When Nike introduced its Flyknit technology in 2012, the sportswear giant literally broke the mold of sneaker construction. By using a weaving technique that results in a virtually seamless one-piece upper, Nike is able to create a shoe that has the featherweight pliability of a sock yet the support and durability of a trainer. Flyknit…

Lake Geneva’s latest resident—all four feet of it—is neither man nor beast. Dubbed the Envirobot, the critter is a biomimetic robot designed by Swiss researchers to pinpoint the source of pollution in tainted waters. Bereft of fins or propellers, Envirobot slithers through water like an eel, leaving mud and aquatic life undisturbed. Just as stealthily,…

Ocean acidification isn’t something that most folks lose sleep over. As a side effect of climate change, it doesn’t present a striking image the way a crack in the Antarctic ice shelf or a hurricane-battered coast might. But some problems need to be seen to be believed, so David de Rothschild, founder of the lifestyle…

Vivobarefoot, a London-based purveyor of so-called “barefoot” footwear, is going green in an altogether unexpected way. Together with Bloom, a materials innovation firm from San Diego, the company is poised to debut the world’s first molded shoe derived from algae. No, swamp couture hasn’t suddenly become en vogue. Rather, Bloom harvests biomass from ponds and…

A Belgium-based chain of clothing stores has launched the world’s first Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold T-shirts. Available in two styles for women in up to 17 different colors, C&A’s tees mark the company’s first foray into apparel for the so-called “circular economy,” where products are designed to be reused or recycled rather than thrown…

Hours before a “Day Without a Woman,” Lady Liberty went on strike, though not, as it were, on purpose. Around 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, the spotlights that usually illuminate the Statue of Liberty suddenly fizzled out, leaving only the New York City icon’s torch and crown gleaming in the darkness. Social media immediately lit…

In the 2015 film The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is stranded on the red planet after his crew leaves him for dead in the wake of a violent dust storm. Faced with dwindling rations, Watney uses his botany and engineering know-how, plus a generous serving of his own waste, to improvise…

If you’re looking for new nightmare fuel beyond, oh we don’t know, the dissolution of democracy as we know it, meet Saccorhytus, a tiny H.R. Giger-esque monstrosity that scientists say could be our earliest-known ancestor. Going back some 540 million years, it’s also believed to be the most primitive example we have to date of…

To paraphrase the immortal words of Diana Ross and the Supremes, ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough to keep us from mucking it up. Case in point? The Pacific Ocean’s Mariana and Kermadec trenches, both tens of thousands of feet deep, remain two of the planet’s most inaccessible reaches. But even…