Christmas Tree from a Thousand Beer Bottles

At the start of every Christmas season, environmentalists inevitably spark the real-versus-artificial tree debate. But this year, Chinese designers decided to take an entirely different approach to celebrate the holiday, crafting a huge tree from 1,000 Heineken bottles. The massive sculpture is currently providing some festive flair to Nanjing Road in Shanghai, China.

Although the bottles provide the tree with its breathtaking green hue, the statue’s design is not so eco-friendly. Instead of diverting empties from the recycling bin and repurposing them, designers opted to use full beer bottles to make the tree! 

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The Copenhagen Wheel

The Copenhagen Wheel, unveiled by MIT students at the COP15 Climate
Change Conference, may not look like anything special. But in reality,
it’s a treasure trove of bicycle wheel technology, complete with a
kinetic energy recovery system (KERS), sensors, a smart lock, and a
Bluetooth connection to the rider’s iPhone.

The KERS system is activated when the user brakes. Energy from the
braking action is stored in the wheel, where it can be recovered by an
electric motor for later use. The wheel’s onboard sensors monitor bike
speed, distance traveled, direction, pollution levels, and proximity
of friends on the road. All info collected by the sensors is sent via
Bluetooth to the rider’s iPhone, which can be mounted on the
handlebars for easy access.

Worried about using such a high-tech wheel in theft-prone cities? The
Copenhagen Wheel’s smart lock sends a text message to users if someone
tries to steal the bike, greatly decreasing the likelihood of a
successful theft.

The wheel is expected to go into production next year at a price
comparable to that of standard electric bikes. The city of Copenhagen
might even use bikes retrofitted with the wheel as a substitute for
city employee cars — a lofty goal, but one that could help Copenhagen
become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital city by 2025.

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A polictical meet in the shadows of Mount Everest

A group of Nepalese ministers have gathered in the Mount Everest
region for a Cabinet meeting being billed as the highest ever — a
stunt meant to highlight the threat global warming poses to Himalayan
glaciers.
Nepal's cabinet is due to hold a meeting on a plateau 5,262 metres
(17,192 feet) high, in the shadow of Mount Everest, to draw attention
to the effects of global warming before the climate change summit in
Copenhagen.
Scientists say the Himalayan glaciers are melting at an alarming rate
and creating huge glacial lakes that threaten to burst, devastating
mountain communities downstream.
They warn that the glaciers could disappear within decades, bringing
drought to large swathes of Asia, where 1.3 billion people depend on
rivers that originate in the Himalayas

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Stone House in Portugao

Located in Nas montanhas de Fafe, Portugal, its resistance is mainly
ensured by two giant boulders which are also walls for the unusual
residence.

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Trekking the Grand Canyon in Winter

Although the Grand Canyon is a desert, it's a kind of oasis in winter
a place of peace, free of summer's crowds and traffic jams.
The Colorado River cuts through the mile-deep canyon. The scientist
John Strong Newberry, part of an 1857 expedition into the canyon, said
that "nowhere on the earth's surface, so far as we know, are the
secrets of its structure revealed as here."

Pictures by Richard Perry

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Trekking the Grand Canyon in Winter

Although the Grand Canyon is a desert, it's a kind of oasis in winter
-- a place of peace, free of summer's crowds and traffic jams.
Pictures by Richard Perry

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The annual Monkey Buffet Festival at Pra Prang Sam Yot temple in Lopburi Province, Thailand

The festival provides various types of food and drink to the local
monkey population, which numbers more than 2,000, thanking them for
drawing tourists to the town.
More than 4,000 kilos of fruits and vegetables were offered to monkeys
during the annual festival, now in its 21st year.

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