Not necessarily by chimps, for chimps, but a fascinating experiment in self image.  Eat your heart out James Cameron.

Photo by Justin Doty

Across the Willamette were perched 2 of The Ardea’s namesake, the Blue Heron. 

Big thank you to Karen for her excellent birding eyes which spotted them.

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Image: Noah Sheldon

Nope, not a sequel to the Pauly Shore epic, but a great photo essay on BLDGBLOG by Geoff Manaugh with photos submitted by Noah Sheldon.  In this article, Mr. Manaugh gives a pretty good background on the project, its scientific goals, and even a bit on its place in the national psyche.  Always a topic for middle school science classes, the Biosphere 2 project was seemingly everywhere in the news in the early 90’s, but as the decade wore on and the sheer complexity of the building systems and maybe a bit of over ambition lead to the original scientific research aspirations to be abandoned.  That said, in recent years it has become a living, active research facility run by the University of Arizona at Tuscon and is even open to the public for tours.

Be sure to check out the original article, and even give a run through the comments for some other first hand accounts of this earthbound spaceship.

Photo courtesy of Christie's

Looking for a simple resource to help you make food and eating choices based as much on your green ideology as on your appetite?  Have the recent public comments by executives of high end grocery stores left a sour taste in your mouth?  Did you enter “The Meatrix”?!

Well then, do yourself a favor and check out Sustainable Table.  This fantastic web resource contains a vast knowledge base of information on everything from organic agriculture to factory farms (and how to avoid their products.)  There is even a search engine to locate sustainable, locally grown, fresh and organic eats right around you.  Simply type in your address!

It is stunning,  it is massive,  it has been renamed, and now it’s actually open.  The World’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (Burj Dubai when under construction) has finally been opened in spectacular fashion.  Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a clip from “The Unchained Goddess”, a film produced by Frank Capra (”It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, and many other defining films of mid-twentieth century Americana) in 1958 focused on mankind’s contribution to climate change. 

The long and the short of this?  Climate change science is nothing new, and all semantics and politics aside, there is a tipping point on the horizon, and we really don’t want to be on the other side of it.

Jay talks electric car history (fyi, new technology this is not) and poses some real world questions to Volt Chief Engineer Andrew Farah in this brief, but pretty in depth walk around and drive about with GM’s big “new” idea.

Enjoy!

Putting it together, bit by bit.