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Can Europe’s New Designs Help the UK’s Housing Crisis?

      

As the UK faces a housing crisis, The Culture Show travels across Europe to find the latest architectural movements which could provide a solution.

bbc.com - July 19, 2013

The combination of population increases, a shaky economy and changes in working and living habits has led to a housing shortage in the UK. The Culture Show visits three locations in Europe to see how innovative new projects could offer solutions to Britain’s housing problem.

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Wind of change sweeps through energy policy in the Caribbean

A fruit juice cafe in Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. Many Caribbean islands are turning to sustainable energy. Photographs: Jenny Bates

Image: A fruit juice cafe in Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. Many Caribbean islands are turning to sustainable energy. Photographs: Jenny Bates

theguardian.com - John Vidal - February 10th, 2014

Aruba in the southern Caribbean has 107,000 people, a lot of wind and sun and, until very recently, one very big problem. Despite the trade winds and sunshine, it was spending more than 16% of its economy on importing 6,500 barrels of diesel fuel a day to generate electricity. People were furious at the tripling of energy prices in 10 years and the resulting spiralling costs of imported water and food.

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What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

                  

Countries are designing Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. CIFOR/Aulia Erlangga

cifor.org - by Center for International Forestry Research

BOGOR, Indonesia (4 February 2014) — The United Nations’ Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will convene for its final meeting from 3-7 February 2014 in New York. The 30-member working group will focus on the role of biodiversity, forests and oceans in human development. . . Following this meeting, the group will develop a report that will be handed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in September.

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Keystone: The Pipeline to Disaster

huffingtonpost.com - by Jeffrey Sachs - February 3, 2014

CLICK HERE - Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Project - Executive Summary January 2014 (44 page .PDF report)

The new State Department Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone Pipeline does three things. First, it signals a greater likelihood that the pipeline project will be approved later this year by the administration. Second, it vividly illustrates the depth of confusion of US climate change policy. Third, it self-portrays the US Government as a helpless bystander to climate calamity.

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These $100 3-D-Printed Arms Are Giving Young Sudan War Amputees A Reason To Go On

huffingtonpost.com - by Eleanor Goldberg - January 23, 2014

Fifty thousand people, many of whom are children, have lost limbs in the war in Sudan. The number of victims is staggering, but one company is working to help by developing inexpensive prosthetics that can be made in about six hours.

. . . A team is capable of producing a low-cost, 3-D-printed arm for about $100.

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With an Eye Toward the Future: Building Resilience in a Changing World

worldbank.org - Habiba Gitay / Sofia Bettencourt
January 10, 2014

Typhoon Haiyan, the Category 5 super storm that devastated parts of the Philippines and killed thousands late last year, continues to remind us, tragically, of how vulnerable we are to weather-related disasters.

As the images of destruction and desperation continue to circle the globe, we’re also reminded that those most at risk when natural disaster strikes are the world’s poor – people who have little money to help them recover and who lack food security, access to clean water, sanitation and health services.

Over the last year, as one major extreme weather event after another wreaked havoc and claimed lives in the developing world, terms such as "resilience" and "loss and damage" have become part and parcel of our efforts here at the World Bank Group – and for good reason.

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Tracking Internet Searches to Predict Disease Outbreak

submitted by Luis Kun

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - January 20, 2014

The habit of Googling for an online diagnosis before visiting a GP can provide early warning of an infectious disease epidemic.

In a new study published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, Internet-based surveillance has been found to detect infectious diseases such Dengue Fever and Influenza up to two weeks earlier than traditional surveillance methods.

A QUT release reports that senior author of the paper, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Senior Research Fellow Dr. Wenbiao Hu said when investigating the occurrence of epidemics, spikes in searches for information about infectious diseases could accurately predict outbreaks of that disease.

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Researchers Harness Sun's Energy During Day for Use at Night

Tom Meyer's new system generates hydrogen fuel by using the sun's energy to split water into its component parts. After the split, hydrogen is sequestered and stored, while the byproduct, oxygen, is released into the air. Credit: Tom Meyer

phys.org - January 14, 2014

Solar energy has long been used as a clean alternative to fossil fuels such as coal and oil, but it could only be harnessed during the day when the sun's rays were strongest. Now researchers led by Tom Meyer at the Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have built a system that converts the sun's energy not into electricity but hydrogen fuel and stores it for later use, allowing us to power our devices long after the sun goes down.

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EU Moves to Ban Most Plastics By 2020

                   

European Parliament - ecowatch.com - January 15, 2014

The most hazardous plastics and certain plastic bags should be banned by 2020, as part of an EU strategy to reduce plastic waste in the environment, says the European Parliament in a resolution voted yesterday. The EU should also introduce binding plastic waste recycling targets, Members of European Parliament (MEPs) add.

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