The Verge In Action
Bookmark this page; new examples will be added regularly!
Smart mud could be the new plastic
New Scientist Magazine (20 January 2010) Could a mixture of water and clay replace plastics? The desire to wean the world off oil has sparked all manner of research into novel transportation fuels, but manufacturing plastics uses large amounts of oil too. Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, think their material could be up to the task. » Read more
Mathematicians Offer Elegant Solution to Evolutionary Conundrum
ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2010) UBC researchers have proffered a new mathematical model that seeks to unravel a key evolutionary riddle--namely what factors underlie the generation of biological diversity both within and between species. » Read more
The Pied Piper of Mucus » Sandy Hawkins’s simple Lung Flute cleans sick lungs
Popular Science (November, 2009) The idea for the horn came one night in 1985. Hawkins, an acoustics engineer, and his colleagues began brainstorming how they could use sound to mess with various bodily functions. They joked about what frequency a toilet would need to vibrate at to force an uncontrollable bowel movement and, slightly more seriously, a way to dislodge goo in sick people’s lungs. Months later, Hawkins was reminded of that discussion when he learned that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of lung diseases that includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis, makes breathing tough for 10 million people, and causes 127,000 deaths in the U.S. every year. “It’s the number-four cause of death in the U.S.,” he says. “I thought, ‘Yeah, I should do something about this.’ ” » Read more
Interview with Jim Blasingame: The Future of Plastics, Carbon & Car Insurance
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