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Walmart, the leviathan of the U.S. retail economy, has had a tough year. So tough that the company’s new CEO is prescribing a surprising strategy to slow decaying sales: Build smaller stores. And, in at least one case, put housing on top of them.

Fort Totten, a neighborhood in northeastern D.C., is about to be home to a new type of Walmart. At 125,000 square feet, it’s not quite as small as the other miniature stores Walmart has opened up elsewhere, but it’s unique for another reason: 345 residential units will be stacked above the ground-floor podium occupied by the megastore.

via Walmart Is Downsizing Its Superstores and Putting Apartments on Top.

At a symposium held by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers this week, a team of MIT engineers will present an idea that seems to tempt fate: A floating nuclear reactor, anchored out at sea, that would be immune to tsunamis and earthquakes. Is it really that crazy of a plan?

First, here’s what they’re proposing. MIT professors Jacopo Buongiorno, Michael Golay, and Neil Todreas are the authors of a paper that describes a massive reactor that’s built in a shipyard, then towed out to sea like an oil platform. A few miles off the coast, the reactor would be anchored in a single spot, feeding the power it produces back to the cities on the shore.

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Russia is already building a floating reactor, as Buongiorno points out, but there are some key differences that he says gives their plan “crucial advantages.” First, MIT’s design isn’t so much a ship that moves around but an anchored platform, which means it’s never in a situation where a tsunami or earthquake could affect it.

via Floating Nuclear Reactors Might Make More Sense Than You’d Think.

James Dyson’s has an idea for a new form of sucking machine—one so large it requires an entire barge to house it.

The idea here is to let a giant water-going vessel free and allow it to “mine” rivers of all the floating junk that’s been tossed away into waterway everywhere since man first invented plastic bottles and tin cans. The potential M.V. Recyclone barge, as it’s known, would unfurl nets and pull ’em back in laden with trash

Then, it would separate its catch, shredding plastic waste as it came in, for eventual recycling. This large-scale Roomba is only a concept at the moment though, with Dyson taking the opportunity to promote his cyclonic home vacuums—did you know he made vacuums?—in his design brief.

Still, it’s a pretty neat idea, and seems like it could be an incredibly effective ways to clean up our rivers. Let’s hope it happens. [FastCo via The Verge]

via Dyson’s Massive Floating Trash Vacuum Could Clean Up Our Rivers.