London studio Undercurrent Architects have completed a pavilion in Sydney, Australia, with a roof that resembles fallen leaves.

Overlapping plates form the roof, supported by a twisting tubular steel structure that resembles branches.

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Lake Baikal (Russian: Baygal nuur, meaning “the rich lake”) is in southern Siberia in Russia. It is also known as the “Blue Eye of Siberia”. It contains more water than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. At 1,637 meters (5,370 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume.

These two terms are the focal point to break the ice and can be caused by the rise of warm-water lake. Dark circles is due to thinning of the color of ice, which usually remains until June.

The rise of warm water does not seem to be something strange in some of the relatively shallow areas of lakes (for example), which was marked by hydrothermal activity. For example, when a circle is formed in the middle of the lake (see photo below). Such circles have been observed in 1985 and 1994, although they were not so pronounced. However, the location of the circle near the southern tip of Lake (pictured above), where the water is relatively deep and cold.

A golden monkey eats pine-cones.

Golden monkeys are rare and obscure, and they’re just beginning to be studied. They are highly endangered, so it’s a race to study them before they disappear. Living in the mountains of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan Provinces, Chinese golden monkeys are seeing their habitats disappear rapidly as the countryside is cleared for more pastures, villages, and roads.

The monkeys are killed for their beautiful fire-orange fur and also their bones, which are believed by Asians to hold special medicinal powers.

A worker feeds golden monkeys with peanuts and grass.

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…whatever its name is, but it is the most beautiful little bird.

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In Hokkaido, Wakayama and Gunma Japan you can find roads that play musical compositions as you drive over them. The concept works by using grooves cut at very specific intervals in the road surface. The first known musical road, the Asphaltophone, was created in October 1995 in Gylling,  Denmark, by Steen Krarup Jensen and Jakob Freud-Magnus, two Danish artists. [1]

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The author of the unusual ideas was an American artist, known as “Moose”. The first paintings he used the tunnel walls Broadway in San Francisco.

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Rainbow, which does not depend on the weather. But it really exists, made from 5 thousand color plates.

“An insect makes exquisite cutouts in a leaf. Inpired by these leaves that had been artistically eaten by insects, I began my creative work.” -Mitsuru Koga

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Solar film cells are getting a lot of attention because they address the biggest issue with solar energy: cost. The development of this technology has take great strides in recent years because they are cheaper to manufacture than traditional solar panels. Thin film solar panels are what you would find in a solar calculator, and this technology is being expanded into panels for large residential and commercial use. Global Solar Energy, for example, recently installed a 750 kilowatt array that provides 25% of factory’s power needs.

There several technologies that exist that fall under the solar film heading:

1. Amorphous or Thin Film Silicon. This technology uses the same science that is found in the rectangular solar panels we are seeing more and more of in the world. Instead of using hard crystalline silicon that must be encased in tempered glass and aluminum frames like normal solar panels, the silicon is deposited on a flexible piece of metal or plastic and then coated. This technology is generally less efficient, but much cheaper to make. To produce the same amount of energy as a traditional solar panel, you would need 30-50% more surface area of thin film silicon solar.

2. Cadmium Telluride. This technology is less popular than thin film silicon for several reasons. While it is more cost-effective to manufacture, it is less efficient than silicon. Additionally, the materials in these cells tend to be toxic, leading to concerns about the manufacturing process and the long term environmental effects of the cells. Studies are being done as we speak to investigate the long term toxicity of cadmium telluride since the economics of the technology are very attractive. Typical efficiencies for these cells are around 15%. This means that 15% of the total energy that fell on the cell was converted to electricity.

3. CIGS. CIGS is an acronym for’copper indium gallium (di)selenide’ (see why we call it CIGS?). CIGS cells have the most promise for bringing down the cost of solar since the economics AND efficiencies are very promising. In 2005, the National REnewable Energy Lab achieved a world record 19.9% efficiency for a CIGS cell. This means that 19.9% of the total energy that fell on the cell was converted to electricity. This is approaching the world record for a common solar panel of 24.7%. This very exciting because manufacturers anticipate the cost of mass-produced thin film cells to be around $1.00/watt. Common silicon solar panels we are used to seeing are close to $5.00/watt. Companies such as Shell, Nanosolar, and Honda are investing heavily in this technology. Nanosolar is particularly interesting in that is has the backing of Silicon Valley venture capital and the Google founders. They are in the process of building a massive manufacturing facility and claim that they will produce solar cells at 1/10th the cost of current cells. Very exciting.

by: Kriss Bergethon

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So far as we can see, on the scientific horizon at least, they wont be replaced either by some such method as zero point energy, which is energy created by the mechanical oscillations of quantum particles…Sound like science fiction ? Well, so far, yes it is still in the realms of science fiction and if it were possible today, would be hugely expensive to produce. But don’t despair, because In 1989 two chemists, Pons and Flieschman conducted an experiment and claimed to have determined a process of cold fusion. Fusion is a process that happens in the heart of stars, while fission is something that occurs in nuclear reactors. Both very big and at least one, very expensive! Neither a viable option for sole domestic use.

Anyway, Pons and Flieschman rocked the world when they published the results of an experiment they conducted that produced energy, namely heat, at room temperature by using some noble materials and heavy water, through a process of fusion, which generated heat from a sustainable source at room temperature. It wasn´t until the end of April that year when the experiment was conducted by independent bodies, that they were unable to achieve the same claimed results as Dr´s Pons and Flieschman. The process was deemed flawed and the two chemists were discredited and that, by and large, was the end of the matter. The two chemists were, as far as their careers were concerned, finished and they faded into obscurity. Pons and Flieschman committed the cardinal sin of the scientific world by releasing the results to the press first instead of their scientific piers for review. Tut tut tut, off to scientist hell, never to return again!

However, twenty years on, research is still being carried out and there have been some promising results, not just with cold fusion but with hot fusion also. Hot fusion has had more media coverage, probably because it doesn’t attempt to side line conventional physics. Phenomenal heat, Phenomenal pressure, incredible amounts of money and wallah, fusion! Cold fusion on the other hand requires a glass beaker, some deuterium, palladium, heavy water. Now this, I am led to believe, is an atomic reaction and not a chemical reaction and as such may or may not produce a rise in temperature of a few points of a degree over a couple or so weeks, depending on impurities and how it is measured. Non the less, there have been significant advances in researching cold fusion that some serious companies have invested some serious money in its continued research.

Before you clasp your hands in delight at the thought of having a particle colliding, atom smashing, deuterium and palladium guzzling cold/hot fusion reactor at the bottom of the garden, you may want to consider some readily available, non-controversial alternatives to supplying you with electricity.

Wind Turbines

40 of the electricity a household uses in a year.

Costs for installing a solar electricity system vary a lot – an average system costs between £8,000 and £20,000, depending on its size and type. The more electricity the system can generate, the more it costs but the more it could save. Solar tiles cost more than conventional panels, panels built into a roof are more expensive than those that sit on top but, if you need major roof repairs, PV tiles can offset the cost of roof tiles.

Savings can be considerable – around 1.2 tonne of CO2 a year, and around £250 off your electricity bill. A 2.5 kWp system could provide 50% of a household’s yearly electricity needs.

Maintenance is generally small – you’ll need to keep the panels relatively clean and make sure trees don’t begin to overshadow them.

This article has barely scratched the surface of what is available to enable the home owner to produce their own electricity, there are other methods such as Hydrogen fuel cells, Bio fuel for generators, recycled cooking oil for generators…and so on.

However, implementing these technologies is pointless unless your home is adequately insulated first.

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