Green Options

University of British Columbia Professor Scott Dunbar of the school’s Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering has pioneered a way to genetically engineer viruses to bind with minerals.

Along with colleagues, his team has developed a method to selectively “breed” a viral family to bind to specific minerals. In other words, they are developing viri that can find and bind to a chosen mineral in a sludge pile!

Alleged pictures of the 2010 Toyota Prius were posted on an online forum called PriusChat yesterday. Since then, there has been much debate about whether they’re real or a photoshop job. The general consensus is that some of the pics are probably real and some are fake.

I don’t tend to lend credence to leaked marketing-grade photos, but these particular ones are so good it’s difficult for me to discount them.

Photo doctoring aside, one of the most intriguing claims is that Toyota is purposely leaking 2010 Prius pics in the hope they will subsequently go viral. Adam Vaughan of smartplanet claims that Toyota UK told him they have been “seeding blogs” with “corners and details” of the next gen Prius.