Exothermic is the leader in self-reliance brand marketing, but we like to share our wisdom with the world. Here are the top stories we’ve identified this week in our markets:

Survivalism

• This garden house grows enough food for three generations of one family, Vietnamese firm Vo Trong Nhia Architects are no strangers to bringing green space indoors, but their new Binh House can actually grow enough food for three generations of one large family.
• Here’s What Our Food Might Look Like in a Climate Change-Induced Dystopia, Food scientists are already looking to some dramatic-sounding

  

  options, from bugs to lab-grown meat to large fish farms, in order to feed a world whose population could approach ten billion humans by 2050. Combined with climate change, the food of the distant future may look very different.

• How Western civilisation could collapse, Some possible precipitating factors are already in place. How the West reacts to them will determine the world’s future, says Rachel Nuwer.
• The Survivalist Trailer Shows Why There’s No Such Thing as a Peaceful Post-Apocalypse, The Survivalist is the feature debut of writer-director Stephen Fingleton, and if the trailer’s anything to go by, it looks to be a visually stunning and creepily intimate take on the wilderness-dystopia tale. Everybody wants something, everybody needs something, and they’re willing to do just about anything to get it. And who needs a lot of dialogue when you’ve got a stockpile of weapons?
• Salt Makes You Hungry, Not Thirsty, Study Says, “In a study carried out during a simulated mission to Mars, an international group of scientists has found exactly the opposite to be true. ‘Cosmonauts’ who ate more salt retained more water, weren’t as thirsty, and needed more energy.” So if you don’t want to gain weight on your trip to Mars, don’t eat salty chips. If you don’t want to gain weight at home, maybe you should stay away from them as well.
• Swinging robot inspired by sloths could help future farmers, Could Robots could help us ramp up food production? Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) scientists believe so. They designed Tarzan, a robot inspired by swinging sloths, that could help future farmers more effectively monitor their crops.

Sustainability

• Clean Energy Isn’t Just the Future—It’s the Present, Renewables provided 55 percent of all new electrical capacity worldwide last year, the most ever.
• Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has declared a state of emergency over the state’s rapidly eroding coastline.
• Walmart Wants To Cut 1 Billion Tons Of Emissions Out Of Its Supply Chain, Project Gigaton aims to help the retail giant’s vast supply chain be more sustainable. And when Walmart says jump, the companies it works with tend to ask: “how high?”
• New hybrid plant combines batteries with gas turbine to cut pollution 60%, General Electric (GE) and Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that they had retrofitted a natural gas peaker plant with a 10 MW, 4.3 MWh battery installation to create the world’s first hybrid electric gas turbine.
• Salesforce Goes Net Zero Decades Early, Strives for 100% Renewable Energy, In 2015, Salesforce made a commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions across its global footprint by 2050. Last week, the software company hit that target 33 years early.
• For the First Time On Record, Human-Caused Climate Change Has Rerouted an Entire River, A team of scientists on Monday documented what they’re describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change.
• US Dept. Of Energy Promotes Solar For Rural Electric Co-ops, The US Energy Department this week unveiled a new version of its PV System Toolkit — a complete package of development tools designed to make it easier for cooperative utility companies in rural areas to transition to renewable solar power.
• Scientists say we have 10 years to save Earth, An international team of eight researchers said we have just 10 years to save the planet. But their news isn’t all bad: they’ve come up with a model for balancing carbon dioxide emissions with carbon sinks, like forests, to keep temperatures from passing the 1.5 degree Celsius mark widely considered safe for life as we know it.

Self-Improvement

• Prescriptions For Fresh Produce, And Other World Changing Ideas In Food, Wholesome Wave, which runs the country’s largest prescription program for fruits and vegetables, and provides matching subsidies for fresh produce to those already receiving governmental assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, offers a simple fix for medical treatments for diet-related diseases:“If you start tapping into the half a trillion dollars a year that is being spent on expensive medicines and treatments . . . you could actually say there’s the potential that our country could eat its way out of the national debt.”
• Why Nature Documentaries Are the Best TV Shows for Your Mental Health, According to a new study done for The Real Happiness Project by a team of researchers at BBC Earth and the University of California, Berkeley, it was discovered that watching “nature documentaries” was one of the best types of TV shows to boost your mental health.
• You Could Save on Your Student Loan by Moving to a Different State—Here’s How Much, It sounds a little ridiculous to move just to save money on your loan, but the student loan burden is no joke. If you’re curious, Student Loan Hero has a calculator that will tell you how much you could potentially save.
• Microsoft’s new literacy tool teaches language skills in a browser, The program, Accent, only works with Edge but can be customized to instruct different languages or skills.
• A look inside the budding battle between cyborg supply startups,
  “This will be as profitable as any other tech industry out there,” Babitz told Digital Trends. “This is the future. Everybody is going to be a cyborg.”
• States Are Moving To Cut College Costs By Introducing Open-Source Textbooks, In an effort to curb the rising cost of textbooks, which went up by 88% between 2006 and 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Maryland and New York have announced initiatives that adopt open-source, copyright-free textbooks.
• LifeBeam launches AI-powered and voice-activated personal trainer, With the onset of improved artificial intelligence, fitness devices are getting a makeover. The latest example is the Vi, the voice-activated, AI-based personal trainer from LifeBeam.
• Got a second? This app from MIT helps you learn a language in your spare time, Through a new series of apps called WaitSuite, a team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory want moments spent waiting into learning opportunities.