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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.
Apple's new headquarters is perhaps the most hotly anticipated building in the country, and the company just released a new set of images of the spaceship-shaped building. The new renderings provide a detailed look inside the ring-shaped building. Another ambitious proposal could be coming to life: The folks behind a futuristic marine-research vessel known as the SeaOrbiter just launched a crowdfunding campaign. Construction on the knife-shaped vessel is expected to begin next spring. On the gadget front, a pair of engineering students at Duke University has discovered a new way to charge smartphones with WiFi -- and they say the power-harvesting device is even more efficient than a USB charger.
Check out this pedestrian bridge that China wants to build over the Dragon King Harbor River in Changsha, China. It’s all wavy and crazy and I don’t know about you, but this lazy American is getting winded just looking at it.
This bridge was designed by Amsterdam based NEXT Architects and construction is scheduled to begin next year. I’m kind of saddened though. This was the perfect opportunity for them to build a dragon bridge. I mean, they already have the wavy body. They just need a giant dragon’s head at both ends. But nope. No dragon. Vietnam has one, why not China?
The design of the nearly 500-foot-long bridge is supposed to resemble traditional Chinese knots and/or a Möbius strip. Booo! I just want a dragon. Failing that, a roller coaster ride to the other side would have been cool too. Seriously though, it’s pretty cool.
[via designboom via Laughing Squid]
When something particularly bad or painful happens, some people just withdraw and never come out of their cocoons. They can recover slowly or they can get worse and one day decide that they want nothing more than to end it all.
So many of the latter go to the Mapo Bridge in South Korea to do just that. Between the years 2007 and 2012, more than a hundred people jumped from the bridge in attempts to end their lives. They might not have gotten the help they needed previously, but you can at least convince them otherwise at the last minute. That’s what the Seoul City government is trying to do in collaboration with Samsung Life Insurance.
Instead of constructing high fences or a suicide barrier on the bridge, they added interactive handrails that address passersby directly. They’re embedded with motion sensors to detect the presence of anyone near them, so when someone passes by, the handrail lights up with an inspiring quote or message that were written with the help of psychologists and suicide prevention specialists.
A sample message is as follows: “How have you been? Have you eaten? If you need to talk, why don’t you talk to us?” This is then followed by a number for a suicide hotline.
Since launching the project, the Seoul City government claims suicide rates from the Mapo Bridge have dropped 77%. This potential lifesaver is just ingenious, and while it won’t solve the underlying problems of potential jumpers, it could convince them to get the help they need before taking their lives.
[via CRAVE Australia via C|NET]