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Looking for some reasons that biking is good for our communities and the planet? We pulled together 10 good reasons to get on a bike. Women who bike 30 minutes a day have a lower risk of breast cancer.
Bike commuters report lower stress and greater feelings of freedom, relaxation, and excitement than car commuters.
47% of Americans say they would like more bike facilities in their communities.
Traffic congestion wastes nearly 3 billion gallons of gas per year in the U.S.
For every 1 mile pedaled rather than driven, about 1 pound of CO² is saved.

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—	In Celebration of Bike to Work Day, 10 Statistics for Why You Should Bike Commute \| EcoSalon \| Conscious Culture and Fashion (via greenfuturist) Bicycling and health

That’s the dirty secret of cutting carbon. Oregon — and America — may be getting off coal, but if it just ends up being burned elsewhere, the climate won’t be any better off.

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—	Cutting Carbon’s Dirty Secret: Relocating Pollution - TIME (via greenfuturist)

genannetics:

Totally rad: Scientists create rewritable digital data storage in DNA
“One of the coolest places for computing is within biological systems.” Drew Endy, PhD

Imagine being able to use the DNA of a living cell to store data. Not only would it be an incredible tool for researchers studying cell division, cancer, evolution, aging, and many other biological fields, but also it could lead to a way of storing information without consuming power. Amazingly, a lab out of Stanford’s Bioengineering Department reported this week that it was able to record a single bit of data in this manner.

The team calls its device a “recombinase addressable data” module, or RAD for short.

Alright, already loving the name.

They used RAD to modify a particular section of DNA within microbes that determines how the one-celled organisms will fluoresce under ultraviolet light. The microbes glow red or green depending upon the orientation of the section of DNA. Using RAD, the engineers can flip the section back and forth at will.

Their system seems to be reliable after many cellular divisions, as well as rewrite-able, which is quite a feat in an environment as dynamic as a microbe. Going forward, the team hopes to work towards an 8-bit of genetic programmable data. This may take years, but the scientists are excited by their progress and prospects.

Paper: “Rewritable digital data storage in live cells via engineered control of recombination directionality,” Bonnet, J., Subsoontorn, P. & Endy, D. PNAS,http://dx.doi.org/ … s.1202344109 (2012).

Image: http://www.dna11.com

mothernaturenetwork:

PayPal co-founder funds floating city for entrepreneurs
Blueseed would allow innovators from outside the U.S. to tap into Silicon Valley without worrying about visa issues.

mothernaturenetwork:

Homes in the 21st century were expected to be dramatically different places. In 1966, Arthur C. Clarke wrote in Vogue magazine that houses would fly by 2001 and entire communities would head south for the winter or relocate simply for a change in scenery. Meanwhile, Mechanix Illustrated thought all homes would be assembled from prefabricated modules, allowing homes to be constructed in a day, and building materials would be self-cleaning, so no paint or siding would ever chip or crack.
What the future looked like way back when

greenfuturist:

Totally spot-on cartoon on climate change and the oil industry

So there is global warming. Why and what to do about it is where the real differences are.