The Tokyo Sky Treethe completion of the world's tallest tower, the Tokyo Sky Tree, Japan, was celebrated in an elaborate ceremony on Friday.
including those who worked on the construction of the tower and the president of Tobu Tower Sky Tree Co,
At an impressive 634 meters tall, the Tokyo Sky Tree's purpose is to act as a digital broadcaster,
Construction of the Sky Tree began in 2008, and it is now ready to begin service four years later as a digital terrestrial broadcaster for both Tokyo and the surrounding region, Kanto.
the Tokyo Sky Tree is constructed on a triangular base, fortified with'tripod'units for additional stability.
and apple trees do grow from random seeds scattered on compost heaps on the side of the road.
Okanagan is preparing to release Gala and Fuji varieties of Arctic Apples, to match the Granny smith and Golden delicious currently in production.
and small trees around airports could become fire hazards for nearby homes and should be removed every spring.
The Aspen Institute's Charlie Firestone says technology providers still need to get their act together:
Trees are sick, Wi-fi radiation to blamethe trees in the city of Alphen aan den Rijn weren't doing so well,
but the usual suspects (viruses and bacterial infections) didn't have anything to do with the poor health of the trees.
The unlikely culprit turned out to be Wi-fi. Researchers at Wageningen University discovered that when trees are exposed to Wi-fi radiation,
they don't grow correctly, the bark bleed, and the leaves die. Dutch researchers discovered that 70 percent of trees in The netherlands are affected by Wi-fi radiation.
Five years ago only 10 percent were. The scientists studied 20 ash trees and gave them a dose of Wi-fi radiation for three months.
The trees away from the radiation remained healthy, but the trees exposed to the Wi-fi radiation were sick.
According to the news release, initial observations suggest a negative effect on the health of the ash...
Researchers find it necessary to repeat the experiments before reaching conclusions. Ok so if Wi-fi can make trees bleed,
what does it do to us? The debate over Wi-fi radiation continues. The Health Protection Agency states there is no consistent evidence to date that exposure to FR signals from Wi-fi
and WLANS adversely affect the health of the general population. Wageningen University via CNET and Popular Science
Trees turn deadly in New york Citythe only way to avoid death by tree is to have no trees at all.
but according to Adrian Benepe, the New york city parks commissioner, there is only one way to assure the gooey rotten limbs of a great maple, oak,
or elm never strike again. Å The only absolute correction would be to have no trees at all,
which would mean a city with much dirtier air, hotter temperatures, polluted water, and desertlike streets and public places in short a city that would be neither healthful nor livable,
Removing the trees from New york city is not an option. By pointing to this, Mr. Benepe is also saying the city cannot prevent all future deaths caused by trees.
And this quandary is at the heart of the debate. Who is responsible for these deaths?
How much responsibility does the city have for protecting people who pass beneath its graceful elms, oaks and maples?
While the number of tree injuries is relatively small-51 people between 2006 and 2011,
New york city is more than halfway to its goal of planting a million more trees. Read about the most recent cases here.
European settlers imported livestock, fruit trees and techniques like French pastry making, and adopted Native american crops such as corn and squash.
The Spanish moss that sways gently from the branches of oak trees appeared in Chiang's dish as a backdrop to woodsy lichen flakes and a puree of wild plants.
Turning pine trees into jet fuellow-cost cellulosic sugar maker Virdia and biochemical and biofuel company Virent Energy have developed successfully a drop in gasoline
and jet fuel made from pine trees in a $900, 000 demonstration project funded by the U s. Energy department, the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure and the BIRD Foundation.
But this project used Virdia's sugars generated from pine trees, which Virent cofounder and chief technology office Randy Cortright said leveraged its own conversion process
the pine tree-based jet fuel has a long way to go before its commercially available.
So, why the pine trees? The feedstock meets three requirements, Held told me. It's available--especially in the southeast where Virdia plans to located its first plant--sustainable
the bird cherry ermine moth (Yponomeuta evonymella) and the orchard ermine moth (Yponomeuta padella. In the wild, females emit these pheromones to attract male suitors,
what does it cost to cut down a tree or a forest? Indian economist Pavan Sukhdev has led the global study on The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity.
which have been patented in other countries (well known examples include neem and haldi), the environment ministry said in a statement.
The pond feeds the trees, the mulch feeds the trees, and we have drainage from the roof that goes straight onto the garden.
 For Scanlon, the benefits of keeping bees go beyond sharing honey with her neighbors:
and flowering trees Don t use pesticides and herbicide on your garden plants Purchase organic foods whenever possible Join local initiatives dedicated to helping the bee colonies Be good to bees Read these 10 things you can do Watch the documentaries Vanishing of the Bees
and used to grow, say, strawberry plants or lemon tree starters. Sensors in the bags alert passersby that the plant needs water or fertilizer
110 and 76 meters (360 and 250 feet) in height, will see a tree outside their window...
a tree they can touch. The project, Bosco Verticale (or Vertical Forest), is the first in a development called Biomilan
such that the trees and plants will help control the building's climate, through shading in summer and daylighting in winter,
Once completed, Bosco Verticale will support 900 trees (the tallest are expected to grow up to about 30 feet) as well as shrubs and floral plants.
Lockheed martin debuts maple seed-inspired dronemaple seeds. Most people admire them for being pretty and delicate
A foot long, the SAMARAI (after samara, the name for maple seeds) also has one wing
maple seeds fly by creating a vortex over the leading edge of the wing. Reducing the pressure above the wing's surface like this creates a mini sideways tornado
when maple seeds swirl to the ground, they go much more slowly and land farther from the tree than they otherwise would.
Future applications Both the military and police could use SAMARAI. Officers could throw the drones like boomerangs to photograph
This video simulates the graceful motion a maple seed in flight: via Popular Science, Navy Times photo:
Trees that grow into'living bridges'It's pretty obvious that all of us here at Smartplanet love hearing about innovative technologies that not only give people a leg up on their lives,
Beyond their utilitarian function, enabling natives to cross distant ridges, the bridges are essentially the roots of a type of rubber tree called ficus elastica.
Admittedly, the process, known as tree shaping, isn't nearly as efficient as modern construction methods.
Watch robots climb trees, helicopter in and sniff bugsrobots do the darndest things. For your pre-long-weekend amusement,
Treebot, the tree-climbing robot. Yes, robots have climbed trees before, but Treebot is the first to do
so without any help--and to tackle trees that are complete strangers. Treebot's creators, Tin Lun Lam and Yangsheng Xu from The Chinese University of Hong kong, presented their research at the International Conference on Robotics and Animation.
In this video, you can see Treebot inch its way up thin stalks of bamboo as well as trees with much thicker diameters.
You see it tackle trees that lean like the Tower of Pisa, and you hold your breath as it makes 90-degree turns onto branches.
While it would best most humans any day it appears to have the unfair advantage of eight appendages as opposed to our measly four.
What we are providing is smart irrigation in the palm of your hand. XCI Cloud gives property owners
Weighing what trash is worth at Mexico city'Bartering Market'MEXICO CITY oe Sunday morning brings swarms of people to Chapultepec Park to walk, run, bike or just meander among the trees and the vendors of snacks
from chirping birds to rustling trees, can tell humans a lot about the world --if they listen.
If a tree falls in the forest and it completely  decomposes, then all the carbon in that tree goes back to the atmosphere.
But if you put that tree in a landfill, it doesn't all biodegrade. Some of that carbon is stored in the landfill.
That also is a positive for the environment because you're taking carbon out of the atmosphere.
slowing for example the risks of drought or flood and the impacts of other extreme weather events oe such a mangroves providing protection for coastal communities against the impact of tsunamis.
Look for example at mangrove loss happening both in places that are prime spot for tourist developments such as Florida or Thailand,
Mangroves are important fish nurseries, so by destroying them you impact the local fishing industry. Eroding the mangrove often leads to sediments moving out across the coastal shelf
and damaging the fishing resources of coral reefs again impacting local environment and economy. Furthermore mangrove provides fuel wood and other resources for local people,
and protect from hazard such as tsunami, and sea level damage. When you add up what is being lost,
In the summer 2009 I went to the remote Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, located about halfway between Hawaii
Sea turtles at Palmyra Atoll forage in a unique environment currently removed from pervasive human influence.
What surprises you most about Palmyra Atoll? Each time I return to Palmyra Atoll, I am amazed by this remarkable place On earth
and hopeful that the research conducted by the CBC will contribute to the conservation of endangered sea turtle species. Each visit reaffirms my commitment to the incredibly important field of biodiversity conservation
For example, the production and transport involved in a cup of coffee impacts myriad species, from invertebrates to birds to fish.
This news happened to be released the same day that I spoke with Joyce Coffee, director of project development, policy and research for the City of Chicago,
In many ways, the whole plan rests on technological innovation, Coffee says. This innovation takes many forms,
Coffee says. Chicago's requirement to see the actions of multiple stakeholders across the city (not just those that are owned city) is well beyond the feature set of a more corporate-focused environmental performance software application,
Coffee contends. The ENXSUITE software will allow Chicago to regularly survey other stakeholders all over the city (including, ultimately, home owners) for a more real-time view of the reduction picture.
Coffee says. All over the nation, I'm sure other communities are engaging in similar projects to figure out how to measure their sustainability programs.
they eliminate the need for cutting down large trees. Sourcing wood from sustainably managed forests also creates a more environmentally sensitive process.
Back in October, NASA satellites spotted a massive crack that cuts across the floating ice shelf of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.
The Pine island iceberg is estimated to cover 350 square miles. Over the years, glaciologists have kept a close eye on the Antarctic as changes in this region known as the end of the earth plays a significant role in the fate of our planet.
However, the less stable west Antarctic area where the Pine Island glacier is located happens to be home to the world's largest ice streams,
Such an acceleration is of particular concern at the Pine Island Glacier, because, among Antarctic glaciers, it's the one that's contributing the most to sea level rise.
the Pine Island glacier is melting at an alarming rate, about six meters a year, according to an ABC News report.
Bedbug genome uncovers pesticide resistance Beyond bedbugs-lay your head to rest in the greenest hotel Watch robots climb trees,  helicopter  in and sniff bugs
 Eco-artist Fabrice Peltier installed his now-famous plastic bottle Christmas trees around the hall
His Christmas trees demonstrate his mission. Â Instead of decorating the town hall with pine trees, Peltier collected green and red plastic bottles
and used them to create his own trees. Â The bottles are altered not but are arranged on a frame
and illuminated by low energy consuming LED lights at night The trees themselves are transformations of the plastic bottles, giving them a second life.
 This years bottles were part of a previous exhibit that Peltier constructed at the nearby BHV department store.
and reused them for his trees. One of the most interesting parts about these trees, according to Peltier, is that spectators understand his message without any guidance.
 No signs or explanations are ever put near the trees, but when people experience them,
they understand his message on some level. Â Å When I produce exhibits and installations
it is an important step in the long-term strategy to find a solution to provide affordable access to safe water for All the Swach's filter uses a combination of paddy husk ash and silver particles to kill 80
India produces 20 million tons of paddy husk ash each year as a byproduct of rice milling.
We're really not tied in with the tree side of paper-making; we're really unusual in that regard.
A nice pine scent for detergent--take this essence of pine. Smoked hickory for your bacon--take this scent out of pyrolisized hickory wood.
The wood in the pyrolysis process comes out in this liquid--pyrolysis oil. They were extracting the chemicals for food additives from it.
We made all of our beds out of native white oak. We filled it with compost and then planted a couple dozen different varieties of herbs, fall vegetables.
Holly Freishtat is the new city food policy director. Were one of the first places in the country to have someone on city staff working with the planning
but we had a consortium of companies that were flying a loblolly pine tree, which is used in paper-making.
When companies make paper they have to remove this structure from the tree called lignin,
which gives the tree its strength. So if you can fly a tree in space,
the lignin is like the bones in your body--your bones dont need to support your structure in space.
Photo courtesy of Brightfarms) A tree grows in Brooklyn, and if Paul Lightfoot has anything to do with it,
The winning team of architecture students from the University at Buffalo designed a 22 foot tall tower made with steel, glass and cypress.
bush tucker has enjoyed something of a niche market, with lemon myrtle and warrigal greens the most well known of Indigenous foods.
Å They put a bit of lemon myrtle into something and call it Indigenous food. Some arent game enough to put it in their dishes,
 she says. caption id=attachment 7063 align=alignright width=300 caption=Some Acacia wattle seeds contain toxins
Å Weve now discovered that a gene from balsam fir is much more efficient at producing such natural compounds,
Our new line of supermarket food and meat trays proves that there is now a viable alternative that's not made from corn, trees or plastic,
I wrote about over the summer that includes lines to help coffee baristas better figure out where to stop pouring.
Can injecting trees with microchips help save the Amazon? A tree falls in the rainforest.
Who cut it down? What species is it? How big? Was it selectively cut or clearcut with all its woody neighbors?
notify forest managers of the tree's whereabouts in its travels from tree to log to mill.
Such technology can help isolate fraud originating where the trees are said cut Gary Dodge, director of science and certification at the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council,
Å It also saves trees. Â The poo source Thrice a month, the two brothers set out on a motorbike to collect 1000kgs of dung from the elephant quarters behind the Amber fort.
And while there are surgical simulators on the market oe including high-tech digital systems offering a virtual reality oe she believes the skills crucial to laparoscopic surgery might be taught better with something simple  something like a clementine.
So does a clementine: sturdy outer peel, fragile pith, and a white spongy layer under the skin.
You can find clementines or setsumas or tangerine variations all over the world, Andreatta says. You can go out
and pick them off a tree, and it costs very little or nothing  and yet it's very advanced training.
The clementine is one of several dozen low-cost simulations Andreatta has developed for teaching minimally invasive surgery.
Her hope is that the training boxes, clementines, and foam pieces can be placed in offices and hospital rooms for doctors to practice on during a free moment.
So we're using cellulosic biomass waste streams--corn cobs, treetops and limbs, dead pine trees from pine beetles.
A tree is actually sugar. You need to do a bit of chemistry to get the sugar out.
unless the trees are dead already. The one place you might see wood harvesting is in the southeast U s
but it's another to handle tree limbs, tops and logs and doing that conversion.
while plant breeders and farmers around the world will be able to develop cacao trees that are more sustainable,
a coffee-pouring robotas the type of person who writes words for a living, I love coffee.
But my affinity for it pales in comparison to that of Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan, who writes this morning of a coffee-pouring robot installed at Roy St. Coffee and Tea in Seattle, Wash.
The concept: ensure consistency. That's no surprise coming from the makers of what is called the  Clover Precision Pourover machine,
All the barista has to do is provide the correct dose of freshly ground coffee, ensure it's properly distributed in the filter,
And while it's using a single brew profile for every coffee right now, because it's a networked device,
and upload extremely tailored programming for coffees based on their origin or roast date or whatever.
Why Not Coffee
Contemplating the state of sustainable agricultureif you re wondering what the future of sustainable agriculture might look like--notice
they don t need to come from trees in old-growth forests. They can come from smaller species, with smaller trunks,
and even from the millions of fir trees killed by beetle infestation each year in North america. As with many green-minded efforts whether putting solar panels on your home
and dead trees that can cause fires to reach epic proportions, but decades of aggressive fire suppression have interrupted these natural, destructive cycles.
The sparse tree cover and absence of dead wood on the ground reduced the chance of a high severity fire that would kill trees.
The 2003 photo shows a dense thicket of trees vulnerable to drought, disease, and the type of high severity fire that can wipe out swaths of forest
The largest contiguous Ponderosa pine forest in the world extends from northern Arizona to central New mexico
Currently, Forest Service employees hike through these pine forests and manually mark trees that should remain,
The goal is to remove small-diameter trees and allow space between larger pines. With the Timberguide software,
which runs on a tablet computer mounted inside a wood harvester, a prescriptive thinning plan can be uploaded
and used to guide harvester operators through the cutting process without anyone having to manually mark trees.
Today, Timberguide only collects the location of each tree the harvester takes, and then shows the location on a map,
This means the Forest Service still must mark trees to be removed. By next summer, though, upgrades will allow the software to upload thinning prescription plans that guide harvesters through forests,
quickly and efficiently removing appropriately sized and located trees, Graham says. Harvesting small-diameter trees is not a lucrative business,
says Ken Ribelin, who runs High Desert Investment, one of the two logging companies involved in the pilot test.
--which maps the number and location of each trees removed--can be referenced cross with weather or other records to highlight inefficiencies.
with fast-growing trees and plants being integrated from the ground level all the way to building rooftops. The development won't be a hub for solar panels and turbines.
Coal ash may still end up in the environment. I should add here that the American South, where
BP scraps cellulosic ethanol plant plans Turning pine trees into jet fuel Wood chip-to-sugar maker scales up to replace oil and food crops
how many trees have been saved by the adoption of e-business and e-commerce? We know that data centers consume their share of energy,
INTTRA says that ocean freight providers alone have saved potentially 25,000 trees annually as a result of using its e-commerce network.
time and trees companies can be saved by switching to electronic commerce. Another clue to the e-business resource-saving puzzle is conducted a study by Joseph Fuhr and Stephen Pociask in 2007,
thereby saving trees, reducing air and water pollution and saving the energy needed for manufacturing, distribution and sales.
which are used mainly in apple and pear trees. Artichokes are good because they need less water.
Finding power in coffee wasteresearchers at the Energy & Environmental Research center at the University of North dakota once worked on technology to convert waste from a space station and future Martian bases into heat and power.
Like turning coffee waste into power. The EERC is working withã Â Vermont-basedã Â Wynntryst to develop a gasification power system to use the waste from the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters processing plant to produce energy.
Never heard of Green Mountain? Ã Â It's likely you've sipped their product.
It also distributes other coffee products including Starbucks and Mcdonald's. The project will use a mostly renewable
and convert it into electricity for the coffee industry, Deputy Associate Director for Research Chris Zygarlicke said in the statement this week.
The waste stream that will be used includes coffee residues, plastic packaging, paper, cloth or burlap and plastic cups.
said Holly Elmore, a 53-year-old former caterer from Atlanta. She has in mind one of those Erin Brockovich whistleblowers,
Since we started this with Holly in 2009, we've diverted 250 tons out of the landfill,
The original version of this story misstated the color of Holly Elmore's eyes (they are green,
dead trees, logging remnants and fallen branches might also affect soil health, biodiversity and wildlife habitat.
such as the mountain pine beetle. These circumstances, the researchers said, would limit the forest s future growth
The projects will investigate the use of poplar plantations as a fast-growing feedstock as well as leftovers from forest thinning and construction sites.
GMO trees for sequestering more carbon? Salvaging biofuel from West's pine beetle devastation Could biodiesel be worse for the environment than diesel?
How do you solve a problem like next-gen biofuels? Image: Flickr susan liepa, Flickr a75
Former NASA, Apple engineers unveil $11, 000 coffee makerah...what great lengths we wouldn't go through for the perfect cup of joe.
Last week, the Wall street journal reported on how a growing number of coffee-lovers are bypassing specialty coffee shops
and opting instead to roast, grind and brew the beans themselves, a process that involves precise timing, temperature and often thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
the $11, 000 Blossom One Limited features the kind of high-tech precision that's sure to appease the taste buds of even the most discriminate of coffee snobs.
To ensure an exact result each time, the device brews according to finely tuned specifications such as temperature, stir rate, pressure and coffee to water ratio.
Car runs on coffee smashes speed record Users can program the Blossom One Limited with presets for various flavors of coffee.
This will especially come in handy since Blossom One has partnered with high-end growers to provide beans that come in QR-coded bags,
when scanned prior to coffee-making. And what state-of-the-art gadget would be complete these days without Wi-fi connectivity as a standard feature.
if planters of feedstocks like palm, jatropha and camelina eradicate forests and grasslands, thus releasing the CO2 stored in those natural sinks.
Fruit-bat colony forces architects to change building designa v-shaped walkway was designed around the trees housing rare bats HONG KONG
A group of endangered fruit bats had taken up residency in the trees where the designers wanted to build a covered bridge to connect two of the buildings.
Trees flourished where there were once mounds of sand to put out any accidental fires. Williams said at a press conference Thursday that when he first saw the building
Williams pointed out that there were also activists who demanded that most of the trees be preserved, all of
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