Tag: enviornment

Growing a Vehicle: Sustainable Production

The bamboo frame was grown into the needed shape by Alexander Vittouris. Image from Good Design Australia

Bamboo can grow as fast as 1 meter per day. Alexander Vittouris, a student at Monash University, used this fact to shape the stem into the frame for this human-powered vehicle that he calls the Ajiro. The idea is to create a more sustainable means of production.

Derived from the field of arborsculpture [my link], which specialises in the specific modification and grafting of plants to create shaped structures, the conceptual design, the Ajiro, involves using these principals to create a ‘clean footprint’ urban and recreational vehicle – a grown vehicle. Using bamboo, with its rapid growth rate (as much as one meter in a 24hr period), coupled with its structural integrity make it an ideal candidate for the formation of unique urban personal mobility.

— Vittouris (2011): Ajiro – Naturally grown urban personal mobility

State of Green has a good description of the process.

Scientists tracking oil plumes

Filter after 10L of plume water was passed through it -- visible oil! (from Joye, 2010)

As oil continues to leak from the damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico and the surface slick is affecting more and more of the coastline, scientists now using research vessels to track the underwater plumes spreading at depth throughout the gulf.

Dissolved oxygen, CDOM and beam attenuation with depth (from Joye, 2010).

Satellite imagery from NASA only shows what’s at the surface. To find the underwater plumes, researchers on boats lower instruments on cables that measure the chemistry of the water. Certain chemicals, like colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) are produced when there is a lot of oil in the water.

Dr. Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia, is the lead scientist on one such vessel. She started the Gulf Oil Blog where she describes her ongoing work in the gulf and answers readers questions. It is an excellent resource. A great demonstration of science in action, working on a practical problem but using techniques and methods developed over time for answering more abstract questions.

Oil in the wake of a ship (from Joye, 2010)