“Public libraries are at the forefront of a number of significant and pressing urban and environmental sustainability issues, and are evolving a leadership role in addressing these through sustainable urban design practices, contributions to economic regeneration and a commitment to social equity.”

via Peter Scott’s Library Blog: Call for Papers: Public Libraries and Resilient Cities: Creating Sustainable and Equitable Places.

Guerrilla Gardening and more.

http://www.designundersky.com/dus/2010/2/25/ludic-guerrilla-gardening-drone-warfare.html

“We may not see millions of new factories in the short run, but I would bet we will see thousands.”

I don’t necessarily agree with everything he’s saying, but a lot of it makes great sense.

http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2010/03/web-souveniers-turning-the-web-into-physical-products/

photo credit:
djuggler

Interesting news – and right in line with our research objectives.

The competition aimed to develop new ways to understand how information is disseminated through social networks within small amount of time, the study could further be used to help solve big problems through chain of social networking.

The Contest objective included exploring basic research issues like mobilization, collaboration, and trusts in diverse social networking constructs and could serve to fuel innovation across a wide spectrum of applications.

via Social networking power & recursive incentive helped MIT team win Balloon hunt | White Hat News.

The main goal of the new design was to avoid both friction and hysteresis, thus making control easier while avoiding the threshold. This was achieved by arranging the membrane into radially laid out folds that can unfurl free of radial stress when inflated. The membrane’s stiff longitudinal fibres transfer tension. The inflated and deflated state of the Pleated Pneumatic Artificial Muscle are illustrated below.

via VUB: Applied Sciences: Department of Mechanical Engineering: Muscles.