effort was co-ordinated by the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, known as the United Association. The fixtures were donated by the Plumbing Manufacturers International.

For some in Flint, however, even new faucets with modern water filters won't be enough to fully abate the lead contamination. New tests released recently revealed that, in some Flint homes, the levels of lead "exceed the ability of filtration systems handed." The filters can safely remove up to 150 parts per billion of lead. Some Flint homes were found to have lead levels of more than 4,000 parts per billion.  Residents of Flint, however, are still encouraged to use the filters. For most homes, they will work.

US scientists have developed a new polymer that has a unique capacity to remove pollutant substances from water "in seconds." The discovery could revolutionize the water-purification industry, make the process cheaper, and involve minimum energy. A team of researchers from Cornell University made the breakthrough. The full research has been published in Journal Nature this week.

"What we did is make the first high-surface-area material made of cyclodextrin [sugar molecules bound together in a ring]," said Will Dichtel, associate professor of chemistry, who led the research, "combining some of the advantages of the activated carbon with the inherent advantages of the cyclodextrin." "These materials will remove pollutants in seconds, as the water flows by," he said. "So there's a potential for really low-energy, flow-through water purification, which is a big deal."

The polymer has already shown the "uptake of pollutants through adsorption at rates vastly superior to traditional activated carbon - 200 times greater in some cases,"says the press release of the university. According to Dichtel, activated carbons don't bind pollutants as strongly as the new polymer. "We knew that [water filtering] would be a likely application if we were successful," Dichtel says. "We were definitely pleasantly surprised with just how good the performance is."

Dichtel hopes this new material can open ways to commercial water purification and also improve life in developing countries.

This striking picture of drying water droplets is actually a mistake, says Devin Brown, a research engineer at Georgia Tech's Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology.

One day while he was etching microscopic patterns on a silicon chip with an electron beam, he noticed an accidental splatter of water only half a millimeter wide outside his target area. Intrigued, he decided to photograph it through an optical microscope. "It was just a defect at the edge of the sample that was interesting," says Brown, who was working on new nanofabrication techniques when he took the photo.

The accidental image won grand prize in the 2013 Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication micrograph contest.

Travis Branum from North Vernon shared beautiful but eerie photos of giant vertical beams of colored light that appeared over North Vernon Indiana early this morning.

So what is it?  These are called "light pillars" and are pretty rare around these parts.
What caused it? Light pillars are created through the reflection of light off of numerous tiny ice crystals .

According to Wikipedia:
"The crystals responsible for light pillars usually consist of flat, hexagonal plates, which tend to orient themselves more or less horizontally as they fall through the air. Their collective surfaces act as a giant mirror, which reflects the light source upwards and/or downwards into a virtual image. As the crystals are disturbed by turbulence the angle of their surfaces deviates some degrees from the horizontal orientation, causing the reflection (i.e. the light pillar) to become elongated into a column. The larger the crystals, the more pronounced this effect becomes. More rarely, column-shaped crystals can cause light pillars as well"

The combination of a dense fog and air temperatures in the 20's allowed the water droplets in the fog to freeze into ice crystals allowing the phenomenon to occur.This same combo of dense fog and subfreezing temps also contributed to the formation of widespread hoar frost and rime ice. It made for a neat scene this morning in many locations.

Sumitra : Oddity Central : 28 Nov 2015

Meet Aisa Mijeno, a Filipino architect and scientist who invented a revolutionary lamp that runs on a glass of saltwater instead of batteries. Her vision in creating the SALt (Sustainable Alternative Lighting) lamp was to "light up the rest of the Philippines sustainably," by finding an environment-friendly alternative light source suitable for people in coastal areas. She came up with the idea after spending time with the locals of the Butbut tribe in the Kalinga Province of Philippines, who had no access to electricity.

The lamp can apparently run for eight hours on just two tablespoons of salt and a glass of water. "It is made of tediously experimented and improved chemical compounds, catalysts, and metal alloys that when submerged in electrolytes will generate electricity," Mijeno explained. The idea behind it is the chemical conversion of energy, but while it works on the scientific principle of the galvanic cell, it makes use of a harmless, non-toxic saline solution instead of hazardous electrolytes.

This saltwater lamp not only makes lighting available to remote areas, it's also a lot cheaper than conventional kerosene or electric lamps, considerably safer since it does not have components and compounds that may spark fire, and, most importantly, it's environment-friendly since it does not emit toxic gases and leaves a minimal carbon footprint."This isn't just a product," Mijeno said. "It's a social movement."

Although the SALt lamp isn't being mass produced yet, it has received global recognition. Mijeno has won several awards and competitions in Philippines, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea for the work that she put into the device. And The New York Times reported that she recently attended a discussion of climate change hosted by President Obama, where she spoke about the SALt lamp in detail. He called her venture a "splendid thought", while referring to her as "the perfect example of young entrepreneurs coming up with leapfrog technology."

For now, Mijeno's immediate challenge lies in finding a way to manufacture the lamp so that it remains durable, economical, and easy to maintain. If it manages to work as promised, it can produce about 90 lumens of light at just $20, plus $3 to replace the anode every six months. That's perfect for areas with no electricity grid, and safer than kerosene lamps. SALt also features a USB port that can be used to charge mobile phones or other electrical devices. If everything goes according to plan, Mijeno believes the product should be available on the market in 2016.

"The danger in (kerosene) lamps is it could cause fire accidents," she said. "We want to provide a lighting option that is more cost-effective, more safe, more sustainable and environmentally friendly by way of a lantern that uses saline solution or ocean water as a catalyst to generate electricity. Just imagine, if we're able to power a whole island using ocean water. That's what we're trying to aim for."

Image © Balmori Associates
An oasis of greenery is floating on the Gowanus Canal in New York City, purifying the water and brightening the murky waterway.

The Gowanus Canal in New York City is known to be one of the most polluted waterways in the United States. You can imagine everyone's surprise, then, when an oasis of greenery was spotted sprouting on the surface of the river three weeks ago.

Not only is the brackish water's appeal improved with the improbable garden, the stream is being cleansed at the same time.

Called GrowOnUs, the project is an experiment in "floating infrastructure" that utilizes a process called phytoremediation to purify the waterway. Over thirty different kinds of plants act as sponges to clean, desalinate, and mitigate the chemicals affecting the murky canal.

The flora is grown inside the very same metal culvert piping used to carry sewage waste into the waterway, reports GoodNewsNetwork. The "test tubes" are made buoyant by environmentally sustainable construction materials like coconut fibers and bamboo.

For the first time, NASA has confirmed the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, according to new research announced Monday. The finding stems from data and analysis by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has verified that dark, seasonal streaks that have appeared on Mars' surface come from briny water flows.

The moment a dry river bed fills with water in a drought stricken district of India has been filmed by an ecstatic local.

Crowds of people scream with delight as water surges downstream in the video posted to Facebook on September 8 by Bmd Fayaz.  Dusty ground is quickly replaced by swirling pools of water, the first time the Kalavapalli River in Anantapur has been full in 20 years according to Mr Fayaz.

The district of Anantapur is regularly drought affected and records on average less than 34 rainy days a year according to the India Meteorological Department.  The dry conditions at Anantapur were so dire in August of this year that villagers had taken to placing traditional drought stones called karavu rallu in a bid to bring rain, the Deccan Chronicle reports.

Mr Range Gowda, an 85-year-old farmer, said the drought stones were moved in a bullock cart to the outskirts of a nearby village to encourage rain to the region.   World News

How does it work?

Based on natural processes, electrons are harvested from the soil and electricity is produced while plants continue to grow! It might sound too good to be true, but it absolutely is not.

As Next Nature shares, the theory behind the Plant-e system is simple. When a plant creates food using photosynthesis, a large portion of the organic matter generated is actually excreted by the roots into the soil. That same organic matter then gets consumed by micro-organisms living in the soil, which release electrons as a byproduct of this consumption. By placing an electrode near the roots, it then becomes easy to harvest this waste energy and turn it into electricity.

In addition, the plants are left unharmed during the entire process. In fact, tests show that the plants will continue to grow normally in the presence of electrodes, providing a constant source of power day and night. Combined with lamps powered by salt water, off-grid locations may have access to sustainable energy sooner than predicted!

At present, a prototype green roof utilizing this technology is already being developed and tested in the Netherlands. If all goes well, the Plant-e team hopes to utilize this system to harvest a significant amount of energy - maybe even enough to power a house. At present, they have been able to use the technology to generate enough energy to power a cell phone - but time will no doubt allow the company to perfect its process.

The amount of renewable energy sources being developed is astonishing; perhaps very soon in the near future technologies like solar and wind power may be merged with a system like this, completely eliminating humanity's dependence on fossil fuels.
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