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But seriously folks, it’s a great podcast this week. We begin with an interview that the BBC’s Jonathan Fildes recorded recently at the TEDGlobal Conference in Oxford, England. He had the chance to speak with Swedish architect Magnus Larsson, who is trying to build, well, not buildings, but sand dunes. And not with bricks and mortar, but with, well, a strain of bacteria (Bacillus pasteurii), which binds with sand into a kind of calcite cement. It’s a project called DUNE: Arenaceous Anti-Desertification Architecture, and it envisions the creation of a sand dune wall that would extend some 6,000 kilometers across the Sahara Desert. You can read more about it here. And for my money, the story of the week relates to the picture you’re looking at here. This is the solar suitcase, and it was designed by Dr. Laura Stachel and her husband. They started an organiztion called WE CARE (Women’s Emergency Communication and Reliable Electricity) Solar. Dr. Stachel got the idea after doing work on maternal health issues in Nigeria. If you listen to the podcast, you’ll hear her grim descriptions of what it’s like to work in a Nigerian hospital, without sufficient lighting or communication.

For those of you who are interested, the teen group Plugged In will be doing a benefit concert for WE CARE Solar this Saturday (August 8, 2009) here in Boston. Details here.

Remember, the podcast is available every Friday, weather permitting, via iTunes and RSS.