You’ll never have to fear your cellphone running out of juice again as long as you’re near a 7-Eleven or a vending machine, thanks to brilliant London-based designer Daizi Zheng. But maybe “juice” is the wrong word; Zheng has produced a cellphone that runs on Coca-Cola. Or Mountain Dew or Pepsi or whatever sugary, fizzy beverage you happen to have handy. Yes, you read correctly, this is a cellphone that runs on soda. It’s the call that refreshes!

As Zheng explained to Tree Hugger:

“Through my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment. The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable.”

Three to four times longer than a lithium battery? Sounds good to us. Now all Zheng has to do is come up with a way to run a cellphone on booze, for a sort of unholy cellphone/hip flask hybrid.
 

 
Cross posting this from Brand X

 
Seeking to redefine our notions of both personal rest and space, the Sleep Suit is made of EVA foam chosen for its compressive strength, and features pleats that conform to the sleeping positions common to most people.

It is inspired by Buckminster Fuller?

 

 

 
Really insane and/or terrifying humanimal sculptures by artist Kate Clark. This sorta reminds me of a post I did a while back on Alex Kovas: Freaky Manimal Model.

From Kate’s website:

Offering a heavy hand of irreverent wit striped with compassion, Kate Clark’s sculptures ask viewers to disregard pretense and to apprehend the idea of emotional uncertainty. Although the artist embarks on a journey towards shocking and repelling viewers as they recognize and reject the thing?

Via Treehugger, check out these potential design solutions for solar powered EV stations. In the (non-Skynet, non-Halliburton) future, you’ll plug your electric-powered bike or car into these at convenient times to fuel up and keep going. Much needed here in gas-godawful southern California…

Sanyo thinks its joint strengths in solar and in batteries make solar charging stations an obvious market to pursue. Here’s one solar station - Sanyo is unveiling its HIT prototype charging station at CES this week and plans a more modest canopy to be unveiled in Portland within the first quarter of this year.

The idea of solar-powered charging stations is enticing. Sanyo, one company preparing many solar canopies and parking lot panel solutions, believes a 10 ft. by 20 ft. solar canopy parking space cover can generate enough electricity to run the electric vehicle annually. Here are three other visions for implementing solar charging for electric vehicles either in the works, or already out on the streets.

(Treehugger: 4 Solar Powered Charging Stations)

 

 
From Bldgblog:

In the desert 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles is a suburb abandoned in advance of itself?

 
Instructables has a DIY step-by-step tutorial on HOWTO make a duck-footed mouse. Here’s a taste:

Step 1 Obtain and dry duck feet

Find yourself some fresh duck feet. If you or your friends hunt or raise ducks, you’re all set. Otherwise you could visit your local asian grocery, butcher shop, or live poultry source and ask for the leftovers. These feet came from a green-winged teal I shot myself. I ate the rest.

Instructables: Duck Mouse

 
February 2010 is when the Chinese Year of the Tiger starts, but alarming news about the world’s tiger population might mean that by 2022, the next time the Year of the Tiger rolls around, there might not be any left. ...

Due to deforestation and poaching, the tiger population has fallen more than 40% in the past decade, which translates to just 3,200 of them left in the wild, worldwide, mostly found in India. That’s not a typo; there are but 3,200 wild tigers left, period. Can you imagine a world with no tigers in it? Unless drastic measures are taken, it will most likely take place during your lifespan. There are six subspecies of tiger: Bengal, Amur, Indo-Chinese, Sumatran, Malayan and South China, the latter of which is already functionally extinct, as there have been no sightings of it in the wild for more than 25 years now.

Much of the problem lies in the poachers of Nepal and the nearly insatiable desire for tiger parts in China, where things like “tiger glands” are supposed to have rejuvenating health qualities, although this is considered bunk by medical science. The World Wildlife Fund, the World Bank and other organizations are putting pressure on the Chinese to crack down on tiger poaching and to end the cruel “tiger farms,” where the big cats are bred, then slaughtered for their skins and parts. The farmers claim the farms are helping increase the tiger population when, in fact, they are serving only to enlarge the market for illegal tiger poaching by increasing demand.

What’s surprising is that the largest population of tigers in captivity is found in the United States, not Asia, where their population exceeds 5,000, with just 6% of them living in accredited zoos; the rest are in private hands with almost no government oversight.

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
If you’ve been thinking of giving up meat for the new year, read on. This article from The New York Times, cuts right to the chase and might push your decision over the edge… for good. The bit about McDonald’s, Burger King and grocery chains using Beef Products in their ground beef is utterly revolting, as bad as anything we learned from Fast Food Nation:

Eight years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia.

The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company?

 
(via Minds Delight)

GOOD magazine reports on the decade in environmental advances. Having spent the latter half of the decade in the green trenches, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. I worry that this decade, while it was clearly the “Tipping Point” on the environment, was largely a decade of greenwash and back-slapping. The results of the Copenhagen conference are a case in point. Time to get it together, instead of running business as usual with a green Smilex smiley face painted on.

This decade will be remembered, first and foremost, as the time we finally came around to understanding climate change?