The island in Cancun built on recycled plastic bottles

A British man in the Mexican tourist area of Cancun is looking to get legal recognition for the island home that he has built almost entirely out of recycled materials.

Richard Sowa created the island in 2007 out of reclaimed wood, held up on a bed of thousands of empty plastic drinks bottles.

He says it is ''a way of turning the trash of the world into paradise''. (from BBC News)

First flower blooms in space on International Space Station

Astronauts have grown the first flower in space on-board the International Space Station.

The zinnia flower is the first to grow in space

The orange zinnia flowers can be eaten and were grown in the 'Veggie' laboratory, which was installed on the space station in 2014.

Growing their own food in space is a big step for astronauts because it means they could go on longer missions in the future.

They've grown lettuce before but the zinnia is the first to bloom flowers.

It shows that it may be possible to grow other flowering crops like tomatoes.

Scott Kelly took this selfie with his crop of lettuce in the Veggie Laboratory

Growing plants in space might be trickier than you think - watering flowers is much more difficult in a place without gravity!

Another problem was that the high levels of moisture in the air inside the space station led to mould growing on some leaves.

The astronauts cleaned the plants, cut away the mouldy leaves, and set up a fan to try and dry out the crop. But the high speed fan did its job a bit too well, and the plants got too dry.

Astronaut Scott Kelly took charge of the flowers, and worked hard to revive them over Christmas, and on 12 January, a few petals started to peak out.

When the flowers finally bloomed, Scott shared the photo saying 'first ever flower grown in space makes its debut!'

From CBBC Newsround

A solution for the drought problem in California?

The sea of 96MILLION plastic balls that LA hopes will save it from drought: Reservoir is covered in an ocean of black spheres to stop 300million gallons of water evaporating

Black plastic balls were this week released into the 175-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California

They are designed to cover the water, prevent evaporation and protect it from dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife

The polyethylene balls, around the size of an apple, cost 36 cents each and are black to help deflect the UV rays.

With no apparent relief to California's record-breaking drought, Los Angeles has turned to more unusual methods to protect the city's water.

Officials recently released 96 million floating 'shade balls' into the 75-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California.

The black plastic balls are designed to help protect the water against dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife, as well as prevent 300 million gallons of water from evaporating each year. 

The balls work by floating on the surface and blocking the sun's rays.

As well as protecting against evaporation, they also prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.

For most people, exposure to bromate - created from naturally-occurring bromide in water -is unlikely to be cause problems.

But some people who ingest large amounts of bromate have suffered nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out.

Dr Brian White, a now-retired Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP biologist), was the first person to think of using shade balls for water quality.

HOW DO THE SHADE BALLS WORK? 

• The plastic black balls, around the size of an apple, cost 36 cents each.
• They floating on the surface and block the sun's rays to prevent water from evaporating.
• By doing this, they prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.
• The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out away. 

From Mailonline

Bug-killing book pages clean murky drinking water

Scientists in America have designed a drinkable book that can save lives by making polluted water safe to consume.

It's an instruction manual with information on how and why water should be filtered.

Once read, its pages can be torn out and used to turn dirty water into drinkable water.

The "drinkable book" combines treated paper with printed information on how and why water should be filtered.

Its pages contain nanoparticles of silver or copper, which kill bacteria in the water as it passes through.

In trials at 25 contaminated water sources in South Africa, Ghana and Bangladesh, the paper successfully removed more than 99% of bacteria.

The resulting levels of contamination are similar to US tap water, the researchers say. Tiny amounts of silver or copper also leached into the water, but these were well below safety limits.

The results were presented at the 250th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, US.

Dr Teri Dankovich, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, developed and tested the technology for the book over several years, working at McGill University in Canada and then at the University of Virginia.

"It's directed towards communities in developing countries," Dr Dankovich said, noting that 663 million people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water.

"All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells etc and out comes clean water - and dead bacteria as well," she told BBC news.

The bugs absorb silver or copper ions - depending on the nanoparticles used - as they percolate through the page.

"Ions come off the surface of the nanoparticles, and those are absorbed by the microbes," Dr Dankovich explained.

According to her tests, one page can clean up to 100 litres of water. A book could filter one person's water supply for four years.

Instructions are printed on the book's pages, in English as well as the local language

Dr Dankovich had already tested the paper in the lab using artificially contaminated water. Success there led to the field trials which she conducted over the past two years, working with the charities Water is Life and iDE.

In these trials, the bacteria count in the water samples plummeted by well over 99% on average - and in most samples, it dropped to zero.

"Greater than 90% of the samples had basically no viable bacteria in them, after we filtered the water through the paper," Dr Dankovich said.

"It's really exciting to see that not only can this paper work in lab models, but it also has shown success with real water sources that people are using."

One location gave the paper a particularly tough challenge.

READ MORE HERE

Panama Canal to limit ship draft due to drought

The Panama Canal Authority says it will temporarily cut the draft of ships allowed through because of drought caused by El Nino.

The Panama Canal is a key route in global shipping

From 8 September, the maximum draft - or depth in the water - will be cut to 39ft (11.89m), which may affect up to 20% of traffic.

A similar restriction was imposed for the same reason in 1998.

The authorities say a further cut could be imposed on 16 September if the situation does not improve.

The authority has taken the action because water levels in the Gatun and Alhajuela lakes has reduced as a result of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The current draft limit is 39.5ft, which will be cut to 39ft on 8 September and then potentially to 38.5ft on 16 September.

Shipping companies had been warned the cuts could be coming.

The Panama Canal celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, having seen more than a million ships pass through.

Panama took control of the canal from the US in 2000, and has since been widely praised with the way it has handled the operation.

Transit fees now bring in about $1bn (£645m) a year for the government.

From BBC News

Watch this video and you'll find out the great importance of this canal

Step forward for computing by light

Engineers and physicists have discovered a property of silicon which could aid the development of faster computers.

Currently, copper wires transfer information in a computer; the process is slowed down as the wires heat up.

"Photonic" and "spintronic" computing is the principle of transferring information by light or electron spin.

This new property means that silicon-based light detectors identify spin, so more information can be transferred.

Spin is a property of sub-atomic particles, which influences the ordering of electrons and nuclei in atoms and molecules.

The discovered property is usually observed in materials containing heavy elements, which are difficult to integrate into existing computing systems that are composed mainly of silicon.

Silicon is a highly symmetrical crystal, but by changing the geometry of it, the team was able to impart "chiral" properties to it. Something is chiral if the mirror image of the object cannot be superimposed on the original.

Something is chiral if the mirror image of the object cannot be superimposed on the original; one example is your hands
From BBC News -Science/ Environment

Solar Impulse: Oman to India journey sets new record

Solar Impulse, the fuel-free aeroplane, has successfully completed the second leg of its historic attempt to fly around the world.

Project chairman, Bertrand Piccard, piloted the vehicle from Muscat in Oman to Ahmedabad in India, crossing the Arabian Sea in the process.

Tuesday's journey took just over 15 hours.

The distance covered - 1,468km - set a new world record for a flight in a piloted solar-powered plane.

The vehicle has another 10 legs ahead of it over the course of the next five months.

Included in that itinerary will be demanding stretches when the craft has to fly over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Piccard is sharing the flying duties with project partner and CEO, Andre Borschberg, who made Monday's inaugural trip from Abu Dhabi to Muscat.

Solar Impulse arrived in Ahmedabad in darkness, its wings illuminated by LEDs, and its propellers driven by the energy stored in its batteries.

The plane had left Muscat at 06.35 (02:35 GMT) and put its wheels down at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 23.25 local time (17:55 GMT).

Preparations are already under way for the next leg to Varanasi in northeast India, although mission planners say that will not be for another four days, at least.

The time will be spent carrying a campaigning message on the topic ofclean technologies to the local Ahmedabad people, and the wider Indian population.

Solar Impulse heads out over the Arabian Sea

The Solar Impulse project has already set plenty of other world records for solar-powered flight, including making a high-profile transit of the US in 2013.

But the round-the-world venture is altogether more dramatic and daunting, and has required the construction of an even bigger plane than the prototype, Solar Impulse-1.

This new model has a wingspan of 72m, which is wider than a 747 jumbo jet. And yet, it weighs only 2.3 tonnes.Its light weight will be critical to its success.

So, too, will the performance of the 17,000 solar cells that line the top of the wings, and the energy-dense lithium-ion batteries it will use to sustain night-time flying.Operating through darkness will be particularly important when the men have to cross the Pacific and the Atlantic.

The slow speed of their prop-driven plane means these legs will take several days and nights of non-stop flying to complete.Piccard and Borschberg - they take it in turns to fly solo - will have to stay alert for nearly all of the time they are airborne.

They will be permitted only catnaps of up to 20 mins - in the same way a single-handed, round-the-world yachtsman would catch small periods of sleep.They will also have to endure the physical discomfort of being confined in a cockpit that measures just 3.8 cubic metres in volume - not a lot bigger than a public telephone box.

Bertrand Piccard looking fresh after more than 15 hours in the cockpit of Solar Impulse

The Solar Impulse venture recalls other great circumnavigation feats in aviation - albeit fuelled ones.In 1986, the Voyager aircraft became the first to fly around the world without stopping or refuelling.

Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the propeller-driven vehicle took nine days to complete its journey.Then, in 2005, this time was beaten by the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which was solo-piloted by Steve Fossett. A jet-powered plane, GlobalFlyer completed its non-stop circumnavigation in just under three days.

From BBC Sci/ Environment

Watch some videos on this article

World's first lagoon power plants unveiled in UK

Plans to generate electricity from the world's first series of tidal lagoons have been unveiled in the UK.

The proposed Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay project would be the world's first man-made, energy-generating lagoon

The six lagoons - four in Wales and one each in Somerset and Cumbria - will capture incoming and outgoing tides behind giant sea walls, and use the weight of the water to power turbines.

A £1bn Swansea scheme, said to be able to produce energy for 155,000 homes, is already in the planning system.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey says he wants to back the project.

The cost of generating power from the Swansea project will be very high, but the firm behind the plan says subsequent lagoons will be able to produce electricity much more cheaply.

It says the series of six lagoons could generate 8% of the UK's electricity for an investment of £30bn.

As well as Swansea, the proposed lagoon sites are Cardiff, Newport, and Colwyn Bay in Wales; Bridgwater in Somerset; and West Cumbria.

Each will require engineering on a grand scale. In Swansea, the sea wall to contain the new lagoon will stretch more than five miles and reach more than two miles out to sea.

The Cardiff lagoon could include up to 90 turbines set in a 14-mile (22km) breakwater around Cardiff Bay and could generate power for about 14 hours each day.

A planning application for the project is expected in 2017.

If approved, it could be generating power by 2022.

Some anglers fears the lagoon might affect migrating fish, but planners say the new sea wall would act as a reef

The firm proposing the lagoon say they want it to become a venue for culture and sports

The cost would be funded by electricity bill-payers under the existing government scheme to promote home-grown, low-carbon energy.

Tidal Lagoon Power is in negotiations with the government over how much it can charge for its power.

It wants £168 per MWh for electricity in Swansea, reducing to £90-£95 per MWh from a second, more efficient lagoon in Cardiff.

'Energy dance'

The £90 figure compares favourably with the £92.50 price for power from the planned Hinkley nuclear station, especially as the lagoon is designed to last 120 years - at a much lower risk than nuclear.

Mr Davey told BBC News: "I can't make a decision on this yet because discussions are ongoing. But I'm very excited by the prospect of tidal power.

"We have got some of the biggest tidal ranges in the world and it would be really useful if we could harness some of that clean energy."

From BBC Sci/ Environment

Test driving the smart electric 'carbike'

Two students from the University of Toronto have developed a prototype electric vehicle for use within city areas.

The car/bike hybrid is connected to a smartphone and can reach speeds of up to 20mph (32km/h).

It’s a car! It’s a bike! No … it’s a plug-free electric hybrid prototype!

OK, so they need to work on the name, but it’s a smart concept: a team of PhD candidates from the University of Toronto has created an electric pedal-powered car-bike that could help beat the traffic snarls that plague our city’s streets.

“The project was inspired by my experiences commuting from Union Station,” co-creator Phil Lam says with a laugh. “But everybody’s experience is bad, right? Drivers get stuck in traffic. People who take public transit never get anywhere on time. Walking is pleasant, but it doesn’t take you very far ... Cycling, if not outright dangerous, is certainly uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. Everybody’s suffering in their own way. The answer is reinterpreting how we get around.”

Fitted with wires, bike parts and a few Tupperware containers, the prototype looks like a cross between a recumbent bicycle and a homemade sci-fi space pod. Within the lightweight aluminum chassis, however, are the seeds of a vision for healthier, happier, and more sustainable urban transport in increasingly dense cities.

You charge the vehicle’s battery by pedalling. The intensity of pedalling controls its 500-watt engine’s throttle. The engine itself is fully programmable, which means that you can easily adjust the pedal-to-engine-power ratio. Rushing to an important meeting? Let the engine do most of the work, so you don’t show up sweaty. In need of a little exercise? Pedal the roughly 45-kilogram vehicle until you feel the burn.

The three-wheeled vehicle is tall enough to be seen by other traffic, yet narrow enough to manoeuvre through congested streets. It even has a windshield to protect you from the elements and a small trunk for parcels and groceries.

Phil Lam, left, and Jonathan Lung have created a startup, Sojourn Labs, supported by U of T's Impact Centre. It took them 18 months to design and build the prototype of their electric pedal-powered car-bike.

READ MORE

From: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/10/13/is_this_electric_carbike_the_answer_to_our_transit_woes.html

Suffolk Wildlife Trust, plans biggest 'bug hotel'

Work has begun on what is hoped will be the world's biggest bee and 'bug hotel'.

Jason Alexander is building 'Bug City' at Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Foxburrow Farm reserve in England

Bug expert Jason Alexander is working with Suffolk Wildlife Trust to build 'Bug City', a habitat designed for insects.

He is asking children to help build parts of the structure, which will be kept at the trust's Foxburrow Farm site, near Woodbridge

Cubs in Framlingham helped Jason Alexander build the first level

"It will be a safe place for insects and other animals to sleep, breed and hibernate," Jason said.

The bug hotel is being created using logs, bamboo canes, pine cones and "anything else which you may find in your garden".

The aim is to use recyclable materials where possible

Individual sections created by the volunteers will be joined together to create the hotel, which Jason hopes will be about 3ft (1m) high and more than 45ft (14m) long.

Biggest bee house

Guinness World Records says the largest bee house, made from bamboo, is in London and measures 42ft (13m).

Suffolk Wildlife Trust said a recently published study found about 46% of European bumblebee species were in decline, with 24% at risk of extinction.

Kerry Stranix, from the trust, said: "This project will raise awareness of the vital role played by invertebrates in our ecosystem, from pollinators to sources of food for many other species."

Work on Bug City is due to continue until February

From CBBC Newsround.

Potato power: the spuds that could light the world

With a simple trick, the humble spud can be made into a battery, so could potato powered homes catch on?

Mashed, boiled, baked or fried? You probably have a preference for your potatoes. Haim Rabinowitch, however, likes his spuds “hacked”.

For the past few years, researcher Rabinowitch and colleagues have been pushing the idea of “potato power” to deliver energy to people cut off from electricity grids. Hook up a spud to a couple of cheap metal plates, wires and LED bulbs, they argue, and it could provide lighting to remote towns and villages around the world.

They’ve also discovered a simple but ingenious trick to make potatoes particularly good at producing energy. “A single potato can power enough LED lamps for a room for 40 days,” claims Rabinowitch, who is based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The idea may seem absurd, yet it is rooted in sound science. Still, Rabinowitch and his team have discovered that actually launching potato power in the real world is much more complex than it first appears.

While Rabinowitch and team have found a way to make potatoes produce more power than usual, the basic principles are taught in high school science classes, to demonstrate how batteries work.

To make a battery from organic material, all you need is two metals – an anode, which is the negative electrode, such as zinc, and a cathode, the positively charged electrode, such as copper. The acid inside the potato forms a chemical reaction with the zinc and copper, and when the electrons flow from one material to another, energy is released. 

This was discovered by Luigi Galvani in 1780 when he connected two metals to the legs of a frog, causing its muscles to twitch. But you can put many materials between these two electrodes to get the same effect. Alexander Volta, around the time of Galvani, used saltwater-soaked paper. Others have made “earth batteries” using two metal plates and a pile of dirt, or a bucket of water.

Super spuds

Potatoes are often the preferred vegetable of choice for teaching high school science students these principles. Yet to the surprise of Rabinowitch, no one had scientifically studied spuds as an energy source. So in 2010, he decided to give it a try, along with PhD student Alex Goldberg, and Boris Rubinsky of the University of California, Berkeley.

“We looked at 20 different types of potatoes,” explains Goldberg, “and we looked at their internal resistance, which allows us to understand how much energy was lost by heat.”

They found that by simply boiling the potatoes for eight minutes, it broke down the organic tissues inside the potatoes, reducing resistance and allowing for freer movement of electrons– thus producing more energy. They also increased the energy output by slicing the potato into four or five pieces, each sandwiched by a copper and zinc plate, to make a series. “We found we could improve the output 10 times, which made it interesting economically, because the cost of energy drops down,” says Goldberg.

“It’s low voltage energy,” says Rabinowitch, “but enough to construct a battery that could charge mobile phones or laptops in places where there is no grid, no power connection.”

Their cost analyses suggested that a single boiled potato battery with zinc and copper electrodes generates portable energy at an estimated $9 per kilowatt hour, which is 50-fold cheaper than a typical 1.5 volt AA alkaline cell or D cell battery, which can cost $49–84 per kilowatt hour. It’s also an estimated six times cheaper than standard kerosene lamps used in the developing world.

Which raises an important question – why isn’t the potato battery already a roaring success?

In 2010, the world produced a staggering 324,181,889 tonnes of potatoes. They are the world’s number one non-grain crop, in 130 countries, and a hefty source of starch for billions around the world. They are cheap, store easily, and last for a long time. 

With 1.2 billion people in the world lacking access to electricity, a simple potato could be the answer– or so the researchers thought. “We thought organisations would be interested,” says Rabinowitch. “We thought politicians in India would give them out with their names inscribed on them. They cost less than a dollar.” 

Yet three years on since their experiment, why haven’t governments, companies or organisations embraced potato batteries? “The simple answer is they don’t even know about it,” reasons Rabinowitch. But it may be more complicated than that.

First, there’s the issue of using a food for energy. Olivier Dubois, senior natural resources officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), says that using food for energy – like sugar cane for biofuels – must avoid depleting food stocks and competing with farmers.

From BBC -Future
READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

Japan earthquake spurs technology innovation

The technology-loving nation of Japan made good use of its unique innovations and social networks in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that followed.

And the disaster has continued to spur developments in the country in everything from energy generation, smartphones, transport and emergency response technology.

Dan Simmons reports on a range of advances that aim to help the population prepare for future disasters.

Drones being tested to protect rhinos

Rhinos in Kenya could soon be protected by remote controlled helicopters kitted out with the latest gadgets.

A team of US engineers from Airware travelled to Kenya to test their drones in East Africa's largest black rhino sanctuary, Ol Pejeta.

Their remote controlled drones can fly anywhere in the park, sending live video back to base.

The drones also have a heat detecting camera which makes animals and poachers easy to spot.

It's zhoped devices like this will help park rangers keep a close eye on their animals, and deter poachers from hunting in the park.

Airware boss Jonathan Downey said: "We still have more development to do but we're extremely encouraged and quite proud to be pioneering drones that can preserve some of our planet's most threatened species."

CBBC newsround

Over the two-week test, Airware used three different drones: two fixed-wing aircraft and one flexible wing. "They were designed to operate completely autonomously, well out of the line of sight of the pilot," says Airware founder and CEO Jonathan Downey. Before the drones, park rangers had been using jeeps and small aircraft to patrol for poachers and check up on the animals. "Using drones allows them to spend a lot more time in the air, seeing a lot more detail, and for far cheaper than using traditional aircraft or jeeps," says the founder.

READ MORE

Sun guzzler: New solar family car pioneered in Holland

Students at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands say they have created the world's first solar-panelled family saloon.

The recycling technology being embraced by manufacturers

More and more of us are recycling our waste at home in a bid to save resources - but could manufacturers do more themselves, by using recycled products as their raw materials in the first place?

First up, a recycling bicycle, or 'The Ingenio', as its creator, Victor Monserrate calls it. The Puerto Rican design student at London's Royal College of Art has created a customised bicycle that turns discarded plastic containers into a plastic thread. This is more valuable to the people who scour scrap yards in developing countries, because it can be sold on to craftsmen to make objects like chairs and baskets. He hopes NGOs will help him to roll out the device.

When he found out that carpet producers waste about 7% of the wool they use, New Zealander Dan Mclaughlin was inspired to create something new with it: he calls it 'BioWool'. It is a polymer created by combining waste wool with a bioresin. With funding from the James Dyson Foundation, he has begun work on putting this into production, with a range of applications possible.

Finally, Rob McDougall of Italian lighting manufacturers Artemide showed off his company's collaboration with Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake and his Reality Lab. Together they have created a range of lights called 'IN-EI'. The fabric of the lights looks like paper, and the lights themselves appear constructed like origami - but they are in fact made from recycled plastic bottles.

Video Journalist: Dougal Shaw

From BBC magazine

Clean, green scooter

The Massachusetts Institute (MIT) has designed an electric scooter prototype which could replace petrol-burning scooters in cities of the future

MIT’s RoboScooter – It’s clean, green, silent, and compact!

INTRODUCING THE CUTER SCOOTER

A folding electric scooter developed by the Smart Cities Group at the Media Lab was a hit at Milan's Motor Show last fall, along with a proposal to make the scooters available for short-term rentals at convenient city locations like subway stops and convenience stores. It was also recently cited as one of the great inventions of the year by the French magazine Le Point.

The RoboScooter—affectionately known as 'the cuter scooter'—was developed under the direction of Bill Mitchell, head of MIT's Design Laboratory, in response to the growing congestion in cities and to booming auto sales that threaten to jam the streets and pollute the air still further.

Taking their lead from origami and existing folding bicycles, the Smart Cities team addressed the problem by designing a clean, green, silent scooter that can be folded in half and towed like a rolling suitcase—easy to take on trains, or indoors—or stacked in a rack for storage and battery charging.

Users could swipe a credit card to remove a scooter from the rack (which charges up the batteries), unfold it for the trip and then fold it up again to deposit at another rack at the destination. Computers would track scooter pick-ups and drop-offs to keep the system running smoothly; each scooter would show its location with a built-in GPS unit.

The viability of the one-way-rental business model has been demonstrated in Paris where a company has recently started a similar service with bicycles—a program so successful that the city is doubling the number of cycles and stacks. It is estimated that the proposed scooter system could cut the need for scooter parking in Taiwan by as much as 80%.

The multigenerational, cross-disciplinary team of designers included a core group of four graduate students along with several others who made contributions, and a group of MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program students. They completed the entire project in only eight months, from blank sheet to built concept.

The team now plans to develop the prototype further with two different production models. One will be a refinement of the folding scooter introduced in Milan, and the other will be an even simpler model, without the folding capability, to be produced for regions where low cost is most important and space restrictions are not as crucial.

RoboScooter was created in collaboration with SYM, a major scooter manufacturer in Taiwan, and with ITRI, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute. SYM recently announced its intention to take the scooter into mass production.

MIT’s scooter comes with just 150 parts and it gets electricity from a battery that gets recharged each time the vehicle is replaced to its rack. There is no conventional drive train, thanks to the specially designed wheels, each with their own motor and suspension system. It is clean, green, silent, and compact. The final show-quality prototype was presented at the Milan Motor show on November 6-9th, 2007