Building A Tiny Organic Swimming Pool With Natural Filtering

When we think of swimming pools, we typically think of large fiberglass, plastic, or concrete constructions full of pristine, clear water. They’re usually maintained in this state with the regular addition of chlorine or other chemical. These kill biological stuff and help filter out dirt and other detritus. However,  [David] likes to do things differently, as he demonstrates with a tiny plunge pool built inside his greenhouse.

The basic construction starts with digging a hole and building up a wall with concrete and bricks. There’s nothing particularly controversial there. It’s roughly 2 meters by 3 meters by 0.8 meters deep. To help the pool maintain heat, there’s a layer of foam insulation in the bottom, while the water is held inside a black liner.

Rather than traditional chemical methods, however, [David] relies on organic methods to maintain the pool. He explains how he uses an aquarium pump to create a “bubble filtered” pool that draws water through a gravel bed to maintain it and keep it clear. It’s a very natural setup, with multiple plants in the water to make it as organic as can be. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see at a luxury island resort, but [David’s] got one right in his very own greenhouse.  [David] explains the organic filtering concept in greater detail on his website.

We’ve featured some pool hacks before, too, though more traditional ones than this. Video after the break.

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Solar Chimneys: Viable Energy Solution Or A Lot Of Hot Air?

We think of the power we generate as coming from all these different kinds of sources. Oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind… so varied! And yet they all fundamentally come down to moving a gas through a turbine to actually spin up a generator and make some juice. Even some solar plants worked this way, using the sun’s energy to heat water into steam to spin some blades and keep the lights on.

A solar updraft tower works along these basic principles, too, but in a rather unique configuration. It’s not since the dawn of the Industrial Age that humanity went around building lots of big chimneys, and if this technology makes good sense, we could be due again. Let’s find out how it works and if it’s worth all the bluster, or if it’s just a bunch of hot air.

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The Pros And Cons Of Hydrofoils

Hydrofoils have fascinated naval architects and marine designers for years. Fitted with underwater wings, these designs traverse the waters at great speed with a minimum of drag. As with many innovative technologies, though, the use of hydrofoils is riddled with challenges that often offset the vast benefits they offer.

While hydrofoils promise a better marine transportation experience, their adoption hasn’t been smooth sailing. In this article, we’ll dive deep into the potential and pitfalls of hydrofoil designs, and look at the unique niches this technology serves today.

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Could Moon Dust Help Reduce Global Temperatures?

The impacts of climate change continue to mount on human civilization, with warning signs that worse times are yet to come. Despite the scientific community raising an early warning as to the risks of continued air pollution and greenhouse gas output, efforts to stem emissions have thus far had minimal impact. Continued inaction has led some scientists to consider alternative solutions to stave off the worst from occurring.

Geoengineering has long been touted as a potential solution for our global warming woes. Now, the idea of launching a gigantic dust cloud from the moon to combat Earth’s rising temperatures is under the spotlight. However, this very sci-fi solution has some serious implications if pursued, if humanity can even achieve the feat in the first place.

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The Challenge Of Weather Modification In The Face Of Climate Change

Over the past decades we have been able to observe a change in the Earth’s climate, caused by an increasing amount of energy being retained in the atmosphere. This in turn has affected weather systems around the globe, causing more extreme weather. As a result, the prospect of weather control is more relevant than ever for the nations which are most directly impacted by severe rain and winds.  Although the concept of weather modification is not new, it used to be primarily focused on rather limited aspects, such as cloud seeding to increase precipitation.

Recent proposals such as Japan’s weather modification moonshot program seek to find ways to prevent or lessen the impact of torrential rains, typhoons and similar extreme weather events which accompany climate change.  This proposal is part of Japan’s multi-topic Moonshot R&D program which seeks to advance the state of the art in a wide range of fields in a very significant way by 2050. As far as weather modification is concerned, this naturally raises many questions. Clearly we are capable of affecting the climate through emissions of e.g. greenhouse gases and large-scale construction, but are there ways in which humans can affect the climate and weather in a more refined manner that benefits society, or is this something which will remain beyond our grasp for the foreseeable future?

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The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis: Unearthing Puzzles Of Warming Events Past

As the Earth continues to warm at a worrying rate, scientists continue to work to understand the processes and mechanisms at play. Amidst the myriad of climate-related theories and discussions, the clathrate gun hypothesis stands out not only for its intriguing name but for the profound implications it might have on our understanding of global warming events.

Delving into this hypothesis is akin to reading a detective novel written by Mother Earth, with clues hidden deep beneath the ocean and Arctic ice. It’s a great example of how scientists attempt to predict the future by unpicking the mysteries of the past.

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Miners Vs NASA: It’s A Nevada Showdown

Mining projects are approved or disapproved based on all kinds of reasons. There are economic concerns, logistical matters, and environmental considerations to be made. Mining operations can be highly polluting, or they can have outsized effects on a given area by sheer virtue of the material they remove or the byproducts they leave behind.

For a proposed lithium mining operation north of Las Vegas, though, an altogether stranger objection has arisen. NASA has been using the plot of land as a calibration tool, and it doesn’t want any upstart miners messing with its work. 

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