popular logistics

MetaEfficient posts (post undated) on the  Matra MS1 Electric Bike:

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This could be a great commuting machine — it’s an electric-powered bike designed by the French company Matra. The bike was recently introduced at the Paris Motorshow. It has a range of 60 miles, in addition to the mileage you add by using pedal power. It has a top speed of 30 miles per hour, but this is an artificial limit set on the motor.

It can be rigged to go faster, but officially, you’d have to get a license to drive it, because it would be considered a scooter. The bike also incorporates disc brakes and a regenerative braking system — nice.

This electric bike should be available for sale in Europe in the not-too-distant future, but no word on whether it’ll make it to the States. It will probably be priced around $5000.

Via: AutoblogGreen and Bikes In The Fast Lane

Link to Meta Efficient post.

Inhabitat posts today its Transportation Tuesday: top 10 cities for public transit:

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Just because we’re in the top 5 -  doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing more.

S ustainable
T echnologies
A cceleration
N etwork for
D evelopment
A ssistance and
R apid
R elief
D eployment

STANDARRD Blog here.  This is, I gather, the product of Vinay Gupta, who invented the Hexayurt (Appropropedia entry here)

The Hexayurt, I understand, did good service in Hancock, Mississippi during Katrina. (Citation to be supplied).

GoodMagazine reports that that Denmark-based ARESA has conducted successful field tests with its genetically modified Thale Cress, for use in land mine detection.

Thale Cress, also known as Arabidopsis thaliana, commonly called arabidopsis, or mouse-ear cress, has a short life cycle - six weeks from germination to mature seed.The ARESA modified Thale Cress is very sensitive to nitrogen, which is a component of the explosives in land mines, and emitted in tiny amounts.

Photo (Aresa) by Henrik Freek; via GoodMagazine.

The Thale Cress

has been genetically modified to provide a natural warning in the presence of land mines. Thales cress is inherently sensitive to nitrogen dioxide, a chemical byproduct of land mines. The Copenhagen-based biotech company Aresa tweaked the weed’s genes so that its leaves would turn from their natural green to bright red in the presence of latent explosives. Field tests have thus far been successful, meaning traditional methods of human and canine mine detection may soon have a less dangerous alternative.

From Ben Jervey’s post in Good Magazine .While there are good reasons to have reservations about the genetic modification of plants, until and unless the powers that have been responsible for placing land mines start removing them, this seems an excellent technology.

Ben Jervey is also the editor of GreenAppleGuide.