Tata Motors achieved world fame a few years ago with the Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world at just over $2000.

Since then there has been no stopping Tata from taking a bold initiative in automotive design along with sound manangement and responsible societal policies.  Tata acquired the loss making Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford just before the recession and turned them around into profit making companies.

At Geneva this year, Tata introduced the Megapixel, a bold and stunning little car capable of about 237 mpg fuel efficiency.  Combining a lithion ion phosphate battery pack with a small gas motor for continuous recharging, the car achieves an astonishing range of 562 miles while emitting a paltry 35 gm/mile (22gm/km) of CO2.  The Megapixel earns further stripes as a city car by adding independent drive motors in each wheel, allowing for an extremely tight 2.8m turning radius and the ability to park in tight spots.

The design of the double doors is unique allowing for easy access through elimination of the B pillar and allowing for them to be opened in tight spots.  Hats off to Tata on a spectacular design.

http://www.tata.com/article.aspx?artid=Q9Vcm3K6M3k=

Now scientists have a way of determining the condition of your telomeres and thereby predicting your life span. We are all aware that our lifespan also depends on other factors such as one's lifestyle, eating habits and activity level.  Would knowing the life span encourage people to lead a more healthy and active lifestyle or would it lead to gloom and depression? In any case, it would probably help to plan one's life better.

For more information see the link below:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Soon-a-simple-blood-test-to-reveal-your-lifespan-and-pace-of-ageing/articleshow/11920297.cms

Zojila introduces the Isis paper towel roll holder!

The Isis and Shasta share the same design style and elements.

Each has a base, a post, an arm and a weight. Both employ gravity

to do the job, eliminating springs or other tensioning devices.

For several years now, thanks to the trade imbalance between the US and China, ports on the US  west coast have had more containers coming in from China than going out.  This is inevitable considering how much goods are imported into the country from China.  Empty containers are not shipped back, instead they accumulate.  In some towns, empty containers piled one on top of each other have actually reduced daylight hours in communities close by simply by blocking the sun.

These containers are made of corrugated steel and are incredibly strong.  Some are even insulated.  It was only a matter of time before something had to be done and thankfully there are many creative and useful solutions for this problem.  They make good housing compartments with some modifications.  If you have a plot of land and want a dwelling on it at low cost, just put one of these on there.  Containers can be had for as low as $5k.

However architects have come up with ingenious solutions on a much grander scale and they look great.  For more information, check out this article:

http://www.ecomagination.com/working-inside-the-box-shipping-container-buildings-catch-on

While it may not directly affect the person wearing dry cleaned clothes, it can cause enormous harm to our water supplies

and harm future generations.  What we need is more regulation from the EPA to prevent industries from poisoning the

common environment so that they can get rich.  Without regulation human greed will certainly destroy the earth.  And one

day, the richest companies in the world will be the ones that sell clean water.  A resource that was once freely and easily

available could become so scarce that it would be the oil of the future.

http://www.rodale.com/causes-mental-illness

It would be worthwhile to examine this concept further.  One would imagine that the complex would include housing, offices, shopping complexes, entertainment centers, restaurants and maybe even factories where people would work.  It would need to have schools and colleges and even sports venues.  It would need massive amounts of power, some of which it would probably generate from solar and wind sources.  It would have to dispose of its own waste or whatever is left over after recycling.  In short it would have to do pretty much everything that a regular city does.  The main advantage that such a concept would have is in its compactness and density.  It would of course make it unnecessary to own a car, since the only transportation would be vertically in elevators.  Even the elevators could be sustainable if they worked regeneratively, using gravity to produce power on downward trips to be consumed for powered upward trips.  Another huge advantage of this concept would be in the large energy savings in heating and cooling since the exposed surface area would be minimal compared to individual housing units.  Triple paned windows would provide insulation and heat loss would be minimal.  Power generating turbines would provide electricity and the exhaust from the turbines would provide heating, cooling and sanitary hot water.  The promotors claim 50% more energy efficiency than the power grid.

The other obvious advantage of this vertical city would be that it would free up surrounding land from development.  The areas surrounding it could be developed into green cover which itself would more than offset any carbon emitted from the vertical city.  One would think that the negatives would be in the energy required to move raw materials vertically but at least in the case of water supply, some of it could be harvested at different levels in the bulding so that they need not be pumped too far.

All in all, I think this is an idea worth considering, especially with the urbanisation of the worlds major population centers.

For more information download the pdf brochure here: http://www.broad.com:8089/english/product/bsb/bsb.asp

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/feature/green-phone/green-apps-mobile-phones.html

The art of vegan body building.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/sports/vegans-muscle-their-way-into-bodybuilding.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

http://www.thehindu.com/business/companies/article2771631.ece?homepage=true