Talk about your poetic justice, karma or just plain old payback: dandelions, that bane of suburban life, may some day work their way into that staple of suburban life, the family car. In partnership with researchers at Ohio State University, Ford is developing a dandelion-based rubber substitute that could be used to make floor mats, cup holders and other interior parts. The idea is to cut down on petroleum-based products wherever possible while lightening the vehicle to improve fuel efficiency. The dandelion deal doesn’t sound like much but when you put it together with some of Ford’s other forays into sustainable materials, you’ve got the potential for a taking a big chunk out of the carbon footprint of a typical car.

By attaching nanoscale antennas to silicon semiconductors, Rice researchers showed they could harvest infrared light and turn it into electricity.

Basic scientific curiosity paid off in unexpected ways when Rice University researchers investigating the fundamental physics of nanomaterials discovered a new technology that could dramatically improve solar energy panels.

One do-it-yourself benchmark for this era is the ongoing discovery of new methods for producing electricity.

One such invention is not only affordable it provides a great way to spend idle time while producing clean and portable electricity that can be used. Called the Pedal-a-Watt, this stationary bicycle stand that generates electricity while functioning as a sound fitness device.

An Australian resident, Adama Kamara, has invented a cooking stove that allows people in developing areas to cook without breathing toxic fumes or contributing to deforestation in search of wood fuels.

The invention for this low-cost stove may be important news for many trying to cook indoors for families in poorly ventilated rooms. Kamara cites the United Nations, saying some 1.4 million women and children die annually due to inhaling the fumes from wood or other forms of solid biomass that is burned in traditional cook stoves.

New plastic bottles are being introduced to the consumer marketplace, made primarily from sugar cane instead of petroleum.

Proctor & Gamble’s Pantene brand shampoo bottles that are made from sugarcane will represent the newest development in new forms of sustainable packaging. The bottles are scheduled to be released in Western Europe by mid-year. The product brand will be “Nature Fusion.”

What’s the cost of wind power? Well, of course, it depends on where you are and who you ask. But I’m going to do my best here to share some reliable information and put it in a useful context for you. Overall, wind costs have dropped significantly in recent years, and while wind is at least cost-competitive with coal and natural gas these days, looking at its true costs indicates it is much cheaper.

An innovative new way to store wind power has been invented by researchers at the the University of Nottingham. Literally in inflatable bags under the ocean. A university spinoff, NIMROD Energy Ltd, has been launched by Professor Seamus Garvey, based on the research. Next month a prototype is to be tested in seawater.

E.ON, a leading renewable energy company in Europe, provided a grant to the university researchers to develop the undersea Energy Bags™  in 2008.

The movie title might be rewritten as “The Ugly, The Bad, & the Good.”

Justin Gallivan, associate professor of biomolecular chemistry at Emory University, is busy developing new ways to reprogram bacteria to carry out some remarkable new tasks – instructing the E. Coli bacteria, for instance, to eat atrazine, a widely used herbicide that can cause considerable contamination of ground water.

From SeattlePI comes news that Boeing will provide 100% of its power from a huge solar array on the roof of its manufacturing plant in South Carolina. “This will be a 100 percent renewable energy site and it’s the first site we have in the world that is making that commitment,” said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Cottage cheese legs.  Orange peel skin…pretty much every woman on the face of the planet knows what cellulite is and knows that they don’t want it.
The good news is that my favourite food, blueberries, may be able to help!

What is cellulite?
Despite what cosmetic marketers want you to think, there’s nothing special about cellulite.  It’s just fat.  Every woman has fat.  The average body fat percentage of women is about 20-30%.

T-box designed by Qian Jiang and Alessandro Leonetti Luparini
Here is where the proverbial bag of wind might be a very good thing to have on hand.

Two designers have created an innovative product meant to capture displaced wind from passing trains or subways and convert that wind power to electricity. Called the T-box, the device was designed by Qian Jiang and Alessandro Leonetti Luparini, winning a silver medal at the 2010 Lite-on awards exhibited in Taiwan.

Wildcat Discovery Technologies, which is a startup company from San Diego, California, recently discovered a new, higher-capacity lithium-ion battery chemistry using a method known as high throughput screening. This could boost storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries (used in electric cars and portable electronic devices) by over 25% and extend the driving range of electric vehicles or make the vehicles cheaper.