TIME:
From a genetic testing service to an invisibility cloak to an ingenious public bike system to the world’s first moving skyscraper – TIME’s picks for the top innovations of 2008. Yesterday, we looked at a couple of innovations. Today, three more.
Made-in-Transit Packaging
Most fresh food comes with a “best before” date, but Amsterdam-based Canadian designer Agata Jaworska thinks it should be marked “ready by.” Her concept: packaging in which food can keep growing during shipping to the supermarket so that it arrives ready to be harvested, in a state of optimum freshness.Sunscreen for Plants
Sure, crops require sun, but they need some skin protection too. Purshade, a new SPF-45 spray, forms a film of microscopic mirror-like prisms over growing fruits and veggies to reflect harmful UV rays while letting the good light pass through. Result: higher yields and better-quality food.Einstein’s Fridge
That Albert Einstein guy had some pretty good ideas – relativity, the photoelectric effect, the “up” hairdo – but his contributions to the field of refrigerator theory have been sadly neglected.No longer.
Scientists at Oxford University have resurrected an eco-friendly refrigerator design that Einstein and a collaborator patented in 1930. Instead of cooling the interior of the refrigerator with freon – a serious contributor to global warming – Einstein’s design uses ammonia, butane and water. It also requires very little energy.
Though Einstein’s original refrigerator wasn’t all that efficient, the Oxford researchers have tweaked his version and believe it could eventually compete in the marketplace. Then maybe we’ll remember Einstein the way he wanted – as a guy who liked to keep things cool.
Photo by a_cinnamon_stick.