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For the love of the city: Transforming a community by connecting people
Brie Ragland Construction & Building MaterialsArchitects and city planners tend to think of cities and towns in terms of form, functionality and safety. Does this space provide what it’s intended to provide? Does foot traffic adequately flow and allow convenience and ease of use?
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Best of plastics: Bioplastics
Don Rosato EngineeringBy way of an introduction definition, the term bioplastics is not limited to biodegradable or compostable plastics made from natural materials such as corn or starch. With its low cost and low toxicity, carbon dioxide is an attractive carbon feedstock for the synthesis of polymers.
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Reintroducing endangered South American deer to Patagonian wilds
Jo Anne Smith-Flueck and Fernando Vidal Mugica Science & TechnologyChileans are making positive strides in the battle to bring back their emblematic Patagonian huemul, a medium-sized deer with large, mule-like ears that decorates the nation's coat of arms alongside the Andean condor. Later this month, the only captive breeding program in the world for this species will reintroduce the first animals ever back into the wild on the private Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve, where huemul have not been sighted for 25 years.
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Statoil’s headquarters: Sending a message through office design
Lucy Wallwork Natural ResourcesAfter a quick-fire 20-month construction period, the Oslo headquarters of Norwegian state oil and gas company Statoil opened in 2012. It has been described as the "office of the future" and potentially one of the world's best offices. What message does it send about the future at the cutting edge of national oil companies (NOCs) and energy corporations?
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Green utopias: What happened to the ‘cities of the future’?
Lucy Wallwork Waste Management & EnvironmentalUtopias have always had a strong hold on the imagination. Given the exponential growth and development in renewable technologies, we have seen cities trying to transform their infrastructure and built environment to accommodate new ways of making, accessing and using energy. Others have decided to break loose and design grand "green city" utopic visions, setting a new standard for the "cities of the future."
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Solving the hog problem in America
John McAdams Recreation & LeisureFeral hogs are a significant (and growing) problem for land owners all over the United States. It's tough to determine a precise number, but it's estimated that there are at least 5 million feral hogs present in 39 states. Each year they cause tens of millions of dollars of agricultural damage and have a significant negative impact on the populations of other animals, like white-tailed deer and ground-nesting birds.
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The environmental and social legacy of the Rio Olympics
Dr. Spiro Doukas Sports & FitnessEach Olympic Games has its own legacy — many are positive, but some stand out as negative. Stadiums remaining from the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, are now in disuse and neglected. Terrorist events occurred during the Games in Munich in 1972 and in Atlanta in 1996. The 1980 Moscow and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games experienced boycotts from various countries' teams.
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The missing revolution in solar infrastructure
Lucy Wallwork Waste Management & EnvironmentalReading the solar industry news, industry watchers can be found giddily talking about transformations in how we fuel our households and industries. As the cost of solar power nears what is known as "grid parity" — when solar can generate power at a lower or equal cost to that purchased from the grid — forecasters are predicting that solar is set to grow exponentially over the next five years.
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Emerging automotive lightweighting materials and processes
Don Rosato EngineeringEvery car model that is launched over the coming years is expected to include lightweighting measures. Mazda, for example, has set a goal to reduce the curb weight of all its new model cars by 15 percent (up to 220 pounds per car), through material replacement and engineering, redesigning features and shrinking parts dimensions. The company also plans to improve its global corporate fuel-economy average by 30 percent.
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The danger of missing climate change policies in business forecasts
Stefanie Heerwig Natural ResourcesBetween 2010 and 2016, the U.S. coal industry was subject to some of the most extremes booms and busts. Expecting a super cycle driven by growth in emerging markets, big players entered risky acquisitions to increase their market shares — in many occasions with disastrous outcomes.
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