Cool Tech Archives - Bluedot Living https://bluedotliving.com/category/cool-tech/ At Home on Earth Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:08:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://bluedotliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cropped-Bluedot_site-icon-32x32.png Cool Tech Archives - Bluedot Living https://bluedotliving.com/category/cool-tech/ 32 32 Recycling Building Debris With Fungus https://bluedotliving.com/recycling-building-debris-with-fungus/ https://bluedotliving.com/recycling-building-debris-with-fungus/#respond Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:08:04 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=17440 In Cleveland, Ohio, where derelict buildings are all too often contaminated with lead paint and landfilled at the end of their use, an architecture firm is working with an unlikely suspect to grind up the contaminated debris, rid it of its lead, and transform it into new construction material. The suspect? Fungi. Redhouse Studio, driven […]

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Sun + Water = Energy https://bluedotliving.com/sun-water-energy/ https://bluedotliving.com/sun-water-energy/#respond Tue, 21 Nov 2023 21:58:32 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=15512 With an abundance of both water and sunshine, Florida is at the epicenter of an emerging technology — floating solar. Floating solar panels, called “floating photovoltaics,” are similar to regular solar, but they’re anchored to pond bottoms rather than attached to rooftops or tracts of land. They are made from HDPE plastics that are highly […]

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Keeping Cool (or Warm) With Paint https://bluedotliving.com/keeping-cool-or-warm-with-paint/ https://bluedotliving.com/keeping-cool-or-warm-with-paint/#respond Mon, 20 Nov 2023 22:43:15 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=15463 Painting buildings white to keep them cool in hot climates is nothing new. Look no further than the Greek island of Santorini, with its stark — and picturesque — dwellings. The science behind it is simple: lighter colors reflect heat — or, more accurately, infrared light from the sun — while darker colors absorb it. […]

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Is Fungi in Fashion? https://bluedotliving.com/is-fungi-in-fashion/ https://bluedotliving.com/is-fungi-in-fashion/#comments Mon, 20 Nov 2023 18:51:02 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=15386 Fast fashion is a well-known climate villain, sending roughly eighty-five percent of what’s produced each year to the landfill. However, the emergence of bio-fabrication, a process that uses living organisms like algae, fungi, bacteria, and compost waste to create organic fabric, is generating a sense of possibility that fashion can shift to a more sustainable […]

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Ocean Gardens https://bluedotliving.com/ocean-gardens/ https://bluedotliving.com/ocean-gardens/#respond Mon, 20 Nov 2023 17:21:02 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=15405 A barge-shaped structure called a “ReefShip” on the bottom of Halifax Harbor could be the key to regrowing Nova Scotia’s declining kelp forests — and play a role in saving the world’s endangered coral reefs. The structure is made of Oceanite, a revolutionary new concrete designed to encourage the growth of sealife.  “There’s crabs all […]

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Steeling the Show https://bluedotliving.com/steeling-the-show/ https://bluedotliving.com/steeling-the-show/#respond Fri, 03 Nov 2023 02:13:53 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=14723 In the rural far North of Sweden, the sun sets around lunchtime in the winter months. It’s a sparsely populated region, and you can travel for hours between small towns, encountering only vast snow-covered fields and the occasional reindeer. But in recent years, the area’s old industrial towns have become global hubs for green technology. […]

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Got Garbage? There’s An App for That https://bluedotliving.com/got-garbage-theres-an-app-for-that/ https://bluedotliving.com/got-garbage-theres-an-app-for-that/#respond Thu, 02 Nov 2023 15:42:24 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=14652 In the Igbo-Efon Community in Lagos State, Blessing Adejumo’s home reeked from nearby piles of garbage. Every time her daughter opened a window to get some fresh air, Adejumo would demand she close it. When she complained to a friend in Ikeji, the state’s capital, her friend told her about an app — Pakam — […]

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FluxJet: Next-Level Commuter Transportation https://bluedotliving.com/fluxjet-next-level-commuter-transportation/ https://bluedotliving.com/fluxjet-next-level-commuter-transportation/#respond Tue, 10 Oct 2023 18:17:24 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=13928 Right now, taking a train from Boston to New York, a trip of about 186 miles, takes about five and a half hours. But what if you could cut that travel time down to, say, 45 minutes?  Making such ultra-high-speed travel possible is the goal of TransPod — a company with offices in Toronto, Canada; […]

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Powerful Powder Purifies Water https://bluedotliving.com/powerful-powder-purifies-water/ https://bluedotliving.com/powerful-powder-purifies-water/#respond Fri, 06 Oct 2023 15:11:02 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=13520 According to a recent United Nations report, some two billion people lack access to safe drinking water. There are ways to address the situation — for example, through extensive filtration, treating the water with bacteria-killing chemicals, or exposing it to ultraviolet light. Unfortunately, filtration doesn’t always remove all contaminants, and chemical treatment often leaves toxic […]

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Hydropanels Pull Water Out of the Sky https://bluedotliving.com/hydropanels-pull-water-out-of-the-sky/ https://bluedotliving.com/hydropanels-pull-water-out-of-the-sky/#respond Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:40:26 +0000 https://bluedotliving.com/?p=11984 We’ve all heard the expression, “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” It’s a line in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s eighteenth-century poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and it describes the plight of a group of ill-fated sailors becalmed near the equator, baking in the sun but unable to sip from the briny ocean […]

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