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Phase 4 of the MCU has introduced an impressive number of new characters. But on the heels of Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the Multiverse-traveling America Chavez - who was first introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - seems particularly relevant to where the MCU is heading into Phase 5 and beyond. Played by Xochitl Gomez, America Chavez has the unique ability to travel through the Multiverse via star-shaped portals and has spent years visiting different universes....

There are just a few small problems standing in the way. TreeHugger loves tall wood construction, and we have always been big fans of Peter Busby of Perkins+Will. Busby is now working for the Delta Group in Vancouver, proposing a 40 storey tall wood tower. Busby is quoted in an article by Kerry Gold in the Globe and Mail: © Perkins + Will, Delta Group Busby explains that timber structures are safe and fire retardant because they are designed with a sacrificial layer that turns to carbon, insulating the wood....

In 2016, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool broke the mold of the superhero genre with its irreverent tone, unconventional marketing, and R-rating. While the film was a huge success and inspired a 2018 sequel, the future of the franchise was thrown into question due to Disney’s merger with Fox. While Disney and Marvel Studios were expected to capitalize on the property, its future within the MCU seemed uncertain given its penchant for adult humor and overt self-awareness....

While 2021 will be a somewhat slow year for the DCEU with The Suicide Squad as its only release, the following two years are set to expand on the controversial franchise in a big way. The next few months in particular will be big with multiple movies kicking off production, including Black Adam this week with The Flash not far behind. Included in this group of projects beginning production soon is Shazam!...

With so many projects from Marvel Studios on the horizon, there is no shortage of exciting news coming from the MCU on a daily basis. However, even with a combined eight movies and Disney+ shows coming to screens in the next seven months, none have been able to make headlines quite like Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.That’s what happens with a team-up including the web-slinger and the Sorcerer Supreme, along with the potential of villains appearing from previously non-canon Spider-Man movies....

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 was initially reported to be released on Wednesday, September 28 on Disney+. However, confusion rose when the show was completely absent from the September 2022 release slate for the streaming service.It would certainly have been a bummer for fans of the show to wait even longer for its fall release, especially after the trailer for the second season was released to great fanfare from Star Wars fans....

Poor Topsy. Thomas Edison killed the ex-circus elephant, electrocuting the animal to demonstrate how dangerous alternating current was. Edison even described electrocution as being “Westinghoused,” after the company promoting AC. It was the apex of the War of the Currents, where the evil Edison was pitted against the brilliant Nikola Tesla. It’s a battle that Edison lost, and all because of transformers, simple coils of wire that could change the voltage of AC and made long-distance transmission of electricity possible, unleashing the power of Niagara Falls....

On our farm just along the edge of a country road, there was a tree that grew brains. At least, that’s how the strange fruit appeared to my sister and I as kids: Fist-sized balls of tightly packed gray-green noodles. In autumn, they thumped from the tree, often landing on the road — where cars smushed them into pulpy stains. My dad got it into his own brain to build a rickety fort in that weird, old tree....

In honor of World Water Day, here are some sobering numbers behind the billions of people living without safe water. Here in the United States, the average person uses between 80 to 100 gallons of water every day. When adding virtual water to the equation – the invisible water used to produce food, goods, electricity, et cetera – we can add another 1300 gallons to that number. In Africa, household water use averages out to about 12 gallons per person per day....

Outside the major movie releases from companies like Disney and Warner Bros., almost no story is making its way through the news stream more prominently than the drawn-out defamation court case between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. This also ties into the DC Extended Universe due to Heard’s upcoming role in next year’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. When production first started on the sequel to the DCEU’s highest-grossing movie to date, Heard shared her excitement for Mera’s return on multiple occasions, even as her legal battle against her ex-husband became more public....

Francine Jay’s detailed guide to decluttering is refreshingly practical, accessible, and free from idealistic philosophy. Over the past year, I’ve read at least six books on minimalism. It seems that anyone with a minimalism blog is churning out a book version, and it’s not surprising. Minimalism is a hot topic right now, as people react to the hyper-consumerist culture that’s been passively accepted for the past several decades, but has left us with suffocating levels of stuff, debt, and stress....

The first of May is a contradiction as far as days of observance go. It’s a holiday suffering from multiple personality disorder; one identity dedicated to strike and protest, the other embracing all things spring and frolicsome. In the late 19th century, leaders of the socialist Second International were fighting for an eight-hour work day and they called for a global day of protest to be held on May 1, 1890....

Blue-cheeked butterflyfish cruise a colorful reef Coral reefs are one of the world’s most colorful and diverse ecosystems, and though they cover only about 1 percent of the ocean floor, they have a huge effect on the health of the rest of the world. Healthy coral reefs mean healthy oceans which means healthy planet. Here are five fascinating facts about these amazing ecosystems. Corals are not plants. They’re actually animals and are are, amazingly enough, relatives of jellyfish and anemones....

We love our pets — and they love us. Which is the main reason dog and cat dander seems to get everywhere: on the sofa, your clothes and your carpet. Your furry companion loves to sit wherever you do. There’s a tip making the rounds these days: use a dryer sheet to repel pet fur. And it seems to work. Dryer sheets cut down on static, which is what makes fur cling to fabric surfaces....

In a word no. But people in cars seem to get a free pass for everything. There was a bizarre tweet from the Toronto Star which suggested that people on bikes are as deadly as people in cars. It is completely untrue no matter how you look at it, whether with math and physics, or with statistics (like the 42 pedestrians killed by people in cars last year and the 0 pedestrians killed by people on bikes)....

The Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom is about to be more spoiled than ever going into 2021. After 2020 became the first year with no MCU content since 2009, next year will change that in monumental fashion with four new movies and six new shows on Disney+ set to premiere from Marvel Studios. While 2021 will have new content from the MCU nearly every week of the year thanks to weekly releases for the Disney+ shows, the timeline in 2022 is still fairly uncertain....

While the long-awaited and oft-delayed Black Widow will be Marvel Studios’ first Phase 4 film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has the distinction of being its first new hero origin story. Releasing in September, the film stars Simu Liu as Marvel’s Master of Martial Arts; and while the film’s first trailer teased the hero’s backstory and his father’s identity as the Mandarin, the film’s anticipated second trailer revealed so much more....

Electric vehicles rely exclusively on electric motors for propulsion, and hybrids use electric motors to assist their internal combustion engines for locomotion. But that’s not all. These very motors can be, and are, used to generate electricity (through the process of regenerative braking) for charging these vehicles’ onboard batteries. The most common question is: “How can that be … how does that work?” Most folks understand that a motor is powered by electricity to do work—they see it every day in their household appliances (​washing machines, vacuum cleaners, food processors)....

I tasked myself with buying no plastic bottles for the year; here’s how it’s going so far. My resolution for 2020 (and beyond) was to stop buying anything that comes in a plastic bottle, otherwise known as a hermit crab death trap. Yes, among all the reasons one should reduce their plastic use, it was the hermit crabs that did it for me. I already didn’t buy any drinks or perishables in plastic bottles, so I knew this was going to be more about housekeeping and personal care....

Greenhouse gases, responsible for global climate change, are emitted in large part from the combustion of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. Most of the emissions from fossil fuels come from power plants, but second ranked is transportation. In addition to carbon dioxide, motor vehicles release particulate pollution, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and volatile organic compounds. Maybe you have already adjusted many aspects of your lifestyle to reduce your carbon footprint, including installing LED lights, turning down the thermostat, and eating less meat....