A Smart Menstrual Cup That Tracks Your Period And Makes Sure You’re Healthy Http://ift.tt/1Ltl8JD

Want to know more about how millions of people are forced to pick cotton by the Government of Uzbekistan every year?

This video explains the issue clearly in just two minutes:

Could Europe Be Powered by African Solar Energy?

For a long time, people looking for big fixes to climate change have been talking about building huge solar installations in North Africa, which gets a lot more sun than most of the places where solar power is big — Germany, for example. But now, it looks as if someone finally is doing it.

Next month in Ouarzazate, Morocco, the first portion of what eventually will be the world’s biggest concentrated solar power plant – called Noor I – is set to go online, according to the Guardian, a British newspaper.

Eventually, when the entire $10 billion complex, which is being financed with assistance from the World Bank and European Union, is completed in 2020, it will generate 580 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide a big portion of Morocco’s energy needs while still leaving plenty of juice for export. The complex could prevent 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being spewed into the atmosphere each year.

The plant uses an ingenious technology for getting the most out of sunlight. A huge array of 500,000 crescent-shaped mirrors focus sunlight and transmit it to a single point on a tower. (The mirrors actually have tiny computers in them, which adjust the angle throughout the day to gather the most energy.)

The plant could turn Morocco, which depends upon fossil fuel imports to fill 94 percent of its energy needs, into a major producer of electricity for export. Find out how by clicking here.

Drilling for oil on Venice Beach | Via

Native Americans first discovered oil in California, as it seeped to the surface of the earth. They used it as a lubricant and sealant for canoes. It was later used for similar purposes by Spanish colonizers.

As the state’s population boomed in the decades following the gold rush of 1849, there was a rapidly growing demand for petroleum.

Drilled in 1876, the first commercially successful oil well in California was Well No. 4 in the Pico Canyon Oilfield in the Santa Susana Mountains.

More discoveries followed, from the Los Angeles City Oil Field in 1892 to Huntington Beach in 1920 and Long Beach in 1921.

By 1920, California was producing 77 million barrels of oil a year, and vast stretches of the state were occupied by derricks, drilling rigs and refineries.

In places such as Venice, California (now known as Marina del Rey), oil derricks ran right up to the shore, mingling with residential neighborhoods and pristine beaches.

The astonishing story of Xavier Plassat, a French friar who has fought slavery for decades in the Brazilian Amazon, via Vanity Fair.

READ the abolitionist’s compelling tale here that brought him to the frontlines of 21st century slavery.

What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea 

Check in: The Tokyo hotel where guests can curl up with 1,700 good books

Book and Bed, a new Tokyo hotel, has created the sort of space that is impossible to leave. It is a cheap and cheerful dorm with a difference: guests’ bunk beds are hidden behind library shelves filled with hundreds of books in Japanese and English. | Read more

Researchers at MIT have developed a new method for harnessing energy generated by very small bending motions, which could be capable of harvesting power from a broader range of natural human activities such as walking and exercising.

Yale Environment 360: New Device Harvests Energy From Walking and Exercising, Researchers Say

Study: Superconducting Technologies Will Soon Be Used for Transportation, Power Storage