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sustainability

Over the weekend, dezeen published more photos of Thomas Heatherwick’s pavilion taking shape on site in Shanghai, along with some interesting facts and figures. The Seed Cathedral (nicknamed The Dandelion) is made up of 60,000 acrylic rods, each containing a seed from Kew Garden’s Millennium seed bank and China’s Kunming Institute of Botany. After the six month Expo ends, the rods will be recycled and distributed to schools across China and in the UK, and to Kew and its Chinese partners.

Aside from the pavilion, the story includes a couple of surprising and heartening facts from UK Trade & Investment:

• The UK, the sixth biggest manufacturer in the world, has the largest industries in Europe for creative industries, life sciences, financial services and ICT.
• With four out of six of the world’s top universities, the UK is the largest recipient of R&D investment in Europe, and has won more Nobel prizes than any other country in Europe.

So despite of our current economic woes, and the fact that Britain is spending a whopping £600 per person on defense (against what??) compared to the education budget at only £1250 per person, it’s good to be reminded that it’s not all doom and gloom for the UK and our education sector is still performing. Time to cut the defense budget NOT the education budget.