News & Events
There’s always a lot happening at FGBC and in the world of green building. Here, we’ve assembled information that will keep you abreast of recent developments in our organization and throughout our industry. We hope you find the news links interesting and helpful, and the event calendar a timely resource to help keep you plugged into other opportunities where you can continue to enhance your knowledge on the subjects of green building and sustainability.
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Energy News
EPA and Springfield, Illinois, Agree to Address Coal Ash Contamination
[Jan 29, 2025] The EPA and Springfield, Illinois, have agreed on measures to address coal ash contamination at CWLP facilities near Lake Springfield.
Environmental Protection News
Top Technology
Metamaterials: Highly twisted rods store large amounts of energy
[Apr 2, 2025] An international research team has developed mechanical metamaterials with a high elastic energy density. Highly twisted rods that deform helically provide these metamaterials with a high stiffness and enable them to absorb and release large amounts of elastic energy. The researchers conducted simple compression experiments to confirm the initial theoretical results.
Asteroid impact threat estimates improved for the Earth and the Moon
[Apr 2, 2025] An international team is currently closely tracking the near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4. The impact probability estimates for the year 2032 has been reduced from a peak of 3 percent to below 0.001 percent.
A new wave in ultrafast magnetic control
[Apr 2, 2025] Researchers have developed an innovative method to study ultrafast magnetism in materials. They have shown the generation and application of magnetic field steps, in which a magnetic field is turned on in a matter of picoseconds.
Top Environment
Seeing humanities transition from hunting to farming as a cultural shift
[Apr 2, 2025] Using a mathematical model, researchers have shed new light on the transition from hunter-gatherer to farming societies. Rather than focusing exclusively on external factors, they looked at internal demographics and the significant impact of human interactions. The model identified potential societal outcomes based on demographic changes, emphasizing aspects such as migration rates, cultural assimilation and the role of mortality in these transitions. The researchers aim to further develop their model with the aim of making it a standard tool for studying historical demographic interactions.
Plant doctor: An AI system that watches over urban trees without touching a leaf
[Apr 2, 2025] Monitoring urban plant health traditionally requires extensive manual labor and botanical expertise, creating challenges for cities facing expanding green spaces, higher population densities, and increasing threats to plants. Now, researchers have developed 'Plant Doctor,' an artificial intelligence-based tool that could revolutionize plant health monitoring. The proposed system can track individual leaves in urban video footage and precisely quantify the damage from pests and diseases, enabling scalable, non-invasive urban plant management.
New antibiotic for multidrug resistant superbug
[Apr 2, 2025] Researchers discover a new class of antibiotic that selectively targets Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea. These substances trigger a self-destruction program, which also operates in multi-resistant variants of the pathogen.