Features
Invasive fish and pythons find new uses in fashion and feed
The UN warns that invasive species could cost the world at least $423 billion each year as climate change worsens. Although some wild introductions are benign, many pose serious risks to biodiversity and ecosystem health around the world.
Brazil’s Amazonian bioeconomy offers hope for stemming deforestation
Brazil’s exports in iron ore, soybeans, oil, sugar, and meat have made it the tenth biggest economy in the world. Yet these industries are all land-hungry, meaning that Brazi’s growth is intimately tied to the destruction of its vital rainforests.
Greener sun protection from plants, bacteria, and algae
Gadusol Labs, an Oregon State University spinoff founded in 2017, has pioneered a new kind of sunscreen inspired by the biological world. Their researchers took the Zebrafish as their model, a freshwater species that protects their spawn from sun damage…
Plant-based frames and lenses take on oil-based eyewear
Plant-based materials hold surprising versatility and one of their most surprising applications over the last decade has been in optical lenses and eyewear frames, where plastics currently dominate.
Circular tents reduce camping’s carbon footprint
Not many practices make us as sensitive to our environmental footprint as camping does. A few days without unlimited water and electric charging can show us how little we need and how much we ordinarily waste.
Surfboards from invasive trees offer a habitat-restoring plastic alternative
They say you never forget your first wave. Up to 35 million people worldwide surf, a past-time that may be as old as the human discovery of oceans. In the cultures of the Polynesian islands, surfing was an ancient activity…