Two Rice University students have transformed a simple salad spinner into an electricity-free rotation device that can be used to diagnose diseases. The device would be able to separate blood in order to detect diseases like anemia, which can be an indicator of HIV, malnutrition and malaria.

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Tags: Biomedical, Giving Back

Four undergraduates from Harvard have come up with an invention that is both simple and brilliant: an energy-storing soccer ball for the developing world.

Jessica Lin and three of her classmates – Jessica Matthews, Julia Silverman, and Hemali Thakkar – originally dreamed up the sOccket as a group project for their engineering class. The idea was inspired by dance floors that harvest energy from the motion of the dancers.

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Tags: Electrical, Environmental, Giving Back

Every few years a grand international Expo (historically known as the World’s Fair) is held in one of the world’s largest cities. According to Wikipedia, the purpose of these Expos is to “present new inventions, facilitate cultural exchange based on a theme, and are used for city, region and nation branding.”

This year’s was held in Shanghai, and the host city certainly outdid itself in terms presentation.

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Filed under: Architectural, e-News, Environmental | Comments Off on Shanghai’s Dream Cube Transfixes

Tags: Architectural, Environmental

Hot on the heels of our Human Chargers story (about using body motion to recharge electronics) we bring you this: power-generating sneakers.

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Tags: Electrical, Energy, Environmental

While containing last week’s oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico has proven increasingly difficult – scientists are now discussing giant domes, fire, and even mushrooms as solutions to tame the blaze- there’s also some good news about our oceans to share:

This week, the US federal government finally approved the nation’s first offshore wind farm project, after nine years of careful and at times contentious review. While the plan has been met with some opposition from locals who say the 400ft turbines would be a blight to the landscape, proponents of the project say that Cape Wind has the potential to bring in a new era of clean energy in the US.

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Tags: Environmental, Ocean