subject: Do Bright Ideas Glow In The Dark? [print this page] Beacon Hill Forest started in 2009 as a final project for a permaculture design class - permaculture being the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable. The forest/park is now going to be a reality in the middle of Seattle. A grant provided a certified designer, a local utility provided a 7-acre plot and local support provided $100,000. In 2012 a 1.75-acre test zone will be planted with a variety of fruit-bearing perennials. The goal is to provide the working-class residents of Beacon Hill the opportunity to pick their own fruit. This is "seed money" at work.
The sidewalks of Bellingham, Washington are made of toilets. Four hundred old toilets provided by the Bellingham Housing Authority were ground into a mixture called "poticrete". The project, which was designed in 2010 and completed in 2011, cost about $850,000. That's about the same amount of money as if the typical gravel concoction had been used. However, because the mixture was 25% poticrete and only 75% recycled asphalt and gravel, there were 2 environmental benefits. The toilets wouldn't take up space in a landfill and less gravel was taken from the ground. Now residents are donating old toilets. They have been "toilet-trained".
Plan UK is a non-profit that helps children in third-world countries. For its 2012 "Because I'm a Girl" campaign to help girls in developing countries get an education, Plan UK used face-recognition technology in a billboard located in London's West End. A high-definition camera scanned the facial features of passers-by with 90% accuracy. Men didn't see the complete 40-second video that promoted the campaign. They were directed to the non-profit's website. The purpose of this was to show men "a glimpse of what it's like to have basic choices taken away". Hmmm, don't men think that marriage does the same thing?
A new way to fix receding hairlines was reported in the Archives of Dermatology - leg hair. Hair taken from the back of necks is usually thicker than hair growing somewhere above the eyebrows and creates a coarse, fake-looking hairline. However, hair from the thighs, knees and calves is thinner and meshes better with frontal head hair. Approximately 80% of transplanted leg hair grows successfully; and because it's removed diffusely, there aren't telltale patches left on legs. Happily for women, leg hair only has to be stubble-length to be transplanted so they can get a "leg up" on receding hairlines too.
