Photos: © Timothy Hursley - The Arkansas Office

10 Akron Street, Kyu Sung Woo's smart new graduate student housing complex for Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, has received high praise from the US Green Building Council: a Gold LEED rating.

Among other sustainable touches, the 115,000 sq ft brick-and-timber building features regionally-sourced siding with recycled content, bamboo flooring and wall paneling, and low-VOC finishes, while building systems are designed and engineered to minimize energy usage. Inside, two-story study lounges and other public spaces rendered in warm tones help to foster a sense of community. And each apartment is designed for maximum flexibility.

:: So you want to make the switch to green energy but don't know where to start? Check out our guide to Finding Green Energy Anywhere!

:: Video games are hugely popular, and in many ways they are green (certainly more energy efficient than driving around). Here are 5 tips to make your video games even greener.

:: Don't know what to do this winter? Here's why you should visit your local library!

Coconuts in the Trunk
Researchers from Baylor University have figured out a way to make trunk liners, floorboards, and car-door interior covers using using fibers from the outer husks of coconuts. Usually these are made from synthetic polyester fibers. This sounds like a (small) win, though we have some reservations. Read on for more.

image credit: The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles

There are many factors that keep people in jobs they hate; in America, one of them is health insurance. Steph Larsen writes at the Ethicurian how the lack of health care is impeding America's agricultural revival.

We hear frequently about the need for new and younger farmers, but there are many barriers to attracting young people to farm in a way that will foster sustainable local food systems. One of them, however, looms bigger than the rest:

Access to affordable, dependable health care.

Recent Comment by Ernie : "Translation: There are many barriers to attracting young people to farming, so ..." [read]

Looking at it, you'd think it would be hard to miss. But this rare pink iguana, referred to as "rosada," evaded Charles Darwin and many other biologists and explorers when they visited the Galapagos island. Read on for more.

Paleo-future

Over-the-top architect Morris Lapidus (where Mies said "less is more", Lapidus said "too much is never enough") also noted about cities that "a car never bought anything.". Others also thought that the way to save our cities was to get the cars off the streets and turn them into pedestrian malls. In the wonderful comic "Closer than we Think! Arthur Radebaugh thought so too. He wrote in 1959:

The test will be conducted off of South Georgia Island, pictured here. Photo: NASA via Wikipedia

TreeHugger has covered plans for ocean iron fertilization a number of times and the basic premise goes like this: By fertilizing parts of the ocean with iron filings you can increase the rate of photosynthesis in phytoplankton, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide which can be absorbed by the ocean. There the greenhouse gas emissions can be sequestered for long enough that global warming can be slowed.

One concern though is the effect that this will have on ocean ecosystems. Now, following a discovery by a British Royal Navy vessel off the coast of Antarctica, some of these concerns have been allayed enough for a test of the procedure near South Georgia Island:

Photo via Gizmodo

New battery technology in the 17" MacBook Pro was shown off at MacWorld today, which lays claim to a battery life improvement of 60%. The new battery can last up to 8 hours on a charge, and can be charged 1,000 times, equivalent to about 5 years. It's also recyclable at the end of it's life. But there are even more green features to this new technology.

Recent Comment by Sirerdrick : "I'm with mystech. I hate that companies (apple in particular) that don't allow for qui..." [read]