Amanda Saint

Two finalists in the 2022 Ray of Hope Prize have turned to nature for innovative ways to transform the sector and improve the environmental impact of urban construction, ultimately making our cities more sustainable.

Several companies that aspire to make the world a more sustainable place have shown that mushrooms are more than just fungi and food.

The 2019 documentary ‘Fantastic Fungi’ revealed the pivotal role mycelium networks play in the natural world and how the entire ecosystem on Earth is built on collaboration and support. It highlighted how we have to learn to adopt that ethos rapidly to make human life on this planet more sustainable. In the world of biomimicry, the magic of mushrooms is deliver...

If you want to make the world a more sustainable place look no further than the Venus Project, a technology-based Utopia that for two decades has been proposing a radical overhaul to the way we think about the future. Does today’s technology take the dream any closer to reality?
Brainchild of engineer and futurist Jacque Fresco, the Venus Project has some radical ideas about how to make the world a better place. Its ideas are familiar: they should be, it’s been around for two decades now. Get...

While the ‘Cities Race to Resilience’ campaign aims to accelerate action against climate change and ensure commitment to achieving specific goals, many resilience initiatives are already under way in cities all around the world.

For a long time, my mindfulness practice was separate from my writing. My writing was very focused on the goals I had for it whereas mindfulness and being present were saved for other times. When I wrote a story, even while I was putting the initial words on the page at first draft, usually from a writing prompt so I hadn’t even discovered yet what it was really about, my mind was already elsewhere thinking about where I could send it.

One of the most important things I have come to realise over the past several years is that what this human experience is really all about is love. When we look around at the world we have created for ourselves, at the war, environmental destruction and general discord and competitiveness among people, it can sometimes seem hard to believe that, but I really do think it is true.

Fracking in the UK has been on hold for over a year, but could it be revived as the country seeks to lessen its reliance on imported fuel while ensuring that the lights and the heat stay on for homes and businesses?

Researchers worldwide are coming up with new ideas to make our homes more eco-friendly. For sustainably-minded households, these 2020 innovations could be a good place to start.

The robotics technology market is booming. In fact, according to the 2016 Worldwide Semiannual Commercial Robotics Spending Guide from the International Data Corporation, the market is predicted to more than double in value by 2020 — from $91.5 billion in 2016 to more than $188 billion in 2020.

This is the first in a new blog series looking at complex characters in novels, which is something I am very interested in and focus on in my teaching. When I first started writing my first novel all of the teachers I came across in various workshops talked about reading often and widely, which I already did. So I started to think more deeply about what I read. what resonated with me and why....

There are real concerns about what Brexit means for the future of the U.K.’s renewable energy sector, which has grown significantly with the help of EU-funded investments and subsidies....

AstraZeneca caused a storm last year when Pfizer attempted a takeover – the pharma-giant's motivation? Computer-aided modelling of drugs.
We now live in a 'Big Data' world and computational modelling of biological data, or computational biology, is seeing new approaches, developments and revelations in the way we discover, deliver and understand the effect of drugs. Although Pfizer has withdrawn its takeover bid for AstraZeneca, the progress that it has made in its cancer immunotherapy resear...

Pharmaceutical giants have promised consumers an army of nanorobots capable of curing' a whole host of diseases. As we await these medical breakthroughs, a different form of nano-sized health aid called nanomedicine is emerging. Last year saw the medical industry announce a flurry of exciting developments in the world of nanomedicine. These included banishing annoyances such as athlete's foot, treating advanced ovarian cancer and delivering HIV drugs at lower doses with the same effect.

Cities all over the world are experiencing extremely fast rates of urbanisation as rural populations flock to them for work. Shanghai, New Delhi, Mexico City and Mumbai are growing the fastest, so how are they coping and what can they learn from established cities?
We are now living in the ‘Urban Millennium’ – a moniker coined by the United Nations in its State of the World 2007 report. What this means is that more than half of the global population now lives in cities and towns, a tipping po...

As smart grids become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks every day, what developments are in place to ensure a secure infrastructure?
Smart grid security is a hot topic, especially as the UK government's £11bn smart meter roll-out is widely seen to be in disarray. A report from the Institute of Directors calling for the programme to be scrapped says the system is vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could leave us without power if hackers found a way in. However there are some developments in the..