global briefs
Jolly Good King of Bhutan
Requests Selfless Gift
The King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, turned 40 years old on
February 21. Rather than ask for gifts, he asked his people to either plant a tree, adopt a stray animal or clean up their neighborhood in his honor. The Himalayan nation is consistently ranked one of the most eco-friendly countries in the world. In May 2016, Wangchuck and his wife celebrated the birth of their firstborn son by asking each of the
nation’s households to plant a sapling, resulting in more than 108,000 trees planted.
Wild Things
Wildness a Big Factor in Urban Parks A new study led by the University of Washington (UW) has found that not all forms of nature are created equal when considering benefits to people’s well-being. Experiencing wildness is particularly important for physical and mental health, according to the study published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable
Cities. This is the first study to show that wildness in urban areas is profoundly important for human well-being. “The wilder areas in an urban park seem to be affording more benefits to people, and their most meaningful interactions depended on those relatively wild features,” says lead author Elizabeth Lev, a graduate student in the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Senior author Peter Kahn, a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences and psychology, says, “Everywhere, development is chipping away at wild areas. Humanity has caused so much destruction and there’s no stopping it—unless we stop. We’re trying to show that if you’re going to develop an area, you at least need to understand the human costs.” The researchers hope studies like this can be used as part of the decision- making process for development proposals in parks and urban natural areas. They compiled their analysis methods into a handbook that can be used in other cities around the world.
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Charging Ahead New Batteries From Fruit Waste Carbon aerogels that exhibit high specific surface areas, high proportions of mesopores and significant levels of nitrogen doping have been developed for the first time using waste from durian fruit and jackfruit scraps using a chemical- free, green synthesis procedure. According to the Journal of Energy Storage, the electrodes also displayed long-term cycling stability and rapid charge–discharge processes. Both electrodes are attractive candidates for the next generation, high- performance, yet low-cost supercapacitors for energy storage devices derived from biowastes.
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