Archinect - News

MIT researchers develop method for 3D printing wood

2022-12-29T16:49:00-05:00

A study published then in the journal Materials Today shed light on the world’s first 3D-printed lab-grown wood. By the means of this research, the scientist at MIT demonstrated that deforestation is no longer needed to produce timber.

The researchers developed customizable wood using the cells of a flowering plant named Zinnia elegans, known commonly as zinnia. They first treated the cells with a liquid medium and then a gel solution composed of hormones and nutrients. The researchers adjusted the concentration of the hormones in order to control the stiffness, strength, density, and other properties of the grown plant substance.

According to Interesting Engineering, this is the first time tissue engineering has been used to produce plant matter in a lab. Moving forward, a company named FORAY bioscience was founded by lead author Ashley Beckwith to further develop methods for creating 3D printed wood.

Here is what happened in Glasgow after the underwhelming conclusion of COP26

2021-11-15T14:38:00-05:00

The ending of this year’s COP26 conference has left many architects to ponder how effective the mostly non-representative group of negotiators were in addressing the skepticism and high expectations coming into the meeting that is meant to address what is undoubtedly the greatest moral issue of our time.

The conference concluded on Saturday with a resounding sense of discord, despite a historic pact signed by 197 countries to close the conference. Here’s a look at some of the highlights and tangible changes that came out of the two-week meeting in Glasgow.

Coal

Coal was the biggest hangup at the conference by far, with the final language of the deal constituting what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared a “death knell” for the industry. Although more than 40 countries agreed to end their own domestic production of coal, India, with help from China and Iran, singularly stalled the pact until an 11th-hour deal changed the text from “phase out” to the more ambiguous “phase dow...

Trump pushes for increased logging in the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest

2019-08-29T09:00:00-04:00

President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago [...] The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known as the “roadless rule,” which has survived a decades-long legal assault.

The move comes as global awareness over widespread deforestation in the Amazon and other tropical regions around the world intensifies.

In Brazil, where land clearance and deforestation have increased rapidly this year under the country's new president, Jair Bolsonaro, smoke from the burning Amazon rainforest recently plunged São Paulo into sudden darkness.

Using data visualization to understand the Amazon rainforest fires

2019-08-23T16:00:00-04:00

For the past few weeks, the media has slowly increased its coverage of the devastating fires being intentionally set in the Amazon rainforest. Besides the politically charged issues and highly questionable leadership in Brazil, matters like this can quickly become headline news that leaves people 'social media-aware' but not necessarily informed.

For starters, forest fires in the Amazon are not uncommon and often related to seasonal temperature and weather fluctuations. However, these particular fires are due to intentional land-clearing methods employed by loggers and farmers rallied by the Brazilian president President Jair Bolsonaro and his pro-business agenda. His blatant aggression against indigenous rights, environmental conservation, and concern for sustainable practices has put Brazil and the rest of the world in a difficult position.

Increased deforestation efforts by the Bolsonaro administration have been propelled by a desire for promoting development and agriculture thr...

Smoke from burning Amazon rainforest drops São Paulo into sudden darkness

2019-08-20T19:29:00-04:00

In the height of daytime, the sky suddenly blackened, and day became night in Sao Paulo. Sure, smog is bad in the Western Hemisphere’s largest city, where traffic jams can stretch for dozens of miles. But not this bad. What was going on? Was the end near?

A combination of meteorological events paired with smoke that had traveled hundreds of miles from intense forest fires in remote parts of the Amazon caused a period of sudden midday darkness in the most populous city in the Western Hemisphere on Monday, reports The Washington Post.

Meanwhile on Twitter, #PrayforAmazonia emerged as a trending hashtag, channeling the global outrage over the lack of media coverage and political action towards the vast forest fires which have been raging in the drought-stricken Amazon rainforest region of Brazil for more than two weeks now.

Fires are burning across central South America. Yesterday #NOAA20's OMPS instrument detected the aerosol index - an index that detects the presence of particles like soot and dust in the atmosphere - in the vicinity of the fires. This can help inform air quality forecasts. https://t.co/lCMwTqWxtA
— Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) (@JPSSProgram) August 19, 2019

Much of the blame for the lack of disaster response i...

The Amazon rainforest is doomed

2019-06-05T12:57:00-04:00

The world’s greatest rainforest – which is a vital provider of oxygen and carbon sequestration – lost 739sq km during the [month of May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute, according to data from the government’s satellite monitoring agency.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has accelerated at a drastic clip since far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated in January 2019. The Brazilian government takes monthly satellite observations to survey the deforestation, and it found that logging rates increased dramatically in May, the traditional start of the logging season, over the same month last year.

Since taking office, Bolsonaro has moved to weaken many environmental protections in the country by knee-capping the nation's environmental ministry. To boot, the president's son, Flavio, serves in the Brazilian senate and is pushing there to eliminate forest preservation regulations for the agriculture industry. The move, according to The Guardian, could open up an area larger than the country of Iran to further deforestation.

Carlos Souza, a member of the independent monitoring group Imazon, told The Guardian, "The government can’t deny these numbers from their own agency. The question now is what th...

What California's 30 million dead trees mean for its future landscape

2016-06-15T15:23:00-04:00

CALIFORNIA WON’T BE throwing much shade this summer. It would need trees to do that. Last year almost 30 million trees died in the Golden State—and that number is expected to double or triple by the end of 2016. The high mortality rates come at a time when the state needs healthy forests most, with climate change looming always and a La Niña—El Niño’s dry hermana—on the way.

"The likely outcome? California’s landscape will radically transform, starting with a surge of wildfires that will trigger mudslides, diminished water quality, and the rise of new vegetation."

For more news from the dried out Golden State, check out these links:

It's only August but humans have already consumed a year's worth of resources

2015-08-14T15:40:00-04:00

Humans have exhausted a year’s supply of natural resources in less than eight months, according to an analysis of the demands the world’s population are placing on the planet.

According to the Guardian article, the world's population currently consumes the equivalent of 1.6 planets a year – and, at the rate we're going, that will jump to two planets a year by 2030. But what does that mean, exactly?

Earth Overshoot Day, or Ecological Debt Day, refers to the "date on which humanity’s resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year." It's determined by the Global Footprint Network, a think tank that provides ecological footprint accounting services.

This year Earth Overshoot Day was August 13 – six days earlier than last year. That means that despite efforts to reduce resource depletion, global consumption continues to rise due to both population growth and increased consumptive behavior.

While industrialized countries have traditionally been responsible for the largest share of global consumption, this balance is shifting as the rest of the world develops.

Experts believe that humans first began to exceed the...