The whole deal is being put together by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and industrial design company IGI Corp. The plan involves a gigantic solar panel floating around in space, soaking up a gigawatt of energy and beaming it to Earth without the use of cables. And they hope to have it ready to rock within four years.

Pretty amazing stuff. Here’s hoping it works well and doesn’t end up giving the entire country of Japan cancer. Thanks for testing that whole thing out for us, guys! [Bloomberg via Inhabitat]

Officials had decided to level several hills in mountainous Hanjiagen village in northern China’s Shanxi province to make way for new homes, reports the Red Network.

Qu Liming, 60, refused to move his family from their home on one of the hills – but workers started digging out the soil around his house.

“My son drove his car in front of the house to stop the bulldozers from digging the soil, but unexpectedly, they dug out all the soil around the car, leaving the car perched on top of an isolated island,” he said.

Now the family cannot drive their silver Chevrolet – and have to climb a vertical cliff face to reach their home.

“Each day we really have to climb into the house, since the soil has been removed, and it’s a vertical cliff for us,” added Qu.

“I built the house hoping to spend the rest of my life there, but now we have no neighbours, no way in and out, no communications. What should I do?”

Village officials refused to comment.

The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This tree produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves.

Cherrapunji is credited with being the wettest place on earth, and The War-Khasis, a tribe in Meghalaya, long ago noticed this tree and saw in its powerful roots an opportunity to easily cross the area’s many rivers. Now, whenever and wherever the need arises, they simply grow their bridges.

In order to make a rubber tree’s roots grow in the right direction – say, over a river – the Khasis use betel nut trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create root-guidance systems.
The thin, tender roots of the rubber tree, prevented from fanning out by the betel nut trunks, grow straight out. When they reach the other side of the river, they’re allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.

The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional, but they’re extraordinarily strong – strong enough that some of them can support the weight of fifty or more people at a time

Because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time – and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over five hundred years old.

All the credit for this post goes to Atlas Obscura’s Wonderful Post on living root bridges

Green ecological products are becoming more popular, we now recognize those companies that realize the importance of green ecological products. Our efforts to preserve earth to have clean water, clear skies and contaminate free soil, trying to reverse our current path of filling the air and water and soil with toxins and contaminants, perhaps we can return to a pristine earth by choosing green ecological products, we will be taking steps in the right direction. If you have noticed the various forms of pollution and the damage they cause to the world around us harming the ecosystems, animals and humans, it’s plain to see the importance of choosing green ecological products.

There are various different categories for Green ecological products to go under.

organic certified, in general it means produced without pesticides or harmful fertilizes, a good choice for a green ecological product. Britannica defines it as the following “there’s some variation: the National Organic Standards Board considers organic agriculture to be “an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony.”

Green A green product, is environmentally and socially responsible, respectful of the world and the natural environment, it is a term used more so in the electronic industry, but also applies to many other industries as they aim to use less harmful components, bio-plastics less packaging, trying to eliminate harmful chemicals like fire retardants, all things green ecological.

Environmentally friendly has two dictionary definition they are #1 ‘Not damaging to the environment, or directed at preventing environmental damage.’ #2 ‘Minimizing harm to natural world: designed to minimize harm to the natural world, e.g. by using biodegradable ingredients. So being friendly to the environment is definitely doable, and these green ecological products can become more commonplace’

Fair trade, It is a socially conscious program that prevents the workers from being exploited, and ensuring they get a fair wage, a popular fair trade program has been associated with coffee such as kicking horse and Jane Goodall’s brand.

Recycled, things are new products made from old, be it of plastic cardboard metal paper or glass, these materials are given a new lease of life, or by simply donating used items to thrift stores.

Sustainable Forestry, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) put their mark on products that respect the forest ecosystems, wildlife habitats, local communities and water quality, to meet their standards, the wood and resulting products are tracked from beginning to end for complying to the correct standards.

Green ecological products come in all forms, but invariably are of some benefit to our world, it is also possible to choose products that can be recycled like paper, or provide recycling such as composters, an invaluable service highly recommend, worms or standard composters and the composting toilet, helping to keep sewage out of the ocean. Reducing waste input to landfills and methane gas production is an important consideration for individuals and industries although some resourceful companies have been able to harness the methane output and to use it for manufacturing thus producing green ecological products.