Erecting Skyscrapers With Climate Change in Mind, Coping With Pain Through Virtual Reality and More

 
Building to the Sky, With a Plan for Rising Waters, The New York Times
As climate change becomes impossible to ignore, real estate developers are adjusting their plans for rising storms and sea levels. A new waterfront property in New York City features generators with the ability to power tenants’ refrigerators and power outlets for a week, because “if you have your phone and your refrigerator, you can survive,” as one designer put it. After devastating hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, “resilient design” has become the buzzword in architecture.
Virtually Painless — How VR Is Making Surgery Simpler, Science Focus
Could VR headsets replace painkillers? That’s what a handful of surgeons are betting on in regions where sedatives are expensive and hard to come by. Once a high-tech luxury, virtual reality is becoming ever more mainstream and affordable, and has proven to reduce patient pain by up to 50 percent.
First Class Meal: Could the Declining U.S. Postal Service Deliver Food to the Needy? The Guardian
A creative proposal from students at Washington University in St. Louis aims to turn the stagnant U.S. Postal Service into a thriving food delivery service for underserved communities. A number of organizations are working to curb food waste in a nation where, despite its wealth, one in seven residents experiences food insecurity. But most lack a sustainable transport system to get surplus food to those in need. With vehicles, routes and workers already in place, the declining postal service could be an invaluable resource in the fight against hunger.
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Could Hoverboards Really Help Keep Buildings Safe?

Hoverboards are no longer relegated to Hollywood and your wildest day dreams.
As Josh Lowensohn of The Verge tells it, they could actually help protect buildings from natural disasters.
Lowensohn recently jumped on the chance to test ride the Hendo, a prototype (the 18th, actually) of the hover technology — or maglev — developed by Greg Henderson and his company, Arx Pax. (Currently, this hoverboard is priced at $10,000 — way outside of Marty McFly’s budget.)
How does it work?
As Henderson explains, “A magnet has an electromagnetic field. It is equal in all areas. It has a north and a south pole. What if you were able to take that magnet, and organize the magnetic field so that it was only on one side? And then you combine that with other magnetic fields in a way that amplifies and focuses their strength? That’s magnetic field architecture.”
Henderson’s ambitions for maglev are less acrobatic and more pragmatic: He’s already secured a patent for hover engines in the foundation of a building, which, he envisions, would lift them to safety from catastrophic events, such as floods and earthquakes.
He also has his eyes set on using hover technology to improve air travel. “Planes may be not so obvious, but maglev assisted takeover is something all of the big airplane manufacturers are looking at because takeoff is where all the energy is used,” he says.
Arx Pax is hoping to raise $250,000 to bring the current prototype to the next level with their Kickstarter campaign. For a $10,000, you can preorder your very own board.
Arx Pax is also offering The WhiteBox Developer Kit for $299, which includes one of their hover engines that people are encouraged to take apart and engage in different uses for it. Their “goal is inspiring co-creation with the entire community of tinkerers and makers and outside thinkers,” Henderson says.
“I guarantee one thing: we’re going to be surprised at the results.”

Watch the One Incredible Spontaneous Act That Helped a Colorado Community in Need

A song can do a lot more than just raise spirits; it can raise cash too. The suburban community of Longmont in Northern Colorado is still recovering from devastating floods that swept through in September. But some much-needed help is now on the way, thanks to the musical creativity of OUR Center, an area nonprofit that provides emergency services to local residents in need. Organizers from the center, along with members of the St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, wanted to try something different to solicit donations for its ongoing relief efforts. So, on a sunny day in December, the group staged a surprise flash mob in a local grocery store, Lucky’s Market, with participants all singing “Help” by the Beatles. The sing-along included the church choir, singers from the Rocky Mountain Center for Music Arts and even the Silver Creek High School drum line. “It was just a creative way to help [the OUR Center] reach new donors and build awareness and gather what they really need — cash,” Phil Caragol, one of the flash mob organizers, told the Longmont Times-Call. Local filmmaker Payton Pearson was on hand to capture the whole thing on video, which you can watch above. So far, the singing spectacle seems to have worked wonders. The OUR Center reports that $10,000 in donations can be traced directly to the video, while more than $30,000 has been donated in less than a month — a drastic increase from the same time last year. That’s a whole lot of “help” for a community that needs it.
MORE: Community Building Through … Baking?