Camellias: Blossoming in Winter
Camellias are flowers that often have showy blooms, some as big as plates. Their leaves can also make tea. But their standout trait is timing: they blossom in winter.... posted on Feb 26 2011, 3,513 reads

London's Cycle Superhighways Hailed as a Success
Transport for London say the two new Superhighways have been a big success, with an average usage increase of 70%. The traffic on these Superhighways, which connect parts of London to the financial City, is bicycles. Mayor of London's transport advisor, Kulveer Ranger, said: "This research shows that people do believe the routes are of value, make them feel safer, and are allowing them to take di... posted on Feb 18 2011, 3,150 reads

Southern Masked Weaver
They call it home. The delicate orb that sits on the tree branch, a woven tangle of grass and twigs all strategically placed. It's small and inconspicuous enough that you'd probably miss it walking by. Luckily, one photographer didn't. "It was a priceless opportunity to watch these amazing builders constructing their homes from the very beginning till the end, from the first framework made of a fe... posted on Feb 09 2011, 4,052 reads

Building Green Houses from Garbage
Texas home builder Dan Phillips transforms trash into artful treasures, creating intricate floor mosaics with wood scraps, kitchen counters from ivory-colored bones and roofs out of license plates. The fantastical houses which spring from his imagination cost as little as $10,000 and are made almost entirely with materials which would otherwise have ended up in a garbage dump.... posted on Jan 28 2011, 6,447 reads

The Best Place for a Break
In the age of multi-tasking, constant communication, and overwhelming stimuli, studies show that a 20 minute walk helps refocus our minds and revive our spirits. Researchers explain, "Nature engages your attention in relaxed fashion- leaves rustling, patterns of clouds, sunsets, a bird, the shape of an old tree. It captures our attention in subtle, bottom-up ways and allows our top-down attention ... posted on Jan 24 2011, 5,899 reads

Out of Ice, Comes Music
Terje Isungset is a composer and percussionist who crafts stunning pieces of music from ice. "It is very inspiring to be able to make music out of the world's most important resource: water. Pure, clean water from a lake or river. I seek for new sounds in music, new colors; I try to find a new flower somehow - and to me the ice opens up a new landscape. A landscape of beauty and silence," he remar... posted on Jan 19 2011, 3,901 reads

Giant Water Lily: Nature's Hidden Designs
In still or slowly-moving waters there is one easy way to collect light: a plant can float its leaves upon the surface. No plant does this on a more spectacular scale than the giant Amazon water-lily. First surfacing as a simple bud, within a few hours, it bursts open and starts to spread. Expanding at the rate of half a square yard in a single day, the leaf grows until it is six feet across and s... posted on Jan 08 2011, 4,868 reads

Tiny House Movement
As Americans downsize in the aftermath of a colossal real estate bust, a small but growing number of Americans are buying or building homes that could fit inside many people's living rooms. "It's very un-American in the sense that living small means consuming less," says Jay Shafer, co-founder of the Small House Society. "Living in a small house like this really entails knowing what you need to be... posted on Dec 26 2010, 2,680 reads

Restoring Paradise for Gentle Giants
When Iain Douglas-Hamilton left Tanzania, in East Africa, in 1970 to study at Oxford University in Britain, he left behind "an elephants' paradise". But when he returned in 1972, the country's national parks looked more like a war zone: ivory poaching had endangered these gentle giants. With elephants on the brink of extinction, the soft-spoken conservationist and author knew he had to act. In his... posted on Dec 16 2010, 2,284 reads

Phone Booths Find New Lives
It's iconic, a symbol of British-ness the world over: the red telephone box. But they are disappearing as fast as you can say "cell phone." With 85 percent of adult Brits using mobile phones, these booths are rapidly becoming obsolete. Now they are being recycled for astonishing and eccentric uses. The empty, often vandalized phone boxes are a huge expense for British Telecom (BT), so they have be... posted on Dec 07 2010, 3,135 reads