News
Different cities for better health
More and more people are living in cities, scientists predict that noncommunicable diseases will account for 77% of the global burden of disease by 2030, and now research from the University Medical Center in Mainz, Germany, shows that urbanization exacerbates the risks of such diseases.
Maker Break 2
Ok, so this series ended up being very very irregular, but here’s another few maker projects of interest.
Reconciliation with nature starts in our yards
Sometimes, to discover opportunities to change our surroundings for the better, it’s just a question of reassessing what we are used to, looking at the defaults, and then finding what’s actually needed and appropriate to the current context and needs. The Nouveaux voisins / New Neighbors project does exactly that, by looking at something we barely notice, private yards, and finding ways of re-inventing them. They want to facilitate socio-ecological transitions and community-based climate action with a platform that brings together functions that are “pedagogical, actionable, evaluational, financial, and regulatory.”
Guerilla Wi-Fi
They’ve been around since the early 2000s but have never gained much prominence since most of them are operated by volunteers and often face policy and lobbying headwinds. However, that kind of community infrastructure remains important as decent Internet becomes an ever more essential part of every day life but is not evenly distributed across neighbourhoods. ‘Welcome to the Mesh, Brother’ is a good article on the topic that shows how they work, but perhaps more importantly how oligopolies—in this case in New York but it’s a common issue elsewhere—still have to be forced into providing quality service in less affluent parts of the city and constantly delay.
Videos
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