Sustainability

A mock-up of an electric road

England Is Going to Test Roads That Actually Charge Electric Cars

Highways of the future may have special lanes that recharge the batteries of electric cars as they go

Rendering of Juncal Viaduct with turbines

Could a Wind Turbine Be Coming to a Bridge Near You?

Engineers find, in a simulation, that two wind turbines mounted under a bridge in the Canary Islands could power hundreds of homes

Legos Go Sustainable, and Everything (Really) is Awesome

To reduce its carbon footprint, the toy company is searching for a sustainable material for its bricks by 2030

Checking the plants in Nemo's Garden

Off the Coast of Italy, Two Divers Are Building Underwater Greenhouses

The biospheres could provide an alternate means of farming in regions with unstable growing conditions

The Honda Smart Home, on the University of California, Davis, campus, is an experiment in efficiency.

What It's Like to Live in This Smart, Energy-Efficient Home of the Future

Nine months in, a family of four adjusts to life in the Honda Smart Home, a testing ground for new technologies at University of California, Davis

A tiny chair 3D printed from cellulose

You Can Now 3D Print With Liquefied Wood

A chemist at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is making sustainable 3d printing a reality

A cownose ray caught as bycatch off the coast of Virginia

Catch and Release: This Device Could Help Accidentally Caught Fish Survive

The SeaQualizer returns fish safely to the depths of the ocean

Cellulose nanofibril (CNF) chips made from wood could lead to flexible, biodegradable electronics that leach far less potentially toxic chemicals into the environment.

These New Computer Chips Are Made From Wood

A new technique replaces the bulk of smartphone-friendly microchips with a transparent, flexible material made from wood pulp

EcoLogicStudio's 430-square-foot gazebo, called the Urban Algae Folly, is on display at the Expo 2015 world's fair in Milan.

Will Buildings of the Future Be Cloaked In Algae?

Built by a London architecture firm, a new gazebo has a living "skin" that produces oxygen and absorbs considerable amounts of carbon dioxide

6 Projects That Make a Sustainable Future Seem Possible

From an algae-powered building to a playground of recycled steel drums, these spots give designers, urban planners and others hope

This Dutch Wind Wheel Is Part Green Tech Showcase, Part Architectural Attraction

A giant structure proposed in Rotterdam puts cutting-edge energy tech inside a rotating observation wheel, with room for a hotel and apartments

Amager Resource Center, Copenhagen, Denmark. Under construction. This power plant, which turns household waste into electricity, is the cleanest in the world. "Normally, you want to be as far away from the power plant as possible because of the toxins, but in this case you literally have fresh mountain air on the roof of the building. Since we have snow in Denmark, but we don't have hills, we made the roof into a big ski slope," Ingels explains. The chimney puffs a giant steam ring each time a ton of carbon dioxide is emitted.

Designing Buildings For Hot Climates, Cold Ones and Everything in Between

A decade's worth of sustainable projects by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his firm, BIG, are now on display at the National Building Museum

(Clockwise from top left) Katrin Macmillan, Ashutosh Saxena, Richard Lunt and Horace Luke are hard at work on exciting new projects.

Eight Innovators to Watch in 2015

From food science and robotics to solar tech and sustainable architecture, these folks are poised to do big things

Tesla's New Car Can Go From Boston to Baltimore on a Single Charge

One charge can carry the Tesla Roadster up to 400 miles

Live Happier (And More Energy Efficiently) by Sleeping More And Inviting Your Friends Over

Increasing your well being in the new year can also be good for the planet

Eurasian lynx playing in the snow in Germany.

Europe Is a Great Place to Be a Large Meat-Eater

In a rare success story for wildlife, bears, lynx, wolverine and wolves are increasing in numbers across the continent

For years now, the U.S. Navy has been looking for a way to fuel fighter jets aboard aircraft carriers out in the open ocean without having to rely on refueling ships.

Fuel from Seawater? What's the Catch?

Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory recently flew a model plane using a liquid hydrocarbon fuel they sourced from the ocean

Only 5 Northern White Rhinos remain. A powerful image of three of them under guard by Kate Brooks.

There Are Probably Just Five Northern White Rhinos Left

The death of a captive rhino at the San Diego Zoo brings the species closer to imminent extinction

Call it eco-friendly synergy: Scientists have found a cheaper, greener way to make biodegradable plastic from a common waste product of biodiesel production. (Photo: Bo Cheng / ETH Zurich)

Swiss Researchers Create Eco-Friendly Plastic From Biofuel Waste

A new method for making biodegradable plastic could mean more free farmland for food

Plastic trash collected from the world's oceans.

The Ocean Contains Over Five Trillion Pieces of Plastic Weighing More than 250,000 Tons

These frightening figures represent the most robust estimate of marine plastic pollution calculated to date

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