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A demonstration of the Satellite Shelter.

When blizzards line up to rip through the Northeast, schools close, flights are canceled, and people even board up their houses. Though missions and homeless shelters do what they can to provide safety to those who have no homes to go to, thousands of people still have to weather the cold outside.

At Carnegie Mellon University's 2015 Impact-a-Thon, students were challenged to provide a temporary low-cost shelter for homeless people during the winter.
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Fungi Mutarium mushroom eats plasticwww.youtube.com


Plastic waste is one of the biggest environmental issues of our time. And while a straw ban is not the way we're going to solve it — here's why – people everywhere are looking for ways to reduce plastic use and mitigate the effects of waste.

From handing out plastic bags with embarrassing labels to removing the plastic from six-packs to harnessing the power of a plastic-eating mutant (bacteria), more and more of us are working to find solutions to a growing global program.

Add one more strange and awesome plastic-killing discover to the list: A rare mushroom that feasts on plastic the same way you or I would when we go to that $5 buffet at Cici's. (I have been only once and I'm still thinking about it, even though just the thoughts are bad for my blood pressure.)

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If you could give yourself a superpower or a superhero-style gadget, what would it be?

I always say I'd want to be a shapeshifter or have a car that could shape-shift à la the Batmobile because I like pretending to be other things.

It's a fun question to ask friends because it gets everyone to think outside the box and have a good time being creative.

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The next great tech breakthough might not come out of Silicon Valley. It might be from the Vatican.

Since 2016, the Vatican has been working with a couple of Silicon Valley venture capitalists to develop the Laudato Si' Challenge, an international tech startup challenge. The goal? Help humanity better take care of each other, the Earth, and fight climate change.

The challenge has seen more than 300 entrants since it opened up.

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