It turns out that fish pedicures aren’t just a bizarre beauty ritual — they’re also potentially dangerous. This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a new report that examined the types of bacteria associated with Garra rufa, an inch-long toothless carp that nibbles away at dead skin. Citing the risk of dangerous skin and soft-tissue infections for people with open sores, skin cuts, underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, the CDC warned against the practice. Our advice? Stick with the pumice stone and leave the fish alone.

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Post tags: Aeromonas, beauty, beauty regulations, CDC, center for disease control, diabetes, doctor fish, Fish pedicures, health concerns, pathogens, toothless carp

Co-sleeping — when babies and young children share a bed with one or both of their parents — has now been linked to reduced obesity. According to a new Danish study, children who regularly co-sleep with their parents are 70-percent less likely to be overweight when compared to kids who never sleep with their parents. So what’s behind the correlation? Although researchers aren’t clear on why the co-sleepers were slimmer, they have some theories, such as kids who co-sleep may have a greater sense of emotional support, whereas children who are not allowed to sleep with their parents may feel rejected, and in turn, negative feelings may increase the risk of obesity.

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Post tags: child rearing, Children, Co-sleeping, green parenting, Health, Inhabitots, kids sleeping, obesity, parenting, sleep

Wind energy is one of the cleanest, most reliable sources of renewable energy out there, but there’s one strike against it: Most wind turbines aren’t exactly the most attractive sight. But for anyone who says that wind energy can’t match form to function, feast your eyes on the Enessere Hercules wind generator, which was designed by Terry Glenn Phipps. With curved wooden blades, the 23-foot-tall wind turbine looks more like a sculpture than other more utilitarian wind turbines, and because of its clever design, it can harness the power of wind coming from any direction.

Read the rest of The Enessere Hercules Wind Turbine Generates Wind Energy in Fine Style

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", "wind turbine", Enessere, Hercules, renewable energy, wind energy, wind generator, wind turbine design, windmill, wooden wind turbine

Do you enjoy camping but find it hard to get a good night’s sleep? The Pakmat is a comfortable, eco-friendly, and compact product ideal for outdoor enthusiasts, as well as for emergency use during disaster relief efforts. There is no need to carry a separate pump or rely on an electrical power source, because the PakMat uses a handheld pump with human energy to inflate the bed. It’s the first air pump that is specifically designed to act as a clean storage unit for the airbed it is designed to inflate.

+ AeroBed Pakmat

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Post tags: air bed, air mattress, camping, erobed, green air matrress, green products, inflatable mattress, pakmat

New York-based artist Tom Sachs has teamed up with Nike on a capsule collection that combines Sach’s DIY ethos and his preoccupation with space exploration with the sportswear giant’s yen for performance innovation. Together, they’ve come up with a series of limited-edition sneakers, bags and jackets that are made using fabric from Mars Excursion Rover airbags, mainsails for boats, and even NASA spacesuits. The joint venture, dubbed NikeCraft, will launch on the eve of Sach’s Space Program: Mars installation at Manhattan’s Armory Park.

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Post tags: Astronaut apparel, “Chester” trench coat, “Mars Yard” shoe, “Marsfly” jacket, DIY, eco-fashion, nasa, Nike, Nikecraft, recycled clothes, space gear, spacesuits, sportswear, Tom Sachs

Overhead electric lines that power buses and streetcars are a common sight in California cities and towns, and they could soon be expanding to highways. At the 26th annual Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles last week, Siemens unveiled the “eHighway of the Future,” a system of electric lines that would be used to power specially-designed hybrid trucks. The eHighway is currently being tested in Germany, and pilot projects are planed for Los Angeles and Long Beach.

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Post tags: California, eco friendly shipping, ehighway, ehighway of the future, electric cars, germany, green transportation, green trucks, hybrid cars, hybrid trucks, shipping, siemens

Read the rest of Sou Fujimoto’s Glassy House NA Blurs the Distinction Between Indoor and Outdoor Space

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Post tags: green design, House NA, Japan, Sou Fujimoto, sou fujimoto architects, Tokyo

Spring is in full swing (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), and in many parts of the world that means one thing: Rain. And lots of it. To help you navigate the wide world of rain gear, our fashion-obsessed sister site Ecouterre has put together a guide to 14 environmentally-friendly rain coats that will protect you from the elements without using a single lick of PVC, Gore-tex, or any nasty chemical treatments.

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Post tags: American Apparel, eco-fashion, green fashion, green rain jackets, green raincoats, green style, jackets, outerwear, rain gear, Splendid's reversible yellow slicker, spring style, Stutterheim's unisex raincoat, Terra New York

From a family that built part of their NYC apartment out of LEGOs to the world record-shattering tower that was just completed in South Korea, we’ve seen some pretty incredible LEGO creations here at Inhabitat, but few are as beautiful and ingenious as LEGO builder Thomas Poulsom‘s birds. Poulsom’s set includes a Robin Red Breast, a Blue Tit, a Kingfisher, a Puffin named Penelope (complete with cliff), and he built them to be as close to their real size as possible. Head over to Inhabitots to see a slide show the complete set.

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Post tags: Art, birds, Blue Tit, British birds, Kingfisher, lego, lego art, LEGO CUUSOO, lego sculpture, Puffin, Thomas Poulsom

Read the rest of Architect Jay Behr’s Hillside Residence in Sausalito Overlooks the San Francisco Bay

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Post tags: AIA SF, Architecture, bay area, Ewald Tajbaksh Architecture, Jay Behr Design, marin county, Marin Living: Home Tours, real estate, San Francisco, sausalito

One of the challenges for parents with young children is having kid-friendly objects in your house without making your home feel too much like a nursery. As part of the Masterprogram Child Culture Design at HDK in Gothenburg’s “Play in Progress” exhibit, Swedish design student Jessica Arosenius showed off Block.210, a coffee table that’s meant to intrigue both parent and child. The surface of the table composed of 210 wooden blocks, which should help fuel your kid’s creativity and imagination. And when they’re done playing, the blocks can be quickly restored to form a flat surface that can be used for entertaining.

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Post tags: "green furniture", Block Table, block.210, coffee table, furniture design, HDK in Gothenburg, Jessica Arosenius, Masterprogram Child Culture Design, play in progress, table design

Putting your hand up to your ear with thumb and pinky extended is a universal sign for talking on the phone, but what if we told you that you could actually talk on the phone by talking into your hand? Inventor Bryan Cera has come up with Glove One, a 3D-printed gauntlet that doubles as a working cellphone. The prototype features touch keys on the underside of each finger, plus a speaker and mic on the thumb and pinky. Glove One, explains Cera, is a “cellphone which, in order to use, one must sacrifice their hand.” Head over to Ecouterre to view a video of this amazing new gizmo.

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Post tags: 3D printed glove, Bryan Cera, cell phone, Glove One, green tech, hand phone, mobile phone, wearable technology

Going to the gym is of course great for your health, but there are at least two things that we dislike about traditional fitness clubs: you have to exercise inside (which feels particularly silly in the spring and summer), and the machines waste energy when they ought to be producing it. The Great Outdoor Gym Company, a British fitness company, offers a solution to both of those problems with gyms that are located outside and use human-generated energy to power light installations.

Read the rest of Finally, an Outdoor Gym that Generates Energy Instead of Wasting It

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Post tags: "clean energy", England, exercise, fitness, great britain, Great Outdoor Gym Company, human generated power, human power, kinetic energy, Outdoor gym, renewable energy

Read the rest of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Unveil Dancing Dragons Towers With Scaly, Breathable Skin

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Post tags: "AS+GG", Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, Dancing Dragons, energy efficient buildings, green buildings, green skyscrapers, Martha Schwartz Partners, PositivEnergy Practice, seoul, skyscrapers, south korea, supertall, werner sobek, Yongsan master plan

Read the rest of HomeAway’s LEED Gold Headquarters in Austin Makes Work Feel Like a Vacation

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Post tags: austin, Brian Sharples, green interiors, green offices, homeaway inc, interior design, LEED gold, office design, reclaimed wood, Recycled Materials, texas

Read the rest of 100,000 Solar-Powered LEDs Flow Down the Sumida River in Tokyo

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Post tags: e-waste, Green Design Events, Japan, LED bulbs, LED lights, Solar Power, Sumida River, Taito Ward, Tokyo, Tokyo Hotaru Festival 2012, Tokyo Sky Tree

Big news out of the Big Apple: Cornell University announced last night that Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects will design the first of three net-zero academic buildings on its new applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island. Morphosis beat out six other finalists, including SOM, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Steven Holl Architects. Morphosis hasn’t unveiled the proposed design just yet, but there’s speculation that it will bear some similarity to the firm’s Cooper Union campus building in lower Manhattan. Initial drafts of the building are expected to be released to the public by November 2012.

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Post tags: cooper union, Cornell sciences, cornell university, CornellNYC Tech Building, design competitions, manhattan, Morphosis Architects, net-zero energy, new york city, NYC, Roosevelt Island, Thom Mayne

Predicting food shortages in the 21st century, Zurich-based UrbanFarmers AG and Conceptual Devices have teamed up to produce plans for the Globe (Hedron), a geodesic greenhouse that rests on the top of flat roofs in urban areas. The dome, which is framed with bamboo, is designed as an aquaponics system that can grow both fish and vegetables. The load of the fish tank is hung on the greenhouse structure, allowing this aquaponic farm to be housed on a wider variety of roofs without any structural building adaptation. The greenhouse is designed to feed four families of four, year-round. The project has been entered in the 2012 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, and the designers are currently raising funds for it on IndieGoGo.

+ Conceptual Devices

+ Globe (Hedron) on IndieGoGo

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Post tags: food security, geodesic dome, geodesic greenhouse, globe (hedron), greenhouses, roof garden, rooftop farm, rooftop greenhouse, sustainable food, Urban Farming, urban gardening

Your clothes may look great, but what are they doing for your golf swing? “Move,” a new high-tech compression top from Electricfoxy, has the ability to read your body’s posture and muscle movement and provide real-time feedback in the form of a gentle nudge to help you make necessary adjustments. The smart garment enables you to become your own instructor, coach or trainer by helping you set goals and adjust to meet them. The top is linked to a mobile app that you can use to manage and track your performance, and it’s part of a large cloud-based platform on which you can search and save several routines to help with sports, yoga or physical therapy.

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Post tags: active wear, cloud storage, Electricfoxy, Fashion, high-tech fashion, Jennifer Darmour, Move!, pilates, smart garment, yoga, yoga fashion

A special announcement for San Francisco Bay Area Inhabitants: AIA SF’s Marin Living: Home Tours are back! It’s well-known that the hills of the North Bay are overflowing with architectural treasures — you just have to know where to look. Every year, the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects gives tour-goers an opportunity to take a peek at some of the most innovative residences in the area — inside and out — and this year will be no exception. On Saturday, May 12 from 10:00AM to 4:00PM you can tour homes in Sausalito, Mill Valley and San Rafael, meet design teams, and learn more about the design process. Want to get in on the fun? Head over to AIA SF and register now!

+ 2012 Marin Living: Home Tours

+ AIA San Francisco

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Post tags: AIA san francisco, AIA SF, AIA SF Home Tours, bay area, Ewald Tajbaksh Architecture, Jay Behr Design, marin county, Michael Rex Associates, Miers Architects, mill valley, Ohashi Design Studio, San Francisco, San Rafael, sausalito, YamaMar Design