Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Apr 30

No, it’s not another ‘green’ or ‘climate change’ awareness week - it all about bunnies!

Rabbits are the 3rd most popular furry pet in the UK after cats and dogs - but they really seem to get a raw deal when it comes to their accommodation and health care. 

So, along came the Rabbit Awareness Week (or RAW - as rabbits get a RAW deal) to promote their well-being.  Basically loads of vets across the UK this week are giving out free health-care and veterinary consults to all who apply.

Rabbit Care: 
Did you know for example that you can vaccinate your rabbit against various common infections that plague wild rabbits - like myxomatosis, a terrible infection that gradually and painfully will kill your pet!  Now if you live near wild rabbits it would really be a no-brainer to get the jab for your pet, wouldn’t it.  But if you don’t know these things, you can’t do them.

Also, not many people compare the size of their rabbit when adult to the space available in it’s hutch.  Now I know that there are only so many ‘mainstream’ hutches for sale - but that doesn’t mean you have to buy one!  If people demand bigger hutches - then pet stores will start stocking them.

Anyway, roughly estimate the ‘floor plan’ or your bunny (basically the size of it when you look down on it from above, then see how many of these ‘bunny floor plans’ fit into the hutch.  I bet it’s not more than 5 or 6 .  Now scale that up to other animals - like that would mean keeping a tiger at the zoo in a cage that was only about 20ft long and no more than 6 feet wide. 

I doubt if you would want to visit THAT zoo!

Hamsters get it great - I mean for their size even in a one storey cage they must get the equivalent of 16 times their own size - so a great big 3-storey hamster cage increases their available space to about 48 times their size.

Rabbits might be able to take 2 hops from one end of their hutch to the other, but hamsters get to scale flights of stairs and run around in wheels!

Rabbit Runs:
Yes, you can buy a rabbit run and let your bunny trot around on fresh grass - but again, they are very small compared to total bunny size.  and, you need to keep putting your bunny in them every day and moving them around the garden as well - and not in bad weather.

So, rabbits might get out in their run for more than an hour maybe just 100 days or less a year.

And although you can get then a harness and talk them out for ‘walks’ in your yard (and by this I mean that you just follow your rabbit around wherever it goes as oppose to drag it up the street like a stubborn Yorkie!), but you need to be with them all the time, so this isn’t normally a very long activity for them.

Letting them run free in you secure garden is also out of the question as they may well get killed by a neighbours cat - all too tempted by this fluffy things hopping around the shrubs!

So, needless to say, bunny rabbits can get very fat (through lack of exercise) and very bored (due to sitting in a tiny hutch for the majority of the year). 

And this is where RAW hopes to help out.  By offering a range of treatments, complete foods and toys - your rabbit need never live a boring life ever again!

posted by admin on Apr 20

Your Basketball or Football can now be made with eco friendly materials at no extra cost to you!

It does seem that some advances in manufacturing could have taken place years ago, but it was all down to laziness that things stayed the same.

What I’m talking about is a sport equipment supplier that are now making all their sports balls (and more) out of ethically sourced materials.  This hasn’t really been done before as people we always happy (or at least not bothered) to change from the cheap and sometimes environmentally damaging alternatives.

All through history, people have found the easiest way to make something, and no-one ever complained.  If someone did offer up an alternative it may well have been a bit more expensive or a bit difficult to get hold of and as no-one really saw the point of changing - everything remained the same.

However now, things ARE changing.  People have found that previous products were damaging the very planet we live on, and even though the manufacturers were making a huge profit - we; the consumers, were only getting their products a little bit cheaper than the more ethical alternatives.  And so we brought the alternative.

The Brand of Ethletic are one such manufacturer, and have found that they can make sports products from sustainable and eco friendly materials, and sell them for virtually the same cost as ‘normal’ sports products.

So that is what they have done.

Their Products:
Ranging from basketballs, footballs, childrens sneakers, sporting accessories, brightly-colored baseball boots and even personalised balloons - all their products have an ethical claim and certification.

Whether it is FSC certified forestry for their 100% compostable latex, Fair Trade certification for their rubber and cotton networks, recyclable or biodegradable packaging or their use of only organic cotton - their products are certainly in a niche of their own.

And you can bulk buy products for your school, college or sports group so you get a fair deal too!  And you can choose the color, logo and other wording on them too!

Now there is no need to NOT buy the Fair Trade version of anything really, as these products are becoming more and more available thanks to new manufacturing and retail developments.

posted by admin on Apr 10

If you have too many shoes and not enough space - then check out this fancy new invention!

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a special shoe department in their wardrobe - but we all have too many shoes!  So where do you put yours without squashing them all in a pile or using up shelf after shelf of space?

Well, luckily for you Danilo Torro has designed the perfect product to help you out - and it’s called the Shoe Wheel.  Just think of a miniature Ferris wheel and you are nearly there.

The Shoe Wheel:
It’s clever design allows for all your shoes (up to 30 pairs) to be stored in the same place, based on the fact that shoes are thinner at the toe and then get bigger.  So if you place your shoes into each compartment toe first, they will sit neatly in the ‘wheel’.

As they are held in place securely by the expandable pockets, it doesn’t matter if they are then moved upside-down in the wheel as you search for another pair.  And even this is made totally easy too, as the sides are clear vinyl - allowing you to see every single pair of shoes stored inside the wheel!

It comes in several different colors to suit all styles (including pink) and can hold shoes up to size 11 (44) - and they do a slightly different model (the shoe pod) if you need space for up to size 14-plus.

And There’s More?
This ingeniously designed storage unit will only take up a small part of your closet or hallway, as it is only around a foot wide - so no wider than your shoes would be in the same place anyway!  And it’s only around 75cm high and wide so will take up a lot less room than a shoe rack that holds the same number of shoes!

The great bonus is that it’s on wheels, so you can wheel it from the closet over to the bed or chair or bathroom to make choosing the best shoes even easier - you don’t need to keep walking backwards and forwards to the mirror with every pair - just wheel them all over there with you in the first place!

And, it even comes in a miniature version for kids - called the Rakkiddo - which holds up to 20 pairs of tiny shoes!  A great space saver for the kids room!

posted by admin on Apr 7

This is your last chance to get into the Gadget Show this year!

There are only tickets left for the opening of the show this afternoon - basically you have about an hour to buy your tickets, and up until 5pm this evening to get in the door!

The show - one of the largest of it’s kind in the UK has sold out in record time - not surprising really considering what they have on offer for the visitor!

I won’t go into too many of the details here now (maybe a catch-up in a few days) - otherwise you won’t make it there on time………

So, visit their Official Site asap - and order your tickets now!  

Maybe I’ll see you there? 

posted by admin on Mar 30

A new air-conditioning system is on the scene that could save you a lot of money!

Unlike the standard air-conditioning systems that we find in workplaces and schools all over, this one is unique - and it turns out that it works on less energy and distributes both warm and cold air more efficiently too.

And if that wasn’t great enough on it’s own - it’s also made of eco friendly materials that can be composted and looks very stylish too!

What Is Cool Phase?
Well, using the description from their own website; Cool Phase is ‘an extremely low energy, intelligent passive cooling and heat recovery system for use within Commercial, Academic and Health Care environments.’

Working with the Carbon Trust and BASF Ltd in the UK, they have designed a latent heat mechanism that can deliver and store enough natural energy to heat or cool a large environment without using up the excessive power that a standard AC unit uses.

The units are wood-finish, and stand on the floor of the environment backed up to an exterior wall, and the fresh air is taken in to the main unit through circular vents.  So basically, they will look no different in your classroom or office than any other radiators or AC units - except is doesn’t contain those potentially hazardous refrigerants that they do within it’s structure!

The Technical Bit:
So, if these units don’t contain a coolant and don’t use much energy - how do they work?

Basically, their key ingredient is wax.  Of course it is a special type of wax called Phase Change Material (PCM) and it is the change of state of this material (whether it melts of goes hard) that traps or releases the heat.

It’s thermal qualities are immense for it’s unit size and they quote that ‘a 1cm thick layer of PCM will have the same thermal mass as a 15cm layer of concrete.’

These tiny coated particles of PCM are floating in a liquid environment to which they transfer their latent energy, and it is this ’slurry’ that is passed around the system to balance the ambient room temperature.

And There’s More:
This system however, is not 100% the same as what we have come to believe an AC unit should be.  Air conditioning has now become almost synonymous with ‘blows out cold air’, rather than maintains a constant healthy ventilated space.

But Cool Phase will offer this ‘conditioning’ as part of the whole system.  Levels of carbon dioxide in the air can affect human concentration - the higher the levels (ppm) in the circulating air as you would find in a stuffy office space, the lower the levels of concentration.

What these units are able to do is regulate the rooms CO2 content and therefore actually fulfilling the requirement of ‘air conditioning’.

This obviously may well drop the temperature slightly as it will trigger a huge amount of fresh air to begin circulating in that environment to dissipate the carbon dioxide and send in some good old fresh air to wake everyone back up and get those minds active again!

So, if you need to install a new AC system, why not take a look at this new alternative and compare costs and applications - and your carbon footprint too!