Murmuration

A chance encounter and shared moment with one of natures greatest and most fleeting phenomena.

Skydive From Space Update 8

If like me, you cannot wait to watch this epic event happen LIVE, perhaps this teaser from Felix Baumgartner's test jump will show you what's in store. (WARNING: You will watch this probably 5 times in a row!!) Enjoy!

The Richat Structure

The Richat Structure, also known as the Eye of the Sahara, is a prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert of west – central Mauritania. Initially interpreted as a asteroid impact structure because of its high degree of circularity, it is now argued to be a highly symmetrical and deeply eroded geologic dome. These are incredible satellite images of the area with enhanced colouring so that all the various rock layers are exposed to their fullest....

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Malthus Aquaponic Unit

I need to get me one of these systems...

" It is an in-home aquaponics unit designed for the next generation kitchen or living room. It grows one meal a day: a portion of fish and a side salad. Aquaponics farming is a technique that combines the cultivation of fish with the growing of vegetables. The fish provides rich fertilizer for the plants and in return, the plants clean the water from the tank. The fish and the plants co-exist in a symbiotic relationship."

Find out more HERE...
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Greenaid Seedbombs

The Common Studio presents Greenaid.

Made from a mixture of clay, compost, and seeds, "seedbombs" are becoming an increasingly popular means combating the many forgotten grey spaces we encounter everyday-from sidewalk cracks to vacant lots and parking medians.

They can be thrown anonymously into these derelict urban sites to temporarily reclaim and transform them into places worth looking at and caring for.

The Greenaid dispensary simply makes these guerilla gardening efforts more accessible to all by appropriating the existing distribution system of the quarter operated candy machine. Using just the loose coins in your pocket, you can make a small but meaningful contribution to the beautification of your city!

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Matthew Houlding: Urban Origami

Matthew Houlding's fantastical, architectural and sublime collages and sculptures are currently on show at PM Gallery & House, London. Urban Origami is a show of 7 international artists illustrating the demand for urban living space and the debris which comes along with it, making it something strangely beautiful.

PM Gallery & House

Walpole Park

Mattock Lane

London W5 5EQ

Urban Origami runs until August 29th 2010.

Naica Crystal Cave

The underground chamber of Naica Crystal cave (Mexico) contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found - some of the selenite structures have grown to more than 10m long.

Miners working in the Naica silver mine broke through the walls of the cavern and were astounded to discover these enormous crystals - the biggest anywhere on Earth.

But when the first people went in to explore, they were almost overcome by the conditions -It's about 50C in there, but it's the virtually 100% humidity added on top that makes it a potential killer.
That combination means that when you breathe air into your body, the surface of your lungs is actually the coolest surface the air encounters. That means the fluid starts to condense inside your lungs - and that's really not good news.


(Thanks to Charlie Inman for the heads up, text from BBC)

'The Scream' In Cardboard

Mark Langan from Ohio, USA spent over 90 hours to create his finely detailed, 3-dimensional take on the 1910 version of Edvard Munch’s familiar painting.

He used a craft knife to cut up 30 square feet of cardboard taken from five boxes and layered them to create a three-dimensional image. Remaining scraps of corrugated cardboard were put through a heavy duty paper shredder and mixed with glue to create a pulp. Mark smeared this onto the cardboard and used his fingers to add detail to the picture, which measures 2.25 inches deep and sold for £1,600.

He creates work primarily from cardboard after a medical condition in his wrist made it difficult to hold a pen or paintbrush.

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Greener Gadgets Competition

The third annual Greener Gadgets design competition was held in New York earlier this week.
First prize went to a gadget called Augmented Living Goods. It's a concept for a cellphone app to help people choose local and sustainably produced groceries.
A user would scan the barcode of an item in a shop, and their cellphone would then inform them where it came from and whether or not it is in season, and relate its price history and comments from others who have already bought it. It was designed by Shane Blomburg, John Healy, Seth Laupus and Andrew Reeves. The other entries can be seen here.

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YayorNay?

Hunting non-endangered whales:

Simple.. either you agree or you don’t.
Leave your ‘Yay’ or ‘Nay’ comment below by clicking ‘COMMENTS’.

With increasing pressure on Japan to ban it’s scientific ‘research’ and commercial whaling operations, the ESPV team thought we’d throw this one out there for yall to respond to.. The question is, why should hunting non-endangered whales be illegal? Considering that the farming, production and slaughter of cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens and fish is legal?

If you are a meat-lover and have no issues over eating it, how can you be against whaling and animal cruelty in general but not mass-production meat served-up in our supermarkets everyday?

Additionally, if you’re a vegetarian or against animal cruelty – then surely this means you wear no makeup and take no medicines? The two most active industries using animal testing today are the medical and cosmetics industries. Is there any point being vegetarian when you still use cosmetics and medicines that are tested on animals?

So when it comes to hunting non-endangered whales, are you Yay or Nay?

Unrecyclable Robots

This robot and his minions were made from discarded styrofoam.
So go out to all the bins, skips and rubbish tips and do something useful for the environment, build a giant robot!!

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Insane Kite Surf Jump

The weather in the UK has been mad this week, but nowhere more than in Worthing, West Sussex where Jack Scrace jumped 100Ft over the pier yesterday. Nutcase and Legend!

Floating Cities Of The Future

Are these the answer to the threat of rising sea levels?
Rather than building up our city's defences with dams, architect Vincent Callebaut has put forward an alternative future for the victims of climate change.
The floating ecopolis, inspired by Amazonian lilypads, are designed to be completely self-sufficient in both power and water, through solar power, wind turbines and rainfall collection.
By the looks of it, you'll have to move to Monaco to live in them.

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CIWEM Environmental Photographer Of The Year

Moldovan photographer, Bolucevschi Vitali, has won the title of CIWEM’s Environmental Photographer of the Year 2009. His picture, Talking About Stars, also won the Natural World category.
Only 24 years old, the amateur photographer described how he was able to take his winning image: “On a sunny day I took a camera and set out to photograph something of the life of ants. At first I was no good as the ants moved very quickly and I was easily distracted. But gradually I was drawn to a group which was climbing up a nearby dandelion. They would each pull out one seed and then parachute to the ground"

Hof - An Icelandic Eco-House

Hof is situated in the Skakafjördur fjord, less than 100km from the Arctic Circle.
Due to the grass on the roof and the massive concrete walls the house is insulated and thermally stable. Geothermal water is used for the floor heating and radiators as well as for all domestic use. Electricity is made from hydroelectric and geothermal sources. Not only is this house eco-friendly and efficient, its so nice as well!

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Josh Keyes

Post-apocolyptic, post-human, global environmental crisis, and overgrowth are a big feature in Josh Keyes work. If you like these, check out more on his site HERE

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Recycled Ink Cartridge Lamps

Ink jet printers tend to go through ink cartridges at incredibly fast paces. Millions of ink cartridges are thrown away each year or recycled, or occasionally you find a method to refill them, although most printer manufacturers warn you not to mostly because they make significantly more money from the ink than from the printers themselves. But there’s other ways to recycle them.


One crafty Etsy seller, Boxlightbox, has managed to find a great use for all the empty cartridges his company was discarding- he turned them into lamps. There’s the $35 single bulb lamp above or the big daddy $200 chandelier. They actually look pretty good! Available in all your favorite inkjet colors like matte black, cyan, light-cyan, magenta, light-magenta, yellow, light-black, and light-light-black. The chandelier actually has the colors arranged just like they are in the printer itself.

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Thumbs Up!

Those of you that know your street art/graffiti, may be awaire of the artist David Choe. His approach to life and art is extremely interesting to me as I find him to be one of the more unique people in this world. Not only is he a great artist, but also a well traveled explorer. Documenting many of his travels, you can view them on youtube for the first series and then on VBS.tv for the following series. They're well worth a watch, especially the fist instalment where Choe and his nephew travel hobo style across the States.

Glass Faucet Doubles As Vase

Hego Waterdesign's Flower Glass faucet, designed by David Vercelli, furnishes a steady supply of water for the flower, and the flower provides beauty and fragrance for you as you wash your hands in the flowing flume.

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Satellite Crash

US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date.
The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said.

The firm described it as an "extremely unusual, very low-probability event", stressing that it was not caused by any fault on its part.
Russia's space forces confirmed the collision with the defunct 950kg (2,094lb) satellite.
"A collision occurred between an Iridium 33 satellite and a Russian Kosmos 2251 military satellite," Major General Alexander Yakushin said.
The satellite was launched in 1993 and ceased to function two years later, he said according to the AFP news agency.
Russia has not commented on claims the satellite was out of control.

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The image below shows just how much space debris there is. Roughly 17,000 objects are orbiting the earth.
It's no wonder a crash happened.

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