Month: March 2013

James Dyson Award Expands Prizes, Open for Entries

- Adam Clare

SafetyNet from Dan Watson on Vimeo.

The James Dyson Award is an award for engineers and designers to encourage the creation of new devices that make the world a better place. A good example of what they are looking for is last year’s winner, SafetyNet, in the video above. The prize fund has doubled to $147,000, with the prize for the international winner tripled to $46,000 (and $15,000 for their institution).

The award, run in eighteen countries, celebrates ingenuity, creativity and sustainable engineering. Inspiring young people to think differently and invent.

Inventors are encouraged to design and develop their ideas, doing more with less. This leads to fewer raw materials and the consumption of less energy – and creates a technology that will perform better and last longer, while having less environmental impact.

Last year’s international winner, Dan Watson, engineered a device for fishing nets to increase the sustainability of fishing. Dan has now gone on to further prototype and test his invention.

Find out more and enter here.

A More Efficient Truck for Shipping

- Adam Clare 1 Comment


A new SuperTruck is a huge improvement over current long-haul trucks that ship tonnes of goods around North America. The USA’s Department of Energy wanted to make trucks 50% more efficient through various solutions, even a marginal increase can lower gas consumption and thus pass on savings to a consumer.

The demonstration SuperTruck made a whole swath of changes (as can be seen in the image above) to make their truck way better than existing fleets. All their changes add up to a 61% improvement in freight efficiency!

This was achieved without anything too exotic: The ‘SuperTruck’ uses a higher-efficiency engine and an aerodynamic tractor-trailer that significantly reduces drag combined with a waste heat recovery system, electronic controls that use route information to optimize fuel use, low-rolling resistance tires, and weight reductions all around.

Read more at TreeHugger.

Thanks to Matt!

EcoParent Online for Helpful Eco-Tips

- Adam Clare

EcoParent Magazine is all about raising children in an environmentally-friendly way while inspiring respect for the planet. The site currently has a range of tips and information ranging from edible gardening to greener home computing.

From their site:

Through our quarterly print magazine and our website (among our other activities), we strive to give you what you need to make responsible, sustainable and, most importantly, attainable lifestyle choices for your family.
• Informative and non-judgmental in approach
• Fun and inspirational in tone
• Promoting engaged parenting and lifestyle choice
• Relevant and do-able for the contemporary Canadian family

Check out the relaunched site.

Canadians Want Science to be Free

- Adam Clare

Scientists in Canada have come under attack and censorship under the federal Conservative government and Canadians want that to change. Science Uncensored is a new organization focused on ensuring that research funded by the government is freely available to Canadians and that the government stop censoring research results. In the past few years, research on the damage of salmon farming to the effects of climate change on Canada have been held back from public release due to alleged political pressure. It’s great to see people who want evidence-based debate on policy standing up against this sort of intervention in scientific research.

If your Canadian, I encourage you to take a few minutes and send a message to your MP to voicing your support for open and free science.

Informed public debate is the foundation of democracy. Informed means, at the very least, having the scientific information that we have paid for through our tax dollars available for discussion. This means allowing our publicly-funded scientists – whose salaries and research costs we pay – to communicate freely.
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In early 2012, a number of science and science journalism organizations signed a letter to Prime Minister Harper asking that the muzzling of government scientists stop. Despite this and other actions, the muzzling has continued and the situation is getting worse. Just last month Democracy Watch and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre submitted a letter to the Information Commissioner asking her to investigate and determine whether the new science-communication policies are even legal.

Find out more at Science Uncensored.

Band of the Month: CRHYMES

- Greg

Good day readers!
This Friday’s band of the month is CRHYMES
Soft and poetic, and sonically eclectic, this Toronto 5 piece showcases moments of longing, contemplation, and joy, all within the sweetly short seventeen and a half minutes of their debut ep ‘Our Surprises’. With moods of patience and transition, CHRYMES is Band of the Month as the perfect partner as we slip into spring and the season becomes diverse and more alive.

CRHYMES plays live at Toronto’s 751 (Queen W) on Saturday, Mar 30 with other lovable bands; Jive Bullshit, Human Bodies, and HIGHS. Don’t miss this one! Here’ a link to the event… Night Sweats Volume 1.

Check out a track or two as you pass through the last weekend of winter!

Band of the Month by Greg O’Toole

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