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shipping container homes -

Shipping containers form private apartments for people experiencing homelessness in this LA facility.

Shipping containers form private apartments for people experiencing homelessness in this LA facility.

American firms NAC Architecture and Bernards have used shipping containers to form private apartments in a Los Angeles facility for people experiencing homelessness. The Hilda L Solis Care First Village – formerly known as the Vignes Street Interim Housing Project – is located on a 4.2-acre (1.7-hectare) site in Downtown Los Angeles. The complex is named after Hilda L Solis, who chairs the LA County Board of Supervisors. The Hilda L Solis Care First Village is located close to Downtown Los Angeles The facility was created by NAC Architecture, which has several offices in the US, and California-based Bernards, a builder and construction management company. The...

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graphene, waste -

Graphene typically costs $200,000 per ton. Now, scientists can make it from trash.

Graphene typically costs $200,000 per ton. Now, scientists can make it from trash.

Graphene is a lattice of carbon atoms arranged in a chicken-wire formation, a structure that makes it very useful for a wide range of applications. However, it's been very difficult and expensive to make. This new technique cuts down on the cost and difficulty by flash heating any carbon-based material, such as used coffee grounds or plastic waste.   Recent technology developed at Rice University is taking the idea that one man's trash is another man's treasure to its extreme. Banana peels, coffee grounds, single-use plastic containers, coal — all of these and more are being turned into one of...

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metamaterials -

3D printed material might replace Kevlar

3D printed material might replace Kevlar

Prior to 1970, bulletproof vests were pretty iffy, with a history extending as far as the 1500s when there were attempts to make metal armor that was bulletproof. By the 20th century there was ballistic nylon, but it took Kevlar to produce garments with real protection against projectile impact. Now a 3D printed nanomaterial might replace kevlar. A group of scientists have published a paper that interconnected tetrakaidecahedrons made up of carbon struts that are arranged via two-photon lithography. We know that tetrakaidecahedrons sound like a modern invention, but, in fact, they were proposed by Lord Kelvin in the 19th century as a shape...

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solar canals -

'Solar Canals' Could Save 63 Billion Gallons of Water Annually in California alone

'Solar Canals' Could Save 63 Billion Gallons of Water Annually in California alone

Adding solar panels over waterways could help make a big change toward sustainability.   With approximately 4,000 miles (6,437 km) of canals transporting water throughout California, the state has plenty of real estate on which to build solar panel infrastructure, a report by Popular Science explains. It turns out that fitting panels above the waterways using suspension cables also provides a surprisingly powerful benefit for the canals themselves. Researchers from the University of California Merced and University of California Santa Cruz used simulations to assess the economic viability of building a "solar canal" network in the state by utilizing one of the world's largest...

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Aquacities -

Manhattan’s New Floating Mobile Campus Is 100% Self-Sufficient

Manhattan’s New Floating Mobile Campus Is 100% Self-Sufficient

The partly public platform will be a fresh new destination for New Yorkers and its visitors for sports and leisure, communication, learning, and so much more. It’s expected to open sometime around 2022.         Since our population increases but the land doesn’t, populated cities need to get creative on expanding to fit this growing number of people and their needs. As a solution, many coastal cities are resorting to floating architecture. For example, Penang is building a 4,500-acre floating sustainable city; the Copenhagen Harbor in Denmark will soon have a cluster of floating island parks; Qatar is considering a rotating...

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