In the same space as the American agtech company flux, built on Israeli R&D to help people grow food in cities, another Israeli-founded, American-managed company is taking a stance and big investment dollars in agtech and food production. They call it CropX. The company announced this week that it closed its $9 million Series A financing. This […]
“My God, it’s full of stars!” Fans of Arthur C. Clarke’s classic science fiction novel 2001 A Space Odyssey might recognize these as the words of astronaut David Bowman, awestruck by revelations of the deep mysteries of space. A team of astronomers from Tel Aviv University and UCLA discovered more than a million newborn stars […]
Even the US Customs guy at the New Jersey airport gave me an approving nod: “A technology for hydroponics?” He flips over my business invitation from the NY company to see if there wasn’t something inside. “Well, you know, it’s still,” in a fake finger-wagging voice, “…illegal here?” he says, waiting for my reply. There […]
Oil prices have fallen considerably over the past two years. But this isn’t the first time the price of a core society resource has dropped so drastically. The economic history of salt is an interesting lesson for our time. Middle Eastern countries spend millions of dollars and consume more than one hundred million kilowatt-hours of […]
The flux team, one of the featured companies at the Innovation Pavillion at the annual Agritech Conference. Agrivest for investors kicked off the week of “agmania”. Steve Rhodes the CEO and co-Founder of the Trendlines Group opened this year’s Agrivest conference in Israel showing some interesting trends. Last year 2014 saw a steady increase to $2.36 […]
Eddy is like the “easy button” for hydroponics The United Nations is screaming it –– and California is feeling it: drought caused by climate change is killing the way we grow food. And it will only get worse. Thought leaders want a shake up of conventional agriculture, because large mono-crop farms are not producing enough to […]
With drought looming in California, but in many regions of the world include Yemen, Green Prophet honors Earth Day by digging into the archives so you can share 10 ways to collect and save fresh, potable water. 1. Seawater cone evaporation This low-tech method of collecting fresh water in involves placing an inverted plastic “water […]
Still another device, called the Roots Up Dew Collector, is now being developed for Ethiopia in a project together with the University of Gondar. The device, which can also be used to grow vegetables and other crops, is dew trapping and will be used in the country's arid northern regions.
How can the environment around computers be used to hack data? Computer scientists have now determined that it’s possible to send data or “steal” data by using heat transfer between computers – those typically used as servers in high profile institutions like banks and police. Their exercise in hacking heat points out vulnerabilities in today’s […]
It’s already well known that manure or poop can be recycled for making products like paper as well as creating biogas power from methane gas. Turning urine or pee into electricity is another matter. This readily available “resource”, whether it be from animal or human origin, is now being experimented with to actually generate electricity by using our […]
Like Israel’s Softwheel for wheelchairs and bikes, Goodyear is asking: Can new ways of engineering tires extend the cruising ranges of electric cars to make them more saleable in the aftermath of the the demise of Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car venture? Despite some success in selling electric cars like Nissan’s Leaf model and General […]
Drones, those small, unmanned remote controlled airplanes with cameras can now be ordered by anyone online. They freak some people out. Not everyone loves the idea of a drone honing in on you in your backyard, but in agriculture, forestry and even in conservation they are the hot topic of the year. How can we […]
Food Tech, on the surface of things, sounds like something you might not want to bite into, especially if you practice permaculture and organic gardening. But dig deeper as guests from Israel and France learned last week in Jaffa during the So French, So Food week, which hosted 20 top French chefs visiting Israel. They […]
The Doomsday Clock, which measures the likelihood of global catastrophe, last month ticked a minute closer to “midnight” — the apocalypse. The symbolic clock was set to 11:57 by a board of atomic scientists featuring 17 Nobel Laureates, who warned that the planet, beset by climate change and nuclear proliferation, faced extraordinary and undeniable threats […]
Finding ways to augment supplies of fresh drinking water have been around for years. These ideas vary from basic “low tech” ones like a Yemenite funnel water cone to extract fresh water from saltwater to using water created by aircon units. Purifying sewage systems to create safe, drinkable fresh water are also being tried; and have received visible […]