More projects

Roaming

Russia

Endangered species

Eagle gives scientists a very expensive phone bill
Russian researchers wanted to study the flight routes of eagles, with the aim of increasing the chances of survival of this endangered species. One of the eagles decided to take a tourist route across the steppe - one of the few places in the world without GPS coverage - and reappeared in Iran: a country with a high SMS rate. This left the researchers with no money to follow the other eagles. Fortunately, donors and the provider came to their rescue.

Blauwestad

Groningen

The Netherlands

Blauwestad
Until five years ago, Blauwestad was considered a failed project. The idea was to turn an area of farmland into a lake with villas where wealthy Randstadites would buy a house. It was difficult to convince the farmers to sell their land and, due to the economic crisis in 2008, few houses were sold. It all seemed to come to nothing, but in recent years a huge number of houses were suddenly purchased in Blauwestad.

Oil

Contamination

Chemical

Failed cleanup of Gulf of Mexico
Due to an accident at BP, a lot of oil unintentionally ended up in the sea near the Gulf of Mexico. In order to ensure that this would disappear more quickly, chemicals were thrown into the water that were supposed to make the oil droplets smaller and speed up the decomposition process. Unfortunately, the chemicals had the opposite effect: the chemicals caused microorganisms to flourish and drive out the microorganisms that were breaking down the oil.