Vital Technologies, Inc.

Amur Tiger at the Zurich zoo, photo: Tambako the Jaguar via flickr A few months ago I included the Amur Tiger (also know as the Siberian Tiger) in a slideshow of animals which very well could go extinct in the coming decades. It was for good reason, as a new piece from the BBC shows. This largest of all the tigers has an effective wild population of just 35 individuals:...

Zipcar has been a game changer, but Robin Chase is already on to other things. The next frontier in transportation is a smart network that has your car, iPhone, GPS, and other gizmos sharing chatter with streetlights, power utilities, your insurance company, and other cars. The result, hopes Chase, will be cities that are greener, smarter, and more efficient. Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right...

Image via AppleInsider A patent idea from Apple bounces around the notion of "active packaging," where on-the-shelf products would be plugged into a power source so that things like iPods would be able to display videos or receive firmware updates while waiting to be purchased. Sounds like a very un-green turn for Apple. ...

Images via IDEA and Engadget This solar lamp from Japan's IDEA charges up with ambient light and so doesn't need a cord, which is great. The only problem is it looks like a space-age robot eye is watching you......

Image via Senate.gov Senator John Kerry says that unfortunately, that's a distinct possibility. Kerry is set to be one of the top voices championing the climate bill in the Senate, and he's also the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee--so he's in a unique position to assess the international ramifications of the controversial legislation. So why is he concerned? It comes down to a simple numbers game. ...

photo: Paul & Aline Burland via flickr The positive ripple effect of the Greenpeace's Slaughtering the Amazon report, which showed vividly the connection between cattle ranching and deforestation in Brazil, keeps moving: Mongabay reports that Brazil's development bank BNDES plans on requiring beef producers to track their products back...

Photo via photojenni Laptop Magazine has tested some of the industry's greenest notebooks and decided on the most eco-friendly in each of 4 categories, from netbooks to desktop replacements. Check out their choices. ...

Image via NRDC A little while back, news spread that the Deptartment of Homeland Security was refusing to reveal the locations of 44 coal ash dump sites--on the grounds that it was a matter of national security. Now, the EPA has revealed the locations of the sites that have a 'high hazard rating'--ash dumps sites where, if a spill were to occur, would likely lead to the deaths of nearby resident...

photo: Nimrod Bar via flickr Add India to the list of developing nations that will not be signing on to binding emissions reductions targets at December's COP15 climate change conference in Copenhagen. That's the word coming from India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh through Yale Environment 360:...

Photographer David Friedman appears to have solved the problem of never having enough places to plug things in. It also really tells a tale about consumption; he should stick a big meter in the middle of it. ...

Photo via Yahoo! Carbon offsets have their place in the scheme of reducing carbon footprints of energy intensive businesses. But they shouldn't be used instead of actual reduction of carbon emissions, especially when it comes to data centers that need to be made radically more energy efficient. Yahoo! seems to agree, or so their latest move in the race to to create the greenest data center run on renewable energy would imply. The company is working to build a super efficient data center, run on p...

Photo via NeeDigest What's this? The US issuing a semi-bold, almost-binding international directive on climate change? Doth my eyes deceive me? Nope--the US has just joined the other G-8 industrialized nations in pledging to halt the increase of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and to keep the worldwide temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius....

When in France recently I rarely saw a bicycle helmet, ce n'est pas chic. But designers Caroline Journaux & Adrien Guerin are working on one that can fold up and be put away in your pocket or purse. That makes a lot of sense if you ride a Vélo bike in Paris, since you only have a bike when you need it and would otherwise be carrying a helmet around a lot. I don't know if it would pass a Snell test but I like the idea....

O.K., yes I have a crush on Michael Pollan and have had ever since I interviewed him during an infamous Portland ice storm. And yes, my husband knows. And yes, Michael Pollan is married. But also, big yes, as part of the press around the opening of the film Food Inc., you can

Photos by Eric Laignel via Envision and Metropolis The LEED Program is managed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and has become big business, so they needed bigger offices. The renovation of an existing building was designed by a team led by Kendall Wilson of Envision Design, who cut their green teeth doing the offices for Greenpeace ten years ago. It is clean and sleek, but doesn't jump out at you as overtly green; as Suzanne LaBarre writes in Metropolis: It doesn’t feel green. The Eero Saarinen Womb chairs in the lobby, the sparkling terrazzo floors under your feet, the crisp...

Drier soils mean stronger roots and tastier crops Kristin already reported that farmers in California are chopping down trees because of prolonged drought - but it's not all bad news. Many farmers are learning to live with less water - some are even cutting out irrigation all together - and the result, say some, is healthier, tastier crops that are selling like hot cakes at the farmers' markets. Just as organic grapes thrive in drier soils...

You might be mistaken for thinking that photo looks like the talons of an eagle, but it ain’t. It’s a Madagascan Eutetramorium mocquerysi. More precisely it’s the base of its leg. Hard to believe that leg belongs to a lil’ ant, albeit photographed at a magnification of 400 times using a scanning electron microscope and stitched together from 400 photos. The photography is part of work that is being undertaken by the NanoGigaPan project, who are “working to take high resolution images of very small things.” See some more images below and check out the links to their other exhibits....

The Australian Federal government are billing it is as the” largest-ever energy efficiency rollout” in the country. It’s their $4 billion Energy Efficient Homes Package designed to get ceiling insulation into the roofs of 2.9 million Australian homes, by 2012. Even in sunny Australia winter heat loss and summer heat gain through a residential ceiling is calculated to be between 25% and 35%, so there may be some truth in the government’s hyperbole. As you might expect, given that they are giving home owner-occupiers a $1,600 AUD insulation rebate and $1,000 to landlords or tenants for rental propert...

Brownstoner Last week, the debate was When it Comes to Green Building, Does Size Matter?; this week, it is Whither the McMansion.. June Fletcher in The Wall Street Journal thinks they will come back when the economy does: But don't write the obituary for McMansions just yet. Although mass-produced behemoths more than 3,000-square-feet in size have only been common (and commonly cri...

The Texas Department of State Health Services is reminding swimmers and skiers to take precautions to avoid infection from Naegleria fowleri, an ameba assumed to be present in all rivers, lakes, ponds, tanks and streams. The ameba can cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis, or PAM, an infection of the brain. Though PAM is rare, it is almost always fatal. The ameba thrives in warm, stagnant water but may be present in any body of fresh water.