Free Republic

San Francisco city officials recently unveiled a new, self-cleaning toilet designed to reflect San Francisco values. The city's Department of Public Works stated via press release that the "next-generation restrooms are environmentally sustainable, brighter and easier to keep clean." Unfortunately, like many of the city's residents, the magical toilet quit working within a few days of its debut. The so-called "Amenipod," touted by the San Francisco Chronicle as the "future of public toilets," had been installed on the outskirts of Embarcadero Plaza and was opened to the public on November 23. It broke down three days later. I was under...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An international team of researchers has found that the atmosphere's ability to cleanse itself of pollutants and other greenhouse gases, except carbon dioxide, is generally stable. The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, comes amid a fierce debate over whether, as some experts believe, the atmosphere's self-cleaning ability was fragile and sensitive to environmental changes. The research team, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), measured levels in the atmosphere of hydroxyl radicals, which play a key role in atmospheric chemistry. Levels of the agent only fluctuated a few percentage...