City Stories
A key challenge in this new Human Age is to lessen the ecological footprint of the world’s cities, even as their populations expand. The Anthropocene tells the stories about resilient urban coastal infrastructure, low carbon transportation systems, and nature-inspired architectural designs.
3D Printed Bricks
could be the building blocks of modern, sustainable architecture
The Circular Economy Made Real
In more and more pockets of the industrial landscape, the byproducts of one process are becoming the raw materials for another, trash is getting a useful second life, and waste is becoming a thing of the past.
Do plastic bag bans make a difference?
Do Plastic Bag Bans Make A Difference? Like so many life-cycle assessments, it’s never that simple. The environmental impact of plastic-bag bans...
The insect apocalypse is more nuanced than it first appears
New work suggests that the countryside can support a lot of insects, but a small variety. Meanwhile, cities have less vegetation, but a bigger variety of habitats.
Greening the last mile of e-commerce
Could hubs, nudges, and EV night deliveries crack this surprisingly tough puzzle?
Hacking Nature
For decades, humans have modeled technology on observations of the natural world. But new discoveries about nature—and tools for manipulating it—have opened up novel approaches potentially more powerful than mere imitation to solving Human Age problems.
First of its kind study quantifies how tree shade can cancel urban heat island effect
The presence of 20 additional mature trees in one neighborhood could lower the temperature by 1.39 degrees
Researchers pinpoint 12 tried-and-true ways to reduce cars in cities
Cities can reduce the number of cars downtown by up to one-third through a series of carefully designed, layered policies, according to a new study.
Plastic bag bans and fees can have unintended consequences
Deprived of a source of free garbage bags, people simply buy them.
Can local food feed an urban world?
Researchers dig into the efficacy of urban agriculture
