Day Clock Monitors Air Quality of the Great Indoors

As the world settles into this pandemic, some things are still difficult to mentally reckon, such as the day of the week. We featured a printed day clock a few months ago that used a large pointer to provide this basic psyche-grounding information. In the years since then, [Jeff Thieleke] …read more

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Used Soda Stream Cylinder Becomes DIY Canned Air

Soda Stream machines use a cylinder of compressed CO2 to carbonate beverages, and cylinders that are “empty” for the machine’s purposes in fact still have a small amount of gas left in them. User [Graldur] shared a clever design for using up those last gasps from a cylinder by turning …read more

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Giant Analog CO2 Meter Sweeps Away Doubt

Most of us are aware that trees turn CO₂ into oxygen, but we’d venture to guess that many people’s knowledge of this gas ends there. Is it feast or famine out there for the trees? Who can say? We admire [rabbitcreek]’s commitment to citizen science because he’s so focused on …read more

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Picking the Right Sensors for Home Automation

Imagine that you’re starting a project where you need to measure temperature and humidity. That sounds easy in the abstract, but choosing a real device out of many involves digging into seemingly infinite details and trade-offs that come with them. If it’s a low-stakes monitoring project, picking the first sensor …read more

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NASA Scientists Created a Super-Hot Exoplanet Atmosphere on Earth

A team heated a cloud of gas up to 2,000°F and blasted it with radiation to see what happens on giant planets that orbit very close to their stars. Continue reading NASA Scientists Created a Super-Hot Exoplanet Atmosphere on Earth

European Genocide of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas Cooled Earth’s Climate

Some 50 million Indigenous peoples died during the 16th century, a collapse that caused atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to drop. Continue reading European Genocide of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas Cooled Earth’s Climate

Climate Models Overestimate How Much CO2 Plants Can Remove From the Atmosphere

Carbon dioxide levels might increase even more rapidly than expected based on new research on the molecular mechanisms of photosynthesis. Continue reading Climate Models Overestimate How Much CO2 Plants Can Remove From the Atmosphere

Continuous Seltzer Deployment System Solves Our Bubbly-Water Sourcing Problems

Seltzer water – that bubbly, carbonated water that disappoints sugar-craving children everywhere – has experienced a steady rise in popularity over the past few years. This is perhaps partly fueled by the availability of countertop carbonators such as the SodaStream.

Not satisfied with the tedious and pedestrian process of manually carbonating individual bottles of water, [piyoman] has instead built a tidy little tap of unlimited cold, filtered seltzer. It’s no easy gag. The build uses a commercial carbonator pump, reverse osmosis water filter, bulk tank, and a standard CO2 cylinder to create a constant source of carbonated water. Most of …read more

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Algae On Your Plate

For those of us who grow up around natural swimming holes, algae are the reason we have to wash after taking a dip. Swimmer’s itch or just being covered in green goop is not an attractive way to spend an afternoon. Lumping all algae together is not fair, some of it is nasty but some of it is delicious and humans have been eating it for generations.

If you are thinking that cases of algae cuisine are not widespread and that algae does not sound appealing, you are not alone. It is a tough sell, like convincing someone to try …read more

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