Changi Compost

It may be difficult to envisage compost heaps at a future Changi airport but the notion is not as far fetched as some make think.

No content with wrapping their sushi in nori, the Japanese are now working on plans with Europeans to use the green stuff to save more 'green stuff' - money.

According to those who follow developments in aviation, a seaweed-powered space-liner will be able to fly from London to Tokyo in two-and-a-half hours, at a cruising altitude of 20 miles and generating no significant pollution.  The time frame is by 2050.

The Zehst - or "Zero emission hypersonic transportation" pictured left will fly twice as fast and twice as high as Concorde if all goes to plan. The technology remains largely secret as one might expect with such a radical development but the two large blue tanks in the illustration suggest a bio-gas component.

I am not sure that this is so reassuring, given that the current gas tanks of the on board toilets always seem to fail or block on a long flight.

Meanwhile in a small apartment in Tanjong Pagar a Singaporean enthusiast is tackling history at the opposite end of the time continuum.

Calvin Chu collects fossils and has an abiding passion for dinosaurs.  According to the media article, Calvin also has a degree of secrecy around his pet project:

"Just like actual dinosaur remains, the study in Chu’s apartment where the fossils are kept is not easily found. It is hidden behind three large bookcases, and revealed only by pulling out the middle one, which acts like a door to the study"

Hopefully the 2014 opening of the new Natural History Museum at NUS will allow him to indulge in his passion more openly.

And, as most of the 335 kinds of dinosaurs ate plants its a sure fire bet that at least some were partial to seaweed. Given the gas that apparently produces maybe global warming isn't such a recent phenomenon after all.

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