It was late afternoon at Opower headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, but the energy start-up’s hive mind was thrumming steadily. “Let’s take a walk,” said Marc Laitin, senior director of consumer marketing. “I think best when I’m moving.” Laitin is a typical Opower manager — Harvard educated, safely under 40, animated like a street theater puppet, and dressed like he was going to a Decemberists’ concert. He set off down the hall on a talking jag, punctuating his ideas with wild arms. He wanted to make an idea about turning down the heat in winter go viral. People ... Read More
Breeding Tropical Fish to Save Their Schools
Inside her humid Texas lab, Joan Holt weaves through 36 tall, cylindrical PVC tanks containing the nearly invisible larvae of one of the tropical fish species she studies. In each tank, the oxygen and salinity levels are slightly different. These tanks, with their unique filtering systems, are nothing like the home tanks familiar to ornamental-fish enthusiasts, but the research and innovations they represent just may change the $1 billion aquarium industry. Holt, a 70-year-old aquaculture specialist, is renowned for her groundbreaking research at the University of Texas Marine Science ... Read More
Library Parks Foster Community in Colombia
Three teenagers are break-dancing in the courtyard of a government building in Medellín, Colombia. A boom box blares hip-hop — pure bass against the concrete walls. A dozen other teens sit cross-legged or lean against backpacks. Johana Pabon stands near the building’s glass entryway staring at the break-dancers, arms crossed, hips thrust sideways, eyes narrowed. Her tight smile, though, shows unmistakable pride. “They have this space,” she says. “They can use it whenever they want.” Pabon is a docent at the Parque Biblioteca San Javier, which opened in 2006 — one of nine ... Read More
Street Makeovers Put New Spin on the Block
The recession may have robbed city governments of the wherewithal to enhance public places. But some undaunted architects, planners, and community activists are trying urban design experiments that are deliberately cheap, temporary, and unofficial. And sometimes these modest but audacious interventions lead to altered municipal policies and lasting changes in the cityscape. Take an effort called the Better Block, which launched with an unofficial event in Dallas in April 2010. For one weekend, community activists anted up just under $1,000 and used mostly borrowed materials and their own ... Read More
U.S. Planting Seeds of Peace in Afghanistan
Samuel Rance speaks with a twang and his favorite band is Tool. One morning last spring, he was sitting at a picnic table on Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan, seven months into his deployment. His team had just finished Operation Thrasher, a training class in composting for farmers in the nearby city of Khost. Behind him were several acres of wheat and fruit trees, and a greenhouse. He and his team members — the Indiana National Guard’s 3-19th Agribusiness Development Team — had planted the grain and the trees, and built the greenhouse. Beyond the farm were the ... Read More
Returning Warriors Go to Work, in the Fields
At age 25, Marine Sgt. Colin Archipley had completed three tours in Iraq. “My unit was redeploying,” he says. “A lot of the guys I served with were going back because they couldn’t find jobs; I worried it would be hard to find something after I separated from the military and thought about going with them.” His wife Karen convinced her husband to trade his tank for a tractor and turn a 5-acre plot they’d bought near San Diego into a small-scale organic farm. A year later, in 2007, Karen and Colin had launched Archi’s Acres, growing basil, avocados, lemons, kale, chard, and ... Read More
Tattoo Remorse Spawns New Business
Buffy Martin Tarbox was 22 when she got her first tattoo. It was a 4-by-3-inch, black and red circle above a cross — the symbol for women—on her arm. Less than a month later, she added a second tattoo: a black Celtic knot on her other arm. But when Martin Tarbox reached her mid-30s, she decided it was time for the ink to go. “When I got the tattoos, like most people, I was young,” she says. “Believe me, I regret it. I’m a professional woman now.” Roughly a third of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 have at least one tattoo, according to a 2008 Harris Poll. So do a ... Read More
Turning Cellphones Into Mobile Microscopes
You can use your cellphone to take pictures, get driving directions, and free imprisoned angry birds. And perhaps soon, analyze microscopic blood samples. Three separate University of California research teams have each concocted a new technology that converts just about any handset with a decent camera into a mobile microscope. That’s a development that could have a huge impact on medicine in developing countries-allowing health care workers in shantytowns and rural villages far from a hospital to diagnose malaria, HIV, and other diseases on the spot. All three teams of UC researchers ... Read More
Work-Life Balance Benefits Low-Wage Workers, Employers
In late summer, with the back-to-school shopping season in full swing, a small group of clothing retailers in Chicago will challenge convention by offering their low-wage, mostly part-time workers a list of perks normally reserved for management: flexible hours, time off when needed, and a locked-in schedule of shifts that allows workers to plan a full month, rather than a few days, in advance. If researchers overseeing the experiment are correct, higher worker satisfaction at those stores will boost employee morale, retention rates and productivity, pushing labor costs down and revenues ... Read More
Beyond PTSD: Soldiers Have Injured Souls
John Fisher got his soul back when he visited a cemetery in Greece. Shelley Corteville felt "rocketed" into healing when she told her story at a veterans' retreat after 28 years of silence. Bob Cagle lost his decades-long urge to commit suicide after an encounter at a Buddhist temple. These veterans and thousands like them grapple with what some call "the war after the war" — the psychological scars of conflict. Working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and private organizations, these men and women are employing treatments both radically new and centuries old. At the ... Read More
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 6
- Next Page»
