gabriel amadeus /CC BY 2.0It’s a stereotype that holds true across so many cultures--rough and tumble cowboys need their Ribeyes and men love to grill out and throw a huge steak on the grill. We subscribe to these stereotypes everyday as a result of effective marketing. A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that male consumers avoid vegetarian options because they’re not quite macho enough.Science Daily reports:In a number of experiments that looked at metaphors and cer...

© Terra New York. Terra New York's chic, biking rain gear.Bike fashion is a hot topic on TreeHugger but we have yet to see it transition so effortlessly from bike to street style as it does with Terra New York's chic raincoats. As seen on Cool Hunting, these fashion forward designer coats are built to brave a rainstorm--and fit a helmet underneath--so you never have to take a car or taxi come inclement weather.© Terra New YorkFounded more than two years ago, Terra New York launched with "the amb...

© Klik Systems. 'Luminous' at Darling Quarter.The world’s largest permanent interactive light installation has been installed in Sydney's recently revitalized Darling Quarter, providing a lively, colorful -- and solar-powered -- backdrop to the area's eateries, shops, and parks.The "Luminous" digital installation, which officially opened Friday, extends over four levels of two buildings, covering a total of 557 windows and 150 meters, and incorporates 557 LED lights that are powered by rooftop ...

© FordCompetition for Toyota's Prius V With the C-Max hybrid, Ford is aiming squarely at the Toyota Prius V. So much so that Ford's promotion materials are full of refences to the Mama Prius; about how the C-Max hybrid offers "better fuel economy, performance, technology and functionality than Prius v" and how its priced 500 bucks lower than the V. These are nice promises, but the true test will be in the real-world once the C-Max starts shipping to customers in the fall of 2012. Right now, Ford...

Youtube/Screen captureWe Destroy Cars for a Living The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety busted up a few Prius C hybrids to see how they held up in crashes, how much of the energy was absorbed by the car (it's a good thing for cars to crumple up because that's less energy that needs to be absorbed by the passengers), how much intrusion there was in the interior cabin, etc. They found that the new baby Prius did well enough to earn a 'top pick' mention, which is the IIHS's top award for good...

Steven Beger Photography/CC BY-SA 2.0From underground aquaponic farms in the heart of Chicago to rooftop aquaponics using liquid oxygen, the symbiosis between fish farming and hydroponic vegetable growing is often touted as a holy grail of more sustainable food production.But why stop at fish?Aquaponics advocates Friendly Aquaponics have just proposed what may be an entirely new concept—"gatorponics"—and they believe that this system of farming alligators for meat, and then using their poop to ...

© Eric Cheng/Sea ShepherdWhile the extradition proceedings continue in Germany, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson will be released on €250,000 ($318,000) bail, The Guardian reports. Watson is said to be released next week but must remain in Germany pending a decision on extradition to Costa Rica.Frankfurt's higher regional court announced on Friday that it had put him under preliminary arrest after deciding that an extradition would be permissible under German law. The authorities in Costa Rica n...

Lexus Kills HS 250h 3 Years After Introduction It seems like it was just yesterday that Lexus introduced the HS 250h hybrid, the first dedicated luxury hybrid (like the Prius, there's no non-hybrid version of the HS 250h). But I never was crazy about the styling, and apparently Lexus buyers weren't either, because sales were slow enough that the company decided to quietly kill off the model barely 3 years after it was introduced.According to Inside Line, Lexus HS 250h sales "plunged 73 percent l...

I will admit it. Without being snarky like the New York Times, there are things that I questioned about the LifeEdited project. It's not unusual for entire families to live in 420 square feet in New York City, so for a single guy to demonstrate how to live in an apartment didn't seem like much of a stretch. There were things in the program that seemed silly and excessive. (Dinner for 12 in New York in your apartment? That's what restaurants are for!) A second bedroom for guests seemed a bit much...

© Jaymi HeimbuchThis is the 6th annual Maker Faire Bay Area, an event put on by MAKE Magazine that brings together DIYers, hackers, builders, crafters and in general do-ers to share their projects and products. You can find everything from robots walking the streets to bicycles disguised as cupcakes to cheesemaking workshops and everything in between.And for the fourth year in a row, we're heading out to join the fun and bring you all the cool stuff as inspiration. You can check out our Maker Fa...

This week we have 15 cool and odd concepts and solutions for the global water crisis, a photovoltaic implant that can help blind people see, a computer that grows wheat grass using waste heat, teens running a recycling business and more! Original linkOriginal author: Jaymi Heimbuch...

Christina Ann VanMeter/CC BY-ND 2.0According to the 2012 California Green Innovation Index, compiled by Next 10, the state’s investment in the clean technology is doing more than innovation. It's also helping California grow its economy and cut emissions after one of the worst recessions in history devastated the housing sector and reduced the real estate tax base of almost every city and county.The statistics don’t lie. Assembled by Next 10, a nonprofit vested in informational assessments focus...

© Micaela Nardella and Oana TudoseWe've discussed at length before how sustainable architecture is not just about the latest and greatest geegaws tacked onto buildings, but is also about linking them with the natural ecosystem in which they sit in. Deliberately giving biodiversity a leg up by integrating measures to provide habitat for urban wildlife is one way to do it, and we've seen some pretty nifty, well-designed examples that do just that. But what about your humble brick wall?© Micaela Na...

balise42/CC BY 2.0Beets in cake? Totally. What could be better than swapping out nutritionally benign ingredients for beets, which are high in folate, manganese and potassium, and have achieved superfood status for their overall nutrient profile and zooming level of phytochemicals?In this recipe the beets impart sweetness and a luscious moist quality, with nary a blast of beet flavor to be found. Those in the know may detect a little earthy something, but the flavor of the beets is so well incor...

© eLoomnWe all love to complain about the weather, but as our parents may have told us once, "I'll give you something to complain about..."Once you take a look at some of the extreme weather events taking place around the world, you might be slower to whine about your local weather, and like just about everything these days, there's an app for that.Xweather is a dynamic and engaging new app for the iPad and iPhone, featuring a high resolution, easy-to-navigate, 3D rendering of our globe with ico...

© Sigg Collection, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is one of China's most famous artists, he is also one of the most controversial. Despite being under house arrest by the Chinese government, he continues to come out with new works which are laden with political messages of protest.The latest, Perspectives: Ai Weiwei, is on display at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington's Smithsonian.© Sigg Collection, Arthur M. Sackler GalleryThe piece is called Fragments and it is ma...

Kevin Shay/Video screen captureOne of our favorite topics on TreeHugger is the ingenious ways in which people make the city environment a fun place to be. Living in a dense urban area is great way to reduce our impact on the environment, but it can be confining and stressful. That's why I like the super simple UpSwing by industrial designer Kevin Shay.Made of what looks like leather, canvas, a carabiner and some rope, the UpSwing is easily attached to anything high enough and strong enough to su...

Brian Merchant/CC BY 2.0Today, ethanol plants are producing transportation fuel in just about every corner of the world, from Brazil to Iowa to Germany and beyond. But there hasn't yet been a biofuel plant specifically designed to produce sustainable cooking fuels—which, according to its operators, makes the one that opened today in Dondo, Mozambique the world's first.The plant is a cornerstone of a multi-tiered venture, CleanStar Mozambique, which will buy cassava from local farmers and refine ...

Port of San Diego/CC BY 2.0It's been a long time in the works: The US Department of Commerce has announced preliminary tariffs on Chinese-made solar power modules of around 31% for companies that participated in their investigation and of 250% on companies that chose not to participate. What's more the tariffs are retroactive back to February 2012.The anti-dumping tariffs are in response to a complaint filed months ago by US solar manufacturers, which TreeHugger has covered a number of times (se...

Clearly Ambiguous/CC BY 2.0Lest you have any doubts that the planet is warming: New research in the Journal of Climate shows that the past 60 years in Australia have been the warmest in the past 1000. And to quell any doubts as to what's causing it, study lead research Dr Joelle Gergis, from the University of Melbourne:Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1000 year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused cli...