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A child’s body was found encased in concrete in a storage unit, and police in Pueblo say they are also searching for a missing boy and girl. Investigators say the body of the child was encased in a metal container that was discovered on Jan. 10. “We arrive on scene and found this metal container with concrete in it and it’s suspicious to us. It was a newer container and it’s filled with cement. It seemed odd,” Pueblo Police Sgt. Franklyn Ortega said. As police began their investigation into the discovery of the child’s body, they said they were also...

Hamas “used more than 6,000 tons of concrete and 1,800 tons of metal to build hundreds of miles of underground infrastructure.” While the existence of what Israelis refer to as the “Gaza Metro,” which Palestinians call “Lower Gaza,” has been well known about for years, with Hamas leaders even boasting about it, the question remains how, in one of the world’s most poverty-stricken territories, which relies largely on aid from U.N. agencies, regional and Western powers, the terror group had the financial means to invest in such an intricate and expansive terror tunnel network. As the governing body in Gaza,...

A potential plan by Israel to flood the Hamas tunnel network with seawater risks “ruining the basic conditions for life in Gaza”, one of the elements of the crime of genocide, a senior hydrologist has told the Guardian. Environmental experts have warned the strategy – which Israel has yet to commit to – risks causing an ecological catastrophe that will leave Gaza with no drinkable water and devastate what little agriculture is possible in the 141 sq mile territory. The UN special rapporteur for the right to water, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, compared it to the legend of Romans’ salting of the...

We could be producing concrete that's 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred coffee grounds to the mix, researchers in Australia have discovered. Their new recipe could solve multiple problems at the same time. Every year the world produces a staggering 10 billion kilograms of coffee waste globally. Most ends up in landfills. "The disposal of organic waste poses an environmental challenge as it emits large amounts of greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change," explains RMIT University engineer Rajeev Roychand. With a booming construction market globally, there's also an ever increasing demand for...

We could be producing concrete that's 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred coffee grounds to the mix, researchers in Australia have discovered. Their new recipe could solve multiple problems at the same time. Every year the world produces a staggering 10 billion kilograms of coffee waste globally. Most ends up in landfills. "The disposal of organic waste poses an environmental challenge as it emits large amounts of greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change," explains RMIT University engineer Rajeev Roychand. With a booming construction market globally, there's also an ever increasing demand for...

We could be producing concrete that's 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred coffee grounds to the mix, researchers in Australia have discovered. Their new recipe could solve multiple problems at the same time Every year the world produces a staggering 10 billion kilograms of coffee waste globally. Most ends up in landfills. "The disposal of organic waste poses an environmental challenge as it emits large amounts of greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change," explains RMIT University engineer Rajeev Roychand.

A wide range of public buildings have been constructed using a cheap version of concrete that could now be at risk of collapse, experts say. The discovery of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or RAAC, has forced the full or partial closure of more than 100 schools in England. Many hospitals, courts and public buildings were built with the material. Prof Chris Goodier, of Loughborough University, said the "scale of problem is much bigger than schools". "It also covers much of the building stock in the country," he said. "This also includes health, defence, justice, local government, national government, and also...

A Yale University building under construction in New Haven, Connecticut partially collapsed on Friday and left eight people injured with two of them in critical condition. The collapse happened at an apartment block on Lafayette Street at around 12.30pm when crews were pouring concrete. Part of the second floor fell into the first floor and into the basement at the building site where 36 people were working. It left eight construction workers injured with six of them pulled out of the building by first responders and the other two were able to escape on their own. New Haven Fire Department...

As temperatures heat up, an Arizona family has a warning for other parents about the dangers of hot surfaces like pavement and concrete. It comes after their son suffered burns to the bottom of his feet. The pavement heats up quickly, and pets and children are particularly vulnerable when it comes to getting burned on the bottoms of their feet. Eighteen-month-old Mason is walking softly on his feet after they were bandaged. He suffered contact burns from the hot pavement.

Concrete is an incredibly useful and versatile building material on which not only today’s societies, but also the ancient Roman Empire was built. To this day Roman concrete structures can be found in mundane locations such as harbors, but also the Pantheon in Rome, which to this day forms the largest unreinforced concrete dome in existence at 43.3 meters diameter, and is in excellent condition despite being being nearly 1,900 years old.Even as the Roman Empire fell and receded into what became the Byzantine – also known as the Eastern Roman – Empire and the world around these last remnants...

Visiting the Pantheon, one of Rome’s premier tourist sites, it’s hard not be humbled by the knowledge that this building has lasted 1900 years and still stands as the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, while modern concrete structures deteriorate. Take a look at the magnificence of the Pantheon.Photo credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 licensePhoto credit: Macrons CC BY-SA 4.0 licensePhoto credit: Anthony Majanlahti CC BY 2.0 licenseThe Romans’ concrete technology was lost for almost a millennium as the Dark Ages unfolded, and Europe regressed technologically and economically. The discovery of Roman manuscripts on making concrete in 1414 sparked gradual reintroduction of...

Modernists like to manipulate words, often “spinning” them into meanings that appear simple but are relatively obscure. For example, consider the modern misuse of the terms like “accompaniment,” “social justice,” or even “woke.” Such is not the case with the architectural style known as “brutalism.” The Architecture of Despair Merriam-Webster defines brutal using the words cold, harsh, severe, unpleasant and lacking sensitivity. A bit further down the page, it refers to brutalism as “a style in art and especially architecture using exaggeration and distortion to create its effect (as of massiveness or power).” While many might not be familiar with...

A trend that kicked off last summer with protestors supergluing themselves to Starbucks venues has taken its next step. But that next step has landed protestors inside blocks of concrete, with placard-waving protestors closing off the entrance to a Nashville Starbucks by embedding themselves. In a campaign meant to show how vegan protestors are refusing to budge, the protestors waved signs asking Starbucks to 'end the vegan upcharge' on plant-based milks. Starbucks said: 'We respect our customers’ rights to respectfully voice their opinions so long as it does not disrupt our store operations.' The company said customers can add a...

With a notoriously large carbon footprint, concrete is a prime target for researchers developing greener materials for the future of construction. A number of studies have shown how old rubber tires can be used to make versions that are stronger, more heat-resistant and flexible enough for use as a road material. A new study has assessed its value in real-world settings by using concrete containing old tires as a residential slab and monitoring its performance over several years, where it outshone conventional concrete in a number of ways. The type of concrete at the center of this study is known...

"We all have a problem .... they're putting a pre-fab concrete wall around the White House right now. I'm sure you might have some conclusions .... especially when the News Organizations are silent." Fuzzy Tom Cat Twitter

Engineers from South Korea have invented a cement-based composite that can be used in concrete to make structures that generate and store electricity through exposure to external mechanical energy sources like footsteps, wind, rain and waves. By turning structures into power sources, the cement will crack the problem of the built environment consuming 40% of the world’s energy, they believe. Building users need not worry about getting electrocuted. Tests showed that a 1% volume of conductive carbon fibres in a cement mixture was enough to give the cement the desired electrical properties without compromising structural performance, and the current generated...

For centuries, concrete was everywhere in Roman Italy: in the awesomely durable breakwaters of artificial harbors, in the soaring vaults of great baths, in the foundations of the Colosseum, and - of course - in the spectacular dome of the Pantheon. But during late antiquity, concrete all but vanished from the Mediterranean world, and would not be used widely again until the twentieth century. This video explains why.Chapters:0:00 Introduction0:39 Understanding Roman concrete1:29 Early experiments2:25 The apogee3:33 Squarespace!4:19 Geographic limits of Roman concrete5:00 The decline of concrete6:28 Final notices7:26 Not forgotten, but goneWhy was Roman Concrete Forgotten during the Middle Ages?...

What do diamonds, sunglasses, high-end lululemon sportswear and concrete have to do with climate change? They can all be made using carbon dioxide (CO2), locking up the planet warming gas. And tech startups behind these transformations are grabbing investor attention. Some use bacteria. Some use proteins. Some use chemical processes to speed natural reactions. Most pull apart the carbon and the oxygen in CO2 to create another chemical that is used to make consumers goods. Companies in the area raised over $800 million so far this year, more than tripling from 2020, according to a Reuters review of data from...

Encountering concrete is a common—even routine—occurrence. And that's exactly what makes concrete exceptional. As the most consumed material after water, concrete is indispensable to the many essential systems—from roads to buildings—in which it is used. But due to its extensive use, concrete production also contributes to around 1 percent of emissions in the United States and remains one of several carbon-intensive industries globally. Tackling climate change, then, will mean reducing the environmental impacts of concrete, even as its use continues to increase. In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of current and...

Researchers in Japan have created a concrete replacement out of food scraps — and the new compound can be both edible and sweet-smelling... His earlier research resulted in a technique for combining recycled concrete powder and wood waste to form an improved material through heat pressing. That sparked interest in using other waste products. “A similar approach can be applied to not only wood, but also to vegetables and fruit, and that is what we did,” he said... “It is said that one-third of food is wasted in the whole world.”