#technology

The Hand Tree

/ PK Read / Leave a comment

I like gadgets as much as the next person, and I certainly understand the appeal of turning to nifty electronics for green objectives. Not only do some of the gadgets look cool and do cool things, they also monetize green goals by making products that can help drive employment and the economy. All good things. Okay, so they also use resources and generate waste, but maybe there are work-arounds for those drawbacks.

The hand tree, for example, is a cool device on the drawing board that would act as a personal air purifier as well as a technological fashion statement.

The Hand Tree, a battery-powered purifier made from recyclable materials. Design: Alexandr Kostin/Electrolux Design Lab

The Hand Tree, a battery-powered purifier made from recyclable materials.
Design: Alexandr Kostin/Electrolux Design Lab

Conceived by students at the Electrolux Design Lab, the hand tree is a largish bangle (or other accessory form, such as a pendant or belt buckle) that filters air.

“Combining millions of personal air purifiers we can achieve the image of living in a forest,” says the web page for the project. “If every inhabitant in a big city would wear such a device, we would be all to breathe easily in smoggy air.”

Okay, this is where the cool factor rapidly diminishes for me. This is the kind of production-oriented, consumer-centered ‘solution’ that is fully in keeping with the mentality that got us into cities full of smoggy air in the first place. And that’s not the fault of the young designer who came up with this neat idea; this is how we think.

Forest pool Artist: Aristide Maillol via Davidson Galleries

Forest pool
Artist: Aristide Maillol via Davidson Galleries

It’s no surprise that these creative futuristic designs for environmental gadgets are part of a 2013 competition sponsored by an appliance company.

Maybe I’m biased because I spend a lot of my time around actual trees, but my thought is this: How about we just plant more trees, and stop cutting down the ones we’ve already got?

They do a remarkably efficient job of purifying air with almost no production cost, when they reach the end of their life span they leave behind useful biomass, they maintain ecosystems and water tables, hold soil in place and provide a natural cooling system.

Practically the only thing they don’t do, unless they are being used for timber or packaging, is generate a profit.

And that might be their biggest weakness.

Civilization Tree Artist: Robobenito

Civilization Tree
Artist: Robobenito

Twilight and Sunstones

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Arctic sunset Photo: Patrick Kelley/USGS

Arctic sunset
Photo: Patrick Kelley/USGS

I freely admit that I can follow a map well enough, and also know the most rudimentary basics of navigating by the sky. Still, I managed to get lost yesterday, even with a Google map and the chipper assistance of voice GPS. I can only offer as an excuse that I was headed up a remote Swiss valley and there were a few too many roundabouts. In the end I followed my nose, the Luddite’s rudder, and found my way (more on this trip along the Absinthe Trail another time).

In the case of the Vikings, some of their navigational technology has remained a mystery for centuries. Researchers have been working to decipher what is assumed to be an 11th-century navigational device. The Uunartoq artifact, a broken half-disc of engraved wood, was found beneath a Benedictine monastery in Greenland in 1948. It was long thought to be a compass of some kind.

A recently published paper goes one step further, and suggests that the Uunartoq piece is something a bit more exotic – it could be a twilight compass, capable of guiding mariners by the sun, even when the sun is below the horizon.

A calcite stone, also known as a 'sunstone'. These stones are birefringent, which means that they have 2 refractive indexes. A light beam that enters such material is refracted at two different angles. Caption/Photo: Ricardo Esplugas

A calcite stone, also known as a ‘sunstone’. These stones are birefringent, which means that they have 2 refractive indexes. A light beam that enters such material is refracted at two different angles.
Caption/Photo: Ricardo Esplugas

Aligning compass points using two ‘sunstones’, crystals which have two refractive points rather than one, the plate might have caught light sources no longer visible to the human eye. Not necessarily an instrument of extreme precision, but something that could keep a ship more or less on course until the sun came up again and new measurements could be taken.

This medieval sea navigation makes a deep impression on me. Once painstakingly learned, how was this precious information passed along within cultures and across generations?

And, just as intriguing, how was something this valuable ever lost and forgotten?

Sun compass vs. twilight compass Via: CAnMove

Sun compass vs. twilight compass
Via: Proceedings of the British Royal Society via CAnMove

Seabed Data

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The first trans-Atlantic communications cable was laid in 1858, carried across the ocean by two ships and connected to create instantaneous communication across an ocean.

Unfortunately, it only worked for few days, and it was almost ten years before a replacement was successfully laid. That cable, however, remained in service for a century.

I only mention that because I came across this global map of submarine communications cables. A cartography of big data streams at the bottom of the sea.

Submarine Cable Map (2014) Source: TeleGeography Click on the map for the interactive version

Submarine Cable Map (2014)
Source: TeleGeography
Click on the map for the interactive version

It all looks so tidy and reassuringly mechanical on a map like this.

Still, each and every festively colored line represents something like this:Power-Submarine-Cable-1

That was laid like this:13120_540

Some of the cables, like those that cross the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off Japan, rest at 8000 meters (26,000 ft), a depth that almost equals the height of Mt. Everest. At some point, most of them must end up looking like some version of  this:image010

The nuts and bolts of the modern world are subject to breakage, mostly due to either environmental forces (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, storms) or human activity (mostly fishing lines, mining operations or dropped anchors).

Given the lack of knowledge of the Atlantic sea bed in the 19th century, it’s all the more impressive that the first successful cable last 100 years.

Seabed profiles. Source: Telegeography

Seabed profiles.
Source: Telegeography

 

Plant Plastics

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An Australian company named Zeoform has been in the news recently for its patented technology of producing a new kind of plastic that uses neither fossil fuels nor toxic chemicals in its production or materials.

The input materials are water, and anything from landfill fiber-based material such as old newspapers or used clothing. The end material is both fire resistant, and compostable.

According to an article in HuffingtonPost, “Zeoform’s manufacturing process exploits the natural process of hydrogen bonding, taking a patented matrix of cellulose fibers and activating it with water (no glues required) to create a fire-resistant material that can be sprayed, shaped or molded into any form.

Zeoform guitar Source: Zeoform

Zeoform guitar
Source: Zeoform

“Zeoform can also be made to different densities — from cork-like to as hard as ebony — resulting in a wide range of possibilities: home construction, plastics in the aviation and automotive industries, (and) musical instruments.”

I couldn’t find any information on the energy input necessary to make this product, so it’s hard to say what its final carbon footprint would be. It’s hardly the first plant-based plastic, but the lack of toxic ingredients is a major step forward.

Even if it would take longer than most of us can imagine, massive success of any manufacturing technology based on waste would, at some point, ideally run out of ‘raw’ materials when the waste runs out (yes, an unlikely scenario, but it’s nice to dream).

That wouldn’t be a problem for Zeoform plastic, which can use plant fiber when needed.

An interesting product, and one to watch.

Zeoform chair Image: Zeoform

Zeoform chair
Image: Zeoform