Things Are Good

Here’s some good news for all you chocolate lovers out there: a chocolate byproduct can provide fuel!
North western English firm Ecotec has taken waste from the chocolate manufacturing process, turned it into bio-ethanol and mixed it with vegetable oil to produce biodiesel.
Some biofuels have come under fire for either diverting much-needed food crops or [...]

I like eating the minature green trees known as Broccoli and so when I saw this headline I thought “great, less chance of skin cancer!” Then I found out that what the researches did was spread broccoli juices on patient’s skin. I don’t think I’ll be doing that, but still it’s good to see that [...]

Costa Rica is a gorgeous country and so it’s really good to hear that their forests will continued to be protected. A US-based conservation group has arranged $26 million of Costa Rica’s national debt to be alleviated in exchange for a section of the rainforest to be preserved and used for scientific research.
“We in [...]

Terra preta is apparently wonderful and will help us fight climate change. World Changing has a great post about the human made fertilizer that will probably answer all your questions about terra preta.
Because terra preta locks so much carbon in the soil, it’s also a form of carbon sequestration that doesn’t involve bizarre heroics [...]

Scientists at Xerox have developed an ink that will disappear from printed paper in 24 hours, allowing the paper to be reprinted and reused again. The ‘disappearing ink’ is actually not an ink at all, but a temporary discoloration of light sensitive molecules known as photochromes. A sheet of paper is coated with these molecules [...]

While I’m at a conference looking at how we can use the internet for the better, in Toronto there’s a conference on how to use public space for the better called Walk 21. The Toronto magazine Spacing has been blogging about it on their site and I particularly like their recent post on how walking [...]