Plants are Losing Their Capacity to Absorb Human CO2 Emissions
A team of Columbia researches finds that the climate tipping point may come sooner than we think. Continue reading Plants are Losing Their Capacity to Absorb Human CO2 Emissions
Category Archives: co2
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
Monitoring Air Quality, One Sleepy Meeting At A Time
To those of us in the corporate world, the conference room is where hope goes to die. Crammed into a space too small for the number of invitees, the room soon glows with radiated body heat and the aromas of humans as the time from their last shower gradually increases. To say it’s not a recipe for productivity is an understatement at best.
Having suffered through too many of these soporific situations, [Charles Ouweland] took matters into his own hands and built this portable air quality meter for meetings. With an OLED display on top and sensors inside, it displays …read more
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Wind Chimes and Dry Ice Make an Unusual Musical Instrument
When it comes to making music, there are really only a few ways to create the tones needed — pluck something, blow into something, or hit something. But where does that leave this dry-ice powered organ that recreates tunes with wind chimes and blocks of solid CO2?
It turns out this is firmly in the “hit something” camp, as [Leah Edwards] explains of her project. When the metal wind chime tubes come in contact with dry ice, the temperature difference sublimates the solid CO2. The puff of gas lifts the tube slightly, letting it fall back against the brick of …read more
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Eradicating Mosquitoes from Your Backyard — with Seltzer?
Q: What do you call 8000 dead mosquitoes in a Mason jar?
A: A good start. And [Dan Rojas]’s low-tech mosquito trap accomplished the feat in two nights with nothing fancier than a fan and a bottle of seltzer.
We know what you’re thinking: Where’s the hack? Why not at least use a laser sentry gun to zap skeeters on the fly? We agree that [Dan]’s mosquito trap, consisting of a powerful fan to create suction and a piece of window screen to catch the hapless bloodsuckers, is decidedly low-tech. But you can’t argue with results. Unless he’s fudging the …read more
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3D Printed Rockets are a Gas
We’ve probably all made matchstick rockets as kids. And around here anything that even vaguely looks like a rocket will get some imaginary flight time. But [austiwawa] is making some really cool 3D printed rockets that use common CO2 cartridges as a propellant. You can see them in action in the video below.
You might think just sticking a CO2 cylinder in a 3D printed jacket isn’t such a big deal, but [austiwawa] really went the extra mile. He read up on how to make the rocket stable (by manipulating the center of gravity versus the center of pressure) and …read more
Scientists Turned Carbon Dioxide Into Solid Rock In 2 Years
Researchers have injected carbon dioxide into basalt and turned it into solid rock in two years. This effort offers a potential solution for curbing the high carbon gas emissions in our atmosphere. Continue reading Scientists Turned Carbon Dioxide Into Solid Rock In 2 Years
Thermoelectric Dry Ice Generator Does Not Work (Yet)
[Pabr] is trying to make dry ice the hard way by building a thermoelectric dry ice generator. The project is a well planned round trip through thermodynamics and cryogenics with a hard landing on the icy grounds of trial and error.
While dry ice can be obtained with simpler methods, for example by venting gaseous CO2 from fire extinguishers and collecting the forming CO2 flakes, [pabr’s] method is indeed attractive as a more compact solid-state solution. The setup uses a four stage Peltier element, which uses four Peltier stages to achieve a high temperature differential. With sufficient cooling on the …read more
Continue reading Thermoelectric Dry Ice Generator Does Not Work (Yet)