Good News Notes: “A wind turbine sitting idle on a calm day or spinning swiftly when power demand is already met poses a problem for renewables, and is one researchers think can be tackled under the sea. In one vision, offshore wind farms could use seawater to essentially store energy until it’s needed, helping wean humanity off fossil fuels….
Tag: Netherlands
Dog missing for four months reunited with owners after being found by Charlevoix family
Good News Notes: “A downstate Michigan couple has been reunited with their lost dog after a couple in Charlevoix found him hiding under their RV. The dog had been missing for nearly four months. The owners of Jinks, a 3-year-old Australian shepherd, had been searching for him after he went missing during a camping trip they took in…
Modern farming: Coronavirus outbreak spurs high-tech greenhouse boom in China
Good News Notes: “At Chongming Island just outside Shanghai, China’s most populous city, workers collect and pack tomatoes and cucumbers at a glass greenhouse operated by Dutch company FoodVentures, which harvested their first batch of produce at the site in May. The facility is one of dozens sprouting up on the outskirts of China’s megacities…
Indoor Vertical Farming Expands Retail Presence
Good News Notes: “Indoor vertical farming company AeroFarms is expanding the retail presence of its leafy greens in the Northeast with current long-time customers – Whole Foods Market, FreshDirect and Amazon Fresh – and with Walmart in the Mid-Atlantic region. AeroFarms’ retail brand of leafy greens is grown using proprietary aeroponics and indoor vertical farming technologies, which yield annual…
Bees in the Netherlands trained to detect COVID-19 infections
Good News Notes: “Dutch researchers have trained bees, which have an unusually keen sense of smell, to identify samples infected with COVID-19, a finding they said could cut waiting times for test results to just seconds. To train the bees, scientists in the bio-veterinary research laboratory at Wageningen University gave them sugary water as a…
How U.S. Cities Can Learn From Amsterdam in Becoming More Sustainable
Good News Notes: “As the climate crisis comes into sharper focus with ever new urgency, architects have been redefining just what ‘sustainable architecture’ can mean, treating the question as a design challenge itself. For a long while, the building industry got a pass for defining sustainability as a less wasteful alternative than conventional approaches. Now,…
Can Mushrooms Actually Help Save the Planet?
Good News Notes: “In college, Eben Bayer grew mushrooms under his dorm room bed. The mechanical engineering student, who had grown up on a Vermont farm, was convinced the fungus was one of nature’s most effective “technologies” and could be used to overhaul the way we make a range of everyday products. Thirteen years later,…
Patter of tiny paws: Giant panda gives birth at Dutch zoo
Good News Notes: “A giant panda loaned by China to a Dutch zoo as part of a breeding pair has given birth to a cub, the zoo announced Saturday. The mother, Wu Wen, and her cub ‘are staying in the maternity den and are doing well,’ Ouwehands Zoo said in a statement. The zoo said…
Public debut without public for polar bear cubs at Dutch zoo
Good News Notes: “A pair of twin polar bear cubs have made their public debut at a Dutch zoo — but without the public because of coronavirus restrictions. There was no sign of social distancing between the three-and-a-half-month-old cubs and their mother as they cautiously ventured out of the maternity den at the Ouwehands Zoo…