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HomeTags#44

Tag: #44

Sustainably blue

Did you know that most people can distinguish between approximately 200 different colours? Jeans are usually blue, and now, thanks to a research team based at the University of Georgia, their colour comes about in a natural, environmentally-friendly way. The team mixes indigo particles with cellulose fibres and a natural sugar which can be harvested from seafood waste. The...

New kinship

Good advice doesn’t have to be expensive. ‘Aunties’ play an important role in Afro-American culture because they have such a wealth of experience. Which is why a woman from Philadelphia is working on an app which allows women and girls to make contact with them. Once contact is made, Aunties can offer life advice, counselling or simply act as...

Permanently low

Organic waste could make our flights more sustainable. Worldwide, IT systems generate almost twice as much CO2 as all planes in the air - around 1.3 billion tons. Which is why the head of a Californian IT firm recently founded a startup, which processes biological and agricultural waste in order to help reduce greenhouse gases. In a closed process,...

Pain-free reconstruction

If salamanders lose a limb, it grows back. For people with chronic wounds, however, things aren’t quite so simple. Such wounds not only heal slowly, but require regular oxygen treatment, disinfection and the biofilm to be painfully sliced off. Which is why an assistant professor in the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University has developed a plaster made...

Shared together

Nowadays, friendships, clothing or food are only ever a click away. But sometimes good things are right outside our door. A startup from England has recently launched an app which allows neighbours to share food and other household products. The food can be bought or homegrown; it could even be leftovers from dinner. Users upload a photo with description,...

Hairy energy

Surplus food can always be frozen. Excess solar or wind energy could be stored as heat. Now, a startup from New Zealand is developing new, static, energy storage solutions. The founder and her professor were already researching how aluminium can be used for solid-state batteries. Like sodium the metal is widely available. Carbon is an important component in batteries,...

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