University of Oregon researchers Jessica Green and G Z 'Charlie' Brown call it the Pickle Box. This former walk-in storage unit for pickles, remodelled into an enclosed climate chamber, is helping scientists understand how people shed their own 'microbial cloud' in a built environment.

The Los Angeles Design Challenge always brings some crazy idea, but this year one in particular caught our attention: The Mercedes-Benz BIOME concept car. It's an eco-friendly, biodegradable, ultra-light hybrid vehicle—which would be custom grown in a lab.

So far you can only visit Pandora in the movies, but Singapore's planned Marina South Gardens project will combine its own man-made and natural wonders — with lush, vertical gardens scaling gigantic artificial solar trees.

It's nearly summertime, so get out of that basement and go see the world. Or, failing that, go spend some time in the woods ecologically "roughing it" with this Biome camping kit by your side. There's two versions of the kit available, with a few differences between them. The $282 standard version includes a whole…