Building a robot that can replicate everything a human can do is both impossibly complicated and expensive. So, researchers at the IT University of Copenhagen are taking the exact opposite approach: building incredibly simple robots, on-demand, that only do what humans can’t.
Do you deliberately avoid visiting friends who live in multi-story buildings without an elevator? No one would fault you—having to climb even just a single flight of stairs is like being forced to workout against your will. But thanks to engineers at Georgia Tech and Emory University, stairs might one day do all the…
We’ve all heard of donating your body to science, but what does it really mean? Let’s talk about what happens when you give your body to further medical research and education. (We won’t be discussing donation of individual organs or tissues, which is covered here.)
Reduce, re-use, and recycle are words to live by as we try to minimize humanity’s demand for our planet’s natural resources. But instead of sending your empty soda bottles off to be recycled, scientists from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany want you to build everything from chairs, to boats, to outdoor shelters
When the Olympic Games hit Tokyo in 2020, the Olympic organizing committee hopes the medals awarded to athletes will be made out of recycled smartphones and other gadgets.
You don’t need a million dollar Steinway piano to put on a captivating musical performance. You don’t even need a real piano, as Sami Elu proves, by hacking together recycled instruments, materials you’d find at a hardware store, and a bunch of unused chopsticks.
We’ve been pouring carbon into our atmosphere for over 200 years, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global climate. Now a start-up venture called Air Ink has found a good use for some of that extra carbon: a line of pens whose ink is made of recycled air pollution.
Time and time again we’ve cautioned you against buying coffee pod machines like the Keurig, but what if one is gifted to you? Instead of just settling for bad coffee every morning, you can do what Evan Booth did and rebuild it into something else, like a functional robotic bionic hand.
Haven’t cleaned your desk in years? At this point you’ve probably accumulated enough crap to recycle it all into something useful, instead of just sweeping it all onto the floor. YouTube’s MrGear has an easy-to-follow tutorial show you how to turn an old CD case, some soda cans, and various unwanted electronic bits…
When you think of the daily abuse that airplane seats have to endure, it’s a minor miracle they aren’t torn to shreds after just a week of air travel. The fabrics used for the upholstery must be just short of indestructible, so it makes sense to eventually recycle those materials into bags and packs that can easily…
When the Fed constantly replaces old, tattered dollar bills with new, crispy cash, millions of notes get pulled out of circulation while new dollar bills get put in circulation. So what happens to all that old money? It gets shredded. But then what?
There’s about five pounds of salvageable copper inside your typical photocopier (mostly in the power supply and the motor’s copper windings). Copper, that can be mixed with zinc to create brass. Brass, that can be shaped out to make a trumpet. It’s the circle of life!
Companies like New Balance have been using recycled plastic from water bottles to make shoes for years now. But Adidas is taking that idea one step further. Teaming up with Parley for the Oceans, its new Adidas x Parley sneakers are also made from plastics recovered from the ocean.
Last month, the internet flew into a frenzy over news that Apple recovered $40 million worth of gold from old gadgets last year. That story turned out to be wildly oversold. But our eagerness to celebrate a tech company’s recycling victory speaks to a disturbing truth.
Over the last year, Apple processed 90 million pounds of electronics that were unwanted or broken. It turns out they were nearly worth their weight in gold—a substance which is used heavily in electronics for its conductivity and resistance to corrosion.
Apple recently unveiled the Apple Renew program, which pays you in Apple gift cards and good Earth vibes to recycle old iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices. Here’s what you can expect to get back if you send in your used stuff.
Big Rope has a stranglehold on the ‘tying things down’ industry, and if you’re tired of paying through the nose for a few feet of twine, you’ll want to consider backing the Kickstarter campaign for this simple tool that can turn empty plastic bottles into super strong plastic rope.
Here’s a great way to enrage the Apple fans in your life whom put all of the company’s creations on a pedestal. Imgur user hahabird converted the shell from a classic 1986 Macintosh Plus into a garbage can, complete with a spring-loaded screen flap.
Real Christmas trees are beautiful. They smell good. They look classy as hell. They are not made of plastic and imported from China like most of the fake trees you can buy. They are not fake, which means they are easily assumed to possess that most coveted trait of all, authenticity.
This is PaperLab: Epson says it’s the world’s first recycling system to take waste paper and instantly transform it into new paper—onsite, in your office.
