Tag: #74

The hearing-impaired community can safely navigate cities with apps. Birds have natural GPS, while elephant-nose fish create electric fields to avoid obstacles. Now a Massachusetts-based science centre is taking endangered right whales by the proverbial fin. Smart buoys are being installed off two of America’s busiest shipping ports on the Atlanatic coast to record the mammals’ acoustic signals and...

Video games programmed by women or based on stories written by diverse creatives make our world more colourful. Now an organisation is campaigning to allow people with disabilities the chance to forge a Hollywood career. Disabled screenwriters with initial experience can apply for a grant to cover living costs and become part of a spiritually akin writing community. Included...

Banana leaves protect potatoes and sponges made from pollen absorb oil. Now, an Indian startup founded by siblings is making compostable packaging from farm stubble. Their newly developed technology splits the stubble into different fibres. Making cellulose that can be used to produce paper and particle board as well as lignin, which serves as a binding agent. Any resulting...

Anomalies in data network traffic can be heard as disharmony. In healthy people respiration and heartbeat are in harmony. A Welsh biotech startup is seeking to restore this natural symmetry in the event of heart failure. Their new device imitates and recognises the body’s signals and uses the respiratory cycle to control patients’ cardiac rhythm. In pre-clinical trials, their...

An Indian startup is creating smog-free zones. Whales and mini-shrimps sequester CO2 on the ocean floor. And now, a thumbnail-sized, sustainable energy storage device developed by scientists at Cambridge University offers fresh hope for the environment. When charging, the supercapacitor’s negatively charged electrode absorbs CO2 from the air, which is bound in an electrolyte housing the second electrode. During...

Medical aid is becoming more affordable in Africa. And now, thanks to an English startup, agricultural firms can get in contact directly with farmers in Kenya and Tanzania by SMS and voicemail. Telephone services in East Africa being both more readily available than the internet and cheaper for smallholders to use. The platform translates messages, allowing communication to take...