As data and identity theft becomes more and more common, the market is growing for biometric(生物测量) technologies—like fingerprint scans—to keep others out of private e-spaces. At present, these technologies are still expensive, though.

Researchers from Georgia Tech say that they have come up with a low-cost device(装置) that gets around this problem: a smart keyboard. This smart keyboard precisely measures the cadence(节奏) with which one types and the pressure fingers apply to each key. The keyboard could offer a strong layer of security by analyzing things like the force of a user’s typing and the time between key presses. These patterns are unique to each person. Thus, the keyboard can determine people’s identities, and by extension, whether they should be given access to the computer it’s connected to — regardless of whether someone gets the password right.

It also doesn’t require a new type of technology that people aren’t already familiar with. Everybody uses a keyboard and everybody types differently.

In a study describing the technology, the researchers had 100 volunteers type the word “touch” four times using the smart keyboard. Data collected from the device could be used to recognize different participants based on how they typed, with very low error rates. The researchers say that the keyboard should be pretty straightforward to commercialize and is mostly made of inexpensive, plastic-like parts. The team hopes to make it to market in the near future.

In the oceans, concrete is the main construction material, accounting for more than 70% of coastal and marine construction such as ports, coastal defence structures and waterfronts. "Concrete is damaging in the ocean because, to put it in place, natural ecosystems are destroyed," says Alex Rogers, director of science at REV Ocean, a not-for-profit company studying ocean health and raising awareness of global impacts on the marine environment. "Concrete is a conventional material, and it is low cost. But really, in this day and age, we should be looking at alternative materials that have a lower impact on the environment."

Those alternatives might already be here. Among them is a substance called ECOncrete, developed as an eco-friendly concrete. ECOncrete produces bio enhancing concrete products intended to protect coastlines and marine resources. This is achieved by using a mixture made almost entirely of by-products and recycled materials, and is thus nearly carbon neutral. This mixture is combined with up to 70% slag cement(a by product of the steel industry which has a low carbon footprint) and is beneficial for marine concrete thanks to its high chloride resistance. The overall result is a low-carbon concrete.

Furthermore, unlike traditional concrete, which is highly alkaline, the specially designed concrete has a pH value near to that of sea water, which helps to promote the growth of marine species such as crabs, molluscs, clams, mussels and oysters. ECOncrete's products are already in use across eight countries and six different seas, from seawalls in Hong Kong to the Port of Rotterdam.

However, Beth Strain, a lecturer in marine biology and a project leader for Australia's National Centre for Coasts and Climate, says the evidence for eco-friendly concrete as a better surface for marine organisms is very mixed. “It can be location specific. We did an experiment in 15 harbours around the world with the same type of concrete surface complexity. Largely, the results were positive, but in Penang, Malaysia, for example, using eco-friendly concrete that would theoretically retain moisture and be better for organisms to survive on made no difference.” Strain thinks this is because of the area's typhoons, which make the area very wet already, so the features of the concrete aren't a big help.

“There is a degree of difference and each location will have its own environmental challenges,” says Strain.

Nevertheless, from multiple perspectives, it appears that nature-based solutions are definitely the way forward.

Whether you consume it in ice cream, coffee, cupcakes, pudding, or protein shakes, the vanilla you eat in the future might taste just a little bit sweeter thanks to a surprising new ingredient: used plastic.

Admittedly, it doesn’t sound very appetizing. To scientists Joanna Sadler and Stephen Wallace at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, however, what’s even less delicious is plastic waste, which currently enters the ocean at a rate of 8 million tons per year—enough plastic waste to outweigh all of the ocean’s fish by the year 2050. To help stop the plastic pollution on land and at sea, they’ve designed a novel way to turn it into vanillin, a chemical substance in vanilla extract that gives it its distinct vanilla smell and flavor.

Although it can be found in natural vanilla bean extract, vanillin also can be made synthetically using chemicals coming from petrol. To create it from plastic, instead, researchers genetically modified a strain of E. coli bacteria so that it can make vanillin from a raw material used in the production of plastic bottles.

According to their research paper, around 85% of the world’s vanillin is synthesized from chemicals that are obtained from fossil fuels. That’s because demand for vanillin—which is used widely not only in food, but also in beauty products, cleaning products, and herbicides—is far greater than supply. In Madagascar, which grows 80% of the world’s natural vanilla, pollinating, harvesting, and curing vanilla beans is a long and painstaking process that couldn’t possibly yield enough vanillin for modern appetites. And even if it could, the only way to naturally increase vanillin supply would be to plant more vanilla plantations, which would drive deforestation.

Being able to create vanillin with plastic instead of petroleum means increasing vanillin supply while decreasing plastic waste, reducing industrial reliance on fossil fuels, and preserving forests.

“Using microorganisms to turn waste plastics, which are harmful to the environment, into an important product is a beautiful demonstration of green chemistry,” said Ellis Crawford, publishing editor at the United Kingdom’s Royal Society of Chemistry.