Lifeboat Foundation

EPFL researchers have shown that people’s perception of office temperature can vary considerably. Personalized climate control could therefore help enhance workers’ comfort—and save energy at the same time.

Global warming means that heatwaves are becoming ever-more frequent. At the same time, we’re in a global race against the clock to reduce buildings’ energy use and carbon footprint by 2050. This has shone the spotlight on the importance of making the thermal comfort of buildings a strategic and economic priority. And this is the focus of research conducted by Dolaana Khovalyg, a tenure track assistant professor at EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) and head of the Laboratory of Integrated Comfort Engineering (ICE), which is linked to the Smart Living Lab in Fribourg.

In her latest study, published as a brief, cutting-edge report in the journal Obesity, she highlights the benefits of providing personalized thermal conditioning and heating for each office desk, rather than maintaining a standard temperature throughout an open space. Khovalyg and her team came to this conclusion after the human thermo-physiological data they collected showed that individuals display very different levels of thermal comfort under normal office conditions.

An XPrize competition funded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk just awarded teams of students $5 million to develop their ideas for carbon removal systems — and it still has another $95 million to give away.

The challenge: Between our cars, factories, and everything else, humans are pumping about 43 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

Continue reading “Students get $5 million from Elon Musk for carbon-removal ideas” »

A recent study from the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and published in Wa | Chemistry And Physics.

This study is intriguing since one of the results of climate change is increasing water temperatures, so removing phosphorus from such waters will prove invaluable in the future, with this study appropriately being referred to as a “future-proof” method.

Continue reading “New ‘future-proof’ method could remove phosphorus from wastewater using bacteria” »

Below the surface of US coastal cities and towns, the salt line is rising in aquifers used for fresh water. The cause is climate change.

As sea levels rise, saltwater will intrude into groundwater. For more than 600 million who draw on aquifers, it means a freshwater crisis.

This new AI-powered drone can resist strong winds and continue its flight thanks to a deep-learning technique created by Caltech engineers.

It was taken by the James Webb space telescope and is one of the clearest images ever produced of the planet.

The Last Human – A Glimpse Into The Far Future.

German animation and design studio, Kurzgesagt, explores the far future of humanity and how our population may change over the aeons.

Given the numerous global threats we face during this century and beyond – from climate change to nuclear war, asteroid impacts and killer viruses – many of us are concerned that humans could go extinct. But there are reasons to be optimistic, according to this latest video from Kurzgesagt. Rather than approaching the end of human history, we may actually be living at the dawn of our species; the mere prelude for a vast and exciting future that lies ahead.

Wing-like rigid sails are leaping from the rarified world of yacht racing to the backs of cargo ships.

There they go again. The firm BAR Technologies has roots in the elite environment of the America’s Cup hyper-competitive racing series, and lately it has been applying its know-how to design rigid sails for cargo ships. That’s right, wind power is making a comeback on the high seas, and the global shipping industry is down for it. Well, beginning to be down for it. Rigid sails for cargo ships are still in the tryout phase, but that could change as Russia continues to pinch the global fuel supply and climate goals kick in.

Continue reading “High-Tech Hard Sails Transform Old Cargo Ships Into Racing Yachts” »

SpaceX’s CRS-25 mission is set to lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from launchpad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Launch is targeted for 8:44 p.m. EDT (00:44 UTC), Friday, July 14. The Dragon spacecraft will deliver new science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew, including an image spectrometer to be mounted on the exterior of the station to better understand how dust plumes affect our climate, and a study of immune aging and potential for reversing those effects. It also will carry an investigation from a team of students at Stanford University that will test the process of creating biopolymer soil composite, a concrete alternative, in microgravity. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/spa…highlights.

Credit: NASA

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