world

This NYTimes graphic breaks down the cost comparison of fast food versus a home-cooked meal. It shows a meal for four bought at McDonald's costing $27.89, with a homemade meal for four costing $13.78, or $9.26 for a vegetarian meal. It's no new idea that homemade is better for you than fast food, but this shows that it can also be significantly cheaper.

Is anyone else appalled at how much that fast food meal costs these days?

The recent news that Minneapolis has the highest percentage of female cyclists per state (45%!) in the country is pretty great - but the average percentage of women riders nationwide is still pretty low - around 25%. This great article by Grist explores why that number is so low, and looks at fear, fashion, and the economy as possible reasons. It's a pretty good read, and not just for women. So take a look, and pass it on!

Remember the colorful house from Disney/Pixar's "Up"? Well, an exact replica has been built in Herriman, Utah! They got all the details just right, including the cute little front porch and the weathervane. How fun!

More info here, and more photos here.

The installation called WasteLandscape, by architect Clémence Eliard and artist Elise Morin, is a sea of 65,000 used CD's stitched together and draped over inflatable mounds in an old funeral home in Paris. Intended to raise consciousness of the wasteful life of CD's, the discs will be recycled at the end of the exhibit.

See more at Dezeen.

CreatureMag.com has published this adorable e-book: "Endangered Creatures Alphabet", an illustrated collection of 26 endangered species, each drawn by a different artist. Enjoy!

Guerrilla artists on bikes dump 500 liters of waterbased environmentally-friendly paint onto a busy Berlin intersection, and allow the paint to be spread by the tires of over 2000 cars. Reminds me of those old Twirl O Graph toys...

Tel Aviv artist Ofra Lapid has created a series called "Broken Houses" - a collection of small scale models of abandoned and decaying buildings, based on photographs of real buildings. The models are then photographed against a neutral background, giving these dilapidated buildings their own time in the spotlight. More here.

Found on Junkculture.com.

Introducing Plum - a new subscription based mailing service for used boutique baby clothes. If you're a mother (or even just know one) of a small child, you probably know of the craziness that is baby clothes - they grow out of them (and into them) so fast that it's impossible (and expensive) to keep up. That's why Plum is such a great idea - you get a few like-new boutique outfits every month according to your baby's size, gender, and the climate you live in, and once a month you can send back the outfits you don't need anymore. They launder the clothes with eco-friendly detergents, and donate any stained or ruined clothes to kids in foster care. The plans range from $16 to $49 a month, and it looks like they will soon be offering gift subscriptions and online outfit selection.

Any business that helps reduce waste, promotes sharing and reuse, and helps out those less fortunate is pretty amazing!

What do you think of this service? Would you use Plum, or give it as a gift, for a little one in your life?

Plum in action from Plum Babies on Vimeo.

Natural Home and Garden found some pretty crazy examples for their "10 Homes Made of the Darndest Things" - including a home made out of pallets, a temple made out of beer bottles, and a hotel made from a Boeing 727. Here are our favorites from their list:

A two bedroom hotel suite in a Boeing 727:

A Buddhist temple made of 1 million green Heineken and brown Chang beer bottles:

This architect-designed home is made of repurposed pallets, train rails, and recycled aluminum:

Spherical meditation treehouses are made from local wood and are suspended from the tree canopy on Vancouver Island:

See more here.

As a way to protest the ticket he got for not staying in the bike lane, Casey Neistat points out the many obstructions that often block the New York City bike lanes, including taxis, garbage cans, construction cones, and even...cop cars.

Found at Holykaw.alltop.com.