Phineas Gage, famous for having a 13-pound 3-foot-7-inch packing rod blasted through his skull and surviving, is the subject of a new study just published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Using brain-imaging data that had been lost to science for a decade, researchers studied the damage that was done to the white [...]

Last night, I put away my winter knits; my fave black wool sweater, my grandma’s green button-down with the giant collar that still smells vaguely like her perfume, the head-warming hats and the rotating cadre of scarves I wear from October-April were all packed away and stored until next Autumn.

At the same time, I pulled out my summer knits. Knits in summer? Yes! Maybe it was because I wrote about Ambika’s gorgeous handknit bikinis yesterday, but I love the juxtaposition of what is usually thought of as a ‘winter’ material or texture when temps are hanging in the 70′s and 80′s. Still not convinced? Check out some of the pretty fab (and always sustainable) knitted wonders I found while doing some online window shopping.

What about a knit necklace? This one from Etsy seller Erica Hogenbirk is made from beach stones and neutral yarn.

These handmade knit shorts are just totally unexpected and fun. Via Robot Recenze on Etsy.

Or how about these handknit bangles from Knits by Vara on Etsy – work the summer neon trend in your own way!

This beautiful summer sweater by Eileen Fisher is a luxurious hemp knit. Perfect for layering over a swimsuit or sleeveless dress.

Wool and the Gang is a Peruvian knitwear collaborative that provides fair wages to women in South America. I love this Tassel top!

This Organic by John Patrick sweater is ideal for too-cold offices blasting with A/C.

Is this the most temporary architecture of all time? Fragile and tenuous but undeniably beautiful, these bubble buildings rise for just moments at a time before they pop. To create the interactive Bubble Building pavilion by Dutch firm DUS Architects, visitors lift metal frames of various shapes and sizes out of soapy steel pools.

The pavilion was constructed in a Rotterdam square, consisting of 16 hexagonal mirroring pools and a seating area for spectators. Part of the ZigZagCity Festival, the pavilion was in place for just a few weeks. It didn’t look like much until visitors lifted the handlebars of the frames, creating huge soap walls resembling glass.

“While the building is temporary, it refers to monumental architectural themes such as the re-building of Rotterdam,” say the architects. “In order to make the building appear, you must erect it yourself, until it pops again. This way, the Bubble Building also is a reference to the current bursting of the economic bubble. Moreover, the Bubble Building is about collective building, as it takes at least two people to erect one cell of the pavilion. The more people join in, the larger the pavilion becomes.”

“Visitors are invited to eternalize their own momentary version of the pavilion in a bubble snapshot, and upload these images to the ZigZagCity website. Online, a multitude of different bubble buildings appear. In these pictures lies the true beauty of the pavilion: the remembrance. As ultimately, the Bubble Building is about beauty.”

---

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

The Tallest Masonry Building in the World: Philadelphia’s Beautiful Load-Bearing City Hall

Did you know that brick or stone-clad buildings you see today almost invariably hide a steel support structure that does the actual work? 16 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

---

Blow-Up Buildings: 17 Inflatable Works of Mobile Architecture

Temporary - sometimes even transient - these 17 blow-up structures create enclosed event space where there was none, in public squares and gritty city corners. 5 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

---

New Tallest Skyscraper in the World – Doesn’t Beat Highest Virtual Building

The creation of the tallest building in the world has become such a status-seeking quest, cities and countries competing for the title have stopped revealing the planned height of their buildings. 13 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

---

Kerry Crisley is an Associate Director of Strategic Communications at The Nature Conservancy with a focus on our marine work.

My aunts Lorraine and Helen. My childhood friend, Amy. My grandfather. My neighbor, Bill. My colleague. All of these people near and dear to my heart have battled cancer, some successfully, some not.

And it’s not just me. We all have someone close to us who have gone through this terrible disease. We walk, run, bike and swim at events in their honor to support efforts to find a cure. And we should; it’s that important.

There’s something else we can do that can help preserve the building blocks of new, and potentially life-saving, medicines. We can save our coral reefs.

May is National Cancer Research Month, and much of the research that sustains our hope for a cure begins in our oceans.

Why? Reefs have an incredible diversity of life – from plants, animals and fungi down to the tiniest micro-organism. And this diversity holds so much potential for medical research. In fact, we are 3 to 4 hundred times more likely to find that next big medical breakthrough in our reefs than on land.

The drug Ara-C, for example, has helped save the lives of millions of people with leukemia, such as Boston’s Arden O’Conner. Ara-C was derived from a compound discovered in a Caribbean sea sponge. And today, women battling breast cancer have a new weapon in Halavan, a drug derived from a sponge off the coast of Japan.

These medicines are now created synthetically in a lab, so we don’t need to keep going back to the reefs to maintain our supply of it. The important thing was that the sponge was there for us to study in the first place.

We’ve only scratched the surface of what our reefs can offer medically. As Dr. Bruce Chabner, director of clinical research for the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital put it: “The sea could very well hold the building blocks of drugs that could treat, or even cure, cancer. We don’t know. But if we lose the reefs, we’ll never find out.”

The bad news is that our reefs right now are not healthy. Most of them – 75% in fact – are in serious trouble from things like overfishing, coastal development and climate change.

“If you look at a really healthy reef, it’s chaotic,” said Stephanie Wear, director of the Conservancy’s coral reef conservation program. “There are vivid colors – pinks, purples, reds and oranges – and fish are literally everywhere. If you’re snorkeling and only see a few fish, that’s not a healthy reef.”

The good news is that we can give our coral reefs a fighting chance. Wear is part of a global Conservancy team working to keep the healthiest reefs in good, stable condition and to figure out where and how degraded ones can be brought back to life. And she shares this science and methods in trainings with reef managers around the world.

It’s a big challenge. There’s no one silver bullet that can turn the fortunes around for an entire habitat. But if we all pitch in – from personal actions like adopting a reef, choosing sustainably-caught seafood to international collaboration on reef management and carbon emissions – our reefs will survive, and our own future will be better for it.

[Top image: Coral reef off Fiji islands in the Pacific Ocean. Source: Daniel & Robbie Wisdom. Bottom images: Kerry Crisley and her childhood pal, Amy in kindergarten... and 37 years later, after beating breast cancer; Kerry's Aunt Helen plays with Kerry's daughter about seven months before she lost her battle with cancer. Source: Kerry Crisley/TNC]

1. Hawaii is the first to have a statewide ban on plastic bags — but there are some loopholes. (Treehugger)
2. The first underpass for elephants will hopefully reunite herds in Kenya. (National Geographic)
3. The very cool Map of Life reflects the distribution of all plant and animal life on Earth — you can search by species (and maybe see those Kenyan elephants!). (Green)
4. If the Internet were a country, it would be the fifth biggest consumer of electricity in the world, according to Greenpeace. (Christian Science Monitor)
5. Need weekend plans? A dazzling solar eclipse will occur this Sunday! (Discovery News)