Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Living Floor Like Heinlein's Grass Carpet
Barefoot on a living floor is Idaho resident Jeri Rutherford's idea of real living. She designed an addition to her house to contain a lush carpet of living plants.
(Morning coffee with bare feet in the moss)
A 170-square-foot dining-room addition has helped cut her power bills by as much as 20 percent. And it brought a lush, if small, island of tropical greenery to her home overlooking the Snake River near Marsing."I love the tropics and the fern grottos of the California redwood forest," she said. "I know I can't be there all the time, so I wondered how I could bring those places into my home."
The result is a living floor and wall with plants that clean the air and — paired with a whole-house fan and a heat well that releases hot air through a skylight — help cool the entire house.
What's the best part? "I like to sit with my shoes off and drink my coffee with my feet on the moss of the living floor," Jeri said.
Nurse Jill Boardman, one of the protagonists in Robert Heinlein's 1961 classic Stranger in a Strange Land, couldn't agree more.
Jill stopped, slipped off her shoes, stepped barefooted into the living room and wiggled her toes among the cool green blades. She sighed. "My, that feels good. My feet have hurt ever since I entered training." (Read more about Heinlein's grass carpet)
Heinlein fans should note that, although RAH is the more famous reference, a brief mention of the idea occurs in The Sirens of Titan, a 1959 novel by Kurt Vonnegut (see grass carpet).
From Seattle Times; thanks to Kate for the tip on the story and the sf reference.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/6/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Biology ")
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.' - Michael Crichton, 1990.
Black Fungus Blocks Radiation
'You were surrounded by Astrophage most of the time' - Andy Weir, 2021.
Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species
'...there was no one alive who had ever seen them. But they existed in the Life Bank.' - John Varley, 1977.
Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light
'The mirror-blossom was a terrible weapon.' - Larry Niven, 1965.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
AIs Turn Marxist Under Bad Management
'It was a general strike of the robots...'
