September 21, 2012

Netherlands nabs two Ig Nobel prizes

Filed under: Animals,Science,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:46 pm

Dutch researchers have won two Ig Nobel prizes this year, fun science awards which ‘honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think’.

Researchers Anita Eerland, Rolf Zwaan and Tulio M. Guadalupe of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam won the psychology prize for their study on why leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower seem smaller.

US-based Dutch biologist Frans de Wal and American partner Jennifer Pokorny won the anatomy prize for research showing that chimpanzees can recognize their fellow chimps from photographs of their butts.

The Dutch have won many times before. We posted about rats that cannot tell between Japanese and Dutch in 2007 and research on reducing astma symptoms by taking people for a roller coaster ride in 2010.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl)

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December 9, 2011

Picture the Eiffel Tower full of green plants

Filed under: Design,Nature,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 5:54 pm

Dutch engineering consultancy Grontmij, the third largest in Europe, has come up with a plan to help Paris establish itself as one of the greenest cities in the world. It involves filling the Eiffel Tower with some 600,000 plants.

The Eiffel Tower would look like it had a green carpet, which would block the view of the tower being light up in the evening. The plants are able to absorb some 87 tonnes of CO2.

The entire plan is to cost a whopping 72 million euro, and some major companies have already agreed to contribute to the project. If they get the green light, the plants will be placed from summer 2012 until January 2013 and stay there until 2016. A system of hoses will water the plants, which will weigh about 375,000 kilos.

(Link: www.depers.nl)

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November 20, 2007

Dutch company buys Eiffel tower staircase

Filed under: Architecture,General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 11:37 am
Eiffel tower stairs

Erik Kurvers, owner of consulting agency Eiffel in Den Bosch, Noord-Brabant, bought this original piece of the Eiffel tower stairs yesterday in Paris for EUR 180,000. Kurvers also happens to be the chairman of the Den Bosch basketball club, the EiffelTowers. The 4,5-meter-high staircase is to be seen as a symbol for the company and club to ‘climb higher’ (aim higher really, but not miss the hoop). This piece of staircase connected the second and third storey of the original tower of 1889.

(Link: omroepbrabant.nl, Photo: Frogsmoke)

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