Tag: #18

Anyone who’s broken an arm will know how a minute’s work can turn into a mammoth task. For people with limited mobility or disabilities, however, it’s a daily struggle. Finding clothes that are easy to put on, fashionable AND sustainable is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But, increasingly, small fashion labels are taking ‘adaptive fashion’ seriously....

When we go somewhere on holiday, the satnav (usually) helps us. Migrating songbirds, however, routinely travel more than 10,000 kilometers – come rain or shine. The tiny birds exhibit remarkable navigational precision. Even when they get lost or fly somewhere new, they always reach their destination. It’s a mystery scientists have been trying to unravel for years. Now, growing...

Venture outside during a storm. A strong gust of wind and your umbrella is blown inside out. A sophisticated mechanism prevents the same thing from happening to dragonflies in flight. Their filigree wings are interwoven with a honeycombed web of protein resin which provides flexible support. If the creature’s wings are overextended, further bending is prevented by the presence...

Red-green color blindness doesn’t stop people from navigating through traffic. That’s because the rules for pedestrians are simple. For people with visual impairments, however, the big city remains a dangerous place. A smartphone app, devised at the University of Minnesota, tested how to help people who are partially sighted cross the road safely. It’s been dubbed as Google Maps...

The wooden bowl on the kitchen table, the cheese roll in the fridge. Apart from a few exceptions, these days pretty much everything is battery-operated. And there aren’t always enough sockets to go around. For some time researchers have been working on how to use our bodies as biological batteries. The latest development? A stretchable polyimine module that can...

Whether we’re feeling sad, romantic or joyful, there’s music to fit our every mood. Music connects people and spreads important messages across the globe. Greenpeace knows this, and has made its natural sound library available to musicians. Artists are encouraged to make use of the library, which comprises a range of sounds collected over the course of numerous campaigns,...