Well I for one am not convinced about the high tech indoor farms being the future of “market gardening”: High-tech farming: The light fantastic | The Economist. Sure, being able to control conditions has many uses. And those pesky seasons and the outdoor world in general is pretty annoying right? This article in the Economist ends …
This seems like a very interesting award: Applications Open for the 2015 SAH Award for Film and Video. The Society for Architectural Historians is seeking nominations for “the most distinguished work of film or video on the history of the built environment.” The first SAH Award for Film and Video was presented last year at …
Just a quick post — some may find this of interest: ‘Dirty’ air in subdivided flats pose health hazards | South China Morning Post. It reports on a study (not quite sure where it was published, if it was) about bacterial counts from air samples from subdivided living units in Hong Kong public housing. And many …
There is a new blog post from the Department of Energy pointing to a resource that may be of use: White House Highlights Two Energy-Slashing, Open Data Initiatives | Department of Energy. This post highlights two steps featured in the “Energy Datapalooza” activity going on now: KEY BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE STEPS INCLUDE: – Anonymized building …
Heard a very interesting story on NewsHour yesterday about portable classrooms: The story is reported by Katie Campbell of KCTS in Seattle. Some of the issues discussed in the context of “reinventing” portable classrooms include carbon dioxide monitoring, sustainability and the Living Building Standards, using solar for electricity, natural ventilation instead of noisy HVAC units, …
For those interested in molecular studies of fungi these two posts by Jenna Lang may be of interest: What the fungi do I do with my ITS library? What the fungi do I do with my ITS library (Part 2) Jenna is a post-doc in my lab and has worked on many different microbiome related projects over …
I know it is a bit late but I just discovered this story about how May has been declared “Building Safety Month” in Tennessee: Governor Haslam Proclaims May as Building Safety Month. This appears to be mostly a public awareness campaign but hopefully it will (or has) gotten people in Tennessee to think about “Building science” …
Good to see builders putting money into the academic side of building science: Home builder donates $10 million to U of A to make construction greener. Not sure if this builder has a good or a bad or a middle of the road track record in any way but 10 million dollars to help start the …
Just pointed to this story: Microbial stowaways to Mars identified : Nature News & Comment by Darlene Cavalier, our collaborator on the “Space Microbes” Project MERCCURI. The article reports on a presentation by Stephanie Smith at the ASM 2014 meeting going on in Boston. Smith presented results from characterizing (via culturing) the microbes present on various parts …
Well, I wish I had known that this was going to happen: Need to Know: Innovations in building science | Al Jazeera America. If I had known I would have tried to add a microbial sampling component to the visit to the UC Davis West Davis Village by Phil Torres and Cara Santa Maria. Anyway – …