Can Sea Water Desalination Save The World?
Ocean water is saturated with salt, and undrinkable. Most of the freshwater is locked away in glaciers or deep underground. Less than one percent of it is available to us. So why can’t we just take all that seawater, filter out the salt, and have a nearly unlimited supply of clean, drinkable water?
Why One Artist Is Playing Toto’s ‘Africa’ On An Endless Loop In The Namib Desert
Namibia-born artist Max Siedentopf’s desert art installation plays the ’80s anthem on loop somewhere in Africa’s Namib desert, an arid expanse of sand dunes and gravel planes measuring over 31,000 square miles along the coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa.
Playtronica Turns Your Body Into An Instrument
The world we live in is afraid of touch and interaction, so Playtronica decided to highlight it – turn human skin into a musical instrument. Now you can experience the future of human touch and do it with style.
The Italian Village That Celebrates Ugliness
Celebrating “ugliness” for the past 140 years, Piobbico has become renowned for being the world capital of ugly people. Now, its utopian idea has blossomed into a worldwide movement. Today, the so-called “World Association of Ugly People” counts more than 30,000 members across 25 global chapters.
How “Old School” Commodore And Nintendo Graphics Worked
The limitations of color on older 1980’s computers and game consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Commodore 64 explained.
How Rwanda Is Becoming The Singapore Of Africa
Rwanda is now the 15th fastest growing economy in the world as its government has set out a clearly defined mission—they want to become the Singapore of Africa. To understand what this means, though, you have to understand what Singapore is.
Everyone Needs To Stop Building Giant Glass Skyscrapers
Any building playing host to hundreds of people is going to have a huge climate footprint, but the glass is particularly problematic. The sunlight has unlimited access into the building, but no way to get out. That’s great for tomatoes, but for people it just means more air conditioning.
Are Rich People Heartless?
According to Chris Ryan, the author of ‘Civilized to Death: the price of progress’, rich people have the tendency to distance themselves from people because of their wealth differential.
Why Planet Hollywood Went Bankrupt
In the mid 1990’s, two entertainment moguls along with plenty of huge celebrities like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger came together to create a restaurant business unlike any other. But as quick as this idea grew, the sooner everything came crashing down. This is the story of Planet Hollywood.
How Iran Threw The World’s Greatest Party In A Desert
In 1971, Iran threw an extravagant and exclusive party to commemorate the 2500th anniversary of the Persian empire. The party had a grandeur never seen before in the world’s recorded history. It proved to be a stepping stone for the rise of the Iranian revolution and the fall of the Iranian Monarchy that changed the country forever.
Why Socialism Failed in Africa
Considering capitalism to be equal to colonialism, Africa’s founding fathers rejected it and adopted marxist-socialism in the 1960s. Foreign companies were nationalised, state-owned enterprises were created and all sorts of controls on rents, prices, imports and foreign exchange.
How A Farmer Turned 90 Acres Of Wasteland Into A Lush Green Forest
In 1988, Sabarmatee and her father Radhamohan bought an acre of degraded land in Nayagarh district of Odisha. They wanted to set up an experiment to see if a forest using organic techniques. Organic farming was not widespread in India at that time, therefore they had to rely on trial and error.
The Economics Of Airline Class
The story of the development of airline classes really isn’t the story of how airlines developed more and more luxurious seats, it’s how they cut costs to allow more and more people to fly. It’s also a fascinating demonstration of economics.
How To Make An Attractive City
Cities are a big deal. We pretty much all have to live in them. We should try hard to get them right. So few cities are nice, very few out of many thousands are really beautiful; embarrassingly the more appealing ones tend to be old, which is weird because we’re mostly much better at making things now.
The German Island With A Population Of 16
The 16 residents who live on the tiny German island of Oland must cope with extreme flooding on a regular basis. But they have no intention of leaving.
Human Population Through Time
It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200 years to reach 7 billion. But growth has begun slowing, as women have fewer babies on average. When will our global population peak? And how can we minimize our impact on Earth’s resources, even as we approach 11 billion?
The North Korean Prisoner Who Escaped With Her Guard
Jeon was one of several guards at Onsong Detention Centre in the far north of North Korea. He and his colleagues kept Kim and a few dozen other inmates under surveillance 24 hours a day whilst they awaited trial. Watch how a prison guard and a prisoner made their break together from one of the world’s most secretive states.
The Case For More Silent Meetings
Talking meetings have much merit, but can also be subject to a host of problems. Current research supports the benefits of holding a “silent meeting” as one way of better leveraging the ideas, perspectives, and insights of organizational talent.
Osaka’s Gate Tower: Highway Through A Building
The property was owned by a business since the early Meiji era but when business declined, so did the buildings in the 1970s. The property holder refused to give up the land, even though new building permits had been refused to him. The highway corporation and the property owner negotiated for 5 years and what you see today is their compromise.
“Il Capo”, A Striking Look At Marble Quarrying In The Italian Alps
Italian artist and filmmaker Yuri Ancarani captures the otherworldly landscape of Carrara’s marble quarries in the Apuan Alps, Northwest Italy, as Il Capo (The Chief) guides his men through the extraction process in this excerpt by Yuri Ancarani.
The Daring Journey Inside The World’s Deepest Cave
The Veryovkina Cave is the deepest known cave on Earth. It took half a century and about 30 expeditions for Russian cave explorers to reach its record depth of 2,212 meters. Speleologists still think there is more to be discovered.