Daily Archives: January 18, 2009

(Photo: Tabibito-banban)

Yesterday train aficionados went to Takasaki, north of Tokyo, to bid farewell to the EF 551 train engine, affectionately known as “Moomin” because of its resemblance to the cartoon character. A few of my friends regularly meet up for such events, taking photos and blogging about the trains. But the event yesterday was special: the EF 551 was Japan’s first electrical engine, domestically designed with the Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 in mind. The similarities end there. Today, Japan is the country with most passenger rai

photo Hey Paul @ Flickr

If the electric Mini can have motors in its wheels why can’t science geeks get molecular motors in their labs? After graduating college I spent a good three years of my life moving small volumes of fluid from one tube to another, then injecting those small volumes of fluid into a ‘lab on a chip’. This lab on a chip still needed a lab, as it had to go on a large machine that then pumps buffer through the chip to wash it before it could relay any useful data. All of this effort was to get a be

Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

The environment maybe no joking matter, but sometimes the best way to get a message across is through humor. Here are 10 of my all-time favorite potshots celebrities have made on the subject of conservation, pollution, and global warming

Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

The environment maybe no joking matter, but sometimes the best way to get a message across is through humor. Here are 10 of my all-time favorite potshots celebrities have made on the subject of conservation, pollution, and global warming

Billy the elephant
Photo credit: mstickmanp

The Los Angeles Zoo is currently battling for the right to keep Billy the Asian elephant and place him in a new 6-acre habitat they have been building over the past couple years. The zoo had earned the right to build the new facility 2 years ago by a 13 to 2 vote by the City Council. Recently however, a small group has stepped in claiming that Billy would be much better off at the PAWS ranch style sanctuary, located in Northern California

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Billy the elephant
Photo credit: mstickmanp

The Los Angeles Zoo is currently battling for the right to keep Billy the Asian elephant and place him in a new 6-acre habitat they have been building over the past couple years. The zoo had earned the right to build the new facility 2 years ago by a 13 to 2 vote by the City Council. Recently however, a small group has stepped in claiming that Billy would be much better off at the PAWS ranch style sanctuary, located in Northern California

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Photo via Coolest Gadgets

Anyone who thinks it’s tough to be an environmentalist has got it all wrong. That’s why I’ve gone to the considerable trouble of assembling a guide that even the laziest man on earth, who may or may not be yours truly, can follow to live according to ecologically friendly principles. Since I’m already exhausted from writing this, there will be no further intro. See? By stopping typing now, instead of fashioning a lengthier introduction, I will have saved energy that otherwise would’ve been wasted on

Volunteer litter cleanup. Image credit:David Wasserman, courtesy Sierra Club

I’m not naive enough to think that the environmental community will always agree the Obama administration. But I do think the tenor of our work will change fairly dramatically in the coming years. Dealing with the Bush camp for nearly a decade made me feel like Sisyphus, that Greek king who spent eternity pushing a rock uphill, only to see it roll down again. I’m weary of pushing rocks uphill. The future is looking more like level ground to me

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Renderings courtesy of the University of Madrid

Every two years, the US Department of Energy gathers some of the best minds in science for its biannual Solar Decathlon in Washington DC. Teams from universities around the world compete to create the most advanced, most viable solar powered homes and cutting edge alternative energy solutions.

Last week, Team Spain (from the University of Madrid) invited TreeHugger to take a sneak peak at their stellar offering for this year’s competition in October: the B&W House. It’s a house fashioned with a roof that continually rotates to face the sun in order to capture maximum sunl