globalbriefs


News and resources to inspire concerned citizens to work together in building a healthier, stronger society that benefits all.


Noodle Doodle Creativity on Tap


Creativity is often perceived as an unpredictable event, the product of an unexpected “Aha!” moment. But a pair of Michigan psychologists, Mareike Wieth, of Albion College, and Rose Zacks, of Michigan State University, decided to research the concept. They discovered that problems requiring a flash of illumination to solve are best approached during the time of day when thinkers are not actually at what they feel is their peak. Reporting their findings in the journal Thinking and


Reasoning, they assigned 428 students to fill out a questionnaire with 19 questions, including, “What time would you get up if you were entirely free to plan your day?” and “How much do you depend upon an alarm clock?” Participants were categorized as morning, evening or neutral types and ran- domly assigned to a morning or afternoon testing session. Some problems were analytic in nature, others were inspiration-based. While the more logical type of problem solving showed no statistical difference, morning people scored higher on the insight-demanding challenges in the late afternoon, and vice versa. Wieth and Zacks believe the results depend upon an inhibitory process that


suppresses distracting information. It is thought that this system performs less ef- ficiently when individuals are less alert, allowing random thoughts to enter the decision-making process, resulting in more creative thinking.


Bunker Hunker Down is the New Up


Designer Matthew Fromboluti, of Washington University, in St. Louis, Missouri, has turned conventional wisdom about modern construction upside-down with his architectural design, Above/Below, submitted for the eVolo Skyscraper Competition. His underground skyscraper would theo- retically fill a 900-foot-deep, 300-acre- wide crater left by the Lavender Pit copper mine, in Bisbee, Arizona. A cone-shaped, inverted tower


would allow people to live, work and even grow food in a huge cavern, covered by a dome. The building is designed to maintain a comfortable temperature via a passive climate-control system suited to the hot desert environment. A solar chim- ney provides natural ventilation as the sun heats the air at the surface, causing it to rise and draw cooler air up through vents at the bottom. The moving air passes through wind turbines at the top of the chimney, generating electricity. Fromboluti’s aim is to atone for the mine’s destruction of the landscape by


finding new ways to harvest the energy that went into excavating it, suggesting that no design should be considered “off the table” when planning for the future.


Source: ForumForTheFuture.org 12


NA Twin Cities Edition natwincities.com


Trash Fashions The Rehabilitation of Plastic


The rap on most plastic is that al- though it can be recycled, it doesn’t decompose in landfills. For a period of time, the city of Houston halted its composting of household yard waste due to the cost of having to cut and empty the plastic bags used in curb- side pickup, even though the annual landfill fees exceeded $1 million. But now the service has resumed, based on the use of new, compostable plas- tic bags that require no special han- dling; the city even garners income from sales of composted clippings. Dinnerware, such as utensils, plates and cups, is another niche market in which advocates see potential for use of compostable plastics, especially by cafeterias, restaurants and other institutions. Not only are such items not biodegrad- able, they often end up being thrown out with food waste. Biodegradable polymers that


break down in a matter of months are more expensive; for example, the BASF company’s Ecoflex ma- terial costs about two-and-a-half times more than the polyethylene it replaces. But proponents say that it provides value by enabling the large- scale collection of organic waste, such as grass clippings and food, and that the potential for growth is enormous.


Source: Chemical & Engineering News


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