Dead Baby Penguins Wash Up in Brazil

In an exercise in terrifying imagery, more than 400 dead baby penguins have been washing ashore in Rio de Janeiro over the past couple of months.

The Associated Press reported last week that no direct cause for the penguicide has been found yet, though theories abound. Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at Brazil's Niteroi Zoo, thinks overfishing could be to blame by sending the penguins on longer hunts for fish away from their native shores in Antarctica and Patagonia. "That leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the strong ocean currents," he told the AP.

Erli Costa, a biologist from Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University, theorizes that global warming could be the culprit. Costa claims that climate change has caused an increase in cyclones and harsher currents, which make the seas rough on the young birds.

Global warming has already taken a heavy toll on penguins. The UK's Daily Mail reported earlier this month that the Antarctic Peninsula's average temperature has risen by three degrees to an average -14.7 degrees Celsius (about six degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 50 years, which in turn has caused freezing rain to be much more common than snow. Baby penguins don't develop water-protective feathers until 40 days after their birth, leaving them susceptible to hypothermia. Estimates are that, with tens of thousands of baby birds freezing to death, Adelie penguins could be extinct within 10 years.

(Thanks, TreeHugger and NYCsceneQueen.)

Image by Aaron Jacobs, licensed under Creative Commons.

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An Electric Car for Wheelchair Users

For years, big, expensive converted minivans have been the norm in transportation for wheelchair users. Environmental responsiblity isn't always been the biggest priority. Luckily, a Hungarian company called Rehab Ltd. has developed the Kenguru, an electric car designed specifically for the disabled.

The vehicle has no side doors; instead the driver rolls in through a rear hatchback and over an automatically lowering ramp. The car is 85 inches long and 61 inches wide and has a range of about 35 miles at a top speed of 25 miles per hour.

Unfortunately, the vehicle hasn’t made it stateside yet, but it’s getting closer. Kenguru UK in England is launching this summer, and the company plans expansion to the U.S. in the near future, according to Green Car Journal.

Image courtesy of kengurucars.com.

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Wartime Men on the Silver Screen

Cinema’s response to war has changed since Vietnam, Michael Bronski postulates in Z Magazine. For instance, the war in Iraq has been immediately made into documentaries (No End in Sight and Standard Operating Procedure), independent films (Redacted and Battle for Haditha), and even Hollywood productions (In the Valley of Elah and Stop-Loss), while it took years for many films to be made about Vietnam. Mainstream movies like Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now weren’t released until the late 1970s, almost a decade after the war ended.

Bronski credits Vietnam with influencing other film genres as well: The slasher film, beginning with Halloween in 1978, was created as an avatar for the senseless killing of American youth during the Vietnam War, and testosterone-swelling action hero films like Rocky (1976), Terminator (1974), and Die Hard (1988) were used to reassert our postwar nation’s masculinity, as if to say, “We could have won in Vietnam!”

Further, Bronski claims that the stoner buddy movie genre, with a new understanding of masculinity, was invented in response to the absurd man-movies emblematic of the “unholy three” (Willis, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone). Films like Dumb and Dumber, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Dude, Where’s My Car? exhibit an apolitical, peace-and-love sense of masculinity that is a direct backlash to action hero archetypes.

Bronski’s argument is interesting, but I believe he is ignoring some important, much earlier incarnations of this same sensitive masculinity—the two most prevalent examples being Harold Ramis’ Animal House and Stripes. Both of these films, released in 1978 and 1981, respectively, put goofball, slacker men in positions where they are confronted by archetypal masculinity. Further, in both of these films this masculinity is represented by military figures (ROTC Cadet Officer Niedermeyer in Animal House and Sergeant Hulka in Stripes). The characters use disarming and nonthreatening humor to combat aggression, much like modern-day stoner comedies. But, instead of remaining apolitical, the heroes in Ramis’ films are forced to face the warlike masculinity emblematic of Vietnam militarism, proving that nonviolence can be an answer.

Reading his article made me think of how we view masculinity in our modern time of war. If cinema is any refection, then our current perceptions equate masculinity with naïveté. Films like Jarhead and Stop-Loss present characters anxious to go to war, blinded by masculinity and a sense of duty, then humbled by the true nature of the conflict. Even stoner buddy movies like Harold and Kumar have ignorant über-masculine villains blinded by testosterone. The current trend seems to be that of peace and intelligence, which is itself a critique on war in general.

It’s impossible to say what, if any, genres will come in response to the current Iraq War, but it seems safe to say that glorified violent masculinity is no longer something to be admired; rather it is a manifestation of ignorance and last resorts.

(Image by Jurek Durczak, licensed under Creative Commons.)

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Grow a Community, Garden

Living in the city amid dense development and endless pavement, it’s easy to forget the pleasures of cultivation and growth that can be found in gardening. Writing for Permaculture Activist, a quarterly magazine that promotes the design of “ecological human habitats and food production systems,” author David Tracey outlines, step by step, how to build community and reconnect with the earth by beginning a community garden.

The first step, Tracey writes (article not available online), is choosing the right location. Nearly any size plot of land can be used, but the size will affect future plans. “Make sure you have enough space for everything you hope to do, now and later,” he advises. “Think of what you’ll need for other features, perhaps an orchard, an herb garden, a picnic spot or a pond.” Community gardens can fit perfectly into vacant lots, street ends, abandoned park spaces, and unused schoolyard areas, among other places. The area needs a fair amount of sun and water, it needs to be safe from crime and vandalism, and it needs to be accessible to gardeners and enjoyers.

The next step is choosing the right people: like-minded individuals who care as much about community as they do about gardening. “Think of the garden as what grows only after you’ve tended the community,” Tracey writes. Once your small community is assembled, set up a mission and lay down garden ground rules.

How are you going to pay for the land? Tracey recommends pooling volunteer money, donations from land trust groups and other organizations, and possible government grants to fund the project. In Seattle, in conjunction with the P-Patch Trust, the city has established community garden space servicing residents of 70 neighborhoods.

Once your garden is established and your community decides what to grow, you'll need to tend it and promote it. Tracey suggests a “work party” at the end of every month where garden members get together to weed, prune trees, and perform other general maintenance tasks. He also advises an annual “Open House/Plant Sale,” monthly planning meetings, and other fun events that bring members of the community to the garden in admiration of their hard work and dedication.

For more information on community gardens and to find one near you, visit the websites of the American Community Gardening Association and the Urban Community Garden.

Image by Paul Symington licensed under Wikimedia Commons.

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Become a Scientist, School Not Required

For the millions of children who grew up idolizing Jonas Salk, Marie Curie, or Tycho Brahe, but were unable to forge careers in science, there may still be hope. A plethora of citizen-science projects are searching for volunteers and support from scientific-minded amateurs with dreams of helping the earth or discovering the next big breakthrough.

Common Ground magazine offers a nice introduction to citizen-science projects, highlighting work being done by the Collaborative Observatory for Natural Environments (CONE) in Texas, among others. The CONE project allows online birders to snap photos with a robotic web camera to “document the presence of subtropical birds that may be affected by global warming.”

Many citizen science-projects revolve around birding. In fact, the longest ongoing project of this type, the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, was first instituted in 1900. Another birding project, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is at the forefront of the citizen-science movement. One of their many projects, NestWatch (and the newly instituted CamClikr), has citizen scientists peruse archival footage of nesting birds to classify images and avian behavior.

Not just for the birds, the bees have also been a focus of citizen-science projects. The Great Sunflower Project sends sunflower seeds to volunteers for planting, and asks participants to document bee frequency at the flowers in hopes of “understand[ing] the challenges that bees are facing.”

For the more internet savvy, the ambitious and much publicized Encyclopedia of Life is looking for “dedicated individuals” to help compile the “most complete biodiversity database on the Web.” The people behind the project are trying to create a taxonomic page for every species on Earth, much like this page for the peregrine falcon. With the help of like-minded individuals, the Encyclopedia of Life hopes to have "a major global impact in facilitating biodiversity research, conservation, and education."

For additional projects and information, visit the Citizen Science Projects blog.

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The Solid State of Circuit Bending

In a small, dimly lit auditorium, a twenty-something music artist known as Igloo Martian stands behind a table on a blackened stage. Projected on the backscreen are staticky images from a camera focused on his hands and his instruments: children’s audio toys modified with bizarre-looking switches and a tangle of wires. Igloo Martian is a circuit bender, and the noise issuing forth from his machines is reminiscent of a modem dialing up over incendiary house music.

Circuit bending is an emerging sound art in which battery-operated toys, keyboards, and other electronics are creatively short-circuited to reveal new, unexpected sounds. The sounds range from high-pitched wails to bass-drum kicks and everything in between. When layered, the various noises create an electronic, sonic cornucopia.

Earlier this spring, acts from all over the world gathered in Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis for the fifth annual Bent Festival, two days (at each location) of concerts and workshops aimed at promoting circuit bending, inviting newcomers into the growing community. Sponsored by The Tank, a New York-based nonprofit arts organization, the festival brought in artists from three continents and at least 10 countries.

Circuit bending falls somewhere in between mad science and performance art, and it can be as complex or as basic as you make it. The bent duo Beatrix*JAR (Bianca Pettis and Jacob Roske) have been instrumental in promoting circuit bending by teaching beginner workshops in libraries and galleries all over the country.

“One of the reasons we started the workshops was because people didn’t know what we were doing,” Pettis says.

She’s absolutely right. Though the performances are interactive (audiences are encouraged to come down to the stage before and after sets to check out an artist’s equipment), it is confusing to see a Speak & Spell spout out an alien-sounding melody over an ’80s Casio keyboard pounding out drum patterns.

The spontaneity of circuit bending is one of the art form’s major draws, explains Igloo Martian (Robert Clark), who likens circuit bending to beachcombing when he was a child. “I remember collecting tons of sharks’ teeth,” he says.

The exploration of seemingly nonmusical electronics is a romantic pursuit for the bent community. “It’s not so much about the sound, but how you find it,” says Roske. “Ten people with the same toy get ten different results.”

Along with exploration, circuit bending is attractive because of its DIY appeal. Old kids’ toys (some of the most popular are Speak & Spell, Speak & Math, and even Furbys) can be picked up at local thrift shops for peanuts and bent for just as cheap. The process is similar to DJs digging through crates looking for promising records and hot samples. The bending process is simple and can be learned in an afternoon.

Circuit bending’s future looks bright, and many of its supporters have high expectations for the nascent genre. Some popular artists like Beck and Björk have already incorporated bent techniques into their music, and the members of Beatrix*JAR, who consider their work a fusion of bent and pop music, hope to be “ambassadors to bring circuit bending to the mainstream.”

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Green Up the Laundry Room

With everything going green, it seems only appropriate that the laundry room, a veritable vacuum of energy and water waste, would be a likely site for improvement.

The environmental parenting blog Eco Child’s Play offers a host of suggestions for more environmentally friendly laundering. The tips come from the 2007 book Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care, by pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene.

One of his recommendations is to use a front-loading washing machine (look for an Energy Star) instead of a top-loader. This will save as much as 15 gallons of water per load and use half as much energy.

Greene also advises alternative means of fabric softening (add 1/4 cup of baking soda to the wash cycle), combating static cling (add 1/4 cup of white vinegar to the wash water), and water softening (“use a soap-based, rather than detergent-based, cleaner”).

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The Rumble Strips Are Poised to Be the Next Big Thing

Following in the footsteps of fellow UK imports like the Fratellis and the Kooks, the Rumble Strips are poised to be the next big thing in feel-good indie rock. Their horn-laden debut album Girls and Weather is set for U.S. release August 5. Prepare to have it trapped in your head.

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Life on the Skids

Sam Slovick of Good has created a powerful video series covering life on Los Angeles' Skid Row, a 50-block area of downtown that L.A.'s police chief has called "the worst social disaster in America." Check it out here.

—Erik Helin

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Honey, Don't Leave Me

“In 30 years … we won’t be able to have apples, avocados, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, melons, oranges, grapefruit, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, tangerines, watermelon, clover, and alfalfa,” Jeffrey Hill writes in The Next American City.

There has been a buzz surrounding the dwindling honeybee population in the media for the past few years. But sadly, little has been done about it. A 2007 study by the American Beekeepers Association revealed that “since 1975, 80 percent of honeybee hives in the United States have been decimated by pesticides and a parasitic virus that is wiping out the species,” writes Hill.

Big corporations haven’t been feeling the effects of the shortage, but small farmers are suffering; and so are the wallets of the produce-consuming public.

What’s the solution? Hill says we should all be talking about it; don’t forget that the bee shortage has a major effect on one third of the human diet. Make the issue a real concern, and maybe a swarm of like-minded people will incite some change.

—Erik Helin

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Columbus' Sexual Discoveries

The name Columbus is often associated with discovery, and with good reason. A 16th Century Italian anatomist named Renaldus Columbus (no relation) is credited with discovering the “seat of a woman’s delight”—also known as the clitoris.

In 1559, Columbus claimed “that he had identified a female appendage that would ‘throb with brief contractions’ during sexual intercourse, causing a woman’s ‘semen’ to flow ‘swifter than air,’” according to the Smart Set.

His findings were wrought with controversy, however. Gabriello Fallopio (the tube guy) claimed ownership of the discovery. Fallopio may have been telling the truth, too, but his work on the subject wasn’t published until 1561. Others have argued that knowledge of the “little hill” (from the Greek “kleitor”) dates back to the second-century A.D. Greek Empire.

—Erik Helin

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Pacific Island Nation Packs Environmental Punch

Kiribati is a 32-island nation in the South Pacific that’s acutely aware of environmental issues, since it faces the threat of inundation from rising sea levels caused by climate change. Perhaps in part because of this heightened awareness, the nation recently established the largest protected marine reserve in the world.

According to Julia Whitty at Mother Jones, the Phoenix Islands Protection Area is “a California-size ocean wilderness of pristine coral reefs and rich fish populations threatened by overfishing and climate change.” Conservation and protection come in the form of restricting commercial fishing in the area. Subsistence fishing is still permitted for local communities in designated areas.

—Erik Helin

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Meet the Reviewers of Meet the Spartans

Rotten Tomatoes is a movie review aggregator that scores films on a “freshness” scale of 0 to 100 percent. In some cases, as with the recent cinematic catastrophe Meet the Spartans (2 percent freshness), the reviews showcase more comedic ability than the film itself. I’ve compiled some review highlights into a greatest hits recap. Enjoy:

Meet the Spartans isn’t a real movie, so this isn’t a real review, either.¹

Yes, crotch-flashing celebutantes and macho gladiator epics are rife for spoofing. It’s just too bad the job has been entrusted to Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the witless, Dumpster-diving duo who wouldn’t know satire if it puked on their faces.² When the comedy revolution comes, Friedberg and Seltzer will be the first ones shot.³ The filmmakers have one basic joke—that there’s something a little bit gay about all these buff Spartans—and they work it into the ground, trotting out every dumb homosexual panic joke in recorded history.⁴

This thing is so utterly lackluster, so without spirit or humor or energy of any kind, that the characters have to tell you what the joke is.

“Oh, look!” they say. “It’s Paris Hilton!” Like that.⁵

What’s the point of making a parody that’s dumber than the stuff it parodies?⁶ For example, the film starts with an old man examining an infant while a narrator tells us that in ancient Sparta all the babies were carefully checked for defects. This is a fine setup for a lot of potentially funny sight gags: What might this baby’s “defect” be? Then comes the reveal: It’s a baby Shrek. Why? Because Shrek the Third was recently a popular movie. The baby Shrek says something with a Scottish accent and then pukes all over the old man. Why? Because puke is funny. Aren’t you laughing just thinking about it?⁷

It’s so bad even Carmen Electra should be embarrassed.⁸ Electra proves herself a national treasure as our highest-priced whore.⁹

In their deeply ingrained tradition of something less than mediocrity, Friedberg and Seltzer make their annual locustlike descent on theaters leaving a trail of ruthlessly murdered brain cells in their wake.¹⁰

It’s not even a movie. It’s just a thing.¹¹ I’m moving to Europe.¹²

—Erik Helin

(Sources: 1. Sun Media; 2. Detroit News; 3. EricDSnider.com; 4. Mountain Xpress; 5. Sun Media; 6. Newsday; 7. EricDSnider.com; 8. Detroit News; 9. Village Voice; 10. Mountain Xpress; 11. Mountain Xpress; 12. Village Voice)

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Organ Donors on Death Row?

Some look at death row inmates and see the vilest people in the world. Others see victims awaiting murder by the state. Graeme Wood sees organs—viable transplant organs.

Writing for Good, he argues that the methods used to dispatch the inmates make it impossible to harvest their organs for transplants. Instead, he suggests using “the Mayan Protocol,” a process developed by, yes, the Mayans through vivisecting human sacrifices. In this method the organ removal becomes the means of execution. “If this sounds inhumane,” Wood writes, “compare it to current practices: botched hangings, painfully long gassings, and messy electrocutions. Removal of the heart, lungs, and kidneys (under anesthesia, of course) would kill every time, without an instant of pain.”

Such a practice would undoubtedly face hurdles. It has been a long-standing practice that doctors don’t murder patients, a tenet that has prevented them from participating in lethal injections. There is also the concern of consent. Inmates may agree to donate their organs as a way to curry support with judges or prison guards. Wood argues, however, that the real objection to the Mayan Protocol would be symbolic. Victims of families and the public in general don’t want criminals martyred for an altruistic cause.

And, of course, there is the creep factor:

But being creeped out is the price of living in a society that kills its criminals. If organ harvesting would make executions uncomfortably like human sacrifice, perhaps that’s because our death chambers are already gory enough to make anyone but a Mayan high priest pale.

An interesting point, but perhaps our energies could be better spent when it comes to death row reformation. As one commenter on the article notes: Why discuss the best way to kill inmates when we should be trying to end capital punishment?

—Erik Helin

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Belgian Architect Has Clear View Of Paris

The power of architecture as a way to imagine an ideal society is alive in Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut. His most recent project, a pair of proposed Paris buildings dubbed Anti-Smog, is a testament to green design concepts, featuring solar power, wind power, and a “smog eating exterior,” according to Ali Kriscenski of the design blog Inhabitat.

The prototype for the project shows one football-shaped building known as Solar Drop. “The exterior is fitted with 250 square meters of solar photovoltaic panels and coated in titanium dioxide (TiO2),” writes Kriscenski. “The PV system produces on-site electrical energy while the TiO2 coating works with ultraviolet radiation to interact with particulates in the air, break down organics and reduce airborne pollutants and contaminants.”

The second structure, the Wind Tower, harnesses the gusting urban winds for energy.

The buildings are designed to be suspended over a Parisian canal and a defunct railroad track. Anti-Smog would be used as art galleries, public meeting rooms, and gathering spaces. Learn more about the project here.

—Erik Helin

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The Archaeology of Childhood

Abandoned tree houses don’t disappear when kids grow up. Many still exist, not far from residential areas, left as artifacts of youth. Dr. Martin Rundkvist, an archaeologist who writes the blog Aardvarchaeology (part of the ScienceBlogs network) ruminates on the “ruins of childhood” that can be found simply by walking through the woods near people’s homes. Originally posted in 2006, his recent re-post was prompted by another abandoned tree house discovery. In a beautiful blend of science and nostalgia, Rundkvist writes about how the relics now live on as modern-day archaeological discoveries.

(Thanks, BoingBoing.)

—Erik Helin

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Science to Government: We Need to Talk

One of the legacies being left by the Bush administration is a combative and regressive relationship between science and the government. This falling out has led concerned citizens and members of the scientific community to demand a public debate on science and technology in the 2008 presidential race.

The people behind Sciencedebate2008.com are spearheading a petition to make this debate a reality. Signatories include Nobel Prize winners, university presidents, and a bi-partisan group of politicians. Their mission statement reads:

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Health and Medicine, and Science and Technology Policy.

(Thanks, Commonweal Institute.)

—Erik Helin

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Gun Control 101

I’m typically not a paranoid person. I try to see the best in people. I’m a college student on a liberal campus in the heart of the Midwest.

But lately, there’s been a growing suspicion, a fear of the soft-spoken introverted guy in the same lecture as I am. School shootings have been a concern in the media for the past 10 years, but the issue has eluded thoughtful political discourse since the wake of the Columbine massacre. With two major shootings on college campuses in the past year, I am wondering: What will it take to make gun control an issue?

“Barack Obama offers hope and Hillary Clinton offers solutions, but they offer little of either on gun control,” Derrick Z. Jackson writes in the Boston Globe. Indeed, all that the candidates, including “straight talk” John McCain, seem to offer on gun violence are condolences. If a murder-suicide in a major university classroom doesn’t spark some debate, what will? Second Amendment preservation seems to stretch across party lines, with nobody willing to take a stand on tougher gun control laws.

In fact, it seems the opposite is occurring. Currently, 15 states are weighing bills to make it easier to carry guns on campuses, the New York Times reports. A main proponent of this movement is Arizona State Senator Karen S. Johnson, who says, “I feel like our kindergartners are sitting there like sitting ducks.” See, she felt the bill should cover all public schools, K-12.

Meanwhile, a “heavily-medicated” man who was institutionalized within the past ten years was able to legally purchase six weapons in Illinois. And the ammunition he used to kill five at Northern Illinois University? Purchased from the same website as the Virginia Tech killer.

So if I’m a little shifty-eyed in the lecture hall, please forgive me. Access to guns is as easy as ever, and with nobody willing to talk about it, I fear it’s only going to get worse.

—Erik Helin

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Spilling Ink Across the Spectrum

Colors. They define and characterize our lives. But so often we fail to recognize their impact or unpack their individual stories. As I type this I’m surrounded by no less than three shades of gray, and that saddens me. The quarterly arts magazine Cabinet has a piece in every issue that tells the unique story of a single color or a writer’s personal experience with that particular hue. The pieces are sometimes powerful, sometimes academic, and sometimes pretentious, but always engaging and illuminating.

—Erik Helin

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The Greening of the Middle East?

February 9 was a historic day in the environmental shaming of the Unites States as Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, broke ground on Masdar City, a $22 billion municipality that will be carless, solar powered, and almost entirely self-contained. Water will come from a seawater desalinization plant, produce will come from surrounding greenhouses, and all waste will be composted or recycled, writes the New York Times.

The groundbreaking came on the heels of a January announcement by the Masdar Initiative, a renewable energy investment company, that the UAE will commit $15 billion dollars for initial research on sustainable programs. This investment represents the biggest government-sponsored renewable energy program in the world, and it comes from a nation that gained much of its wealth through oil and natural gas. This fact has some wondering: Can one grand progressive step erase decades of carbon emissions irresponsibility?

(Thanks, Groovy Green.)

—Erik Helin

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Marty McFly Had To Be Rich

From a physics standpoint, time travel is entirely possible, according to an article in Cosmos Magazine. All you need is a really fast space ship and knowledge of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. Financially, however, it’s still totally unviable.

Theoretically, if a person were to orbit the Earth at 161,556 miles/second for one full year, during the same time, two years would have passed on Earth. That would mean the person would have traveled a year into the future. The problem is that to travel that fast for that long would require about 30 trillion gigajoules (GJ) of kinetic energy. At over $9 per GJ, the bill would total around $27 trillion. So for Back to the Future to become a reality, Marty McFly would have to be a very rich man.

—Erik Helin

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How Do You Like Them Apples?

The iPhone was universally greeted with ticker-tape parades, satisfied high fives, and people dancing in the streets. Well, almost. Since it was unveiled, the feather rufflers at Greenpeace have been skeptical of the revolutionary phone for environmental reasons. Back in May 2007, a month before the iPhone dropped, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a commitment to phasing out all brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and chlorinated plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Apple products by the end of 2008. PVC and BFRs are toxic pollutants hazardous to the environment once they enter the waste stream. A study by Greenpeace revealed concerning levels of both toxins in the iPhone.

Apple has been under fire by environmentalists for years over its iPod batteries, which have proven to be short-lived and environmentally hazardous. The company was specifically targeted because of its image as an environmentally conscious company, and because of astronomical iPod sales, the Christian Science Monitor wrote in 2005.

As a possible act of redemption, however, Apple has now unleashed the Macbook Air, an eco-friendly laptop so skinny the tabloids think it’s anorexic. Starre at Eco-Chick has a rundown of the computer’s green credentials, which include an absence of both PVC and BFRs, as well as a packaging reduction of 56 percent. Plus, she points out, it’s sexy.

—Erik Helin

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