Morihei Ueshiba"A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind."
VIDEO: Laser makes road crash image in 3D
Police in England are to use 3D laser scanners at the scene of serious road accidents, so they can clear crashes more quickly.
View Entire Story » | 0 CommentsUnited States Of Innovation
CLICK THE FIRST LETTER OF THE STATE to browse 51 -- yes, we included the District of Columbia! -- bold ideas and brilliant urbanites who are helping to build the cities of America's future.
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Illustration by Peter Oumanski CLICK THE FIRST LETTER OF THE STATE to browse 51 -- yes, we included the District of Columbia! -- bold ideas and brilliant urbanites who are helping to build the cities of America's future. A | C | D | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W
ALABAMA: BIRMINGHAM Meagan and Darrius Peace | Magic City Black Expo Three years ago, the Peaces, owners of a cosmetics company, decided that young black business owners like themselves needed a local showcase. Today, the Magic City Black Expo is a nexus of entrepreneurial camaraderie -- and so important locally that it's a regular stump stop for area politicos.Back to Top
ALASKA: ANCHORAGE Michael Sobocinski | Seeds of Change Community gardens are not new. Nor are efforts to aid youth in the juvenile-justice system. But merge the two, as Sobocinski did, and add a social enterprise selling vegetables from the gardens -- then you have a program with the potential to change lives on multiple levels.Back to Top
ARIZONA: PHOENIX Nicollette Lewis and Priya Nathan | Partnered For Success This project, started by Arizona State students Lewis and Nathan, pairs foster kids with local collegians who can lend listening ears and the wisdom of their years.Back to Top
ARKANSAS: BENTONVILLE, FAYETTEVILLE, JOHNSON, LOWELL, ROGERS, AND SPRINGDALE Razorback Regional Greenway These cities united to support the Razorback Regional Greenway, a 36-mile hike-and-bike trail to link all six. No one city could have footed the $38.5 million bill. The collaboration scored $15 million from the federal government.Back to Top
CALIFORNIA: SAN DIEGO Voiceofsandiego.org The staff of this website has set the standard for online, hyperlocal investigative journalism. Every city could use such in-depth reporting, which has held local officials to account and prompted reform.Back to Top
COLORADO: DENVER The Reverend Ambrose Carroll | the Renewal Worship Center Carroll has taken faith-based initiatives to a new level with what you might call initiative-focused faith. His inner-city church has an explicitly environmental emphasis and an outreach arm that offers green-job training and placement.Back to Top
CONNECTICUT: NEW HAVEN Ben Berkowitz | SeeClickFix When Berkowitz saw graffiti near his home, he tried to notify the right authorities. Not easy. So he built SeeClickFix, a site where citizens can post such alerts and flag any they deem urgent. Some 30 cities use a premium version of the site.Back to Top
D.C.: WASHINGTON Affinity Lab A model incubator that's part shared office and part creative collective, Affinity Lab is nurturing both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses.Back to Top
DELAWARE: WILMINGTON West End Neighborhood House An old settlement house turned full-scale social-services provider, West End offers low-interest payday loans as an alternative to the typical high-interest kind. It also lends money for security deposits and utility payments. All services come with financial counseling.Back to Top
FLORIDA: MIAMI P. Scott Cunningham | University of Wynwood Imagine the brainy stimulation of college without the loans or homework. That's what poet Cunningham sought when he started the University of Wyn-wood to hold events promoting contemporary literature.Back to Top
GEORGIA: ATLANTA Michael Rich | Emory Community Building and Social Change Fellowship This interdisciplinary program, created by poli-sci prof Rich, gives Emory University students hands-on experience with community development.Back to Top
HAWAII: KAUAI Justin MacNaughton | GreenCar Hawaii MacNaughton's startup takes car sharing in a clever, locally driven direction perfect for tourist-centric communities: the hotel. Guests can rent by the hour, via kiosks in the hotel lobby.Back to Top
IDAHO: BOISE Trey McIntyre Project The story of how this avant-garde dance troupe, a 2008 transplant from N.Y.C., seduced its new hometown -- and how Boise has embraced it -- is a lesson in both arts marketing and the cultural sophistication of the heartland.Back to Top
ILLINOIS: CHICAGO Adrian Holovaty | EveryBlock A hyperlocal-news aggregator from web developer Holovaty, EveryBlock emphasizes data that are often hard to access, such as crime statistics and restaurant-inspection info.Back to Top
INDIANA: INDIANAPOLIS The National Design District This redevelopment, centered on an old auto factory, aims to build a neighborhood-wide incubator. Its live-work spaces are meant for professionals in the design fields.Back to Top
IOWA: DUBUQUE Smarter Sustainable Dubuque With a helping hand from IBM, the city of Dubuque is using cloud-computing technology to gather data on -- and ultimately cut levels of -- water and electric usage.Back to Top
KANSAS: OLATHE Olathe Works Well Clinic This pioneering clinic for current and retired city employees, which charges no copays and focuses on preventive health, is shaving millions of health-care dollars a year from the municipal budget.Back to Top
KENTUCKY: LEXINGTON Eric Patrick Marr | Lexenomics How can Lexington spur growth? Via communication and inspiration, Marr thinks. So he built Lexenomics, a project that holds networking gatherings and ideas-based events, including a speaker series to bring big thinkers to Kentucky.Back to Top
LOUISIANA: NEW ORLEANS Byron Mouton | Tulane University/Urbanbuild Mouton, an architecture professor, needs to train his students. New Orleans needs houses. Thus, Urbanbuild was born, with architecture students creating sustainable modern housing in the Lower Ninth Ward.Back to Top
MAINE: PORTLAND Susan Conley, Sara Corbett, and Mike Paterniti | The Telling Room At this writing center founded by a trio of journalists, youth are using storytelling to help boost literacy and self-confidence.Back to Top
MARYLAND: BALTIMORE The Baltimore Free School Anyone can teach and all classes are, yes, free at the Baltimore Free School, created by some of the staff at Red Emma's bookshop. The eclectic curriculum includes classes on film, font design, and European politics.Back to Top
MASSACHUSETTS: BOSTON Health Leads For the past 15 years, the not-for-profit Health Leads has been redefining medical care. In its holistic model, doctors can prescribe food, job training, and housing aid as easily as pharmaceuticals.Back to Top
MICHIGAN: DETROIT TechTown A stunning factoid: The fastest-growing tech-job market in the U.S. over the past year was Detroit. A key part of the equation is TechTown, an incubator started in 2004 by Wayne State University that's now home to 220 firms.Back to Top
MINNESOTA: MINNEAPOLIS Metro Transit Ride to Rewards In the nation's first public-transit frequent-rider program, you can collect points -- tradable for ride credits or Visa gift cards -- both by using the system and by shopping at partner retailers.Back to Top
MISSISSIPPI: PASS CHRISTIAN Evelina Shmukler | the Pass Christian Gazebo Gazette This newspaper, born after Hurricane Katrina, quickly became vital for a city that lacked a resource for local news and information. Started, owned, and operated by journalist Shmukler, the Gazebo Gazette doesn't claim to be objective; it's a proud community cheerleader.Back to Top
MISSOURI: ST. LOUIS Schlafly Bottleworks Over the past 20 years, this microbrewery has blossomed into a community hub, hosting lectures, foodie gatherings, and even a special series of Washington University classes.Back to Top
MONTANA: MISSOULA Urban Fringe Development Area Project This dynamic road map, coordinated jointly by the city of Missoula and Missoula County, is used to allocate where growth should go. The goal: to balance the needs of the booming population and Montana's fragile ecosystem.Back to Top
NEBRASKA: LINCOLN StarTran The local public-transit authority has worked hard to help reduce driving miles in the city to the lowest of any U.S. metro area with a population under 250,000. Also awesome: a program offering monthly bus passes to low-income residents for just $7.50.Back to Top
NEVADA: RENO Jason Geddes | City of Reno There's much talk of wind power today, but which turbines work best? Geddes, Reno's environmental-services administrator, is testing them side by side in a project that has deployed nine turbines in Nevada's third-biggest city.Back to Top
NEW HAMPSHIRE: MANCHESTER Emily Shakra | Building on Hope After Extreme Makeover: Home Edition did an episode in New Hampshire, Shakra was inspired to continue in that spirit, uniting local builders to aid those who need building help. Her current project: a group home for boys.Back to Top
NEW JERSEY: CAMDEN Dr. Jeffrey Brenner | Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers Brenner learned that 1% of those who used Camden's hospitals and clinics racked up 30% of costs. He hypothesized that microtargeting them for treatment would slash city health spending and save lives. He was right.Back to Top
NEW MEXICO: ALBUQUERQUE Calott + Gifford Architecture This award-winning firm specializes in city-revitalizing "infill" and brownfields projects.Back to Top
NEW YORK: BINGHAMTON The Design Your Own Park Competition Too often, amenities like parks are conceived by bureaucrats, not end users. Binghamton changed that with a contest that invites residents to plan revamps of neglected spaces. The first new parks will be finished this year.Back to Top
NORTH CAROLINA: CHARLOTTE The Charlotte Regional Partnership This group aims to build Charlotte into an energy R&D hub by emphasizing education and training. Its strength: buy-in from all quarters, including big business (Duke Energy calls Charlotte home), city government, and local universities.Back to Top
NORTH DAKOTA: FARGO Karen Stoker | Hotel Donaldson Every city needs smart entrepreneurs and good hosts. Stoker is both. She's the proprietor of Hotel Donaldson, Fargo's chicest lodging, a repository of creativity (each room was designed by an area artist), and a symbol of and a catalyst for the revitalization of this North Dakota city.Back to Top
OHIO: CINCINNATI Strive Partnership It takes a village -- or a whole city -- to boost education. Strive Partnership's "cradle-to-career" model unites more than 300 organizations and interest groups, including businesses, parents, and schools to do that in Cincy.Back to Top
OKLAHOMA: OKLAHOMA CITY Ron Norick | MAPS Some cities try to lure businesses to restore them- selves. As OKC mayor from 1987 to 1998, Norick realized the city needed to restore itself to lure business. His MAPS plan involved no debt; a voter-backed 1¢ sales tax paid for new infrastructure. Today, downtown is abuzz and the NBA's Thunder call OKC home.Back to Top
OREGON: PORTLAND Cindy Cooper | Portland State University Social Innovation Incubator Tech has incubators, but not-for-profits and social enterprises? Started last year by Cooper, the SII features a Circuit Program that provides six months of startup assistance to five new social entrepreneurs each year.Back to Top
PENNSYLVANIA: PHILADELPHIA Christian Kunkel | Startup Corps An initiative to back youth enterprise, Startup Corps has funded ventures such as a hip-hop label, a not-for-profit trying to make prom fiscally viable for low-income students, and a diner.Back to Top
RHODE ISLAND: PROVIDENCE Umberto Crenca | AS220 Crenca has shown how an arts not-for-profit can be a keystone of urban renewal. AS220's studio space, artist housing, and café/bar have helped boost a once-seedy area and lift property values.Back to Top
SOUTH CAROLINA: CLEMSON Jim Oswald | PinPoint Public Works This GPS -- based touch-screen platform, developed by Oswald, enables sanitation workers to log problems -- say, a pile of debris. The data are used to create a daily citywide "to-do" map to deploy staff smartly and save fuel.Back to Top
SOUTH DAKOTA: SIOUX FALLS Phillips to the Falls Revitalization The federally funded remake of an industrial riverfront area has boosted the city as a whole and shown the importance of partnerships, public and private.Back to Top
TENNESSEE: KNOXVILLE Alex Lavidge | Knoxville Overground The city's first coworking space attracts the self-employed who seek collaboration. Lavidge has also created a series of podcasts about Knoxville entrepreneurs. Back to Top
TEXAS: HOUSTON Rick Lowe | Project Row Houses A community-building program under the guise of a house-rehab/artist-support effort, Lowe's Project Row Houses boasts artist housing, meeting space, and redevelopment in a poor part of Houston.Back to Top
UTAH: SALT LAKE CITY Clear the Air Challenge Driving less has been a game in S.L.C. during each of the past two summers. Teams, formed to telecommute and carpool, cut pollution and shine a light on bad habits and conservation possibilities. The 2010 contest saved $735,000 in vehicle costs.Back to Top
VERMONT: BURLINGTON John Todd | Living Technologies Todd reconfigured Burlington's sewage-treatment plant to produce "gray water" that's clean enough for irrigation and toilet flushing. Bonus: Todd's system is half the price of a traditional sewage-treatment installation.Back to Top
VIRGINIA: NORFOLK Hannah Serrano | Art Everywhere Empty retail space plagues Main Street, U.S.A. Serrano decided to use barren Norfolk storefronts for a two-month-long art fair celebrating local creativity.Back to Top
WASHINGTON: SEATTLE Chris Martin | Dumpster-Free Alleys Former ad exec Martin started a company that has transformed waste management via a pay-as-you-dump model. Prices for recyclables are the lowest and regular garbage the highest.Back to Top
WEST VIRGINIA: HUNTINGTON Huntington's Kitchen Jamie Oliver started it in 2009, but keeping this community kitchen open after the cameras left has been hard. The payoff: Hundreds have learned to cook healthily, and Huntington is getting a new farmers' market.Back to Top
WISCONSIN: MILWAUKEE Milwaukee Public Market In 2005, after a decade of planning, the Milwaukee Public Market opened downtown. The market has anchored the rebirth of the Third Ward, which now typifies urban gentrification, with roaming hipsters and chichi design shops.Back to Top
WYOMING: CASPER Stephen Grimshaw A one-man low-income housing agency, builder Grimshaw pushes quality, amenities such as public art, and reuse of materials from historic sites. Next up: Wyoming's first LEED-certified residential complex.Back to Top
A version of this article appears in the May 2011 issue of Fast Company.
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Vesuvius: Preparing for an eruption
Cosmic Log: Scientists and civil authorities are vigorously debating how to prepare for a potential catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that famously buried Pompeii in AD 79.
Weird new fungus: Like humans without bones
A strange group of fungi with soft bodies instead of rigid cell walls has now been discovered all over the world. Discovering fungi without these hard structures would be akin to finding humans without any bones, the researchers explained.
Do Not Read This
There's growing concern among scientists that indulging in these ceaseless disruptions isn't good for our brains, in much the way that excessive sugar or fat - other things we evolved to crave when they were in shorter supply - isn't good for our bodies.
View Entire Story » | 0 CommentsSan Andreas Fault soft spot found, and it's clay
New data from a deep borehole that crosses the San Andreas Fault shows that the monster earthquake-maker has a soft center – and it's made of clay. This is the first time researchers have been able to rule out other reasons for the San Andreas' unusual behavior in part of California.
Pickens Encouraged by President Obama’s Call for a More Secure American Energy Future
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--T. Boone Pickens today released the following statement in response to remarks by President Obama at Georgetown University, where he outlined his plan for America’s energy security: “Today the President articulated the national security and economic threats associated with our escalating dependence on foreign oil. With the increasing price of gasoline, natural gas is an important domestic fuel at our disposal that can replace foreign oil to power heavy-duty fleet vehicle
Why Is Monsanto Backing an Algae Fuel Startup?
Monsanto, the often-vilified agriculture giant, has made a deal that could actually do some good for sustainable development: The company this week formed a partnership with and made an equity investment in algae fuel startup Sapphire Energy (no word on the terms of the arrangement). What's going on?
Sapphire's main research is in what it calls "green crude," or an algae-based liquid that can be turned into diesel, gas, and jet fuel. Monsanto doesn't care about this; it's interest is in Sapphire's genetic research. The startup's genetic technology will be leveraged by Monsanto to isolate traits in algae (i.e. crop yield and performance) that could be applied to to corn, cotton, soybean, and other crops sold by Monsanto.
The partnership will benefit Sapphire, too. "Monsanto has always been at the forefront of agricultural technology developments and innovation," said Jason Pyle, CEO of Sapphire Energy, in a statement. "Through this collaborative partnership, we'll focus our leading-edge research agenda on some of the biggest questions facing both agriculture and energy. By leveraging our algae platform and tools to improve crop yield and enhance crop performance, Sapphire will be able to accelerate our ability to produce a renewable crude oil replacement and reduce our country's dependence on foreign oil."
Cash and research from Monsanto could give Sapphire a leg up on its many algae fuel competitors, which include Solazyme and Synthetic Genomics. This doesn't make it any easier to stomach Monsanto's latest moves in the world of genetically modified crops, but at least some of the company's money is going toward valuable clean energy research.
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