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r0B0t: Dyson's new robot vacuum comes to America  

The 360 Eye robot vacuum is finally crossing the pond.

 
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r0B0t: In Season 2, Mr. Robot Has Become a Critique of Itself  

Mr. Robot, the aesthetically polished and intellectually incensed USA series about mentally disturbed hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), arrived last year as if out of nowhere—nowhere being an acceptable synonym for the USA Network, which before Mr. Robot was home to a number of indistinguishable and effective escapist procedurals. Created by Sam Esmail, Mr. Robot had style to spare, a logo befitting an '80s arena rock band (a compliment!), intimate and eerie narration, and a riveting performance from Malek, who makes silence and motionlessness—two of Elliot's preferred states—scream with jittery unease. And it had ideas in its head. Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous, and the great recession, Elliot led a hacker collective called F-Society, out to erase the world's debt and take down Evil Corp, a powerful and nefarious multinational. Netflix and HBO aside, the predominant business model for television is taking cash from corporations to air their advertisements, yet Elliot excoriated McDonald's, Coke, and consumerism on the medium that sells all three.

With its anti-capitalist talking points, antisocial hero, and world-on-the-brink atmosphere, Mr. Robot felt bracing and bold. But its stylishness and its ideological unrest were soldered to a more standard-issue plot machine. For all its originality, Mr. Robot at first harnessed the appeal of the procedural, allowing us to get to know Elliot as he hacked his way into intimacy with strangers, while getting a complex, technologically precise, season-long storyline off the ground, one that ultimately harnessed the punch of the twist. In the season's climax, Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), the man who brought Elliot into F-Society, was revealed to be a figment of Elliot's own imagination. Among Elliot's many psychological ailments was apparently dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder).

The two-hour Season 2 premiere, airing Wednesday night, is as stylish and well-performed as any episode in Season 1, but it is also confusing, burdened by the series' dense backstory and intricate, time-skipping structure. The new season will surely rev up: Malek's performance remains excellent, there's a devotion to verisimilitude that includes casting someone to play Janet Yellin, and an act of violence that demonstrates the series can still tap into the dystopic, widening-gyre vibe of the present moment at will. But the premiere is a time waster, diligently checking in on the series' supporting players while Elliot tries to stay on the sidelines. Some weeks after the events of the Season 1 finale, Elliot is hewing to a strict routine and avoiding all computers, hoping to keep Mr. Robot from taking over his mind again, with no help at all from Mr. Robot, who is a very loud manifestation of mental illness. Mr. Robot spends the premiere berating and attacking Elliot, trying to rouse him into taking part in the revolution he began. It's strident and tedious. We know Mr. Robot will get his way. There's a show to make.

In the first season, Elliot was consumed by the idea that everyone around him was a sheep, awash in false choices, unknowingly vulnerable, so much less free than they imagined themselves to be. But at the start of Season 2, Elliot is trying to domesticate himself. He eats and sleeps and watches basketball, all in locations with so little detail, color, and advertising they could be from a dream or the USSR. Elliot also keeps making snide comments about television. He insults NCIS (which airs in reruns on USA). The guy he eats his meal with humorously riffs on the nihilistic meaning of Seinfeld. In another storyline, a dopey character can't stop watching Vanderpump Rules. Esmail, having created a cult TV show, is expressing some skepticism about television, a medium that, for much of its life, existed to sell audiences soap. Mr. Robot is like an iPhone with an “I hate Apple” ring tone: Both are beautifully designed, powerful products that are superficially conflicted about being beautifully designed, powerful products. For all that Mr. Robot invites us to think about global financial issues, the unchecked power of technology, and imminent societal collapse, it also demonstrates just how efficiently capitalism co-opts all critiques: It can even turn a criminal hacktivist into the poster boy for a cable network.

 
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r0B0t: Robots Could Hack Turing Test by Keeping Silent  
While it's not news that the Turing test has flaws, the new study highlights just how limited the test is for answering deeper questions about artificial intelligence, study co-author says

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com 
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r0B0t: Why NASA's new photos of the moon look super fake (even though they're not)  
Every once in awhile, as a person who writes about space, I encounter folks who don't believe in it. Or don't believe we've ever been there, anyway. Or that our robots have been there. Or that the Earth is round (but that's a whole other thing.) But while tweets about how "astronauts" on the "International" […]  
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'Green News Report' - July 14, 2016  
The Green News Report is also available via...





IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Porn is dirty, but coal is clean, says the Republican Party platform; Senate Democrats call out the 'web' of professional climate deniers; June 2016 was the hottest on record for the U.S.; PLUS: Another fracking explosion, this time in New Mexico... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Republicans just escalated the war over ExxonMobil and climate change; Once-respected science group has one more chance to reject Exxon Mobil funding; Transportation Dept. proposes new oil train rules; Puget Sound to close another coal plant; State's Delta smelt plan calls for more water flowing to sea; Fake bio-diesel factory made millions; Loneliest natural gas terminal bucks pipeline trend; Number of Americans "alarmed" by climate change rises in latest poll... PLUS: Clean energy investment in 2016 undershoots last year's record... and much, MUCH more! ...

'Green News Report' is heard on many fine radio stations around the country. For additional info on stories we covered today, plus today's 'Green News Extra', please click right here to listen!

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Fossil Fuel Divestiture Campaign Focuses On Big Pensions  
The fossil fuel divestiture campaign GoFossilFree equates the end of oil, gas and coal to the great moral crusades of our time -- Apartheid and tobacco -- while hoping to reduce demand for fossil fuel stocks and thereby threaten their stock prices.





It's a tall order. As long as GoFossilFree was focused on divesting university endowments, the campaign was a gnat on the haunch of the elephant. After all, why should an industry worth $5 trillion be afraid of endowments worth $467 billion, whose investments in oil and gas are probably 10%, or $50 billion, at best? Chump change to this industry's behemoths.



But more recently, the FossilFree campaign began targeting pensions as well, and that's a problem. Consider the numbers: as of 2013, US pension assets totaled $21 trillion. Using that same 10%, you're talking $2.1 trillion in fossil fuel stocks. That's a number big enough to scare even Big Oil.



The first real threat came in 2015 from California's state pensions. In April of that year, the California legislature voted to divest its coal stocks from the pensions' $657 billion investment fund. A scary precedent and one that got Big Oil's attention.



Evidence of Big Oil's alarm is clear on the anti-divestment site divestmentfacts.com. Funded by the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), the site used to publish letters from University Presidents justifying their decisions not to divest and a few reports on how much individual college endowments would lose through divestment.



In June, the DivestmentFacts site underwent a radical change. Focused now on pension funds, the site promotes the idea that under divestment, pension funds will lose $7 billion over twenty years. Three studies from three separate universities support the claim.



A closer look at the study authors reveals how much more the IPAA is investing to stop pensions from divesting. The lead study is authored by none other than the notorious economist and lawyer Daniel Fischel, the short-lived dean of Chicago Law School who resigned over a sex scandal and one-time expert witness in criminal trials of Mike Milken and Charles Keating as well as officers of Enron and Philip Morris. Fischel is Chairman and President of Compass Lexecon, one of the largest consultancies that specialize in what Charles Ferguson described in the Huffington Post as "The sale of academic 'expertise' for the purpose of influencing government policy, the courts, and public opinion... now a multi-billion dollar business." The other two studies are by academics who are also Senior Consultants at, yes, Compass Lexecon. That's some pricey research.



Shortly after releasing the three studies, the IPAA published a survey of pensioners conducted by FTI Consulting, which owns -- wait for it -- Compass Lexecon. FTI's report warns, "Even the largest college endowment funds in existence today hold only a fraction of the assets managed by public pension funds," then goes on to present "statistics" that prove pensioners don't want divestment. A spokesman from the American Petroleum Institute (API) draws on heart strings when he concludes, "Millions of retirees and pension holders depend on income from oil and natural gas investments to live."



Both oil lobbying organizations, API and IPAA, are funded mostly by the fossil fuel majors, with the bulk coming from Shell, BP and Chevron, companies that have the most to lose from divestiture. And they're right to spend whatever they have to, because the truth is, the smart money in pensions should flee oil and gas for economic reasons. Looking ahead, HSBC Global Research found that global carbon regulations could result in fossil fuel companies losing 40-­60% of their value, which will translate into reductions in share price. Similar warnings have come from CitiBank, Standard and Poor's, and the Bank of England.



Big Oil is right to be afraid. Pension fund divestment has moved to Europe. Just two weeks ago, the EU issued a directive that, on ratification, will require all pensions to "consider climate and risks related to...'stranded assets,'", referring to oil and gas reserves that may never be used. EU pensions total £3.2 trillion, $4.4 trillion at today's depressed exchange rates.

Spending on anti-divestment is just a finger in the dike. Big oil and gas will lose to carbon-free energy. Will they follow buggy-manufacturers who never embraced the automobile and were pushed out of business? Or will they imitate American carmakers that entered the electric car market? Perhaps divestment will exact the same financial pressure on oil and gas that forced dramatic innovation in the American auto industry.

Keep your fingers crossed.


Photo courtesy of Friends of the Earth Scotland via Flickr CC.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Remembering a ‘Keystone' Ecologist, Robert Paine  
A biologist who turned sustained tide pool studies into an enduring ecological concept is remembered.  
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The Climate Post: Study Quantifies Climate-Change-Related Deaths  
A study in Environmental Research Letters suggests a fifth of premature deaths during a 2003 heatwave in Europe are linked to human-caused climate change.

"We are now able to put a number on the deaths caused by climate change in a heat wave," said lead author Daniel Mitchell of the University of Oxford. "This has never been done before. Previous studies have attributed changes in heat waves to climate change, or related increased heat stress to human deaths, but none have combined the two."

The study's U.S. and U.K researchers calculated that, during a Europe-wide heat wave in summer 2003, 506 of 735 deaths in Paris and 64 of 315 deaths in London were due to a heat wave worsened by anthropogenic climate change. They reached that conclusion after putting the results of several thousand runs of two climate model simulations of the 2003 heat wave into a health impact assessment of death rates.

By comparing two scenarios--one reflecting the climate of 2003 without human influences and one reflecting all known climatic forces contributing to the 2003 heat wave--the researchers determined how climate change had affected that summer's temperatures.

The study, reports Carbon Brief, analyzes a direct impact measure--mortality--rather than an indirect one--temperature. It links mortalities to climate and introduces another level of uncertainty, especially when long and reliable health datasets are not available for use in analyses.

Nevertheless, reports ClimateWire, the study demonstrates that losses can be directly linked to climate change and thus its framework can be used to assign costs of "loss and damage" and to improve planning and adaptation (subscription).

"It is often difficult to understand the implications of a planet that is one degree warmer than preindustrial levels in the global average, but we are now at the stage where we can identify the cost to our health of man-made global warming," Mitchell said. "This research reveals that in two cities alone hundreds of deaths can be attributed to much higher temperatures resulting from human-induced climate change."

Last week at a meeting held by the French government to study Paris Agreement-related actions to reduce health risks linked to climate change, the World Health Organization said that change is likely to kill 250,000 additional people each year by 2030--primarily through malaria, diarrhea, heat stress, and malnutrition. Children, women, older people, and the poor will be most affected.

Climate Change and Cloud Cover

A new study in the journal Nature suggests there's evidence of climate change in satellite cloud records. By comparing satellite data from 1983 to 2009 to climate models, the authors found that the clouds forming most often are not low-lying reflective ones that cool the planet. Instead, cloud patterns were in line with what scientists would expect to see in climate models--an increase in greenhouse gases associated with human activity over the study period.

"Cloud changes most consistently predicted by global climate models are currently occurring in nature," the authors write. "As cloud tops rise, their greenhouse effect becomes stronger."

Clouds have both an Earth-cooling effect by reflecting solar radiation back to space and an Earth-warming effect by restricting the planet's thermal infrared radiation.

"Even if there is no change in the overall coverage of clouds on the earth, clouds closer to the pole reflect less solar radiation because there is less solar radiation coming in closer to the pole," said lead author Joel Norris of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In Science magazine, Norris noted one caveat: during the study period, two major volcanic eruptions cooled and then warmed the climate, producing cloud patterns similar to those produced by greenhouse gas-related warming.

Draft Proposes Extension of California Cap-and-Trade Program

The California Air Resources Board released a draft plan to extend the state's cap-and-trade program beyond 2020, when it is set to expire. The program--one of the first economy-wide programs put in place--aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating a fixed number of permits, called allowances, to emit a single ton; compliance entities and other market participants can buy and sell allowances, thereby enabling the market to determine the lowest-cost compliance path.

The draft plan calls to extend the program another decade and to reach emissions levels 40 percent below 1990 levels. It would include preliminary caps through 2050 "to signal the long-term trajectory of the program to inform investment decisions."

No board vote is scheduled on the proposal until March 2017. A state appeals court is considering a challenge from the California Chamber of Commerce, which contends that the pollution-credit program is an illegal tax, not a fee.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Butterflies' diet impacts evolution of traits  
A new study finds that access to some nutrients may be a star player in shaping traits related to fitness such as fecundity and eye size over the long term. Given drastic increases in the availability of many nutrients due to the widespread use of fertilizers and road salts, the finding has important implications for agriculture and ecology.  
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Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: 'Green News Report' - July 14, 2016  
The Green News Report is also available via...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Porn is dirty, but coal is clean, says the Republican Party platform; Sen...

Read more: Carbon Tax, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, Energy, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Fracking, Global Warming, Global Warming Deniers, Green News, Green News Report, Renewable Energy, Video, Republicans, Republican Party, Republican Convention, Clean Coal, Carbon Capture and Storage, Pornography, Exxon Mobil, Al Franken, Senate, Desmogblog, Extreme Weather, Noaa, Canada, Fort Mcmurray, Wildfires, Natural Disasters, New Mexico, Public Lands, Propaganda, Green News

 
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Early Bedtime For Preschoolers Might Help Reduce Obesity Risk Later  

Little kids who hit the sack early may be less likely to get overtired and fussy in a way that messes with their sleep cycle, researchers say.

 
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Computers vs Ebola: Scientists use big data to predict future disease hotspots  

And it all boils down to seeing what bats are up to

A team of scientists have developed a model that can predict the likelihood of bat species carrying Ebola and other filoviruses using a machine learning algorithm.…

 
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An Open Letter From Technology Sector Leaders On Donald Trump's Candidacy For President  

We are inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, researchers, and business leaders working in the technology sector. We are proud that American innovation is the envy of the world, a source of widely-shared prosperity, and a hallmark of our global leadership.

We believe in an inclusive country that fosters opportunity, creativity and a level playing field. Donald Trump does not. He campaigns on anger, bigotry, fear of new ideas and new people, and a fundamental belief that America is weak and in decline.  We have listened to Donald Trump over the past year and we have concluded: Trump would be a disaster for innovation.  His vision stands against the open exchange of ideas, free movement of people, and productive engagement with the outside world that is critical to our economy—and that provide the foundation for innovation and growth.

Let's start with the human talent that drives innovation forward.  We believe that America's diversity is our strength.  Great ideas come from all parts of society, and we should champion that broad-based creative potential.  We also believe that progressive immigration policies help us attract and retain some of the brightest minds on earth—scientists, entrepreneurs, and creators.  In fact, 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.  Donald Trump, meanwhile, traffics in ethnic and racial stereotypes, repeatedly insults women, and is openly hostile to immigration.  He has promised a wall, mass deportations, and profiling.

We also believe in the free and open exchange of ideas, including over the Internet, as a seed from which innovation springs. Donald Trump proposes “shutting down” parts of the Internet as a security strategy ― demonstrating both poor judgment and ignorance about how technology works. His penchant to censor extends to revoking press credentials and threatening to punish media platforms that criticize him.

Finally, we believe that government plays an important role in the technology economy by investing in infrastructure, education and scientific research.  Donald Trump articulates few policies beyond erratic and contradictory pronouncements. His reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions threatens to upend what attracts companies to start and scale in America. He risks distorting markets, reducing exports, and slowing job creation.

We stand against Donald Trump's divisive candidacy and want a candidate who embraces the ideals that built America's technology industry: freedom of expression, openness to newcomers, equality of opportunity, public investments in research and infrastructure, and respect for the rule of law. We embrace an optimistic vision for a more inclusive country, where American innovation continues to fuel opportunity, prosperity and leadership.

 

*DISCLAIMER:  The individuals listed below have endorsed in their personal capacity and this does not reflect the endorsement of any organization, corporation or entity to which they are affiliated. Titles and affiliations of each individual are provided for identification purposes only.

Marvin Ammori, General Counsel, Hyperloop One
Adrian Aoun, Founder/CEO, Forward
Greg Badros, Founder, Prepared Mind Innovations; Former Engineering VP, Facebook
Clayton Banks, Co-Founder, Silicon Harlem
Phin Barnes, Partner, First Round Capital
Niti Bashambu, Chief Analytics Officer, IAC Applications
John Battelle, Founder/CEO, NewCo, Inc.
Ayah Bdeir, Founder/CEO, Little Bits
Piraye Beim, Founder/CEO, Celmatix
Marc Bodnick, Co-Founder, Elevation Partners
John Borthwick, Founder/CEO, Betaworks
Matt Brezina, Co-Founder, Sincerely and Xobni
Stacy Brown-Philpot, CEO, TaskRabbit
Brad Burnham, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder/CEO, Slack
Troy Carter, Founder/CEO, Atom Factory
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Founder/CEO, Joyus
Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer
Amy Chang, Founder/CEO, Accompany
Aneesh Chopra, President, NavHealth; Former US CTO
Patrick Chung, General Partner, Xfund
Tod Cohen, General Counsel, StubHub
Stephen DeBerry, Founder/Managing Partner, Bronze Investments
Peter Diamandis, Entrepreneur; Author, Abundance and BOLD
Barry Diller, Chairman, Expedia and IAC
Esther Dyson, Executive Founder, Way to Wellville; Investor
Amy Errett, Founder/CEO, Madison Reed
Caterina Fake, Founder/CEO, Findery; Co-Founder, Flickr
Christopher Farmer, Founder/CEO, SignalFire
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group; Co-Founder, Techstars
Josh Felser, Co-Founder, Freestyle Capital & ClimateX
Hajj Flemings, Founder/CEO, Brand Camp University
Natalie Foster, Co-Founder, Peers
David Grain, Founder/Managing Partner, Grain Management, LLC
Brad Hargreaves, Founder/CEO, Common
Donna Harris, Co-Founder/Co-CEO, 1776
Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder/CEO, Meetup
David Hornik, General Partner, August Capital
Terry Howerton, CEO, TechNexus
Reed Hundt, Former Chair, FCC
Minnie Ingersoll, COO, Shift Technologies
Sami Inkinen, Founder/CEO, Virta Health; Co-Founder, Trulia
Craig Isakow, Head of Revenue, Shift Technologies
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., President and Founder, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Irwin Jacobs, Founding Chairman/CEO Emeritus, Qualcomm Inc
Paul Jacobs, Executive Chairman, Qualcomm Inc
Leila Janah, Founder/CEO, Sama & Laxmi
Sujay Jaswa, Former CFO, Dropbox; Founder, Witt Capital Partners
Mark Josephson, CEO, Bitly
Sep Kamvar, Professor, MIT
David Karp, Founder/CEO, Tumblr
Jed Katz, Managing Director, Javelin Venture Partners
Kim Keenan, President/CEO, Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council
Ben Keighran, Entrepreneur; Former Design Lead, Apple
William Kennard, Former Chair, FCC
Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures; Co-Founder, SUN Microsystems
Ron Klain, Executive Vice President, Revolution LLC
Walter Kortschak, Former Managing Partner and Senior Advisor, Summit Partners
Jared Kopf, Founder AdRoll, HomeRun, Worldly
Joseph Kopser, Co-Founder, Ridescout
Karen Kornbluh, Former US Ambassador, OECD
Othman Laraki, Co-Founder/President, Color Genomics
Miles Lasater, Serial Entrepreneur
Jeff Lawson, CEO, Twilio
Aileen Lee, Founder/Managing Partner, Cowboy Ventures
Bobby Lent, Managing Partner, Hillsven Capital
Aaron Levie, Co-Founder/CEO, Box
John Lilly, Partner, Greylock Partners
Bruce Lincoln, Co-Founder, Silicon Harlem
Ruth Livier, President, Livier Productions, Inc.
Mark Lloyd, Professor of Communication, University of Southern California - Annenberg School
Luther Lowe, VP of Public Policy, Yelp
Nancy Lublin, Founder/CEO, Crisis Text Line
Kanyi Maqubela, Partner, Collaborative Fund
Jonathan Matus, Founder/CEO, Zendrive
Josh McFarland, Vice President of Product, Twitter
Andrew McLaughlin, Head of New Business, Medium; Venture Partner, betaworks
Shishir Mehrotra, Entrepreneur & former VP of Product & Engineering, YouTube
Apoorva Mehta, Founder/CEO, Instacart
Doug Merritt, CEO, Splunk
Dinesh Moorjani, Founder/CEO, Hatch Labs; Co-Founder, Tinder
Brit Morin, Founder/CEO, Brit + Co
Dave Morin, Entrepreneur; Partner, Slow Ventures
Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder, Asana; Co-Founder, Facebook
Amanda Moskowitz, Founder/CEO, Stacklist
Alex Nogales, President/CEO, National Hispanic Media Coalition
Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder, Reddit
Mike Olson, Founder/Chairman/CSO, Cloudera
Pierre Omidyar, Founder, eBay
Felix W. Ortiz III, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Viridis; Board Member of The NYC Technology Development Corporation
Jen Pahlka, Founder/Executive Director, Code for America
Barney Pell, Founder Powerset, MoonExpress, Locomobi; Founding Trustee, Singularity University
Mark Pincus, Executive Chairman and Founder, Zynga
Shervin Pishevar, Co-Founder/Managing Director, Sherpa Capital and Co-Founder/Executive Chairman of Hyperloop One
Brandon Pollack, Director of Global Affairs, 1776
Amy Rao, Founder/CEO, Integrated Archive Systems, Inc.
Eric Ries, Entrepreneur & Author, The Lean Startup
Justin Rosenstein, Co-Founder, Asana
Alec Ross, Author, The Industries of the Future
Javier Saade, Venture Capitalist; Former Associate Administrator, SBA
Chris Sacca, Founder/Chairman, Lowercase Capital
Dave Samuel, Co-Founder, Freestyle Capital
Julie Samuels, Executive Director, Tech:NYC
Reshma Saujani, Founder, Girls Who Code
Chris Schroeder, Venture Investor; Author, Startup Rising
Jake Schwartz, Co-Founder/CEO, General Assembly
Robert Scoble, Entrepreneur in Residence and Futurist, Upload VR
Kim Malone Scott, CEO, Candor, Inc; Former Director, Google
Tina Sharkey, Partner, Sherpa Foundry & Sherpa Capital
Clara Shih, Co-Founder/CEO, Hearsay Social
Shivani Siroya, Founder/CEO, InVenture
Steve Smith, Executive Director, Public Policy Institute, Government Relations & Telecommunications Project, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Jonathan Spalter, Chair, Mobile Future
DeShuna Spencer, CEO, kweliTV
Katie Stanton, CMO, Color Genomics; Former VP of Global Media, Twitter
Jenny Stefanotti, Co-Founder, OneProject; Board of Directors, Ushahidi
Debby Sterling, Founder/CEO, Goldiblox
Seth Sternberg, Co-Founder/CEO, Honor
Margaret Stewart, Vice President of Product Design, Facebook
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp
Michael Stoppelman, SVP, Engineering, Yelp
Baratunde Thurston, Former supervising producer, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah; Co-Founder, Cultivated Wit
Stephanie Tilenius, Founder/CEO, Vida Health; Board of Directors, Seagate Technology
Richard D. Titus, Entrepreneur; SVP, Samsung
Anne Toth, VP of Policy & Compliance, Slack
Bill Trenchard, Partner, First Round Capital
April Underwood, VP of Product, Slack
Max Ventilla, Founder/CEO, AltSchool
Tabreez Verjee, Co-Founder/Partner Uprising; Board Director Kiva.org
Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
Hunter Walk, Partner, Homebrew VC; Former Director of Product Management, Google
Tristan Walker, Founder/CEO, Walker & Company Brands, Inc.; Founder/Chairman, Code 2040
Ari Wallach, CEO, Synthesis Corp.
Padmasree Warrior, CEO, NextEV USA; Former CTSO, Cisco
Laura Weidman Powers, Co-Founder/CEO, Code2040
Kevin Weil, Head of Product, Instagram
Phil Weiser, Hatfield Professor of Law, University of Colorado and Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center
Daniel J. Weitzner, Principal Research Scientist, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Emily White, Entrepreneur; Former COO, Snapchat
Ev Williams, Founder/CEO, Medium; Co-Founder Twitter, Blogger
Monique Woodward, Venture Partner, 500 Startups
Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple
Tim Wu, Professor of Law, Columbia University
Andrew Yang, Founder/CEO, Venture for America
Arielle Zuckerberg, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

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science  

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The magic of the music seems to light the way!  

marco18678 posted a photo:

 
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Covent Garden Arch  

Kieran Williams Photography posted a photo:

 
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Go with the flow by Ciro Galluccio  

Go with the flow by Ciro Galluccio

Portrait of my amazing friend and singer CRLN in Rome. This picture wants to describe her singing career made of steps to climb, to reach her goals. Follow me on: Instagram Flickr

Ciro Galluccio: Photos

 
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http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/western-cuba-and-gulf  
Western Cuba and Gulf of Batabanó  
Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA captured photographs of western Cuba and the Gulf of Batabanó as the International Space Station flew overhead. Williams shared this composite image on social media, writing, "Wow! Look at how the navy blue contrasts with the aqua, Gulf of Batabano Cuba."  
astronomy  

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/science/astronomers-discover-new-likely-dwarf-planet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss  
Astronomers Discover New Likely Dwarf Planet, the Latest of Many  
The object was seen in the Kuiper belt, a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune. Dozens of similar bodies may also meet the definition of a dwarf planet.  
astronomy  

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/science/juno-sends-first-image-back-while-orbiting-jupiter.html?partner=rss&emc=rss  
Juno Sends First Image Back While Orbiting Jupiter  
NASA released the first photograph taken from its space probe since its camera was turned back on after it locked into orbit on July 4.  
astronomy  

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http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/looking-up-at-new-work-platforms-in-the-vehicle-assembly-building  
Looking Up at New Work Platforms in the Vehicle Assembly Building  
In this view looking up from the floor of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, four levels of new work platforms are now installed on the north and south sides of High Bay 3. The G-level work platforms are the fourth of 10 levels that will surround and provide access to the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.  
astronomy  

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r0B0t: Automated furniture app transforms tiny apartments into mini mansions  
More about Buildings, Housing, Apps, Apartment, and Apartments  
robots  

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r0B0t: Watch a livestream of the 2016 Emmy nominations here  
More about Emmy Awards, Television, and Entertainment  
robots  

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r0B0t: Robot runs over toddler in shopping centre  
A security guard robot runs over a 16-month-old child in a shopping centre in California.  
robots  

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fnews.google.com%252Fnews%252Furl%253Fsa%253Dt%2526fd%253DR%2526ct2%253Duk%2526usg%253DAFQjCNH_V1-fJa653OMCezuOi2jZgQBmag%2526clid%253Dc3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331%2526cid%253D52779157978018%2526ei%253DsqWHV4iGC8O8zAbs_ptw%2526url%253Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%252Fsciencetech%252Farticle-3690007%252FCould-ROBOTS-build-bigger-space-telescopes-Machines-orbit-assemble-replacements-Hubble.html%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
r0B0t: Robots in orbit could assemble replacements for Hubble - Daily Mail  

Daily Mail

Robots in orbit could assemble replacements for Hubble Daily Mail Space telescopes like Hubble has given astronomers a unique glimpse at the universe unhindered by the thick atmosphere of our planet that can blur our view. But hauling a huge telescope into space can be difficult, which makes it hard to build the ... Robots to build massive modular telescopes in spaceThe Stack Robots could assemble extremely large telescopes in spaceDaily News & Analysis Robot Would Assemble Modular Telescope — In SpacePhotonics Online Zee News -News Nation all 7 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: These robot stingrays are faster and more durable thanks to a secret ingredient: rat muscles - Quartz  

Quartz

These robot stingrays are faster and more durable thanks to a secret ingredient: rat muscles Quartz Lots of robotic engineers draw inspiration from animals, building everything from bat-like drones to mechanical cheetahs, dogs and octopi. But it's hard to make a lifelike machine with purely artificial parts, which is why some scientists are building ... and more »

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fgay-browne%2Fwhy-recharging-your-batte_b_10993064.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Why Recharging Your Batteries Is Important To Your Environmental Health  

Nantucket might sound pretty far for a California girl to travel to go to the beach but over twenty years it's become a family tradition and the place where I recharge my batteries. Having downtime to decompress, unplugging from technology and everyday demands are not only critical to ones overall mental and physical well-being, but it's also key to my personal environmental health.

The island has preserved its natural beauty with beautiful beaches, windmills, lighthouses and cobblestone streets. Just 47.8 square miles there is not much need for a car, so I rarely use one, preferring to use my bicycle to get around town. Nantucket's activities are so engaging that it is the perfect setting to turn off the cellphone and watch the sunset while enjoying a picnic dinner from Something Natural out on Great Point.

Nantucket is also filled with memories of my children growing up - another subtle reminder to slow down and be present.

I've been pregnant here, lying like a beached whale under an umbrella, wandering through Bartlett's Farms with toddlers hanging off my shopping cart, and sipping ice tea as if my life depended on it after a sleepless night.  My children all learned to ride bikes on the island. We've spent time at the library story hour, visited the Whaling Museum on rainy days, had family movie nights at the Dreamland Theater, attended lectures at The Atheneum and church services at the Union Chapel. We go fishing for bluefish and strippers at Just Do It Too and turtling in swamp water. Each season we try the new restaurants, and when our children were younger, we would bike to The Downyflake Donuts. There is a lot about Nantucket that makes it qualify as one of my happy places.

But beyond the bike rides to Sconset, tennis, and yoga and lazy afternoons in the shade reading a book, the best part for me of my Nantucket escape is the part that I can't see or touch. It's the feeling I get from allowing myself the luxury of letting my body recharge and indulge in serendipity instead of schedule, turning off not just the computer but also my brain so it can reset to its naturally creative self.

As an advocate for environmental health, I know that means more than being a conscious consumer and eliminating toxins from our food and air and water. It's also about purity in spirit which is something I find easy to access in Nantucket, dressing simply, wearing no make-up, spending time with friends singing at karaoke night or laughing while playing a board game and sitting on a porch at sunset and letting my mind detox and my soul refresh. Nantucket is a place where I can breathe fully and just be.

Each year when I leave on the ferry to Hyannis we throw an auspicious penny into the harbor in hopes we will return next summer. I remind myself that I don't have to wait until next summer to recharge my batteries. There are many things I can make a commitment to incorporate in my weekly routine that will improve my environmental health.

The research has shown that just twenty minutes a day being outside in nature can significantly boost vitality levels. A picnic in the park with friends or family, a hike, a walk or even sitting under a tree on a bench without the company of a cell phone can make a world of difference. A weekend without social media, cell phone free dinners and my self-imposed rule of no screen time after eight o'clock all help to restore that feeling I get while on Nantucket.

Whatever recharging your batteries means for you, I'm advocating you do it. Surrender your electronics for awhile, get out in nature and stretch your legs, breathe deeply and fully and let life flow in. Work and school and all the obligations of our human existence will always exist but taking extra time to just be, not just during the summer but all year round, will go a long way towards improving your personal environmental health.  

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
gaia  

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Get Smart Fast: Climate Change Policy After the CPP Stay  
Earlier this year in a surprise move, the Supreme Court issued a stay on the Clean Power Plan (CPP) while legal challenges play out. Opponents of the CPP and its goals had hoped this would dampen efforts to advance related policies. Yet the Administration is continuing to move forward with regulation and policy to further its climate change goals.

The EPA recently proposed the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP), a voluntary initiative that would provide incentives to states for early investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The Administration is also targeting methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Last month EPA finalized rules governing methane emissions from new sources in the oil and gas industry and is taking the first steps toward regulating existing sources. In addition, the Department of the Interior has proposed regulations to limit venting and flaring on public lands by oil and gas companies.

The stay on the CPP has certainly slowed - but not stopped - the Obama Administration's efforts to tackle climate change. And while these regulations will not all be finalized before President Obama leaves office, they will lay the groundwork for ongoing efforts to reduce greenhouse gases if Hillary Clinton takes his place.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
gaia  

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Terrified insect escapes a permanent tomb -- 50 million years ago  
Thousands of insects, plants and other life forms have been found trapped in ancient amber deposits, but a new discovery shows a rarity of a different type -- the one that got away. This insect literally was frightened out of its skin.  
gaia  

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The Story of Ahmed and Alin: Syrian Orphans Trapped in Turkey  
Ahmed and Alin were 10 and 11 years old when their parents died in Aleppo. They fled to Turkey and now work there as child laborers -- collecting scrap and working in a sweat shop. They dream of escape, but don't know how.  
general  

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160713143156.htm  
Shocking new role found for the immune system: Controlling social interaction  
The immune system affects -- and even controls -- social behavior, a new study has found. Researchers discovered that blocking a single type of immune molecule made mouse brains go hyperactive and caused abnormal behavior; restoring it fixed both. The discovery could have enormous implications for neurological conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.  
technology  

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/07/14/moooo/  
AT&T's Flying COW isn't what you think it is (thank goodness)  

AT&T today wrote a blog post detailing a proposed project involving something called a Flying COW. And no, it's not a nursery rhyme book. COW stands for Cell on Wings, which is the company's new drones initiative to bring LTE service to high volume areas like concerts, festivals, or disaster sites post-emergencies. “A Flying COW may even be able to provide coverage when a vehicle is unable to drive to a designated area,” the blog post says. AT&T says it is currently researching how to use drones to send large amounts of data in real-time and will trial the program nationally…

This story continues at The Next Web  
technology  

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/14/dirty-house-music-how-david-adjayes-dj-brother-turns-his-buildings-into-beats  
Dirty house music: how David Adjaye's DJ brother turns his buildings into beats  

When architect David Adjaye creates a building, it's not finished until his DJ brother Peter ‘like Dr Dre on magic mushrooms' translates it into music. The pair introduce his latest soundscapes here

If architecture is frozen music, as Goethe said, then Peter Adjaye has been busy taking a blowtorch to his brother's buildings. The result, released this week in the form of a limited-edition vinyl album, sees 10 of David Adjaye's projects melted down into a liquid cocktail of electronic sounds, plucked strings and deep percussive beats, in a series of experimental soundscapes composed by his musician brother over the last 15 years. Ranging from ambient scores to more jazzy tracks, the results form an intriguing album, as meditative, brooding and spine-tingling as some of David's most evocative spaces.

“I see rhythms and melodies in everything that surrounds us,” says Peter. “Music is how we navigate the city. Every space has its own soundtrack.” He is sitting in the top-floor cafe of his brother's Idea Store library in Whitechapel, where, looked at through a musician's lens, the double-height timber columns form something of a syncopated beat against the green-tinted windows, themselves echoing the tarpaulin canopies of the market stalls outside. A grid of exposed concrete beams runs across the ceiling, forming a robust rhythm of its own, punctuated by a big open skylight.

Related: David Adjaye's buildings - in pictures

David's Horizon pavilion was given a soundscape based on silence

Related: Inside the new Smithsonian: a vivid exploration of African American history

Continue reading...  
design  

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/14/riba-stirling-prize-shortlist-announced-architecture  
Glass wedding cake or London's best stairs? The RIBA Stirling prize shortlist  

This year's prestigious UK architecture prize shortlist includes a library, university buildings, a gallery, a controversial estate and a concrete stealth home in a hill

Three university buildings, two of them commissioned by Oxford, will go head to head with Damien Hirst's art gallery, a controversial estate regeneration project and a stealthy concrete house worthy of a Welsh Bond villain, in the battle to win the RIBA Stirling prize for the UK's best new building.

Related: RIBA awards 2016: academic buildings dominate list of UK's best architecture

Continue reading...  
design  

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/jul/14/steve-bells-if-on-angie-the-eagles-policy-going-forward  
Steve Bell's If ... on Angie the Eagle's policy going forward  
Continue reading...  
culture  

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/jul/13/steve-bell-on-theresa-may-replacing-david-cameron-cartoon  
Steve Bell on Theresa May replacing David Cameron cartoon  
Continue reading...  
culture  

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nybooks/~3/KmT0ZofdKyA/  
A Bad Thing in Brooklyn  
Without preaching or making obvious points, Sebastián Silva's excellent film Nasty Baby, about a gentrifying neighborhood of Brooklyn, reminds us: how many of our daily interactions are shaped by race and class, how well we understand or intuit this fact, and how much about these issues remains unspoken. We feel that a bad thing is happening, as bad things will, and people are doing entirely the wrong things, as people so frequently do.  
culture  

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fchristiana-figueres%2Frestoring-hope_b_10974734.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Restoring Hope  

The United Nations was founded 70 years ago in the turmoil and trauma of World War II with the firm conviction that a better future was possible, and it was ours to create.

Much has been achieved in the intervening years that has certainly kept the world on a safer trajectory, but today, only 16 years into the new millennium, we seem beset on all sides by impossible problems. Terrorism, inequality, environmental degradation, financial crises, wars, forced migration. There is a growing sense that our problems have changed and become more complex but also that they have become too large for us to solve. As a result, we have become used to not really addressing the fundamental issues but lurching from one crisis to the next, just getting by.

People have lost trust that their lives can get better and that institutions are on their side. This in turn is leading to apathy, depression, despair and in some cases to the development of radical views.

This cycle must be stopped, before it consumes our collective future.

The truth is that the problems of today can only be addressed through working together, using multilateral dialogue to find common ground and take collective action. The last years have seen a discrediting of multilateralism as agreements on issues such as trade and the refugee crisis have proved elusive. These failures themselves further feed the narrative that our problems have grown beyond our control.

It does not have to be this way.

I joined the UN Climate Secretariat after the disaster of the Copenhagen negotiations in 2009 and left in 2016 on the back of the most ambitious climate agreement in history. The Paris Agreement was not an accident -- it was strategy and attitude. It was the culmination of six years of patient rebuilding of a broken system that had lost all trust and confidence, into one that was capable of entering an upward spiraling of commitment and ambition. It was the result of a shared commitment that arose from the collective realization that we would all be losers if we did not find a way to win together. It was the harvest of years of careful listening that enabled the elusive common ground to emerge.

Paris can be an anomaly or it can become the norm for multilateralism in the 21st century. We must ensure it is the latter, so that we can rebuild the world's confidence in the ability of the UN and its Member States to work together and solve the most difficult problems of our times.

As our world becomes more interdependent and more complex, the necessity to make genuine progress through dialogue, commitment and investment is further increased. This is because the interconnections are such that failure to address critical areas of concern means that they will quickly spread and become destabilizing.

Without stronger mechanisms for managing critical cross-border issues, including resource management, refugees, and migration, we will not build the shared security needed to support everyday practical cooperation. Without adequate restrictions on the proliferation and use of weapons, we will continue to see growing displacement and inequalities generated by conflict and violence. Without climate stability there will be no food or water security, reducing our ability to remain in our communities, towns and countries. Without securing women's rights to education, land ownership, and political participation, we will not see a rise in equitable economic development. Without building more resilience to natural disasters, we will not create the economic or political space to plan for long-term development. Without respect for human rights, citizen participation, and reduced corruption, we cannot build the conditions for a sustained peace.

The interconnectedness of these issues further underlines the essential role that the UN must play. Indeed, only the UN can provide the forum through which Member States can coordinate effectively to address the intricate and interconnected issues that affect our world. If this is not achieved, then we face a risk that the unstable parts of the world will continue to destabilize other parts. This is unacceptable.

We must embrace the tough challenges and refuse to believe that real solutions are beyond our ability to find. It is our best chance to improve the lives of people everywhere.

We need a UN that reclaims its standing as a beacon of hope; a reason for global optimism that calls us toward a compelling vision of the future, rekindling our confidence and inspiring each and every one of us to live up to our highest purpose. Impossible is not a fact, it is an attitude. That is my conviction and my experience. It is also my invitation; together we can restore hope.

It is for the opportunity to pursue this vision that I have accepted the nomination of Costa Rica for the position of UN Secretary-General.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post regarding the selection and appointment of the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. A new Secretary-General will take office on January 1, 2017, and each of the declared candidates for the position was invited to participate in this blog series. The President of the General Assembly noted that, this year, the selection process will have more transparency than ever before. The declared candidates for the position are listed by the UN here. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Ftom-szaky%2Fthe-economics-of-organic_b_10971738.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
The Economics of Organic  
Consumer demand for organic food products led to $37 billion in sales last year, a significant 12% increase from 2014; halfway into 2016, the market's current worth is priced at a healthy $39 billion by some reports. Flourishing with real double-digit growth in most years since the 90s, even 2008's economic downturn didn't slow down organics, sales progression continuing to hold steady around 10%. In fact, the recession revealed a global consumer willingness to pay premiums for quality in a climate that called for more discretion with one's dollars, establishing consumer demand for organic foods as transcending the niche market segment.

Organic is the fastest-growing food and lifestyle consumer trend in modern history, yet less than 1% of the nation's farmland is certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). With demand creating what Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack calls "a powerful local and regional food movement," why have so few farmers joined up on this profitable market trend?

Farmers aiming to transition to organic are presented with prohibitive challenges that, like most institutional obstacles, boil down to be a matter of economics. The strict production and labeling requirements for any raw or processed agricultural product to be USDA certified organic mean that farms and businesses that aim to grow, handle or process organic products must wait 3 years to become eligible. The lack of a market for transitional crops (non-organic crops grown during a farms transition to organic practices) to offset the sharp increase in production costs causes many farmers to that begin the process to abandon their changeover. Most farmers never even consider a changeover.

Increasing acreage beyond the 1% requires financial and infrastructural support for farmers transitioning to organic. Certified Transitional, created by Quality Assurance International (QAI), an independent, USDA-accredited organic certifying body, is the first and only program recognizing and incentivizing farmers as they transition their land from conventional to organic growing methods. Because there are not enough crops in the U.S. transitioning, products that contain 51% of transitional content produced by these farmers can be Certified Transitional and bear the program's QAI trademark logo, which helps consumers identify and support companies working towards the USDA Organic seal, which requires 70% organically produced ingredients.

The first food product to be certified under the new Certified Transitional program is Kashi's Dark Cocoa Karma Shredded Wheat Biscuits cereal. As it stands currently, all Kashi products are Non-GMO Project Verified, and many of its bestselling products are USDA certified organic. Consumers that already patronize the Kashi's health food goods now have the opportunity to directly support transitional farmers and impact the food supply chain as do consumers advocating for increased nationwide acreage of organic farmland.

Bear Naked, a TerraCycle program sponsor and a Kashi sister brand, is a company that currently demonstrates its commitment to sustainability by lowering the economic boundaries that prevent its packaging from being recycled. Similarly, QAI's Certified Transitional program eases the uncertainty and economic boundaries preventing farmers from going organic in direct partnership with key brands.

So that more farmers have the financial security to go full-term organic, the goal of this initiative to have more companies and producers consider transitional crops when sourcing ingredients. Consumer product manufacturers like Kashi can command premium pricing for Certified Transitional items similarly to items that are USDA certified organic, which means farmers can be paid more for a higher market value crop.

Food manufacturers nationwide are in a position to support "organics-in-training" and ensure supply chain security by joining this protocol. With the demand of organic foods continuing to eclipse supply, companies can either continue to source their ingredients from the limited 1% acreage currently available, or make the economics of organic work for them. Identifying as Certified Transitional encourages the support of farmers in transition and allows companies to bring the consumer into the process of expanding access to organic farmland.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Kayakers Explore Alaska's Newly Revealed Class V Gorge  

Imagine being dropped off by a tiny bush plane into a remote wilderness, knowing you are about to brave the biggest challenge you have ever faced. Todd Wells did just that when he led an exploratory kayaking expedition into the heart of the Wrangell Mountains in Alaska. He and his team members were only able to get to their destination at the headwaters of the Chitina River by being dropped off one at a time, with their kayaks strapped to the bottom of the plane. “I had paddled Class V with each of these paddlers before, but this … was probably the biggest challenge that any of us had ever faced,” Wells says. “Our goal [was] just to make it down safely in one piece.”

The Chitina River in the WrangellSt. Elias National Park in Alaska originates right beneath the Logan Glacier. “Just a decade or two ago, the Logan Glacier used to cover this canyon,” Wells says. “Because of climate change and because of the recession of all these glaciers in Alaska, the Logan Glacier has retreated farther up into the mountains and opened up an entrance to the canyon that we've now been able to access.” Now there is a new, raging Class V+ gorge, which was previously concealed beneath the ice.

Wells put together a team of paddlers he trusts who have each spent at least 10 years paddling Class V rivers: friend Ben Mar, friend and photographer Eric Parker, Wells's brother Brandon, videographer Chris Korbulic, and local friend Matt Peters.

The headwaters canyon is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) long, and the team's goal was to paddle as much of the canyon as they could. “We knew that there were probably a couple portages that we would have to make, but as long as we were able to paddle the majority of the river and not have to portage the whole canyon, I was going to be satisfied,” Wells explains. They ended up only having to portage twice for about 500 yards (457 meters), which meant they faced a lot of white water.

“Sometimes when we're in a safer environment, we really push it hard and we try to run every single rapid and really, really push it. But out here on the Chitina, our goal [was] just to make it down safely in one piece and that's what we were able to do,” Wells says. “There are a couple rapids we portaged that potentially we could go back and try to run sometime, but they were really pretty scary and if we were to make a mistake on either one of those rapids, it could have been fatal.”

The team had to prepare carefully for other demanding conditions as well, such as camping in the cold and packing all of their equipment inside the back of their kayaks. “None of us have ever done anything quite like this,” Wells said. “It was a learning process figuring out where to set up camp where we [were] protected from the wind, how to portage and scout rapids safely. It was a difficult challenge for us all.”

The retreat of the Logan Glacier opened up the landscape relatively recently so there are dramatic rugged rocks and not a lot of vegetation. “Just being in the heart of the WrangellSt. Elias National Park was a really, really amazing experience. I'd never been anywhere that felt nearly as remote as the headwaters canyon and the Chitina River. We were seeing wildlife throughout the trip. There were bears and moose and just no human influence at all. It was a really special spot to be.”

This kind of remote exploration is what drives Wells as a kayaker. Doing a first descent down the Chitina canyon was a thrill. “I really feel that Alaska is the last frontier for a lot of explorations, a lot of kayaking expeditions. It's really unique to be able to be up there and explore these places that no one has ever been before.”

Todd Wells is a grantee of Nat Geo's Expeditions Council. Learn more about the science and exploration supported by the nonprofit National Geographic Society at natgeo.org/grants.

See more video from Todd Wells and the team at MountainMindCollective.com.

 
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Gorillas may have evolved a way to beat a cheating berry plant  
A "deceitful" West African plant makes super-sweet, but low-calorie berries to attract animals that disperse their seeds. Gorillas can see through the ploy at least, that's the theory  
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Jellymageddon: Can we stop the rise of the jellyfish?  
Acoustic shocks, electrocution, and robot shredders extreme measures are being considered to tackle the increasing numbers of jellyfish in the oceans  
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http://www.designboom.com/art/hense-curtin-university-ceiling-painting-perth-australia-form-public2016-07-14-2016/  
HENSE paints colossal prismatic passageway at perth's curtin university  

conscious of the supporting architecture, the mural dramatically transforms the existing landscape, turning the building into an epically-scaled color canvas.

The post HENSE paints colossal prismatic passageway at perth's curtin university appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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http://www.designboom.com/art/oscillating-skyline-to-aid-mental-therapy-sam-phong-nguyen/  
oscillating skyline proposes to aid mental therapy  

the project questions the perspective that one perceive mental illness: is it related more to the individual, or is it the environment? would we go as far as modifying the skyline for the sake of mental wellbeing?

The post oscillating skyline proposes to aid mental therapy appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/the-northerner/2016/jul/14/art-treasures-of-great-britain-1857-manchester  
Opening of the UK's largest art exhibition archive, 14 July 1857  

14 July 1857: A spectacular glass pavilion in Manchester is filled with 16,000 artworks for the Art Treasures Exhibition

The reign of Anne is like one of those meetings of tidal waters where the voyager is tossed in the hurly-burly of opposing forces till he is sickened and confused, and only discovers the overmastering strength of the dominant current when it has borne him out of the broken water of the tide-way. In this reign struggled for the last time, as equal antagonists, the claims of the prerogative and the powers of constitutionalism.

It is an interregnum between the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts and the law-limited government of the house of Hanover. It is true that the former was put down by the revolution of 1658, but William's whole reign was a struggle at once with those who repented of the share they had taken in the convention, with the non-jurors and Jacobites who regarded all the convention had done as deadly sin, and with the rival ambitions which the revolution had let loose.

Continue reading...  
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/the-northerner/2016/jul/14/art-treasures-of-great-britain-1857-manchester  
Opening of the UK's largest art exhibition archive, 14 July 1857  

14 July 1857: A spectacular glass pavilion in Manchester is filled with 16,000 artworks for the Art Treasures Exhibition

The reign of Anne is like one of those meetings of tidal waters where the voyager is tossed in the hurly-burly of opposing forces till he is sickened and confused, and only discovers the overmastering strength of the dominant current when it has borne him out of the broken water of the tide-way. In this reign struggled for the last time, as equal antagonists, the claims of the prerogative and the powers of constitutionalism.

It is an interregnum between the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts and the law-limited government of the house of Hanover. It is true that the former was put down by the revolution of 1658, but William's whole reign was a struggle at once with those who repented of the share they had taken in the convention, with the non-jurors and Jacobites who regarded all the convention had done as deadly sin, and with the rival ambitions which the revolution had let loose.

Continue reading...  
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http://www.designboom.com/art/teamlab-dmm-planets-art-tokyo-digital-art-exhibition-07-13-2016/  
teamlab stages its largest immersive digital art exhibition in tokyo  

a labyrinth of virtual experiences are scaled up to larger-than-life proportions, inviting visitors into a kaleidoscopic and multi-sensory expanse of color and light.

The post teamlab stages its largest immersive digital art exhibition in tokyo appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/27686430804/  
Proba-3  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

Technology image of the week highlights ESA's double-satellite Proba-3 mission that will be flying where no previous member of the Proba minisatellite family has gone before up to 60 000 km away, a seventh of the way to the Moon.

Set for launch in 2019, the two satellites will be launched together into a highly elliptical or elongated orbit, ranging from an perigee (low point) of 600 km up to an apogee (high point) of 60 000 km.

“This long 19.7 hour orbit will allow us to maintain sustained contact with the two satellites using a single ground station,” explains Agnes Mestreau-Garreau, Proba-3 project manager.

“And around the high point of the orbit we will be able to spend around six hours on solar observation or devoted to experimental formation flying manoeuvres.”

The latest member of ESA's experimental Proba minisatellite family, Proba-3's paired satellites will manoeuvre relative to each other with millimetre and fraction-of-a-degree precision, intended to serve as the virtual equivalent of a giant structure in space and so open up a whole new way of running space missions.

As has become traditional with Proba missions, the success of Proba-3's technology will be proven through acquiring high-quality scientific data. In this case, the smaller ‘occulter' satellite will blot out the Sun's fiery disc as viewed by the larger ‘coronagraph' satellite, revealing mysterious regions of our parent star's ghostly ‘corona', or outer atmosphere.

When in Sun-observing mode, the two satellites will maintain formation exactly 150 m apart, lined up with the Sun so the occulter casts a shadow across the face of the coronagraph, blocking out solar glare to come closer to the Sun's fiery surface than ever before, other than during frustratingly brief terrestrial solar eclipses.

The challenge is in keeping the satellites safely controlled and correctly positioned relative to each other. This will be accomplished using various new technologies, including bespoke formation-flying software, relative GPS information, intersatellite radio links, startrackers, and optical visual sensors and optical metrologies for close-up manoeuvring.

Fifteen ESA Member States are participating in the Proba-3 consortium, with SENER in Spain as prime contractor for the satellite platforms and Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium as prime contractor for the coronagraph.

Credit: ESA-P. Carril, 2013

 
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NASA's Webb Telescope Inside Goddard Clean Room  

NASA Goddard Photo and Video posted a photo:

The James Webb Space Telescope was lifted out of its assembly stand for the last time at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. In this photo, the telescope was hanging upside down as the lift crew were about to install it in the rollover fixture where it will be situated before moving on to its upcoming center of curvature test.

Image credit: NASA/Goddard/Chris Gunn

 
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China Could Legally Seize Moon's 'Peaks of Eternal Light' --"Will Earth's 1st Space War Over Helium 3 Start There?  
 
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https://www.pinterest.com/pin/354095589435405602/  
Atlantis fritillary  

Atlantis fritillary (Speyeria atlantis) collected in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: 04HBL003478; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=LCH478-04; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ABZ0596)

 
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Odorous ant (Tapinom  

Odorous ant (Tapinoma sp.) collected in Thousand Islands National Park, Ontario, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG20790-C02; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=CNTIC5400-15; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACU3056)

 
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Harold Harvey (Briti  
Harold Harvey (British, 18741941) - In the Kitchen  
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Abbott Handerson Tha  
Abbott Handerson Thayer  
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http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/13/12171508/pokemon-go-how-to-play-tutorial-tips-watch  
Pokémon Go: everything you need to know in nine minutes  

So you wanted to check out what all the fuss was about and downloaded Pokémon Go. The game is intuitive enough, but it doesn't go out of its way to hold your hand and explain all of its features to you. But we will! Sorry for the sweaty palms.

We're not kidding around. You think this is some kind of game? Well, yes. Yes it is. But it's a game that we here at The Verge take very seriously.

Whether you're just starting out in Pokémon Go or you've been playing obsessively to the point that it hinders your life productivity, this video tutorial will have something for everyone. In it, we'll answer questions like:

• What's stardust? And what the heck are all these candies?
• What do the different colored rings mean?
• How do I use items?
• H...

Continue reading…

 
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http://wallpapermag.tumblr.com/post/147373534272  
Tom Dixon opens LA concept store  

Tom Dixon opens LA concept store

 
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Fazenda Boa Vista by Fernanda Marques Arquitetos  

Fazenda Boa Vista by Fernanda Marques Arquitetos

 
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319  

319

 
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US one sheet for THE GOSPEL ROAD (Robert Elfstrom, USA,...  

US one sheet for THE GOSPEL ROAD (Robert Elfstrom, USA, 1973)

Designer: unknown

Poster source: Heritage Auctions

“A black-clad Johnny Cash appears in and narrates this version of the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, which was shot on location in Israel. Cash performs a number of original songs in his signature style.” IMDb

 
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John Wilkinson Scientist of the Day John Wilkinson,...  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Bridge#/media/File:The_Iron_Bridge_(8542).jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bersham_Ironworks#/media/File:WXM-SDSC0053.jpg


): http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/58/74/2587484_c3cb5dbb.jpg


http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/john-wilkinson-17281808-the-ironmaster-181985

John Wilkinson Scientist of the Day

John Wilkinson, an English ironmaster and machine-tool maker, died July 14, 1808, at the age of 80.

read more…

 
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Graphene is actually self-folding origami, proclaim physicists  

Newly observed behaviour in 'miracle material'

Physicists have observed a new behaviour in graphene sheets that causes them to spontaneously grow, tear and peel like self-folding origami.…

 
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Today is Bastille Day or La Fête National as its known in...  

Today is Bastille Day or La Fête National as its known in France. The holiday commemorates the start of the French Revolution which began in 1789 with the Storming of the Bastille, a fortress and prison. In modern times, the day's most celebrated event is a military parade through Paris that begins at the Arc de Triomphe - seen in this Overview - and ends at Place de la Concorde. Today also happens to be my birthday. Joyeux Quatorze Juliet! /// Source imagery: @digitalglobe (at Arc de Triomphe)

 
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r0B0t: Mantis Shrimp Roll Their Eyes, But For A Good Reason - Gizmodo Australia  

Gizmodo Australia

Mantis Shrimp Roll Their Eyes, But For A Good Reason Gizmodo Australia They're dangerous, are among the most badarse and intriguing undersea creatures and, according to a new study, have another unique trick that only adds to their reputation: Rolling their eyes to see clearer. Researchers at the University of Bristol's ... Mantis Shrimp Master the Eye-Roll for Better VisionSeeker Mantis Shrimp See Best When They're Throwing Shady Eye-RollsPopular Science Shrimps' eye-rolling behaviour could end up in robotsGizmag The Engineer -Bioscience Technology -Siliconrepublic.com -Sci-News.com all 10 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: 'Mr. Robot' Season 2 could be as captivating, thrilling and jarring as its first  
More about Tv, Christian Slater, Rami Malek, Mr. Robot, and Entertainment  
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See like a solar system  
Robert P Crease discusses what the science of the solar system teaches us about perception  
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See like a solar system  
Robert P Crease discusses what the science of the solar system teaches us about perception  
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Mount St. Helens emits heavy plume of smoke and ash  

Full Text:

A heavy plume of smoke and ash is released from Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington. The once-quiet land volcano has erupted many times since its initial outburst on July 22, 1980, giving scientists a solid chance to study natural phenomena.

Image credit: Norman G. Banks, United States Geological Survey

 
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Scientists move closer to developing therapeutic window to the brain  

Full Text:

Researchers are bringing their idea for a "window to the brain" transparent skull implant closer to reality through the findings of two new studies. The implant under development, which literally provides a "window to the brain," will allow doctors to deliver minimally invasive, laser-based treatments to patients with life-threatening neurological disorders, such as brain cancers, traumatic brain injuries, neurodegenerative diseases and stroke. The recent studies highlight both the biocompatibility of the implant material and its ability to endure bacterial infections.

Image credit: University of California, Riverside

 
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Space station to get shiny new ringpiece for automatic penetration  

Second time lucky for SpaceX delivery?

NASA has shown off a shiny new piece of hardware that's going to make it easier to bring future gear onboard the International Space Station.…

 
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r0B0t: Moving exoskeletons from sci-fi into medical rehabilitation and therapy - The Conversation US  

The Conversation US

Moving exoskeletons from sci-fi into medical rehabilitation and therapy The Conversation US We at the Laboratory for Control, Robotics and Automation (LCRA) at Texas A&M University are working to help solve this problem by developing an intelligent robotic device that can provide therapy services in hospitals and clinics as an enhancement to ... and more »

 
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r0B0t: SwagBot: The cattle-herding robot that's making waves in Australia - Newstalk 106-108 fm  

Newstalk 106-108 fm

SwagBot: The cattle-herding robot that's making waves in Australia Newstalk 106-108 fm The Australian Centre for Field Robotics has developed a robot called 'SwagBot' to assist in everyday agriculture needs, in association with the University of Sydney. This could see the end of the traditional farm dog. SwagBot is designed to herd cows ... and more »

 
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r0B0t: Anki introduces tool that allows developers to hack its Cozmo A.I. robot - VentureBeat  

VentureBeat

Anki introduces tool that allows developers to hack its Cozmo A.I. robot VentureBeat Cozmo is a playful, intelligent robot with an essence of artificial intelligence. As VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi described it, it's “something like Eve the robot in Pixar's Wall-E animated film.” Anki cofounder and president Hanns Tappeiner explained ... Hanging out with Anki's Cozmo, the toy robot putting AI at our fingertipsThe Verge Anki's AI-Powered Toy Robot Is Opening Cozmo Code To Anyone To UseiTech Post Meet Cozmo, the AI robot with emotions video - CNETCNET NewsFactor Network -YIBADA English all 37 news articles »

 
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Fearless Photography_ posted a photo:

African Long-Snouted Crocodile at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, OR

 
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Tropical forests overexploited by unsustainable logging  
Widely hailed as a renewable natural resource, tropical timber from old-growth tropical forests is selectively logged worldwide at an unprecedented scale. A new study reveals that once prime tropical hardwoods -- such as Brazilian cedars, ipe (Brazilian walnut), and rosewood -- have been logged, they do not grow back to commercial levels and are at risk from disappearing altogether.  
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Can He Turn Republican Candidates Into Superheroes?  
Republican Ned Ryun is taking a page from the organizer in chief.  
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Analysis of ant colonies could improve network algorithms  
An analysis of ant colony behavior could yield better algorithms for network communication, say investigators. Biologists have long suspected that ants base their population-density estimates on the frequency with which they -- literally -- bump into other ants while randomly exploring their environments. That theory gets new support from a theoretical paper. The paper shows that observations from random exploration of the environment converge very quickly on an accurate estimate of population density. Indeed, they converge about as quickly as is theoretically possible.  
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Tail O' Fish  

Ingrid Taylar posted a photo:

Least Tern juvenile (Sternula antillarum) eating a fish left by the parent. This was shot through a protective fence/barrier at Bolsa Chica, earlier in the afternoon than the other two images here, hence the lighting differences. (The terns were too far away for my lens, so this is heavily cropped.)
Olympus E-M1, mirrorless

 
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Stratos by Vitaliy Sokol  

Stratos by Vitaliy Sokol

«Stratos» Бали 2016. Прибой, океан, волны и сёрфинг. Bali, shorebreak, surfing Photographer -© 2016 Виталий Сокол aka Will Falcon Модель - Даша Зайцева Canon 5D Mark3+canon + canon 20mm 2.8 in LiquidEye 1795 waterhousing Royalty free images at shutterstock: http://www.shutterstock.com/sets/120403-waves.html My social contacts: VK: http://vk.com/vitaly_sokol FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/VitalySokol LJ: http://vitaly-sokol.livejournal.com/ #bali #ocean #waves #baliwaves #willfalcon #surfing #willfalconwaves #balisurfing #gear #canon5dmark3 #5dm3 #liquideye

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Leading Lines by Andy Yeung  

Leading Lines by Andy Yeung

Innovation Tower designed by Pritzker-prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. Kowloon, Hong Kong http://www.andyyeungphotography.com

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Balade Urbaine by Matthieu Chaboud  

Balade Urbaine by Matthieu Chaboud

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elephant by Boogie Boogie

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Just Ice cream.jpg by Anfisa  

Just Ice cream.jpg by Anfisa

Anfisa: Photos

 
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Castle by Robert Adamec  

Castle by Robert Adamec

Robert Adamec: Photos

 
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Awakening from a dream by Christian Lindstén  

Awakening from a dream by Christian Lindstén

Combination of 2 exposures. One from the sunset, the other from later that night. This picture represents what goes on in my head and in my dreams.

Christian Lindstén: Photos

 
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Fork shadows by Enrico Salvadori  

Fork shadows by Enrico Salvadori

sometimes also an object of common use as a fork can become attractive.

Enrico Salvadori: Photos

 
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http://twitter.com/Cshepherd7R/status/753369783962173440 
Illegal #wildlifetrade is threatening all of Asia's #turtle and #tortoise species. https://t.co/vuhrzWzUwE via @TOICitiesNews #CITES #India 
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The Difference Between Green Furniture and Sustainable Furniture  
Many furniture companies claim their products are "green," a designation usually referring to material sourcing. Maybe their sofa frames are made out of dumpster-sourced scrap metal or their cushions are filled with used ticker tape. Responsible material sourcing is important, but it does not necessarily make something sustainable; that is, able to exist in perpetuity from an environmental and resource consumption standpoint.

To be sustainable, furniture should be high quality and support a lifestyle with reduced energy and resource needs. You can have a piece of furniture made of the most responsibly sourced materials out there, but if it falls apart in a short time and winds up in a landfill, or if it is designed in such a way that it can only fit into a carbon-spewing, resource-gobbling McMansion, it's not sustainable.



When it comes to sustainability, size does matter. Here's why:

• One of the best ways, if not the best way of reducing our carbon footprints and natural resource consumption is to reduce the physical footprints of our homes.
• 
  
• Smaller homes produce less operational carbon emissions, (e.g., heating and cooling) than larger homes and are less resource intensive to build.
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• Smaller homes tend to discourage excessive consumerism mitigating that behavior's attendant environmental impact.
• 
  
• Smaller homes typically support denser, more transit friendly communities, which, by their very nature, allow for a reduction in associated transit emissions.

Location, Location, Location

When thinking about sustainable housing, the name of the game is location, location, location. An EPA study found that an energy efficient single family suburban house plus a fuel efficient car can cut your carbon footprint by 34% as compared to a conventional, single family, suburban house and a car with average fuel economy. While this is a significant improvement over a standard single-family home, the same study found that living in an energy efficient multifamily house (i.e. housing with two or more units such as a townhouse or apartment) with access to public transportation reduces your carbon footprint by 62% ­- and that still assumes car ownership.

As one would expect, multifamily housing units are typically smaller than single-family houses. The median size of a new multifamily unit is 1,074 square feet, whereas the median size of a new single family home is 2,467 square feet. But with a smaller - albeit more environmentally-friendly - footprint can come some challenges regarding functionality, especially as a household grows or changes over time.

Let's face it, it's the desire for - or perceived need for - more space that frequently drives people out of central, transit-friendly locations in search of more square footage. Since housing in most urban cores is considerably more expensive than suburban housing on a per square foot basis, moving to a larger home in a central location can be cost-prohibitive.

This is where Resource Furniture comes in.



Increase Function, Not Footprints

All this is to say that furniture is only as sustainable as its setting. Space-maximizing furniture solutions from Resource Furniture can remove some of the reasons that people move further out in search of more space, by increasing functionality without increasing the physical footprint. Every product from Resource Furniture is not only manufactured using highly sustainable methods and materials, but also provide the same level of comfort and functionality as conventional furniture pieces and they are designed and built to last. Each of nine Resource Furniture showrooms offers a vast selection of multifunctional, space-saving furniture solutions that allow people to live comfortably and luxuriously in a truly sustainable setting.

By multiplying the function of a single space, combining rooms, making existing spaces work more efficiently, and utilizing high-quality multifunctional furniture, less square footage is required. Needing less space, one can live more centrally, drive less, walk more and consume fewer resources. In other words - live a sustainable life, not just a green one.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Consumer Protection is Solar's Top Priority  
In a recent Huffington Post blog, "Protecting Consumers: Making the Solar Industry a Safe and Fair Marketplace," former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard makes some important points on solar consumer protection that we can all agree with.

Unfortunately, he neglects a key piece of context. The solar revolution is sweeping America and bringing a choice of clean, reliable and affordable solar power to millions of Americans, the vast majority of whom are fully satisfied with their solar systems.

I agree whole-heartedly with Goddard's points that consumers deserve to be well-informed regarding their choices to go solar. They also shouldn't have to deal with the rare cases of misrepresentation of energy savings made by a few rogue solar providers, whom should be behind bars. Let's face it, every single industry in America has a few bad apples.

But that's no reason to condemn an entire industry. Especially one that employs more than 208,000 Americans and supplied more new power generation capacity to America in the first quarter of 2016 than all other fuel sources combined. In fact, this is why the FTC held its educational workshop and dubbed it "Something New Under the Sun": to learn more about competition and consumer protection in the new, fastest-growing source of electricity in America.

At SEIA, we want to see consumers and companies benefit by choosing solar. Consumers deserve accurate information and companies should have opportunities to grow using sound business practices. To that end, we proactively created a suite of consumer protection materials, working with states, consulting with the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, and winning the accolades of the Better Business Bureau. The goal is to make sure consumers are fully informed.

Mr. Goddard states that SEIA's new Consumer Guide to Residential Solar, reviewed by dozens of consumer protection specialists and posted on state websites as a resource, is a "good place to start, but would be better with some enforcement mechanisms."

We're way ahead of him. Last year, SEIA's Board of Directors put into force the first national Code of Conduct for the solar industry, along with a complaint resolution and enforcement process by which every one of our 1,000 SEIA member companies must abide. Today, any American can easily submit a claim to SEIA for examination and enforcement. SEIA stands ready to work with state and federal regulators to ensure justice is served.

We also built and released disclosure forms - similar to HUD-1 statements for home purchases -to give consumers a snapshot of the key terms in a contract, as well as free standard lease and power purchase agreement templates to boost transparency. What's more, we're building out a full suite of educational programs for consumers, including hot topic alerts, a just-released community solar consumer protection guide, and Spanish language versions of key documents due out this summer to reach even more Americans. And all of these materials are available free of charge.

Placing consumer protection first is our industry's top priority. The residential solar industry depends on good consumer experiences because referrals are the number one source of new business. It's unfortunate that some critics focus myopically on the rare instances of poor behavior in an industry that's installing more than one hundred solar panels per minute across America for very satisfied consumers.

A larger danger to consumers is red tape from well-intentioned regulators based on knee-jerk reactions to guard consumers from new products without first checking the laws already on the books. Today, all fifty states have consumer protection, fraud and contract laws on the books that provide strong protections to consumers. Combined with federal consumer laws, these state policies prohibit misleading savings claims, bar unwanted phone calls, require leases to disclose payment schedules, and more.

In Arizona, for instance, instead of enforcing existing law, legislators enacted purported consumer protection legislation that killed residential solar in the state. The Arizona proposals crushed law-abiding small businesses, sent thousands of good jobs out of the state and eliminated solar as a consumer choice.

Putting consumers first is both a legal and business imperative for the solar industry. When a consumer looks to solar as a competitive source of electricity, SEIA is committed to ensuring that consumers have all the information they need to make a smart decision. Let's also make sure that the fear of progress doesn't lead government agencies to strip consumers of the power of choice.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Sacrificing Green for Green  
Sacrificing green for green. That's what cutting down woodland and using farmland to erect solar power systems is about.
Solar energy is great! We have solar panels on our more than century-old saltbox house in Sag Harbor on Long Island and it is marvelous seeing the utility meter going backwards as the panels generate plentiful electricity.
But on Long Island and elsewhere there is a push to clear forests and exploit agricultural land for solar systems--sacrificing green for green.
The forests that would be eliminated provide a home for many animal species and birds, they absorb carbon dioxide, provide aquifer protection and places for people, especially on crowded Long Island, to find peace and for recreation.
Using farmland--the most precious of all land--for solar facilities is outrageous.
An especially outrageous example of this in Long Island's Suffolk County involves the most historic farm in all the county--the Suffolk County Farm and Education Center in Yaphank--and a push by some county officials to erect a massive solar system on 25 acres of agricultural land at it.
The Suffolk County Farm is that beautiful farm one can see just to the south of the Long Island Expressway west of the William Floyd Parkway exit.
It is living testimony to what all of Long Island once was--and much of it still is. Suffolk, the eastern half of Long Island, remains one of the top counties in New York State in value of its agricultural produce. The county's pioneering Farmland Preservation Program, initiated in 1974 and since emulated around the United States, is emblematic of Suffolk's commitment to save farmland.
The farm was an adjunct to the county's almshouse or poorhouse that opened in 1872, land on which its indigent residents could grow their own food. Since 1974 it has been operated by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County as, notes the state's "I Love NY" website, "A model farm education facility and also a real working farm." It's a tourist attraction--and so important for youngsters in Suffolk, particularly those from its suburban communities, a place for them to visit and learn about cows and chickens and how food is grown on the earth.
The farm is not very large, a little over 200 acres in total. The solar system would go up on this earth, be run by a private company and send electricity to county offices in Yaphank.
Fortunately, the Suffolk County Council on Environmental Quality, established in 1970 as the environmental watchdog of county government, tabled action last month on the bid to use the farm for a solar facility. The application will come back this month. Among the issues: the farmland on which the solar panels would be placed was specifically put in a category of protected farmland by the county in 2003.
The push to build the solar facility at the Suffolk County Farm comes amid other "utility-scale" solar schemes in Suffolk, among them, a 72-megawatt set-up for which 350 acres of coastal forest in Shoreham would be destroyed, and a 9.5 megawatt facility on 60 acres of a sod farm also in Shoreham. Meanwhile, in Long Island's Brookhaven and Riverhead Towns, laws have been enacted barring large-scale solar facilities on farmland.
Solar is a stupendous energy source. As Reuters recently reported: "Solar power is on pace for the first time this year to contribute more new electricity to the grid than will any other form of energy."
Inventor Thomas Edison is credited with saying nearly a century ago: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!" And this was way before, in year after year in recent decades, the efficiency of solar panels (their ability to convert sunlight into electricity) has skyrocketed while their costs have plummeted. Solar is now totally economic. And the sun doesn't send bills.
There are hundreds of thousands of houses on Long Island the roofs of which could provide usable platforms for solar power. There are thousands of industrial buildings on top of which solar panels could be placed. There is an ocean of parking lots where solar panels can be installed. The solar panels at the parking lots at Suffolk government's Hauppauge and Riverhead centers point to that.
Solar panels are being placed on highway medians and along highway right-of-ways.
There are roads aplenty on Long Island.
Many "disturbed" locations on Long Island are suitable for solar. There are, indeed, many, many acceptable sites. Woodland and agricultural land must not be sacrificed.
As Edward Romaine, supervisor of Long Island's Brookhaven Town, has declared: "We must not trade green for green especially when one of those greens is money and not the environment."

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The End of Coal  
Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton is not an energy expert. She probably has some such person on her campaign staff, but she didn't need them when she told the unfortunate truth to a West Virginia audience. She said, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." This occurred at a round table forum in March in Kentucky, hosted by CNN. The statement was made in the context of proposing to replace these jobs with renewable energy jobs, and was not made as a policy prescription, more as a statement of fact.

Was she right? What is the future of coal in the US, and more broadly in the world?

It is not easy to make a case for the coal mining (and burning) industry. Coal mostly is used in electric power plants, and has been historically for a hundred and thirty-four years, since Thomas Edison built the first electric plant, the Pearl Street station in downtown Manhattan, in 1882.

Using coal as a fuel has advantages: the combustion technology is straight-forward, it is far easier to burn coal in large boilers and move the electricity around than it is to have coal deliveries to every home and business with a small furnace. It is plentiful; there is a huge reserve available in the US, and much in a number of other countries. There has never been an "OPEC of coal" because of this dispersion of the resource. But over time the disadvantages have begun to chip away at the market.

Let's start with production. Being a coal miner is a dirty, damp and dangerous occupation, particularly underground mining. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, mining is the second most dangerous occupation in America. And just to answer the obvious question, depending on how you calculate, either commercial fishermen or loggers hold the prize for most dangerous US job.

But concern for worker safety is not driving coals' decline--it's a combination of competitive economics and environmental concerns.

Burning coal in power plants has become more and more expensive as more environmental control hardware has been required over time. First it was electrostatic precipitators to take out the particulates n the exhaust, then scrubbers for the SO2 and now technologies to remove mercury and other trace metals. The final step, currently on hold due to litigation, is the Federal proposed requirement - the Clean Power Plan - to decrease the CO2 emitted from burning coal, given its impact on global warming. And since coal is almost all carbon, this is a real problem. It is even more challenging because no cheap or easy way exists to separate the CO2 from the other gasses going up the stack of a coal plant. The most recent effort to solve this challenge, the Kemper plant in Mississippi, has gone from an initial budget of $2.9 billion, to a current estimate of $6.7 billion. And it is neither finished nor working, two years after it was supposed to be on line.

But it may be natural gas and solar that really finishes off coal.

Plants powered by natural gas are cheaper to build and run, and produce far fewer traditional pollutants, and only about forty percent of the CO2 of coal. The fracking boom has driven gas prices below $5/mmbtu for the last five years, and frequently below $2.00. This has made gas a better economic choice in competitive markets. And recent solar prices in utility scale applications--even below 3 cents a kwh in Abu Dhabi a month ago--make electricity from new solar plants cheaper than just the operating cost of coal plants. The CEO of AES' largely coal US plants, Ken Zabgrebski, recently remarked at a recent energy conference in Arizona that the future was clearly solar.

And the rest of the world? China is the largest producer of coal anywhere, with production for 2009 estimated at three times that of the US. But even here, the pressure of unbreathable air in Beijing and other large Chinese cities, and the demands of climate change mitigation have resulted in a startling turn of events: in 2013, China added more renewable energy capacity to its grid than it did coal, and by a ratio of about four to three. And in Germany at 2 PM on Sunday May 15, solar and wind combined to supply "almost all" of Germany's power needs, 45.5 out of 45.8 Gigawatts. This happened in a power system that as recently as 2013 derived 45 percent of its electricity from burning coal.

It is not pleasant to watch wrenching change. It is less pleasant to be on the wrong side of it, especially when the impacts include joblessness for people who have made a decent living from mining coal. But technological advances, the working of markets and the requirements of the widespread consensus on environmental needs occurring simultaneously are difficult to withstand. Just ask any of the 28 US coal companies who have gone bankrupt in the last seven years, including Peabody, the world's largest coal company.

Merle Haggard sang, "It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines." The same is now true in every coal company boardroom.

R.F. is the former CEO of AES and the author of Stories from the Middle Seat: The Four-Million-Mile Journey to Building a Billion Dollar International Business.

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R.F. Hemphill: The End of Coal  
Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton is not an energy expert. She probably has some such person on her campaign staff, but she didn't need them when...

Read more: Coal, Alternative Energy, Environment, Sustainable Energy, Environmental Policy, Green News

 
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A Portrait of Medicine and Tradition in India  

Bonesetting is a traditional medicinal practice in India. Much like chiropractors, bonesetters manipulate the joints of their patients in order to heal aches and pains. The short film The Bonesetter, by Bruno Pitzalis and Giulia Valentina Paolini of the production company DIÒSCURI, is a stunning visual profile of one man's practice.

 
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Misty Sunrise - Syon Gardens  

Simon & His Camera posted a photo:

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Ever sat on a beach and wondered what's across the ocean? It may not be what you think.  

Have you ever sat on a beach on wondered what's across the ocean?

If you think you can answer this question just by looking at a map, read on. You may be surprised.

To ask the question more concretely, what's across the ocean from New York? It doesn't really matter what beach in New York you choose, but just to be specific, let's go with Montauk, NY. It is at the tip of Long Island and has a clear, unobstructed view of the Atlantic ocean.

To figure out what's across from New York, the first thing you might do is take out a map, follow a straight line eastward, and conclude that the answer is Europe, or more precisely Portugal.

Of course there is not just one answer. When looking out across the ocean, there are any many directions you could choose, each of which would lead you to a different location. But in this case, surprisingly, Portugal is not one of them.

Europe is not across the ocean from New York... but Australia is

When you stare across the ocean from a beach in Montauk, or anywhere in New York, this map shows what's on the other side (excluding some smaller countries that unfortunately did not fit).

No matter which direction you look, you're not facing Europe.

That's partly because the coast of Long Island is angled southward. But there is also something else going on.

If you stand on the beach and turn your head all the way to the left, the direction you're facing is north east. Common sense would seem to dictate if you sail in that direction (north east), you should end up somewhere north east of where you began. Namely, you should end up in Europe.

In reality, if you were to point your ship north east from New York and sail straight ahead without turning, you would land in Morocco, which is to the south of New York.

Stranger still, when you stand on a beach in New York, one of the countries directly across from you is Australia.

If you were to sail through the orange Australia section in the map above, without ever turning the ship, you would eventually hit Australia's southwestern coast. And as you land, you would be approaching from the south.

Sailing from New York to Australia in a straight line

Because we're used to looking at the world on a flat surface, our perception of Earth's geography is distorted in many ways. In this case, it is the concept of straight lines that throws us off.

Technically, there are no straight lines on a globe, since the surface itself is curved. The shortest distance between any two points, the closest thing to a straight line, is known as a great circle arc.

Over short distances, straight lines on a 2-dimensional map are the same as great circle arcs on a 3-dimensional globe. But over long distances, the relationship breaks down as the Earth's curvature comes into play.

If you've ever followed the path of a long international flight, you already know the shortest distance between two points on the Earth's surface looks curved. The same effect applies here.

Though the lines in the map above appear curved, all of them are actually straight lines (great circles) on the 3D globe.

Looking at it from a different perspective

I spent a good while looking at this on Google Earth convincing myself it was correct.

If you have any doubt whether it's possible to sail from New York to Australia along a straight line, the video below shows what it looks like in 3 dimensions.

There is also a 2-dimensional way of looking at these lines that clears up what's really going on. The image below shows the Earth from a top-down perspective, using an azimuthal map projection, with New York in the center.

From this view, you can see the lines do appear straight.

You can also see clearly that the U.S. East Coast as a whole does not face toward Europe at all.

What's really across across the Atlantic ocean?

If you were to stand on a beach on the U.S. East Coast and look directly east, here's what's really across the ocean.

 

Credit

• 
  
• Inspired by this map from the Washington Post, which shows what's across the ocean based on lines of constant latitude. For an even more precise look at what's across from every individual beach, see these maps by Andy Woodruff.
• 
  
• All 2D maps were made with QGIS using imagery from Natural Earth. The 3D globe is from Google Earth
• 
  

This post originally appeared on Metrocosm

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Artist Kindra Crick Remembers Her Grandfather, Nobel Prize Winner Francis Crick  


Francis Crick, shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for discerning the structure of DNA. It was perhaps the most important biological discovery of the past century. But then Crick became fascinated with the nature of consciousness, an imprecise and controversial field at the time, and moved from England to La Jolla, CA, to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His granddaughter Kindra Crick, a cell biologist and artist who created the DNA sculpture called "What Mad Pursuit" for the billion dollar Crick Institute in London, recalls those heady times of early science on La Jolla's Mesa, "The Miracle Coast."

Intellectual Capital: How did you come to the Salk?

Kindra Crick: The summer after my freshman year at Princeton University I was trying to decide my major so my granddad, Francis Crick, arranged for me to be an intern in a neuroscience lab where he worked. This was so I could to learn the nitty gritty of research. In Dr. Martyn Goulding's lab, I helped perform experiments running DNA gels and watching neural tube development (cells that ultimately form the brain and spinal cord) under the microscope.

Intellectual Capital: What was the Salk like then?

Coming from Seattle the Salk was bathed in sunshine. The labs seemed busy even during the summer and there were a number of stimulating lectures. One was on a computer-learning program that could determine the gender of both chimps and humans from a photograph. After training it would even rate a face on how masculine or feminine it was. There was good camaraderie and the labs surrounding mine would get together on Fridays for drinks and barbecues on the weekends. I played on the lab's softball team.

My granddad had made the move to the Salk in 1976. With this came a shift in the focus of his own research from work in molecular biology in England at the Medical Research Council to the brain and consciousness at the Salk in California. Then 60 years old, he wanted to tackle a problem that had been a lifelong interest, the brain. He wanted to move the field that treated the brain like a black box, where one only gained insight from resulting actions, to a field that would uncover the mechanism and functions that lead to how humans perceive the world, what happens during sleep and the elusive actions inside our skull that constitute our conscious world upon waking.

Intellectual Capital: Which scientists impressed you?

I vividly remember a long lunch with Dr. V.S. Ramachandran who spoke enthusiastically about his work with patients with phantom limbs who sometimes experienced excruciating pain in a hand or arm that was no longer present. He had discovered that with the use of a simple mirror he could instruct amputees to look at the mirror image of their working hand, which appeared to take the place of the missing one, and unclench it to relieve their phantom pain. My granddad was an attentive listener and would occasionally probe with a targeted question, but I realized a few years later when reading Dr. Ramachandran's book 'Phantoms in the Brain' that we had discussed many of the central themes and imaginative experiments in that book.

Another scientist that made a lasting impression was my granddad's long-time collaborator, Christof Koch. He would come by the house often while I was there, and they would discuss and debate the way the visual system worked in the brain. A conversation that stood out was how one perceived the blueness of blue. At first, I didn't understand the question, although it seemed like such a simple one. We walked through the basics of wavelength and the mechanisms of the eye with its cones and rods. And then we jumped into the visual cortex and the more abstract part of the question which was why at a particular wavelength our perception changes and we have a name for this color and there is a quality to that color that is a sensation separate from its name and the objects that we perceive to be blue. A quality missing, for example, from something outside our realm of seeing, like ultraviolet. One can describe everything about ultraviolet, but with our naked eye it does not possess a sensation of color like blue does, in our mind.

Intellectual Capital: What was it like living with Francis and your grandmother Odile Crick?

My grandparents lived in a quiet cul-de-sac near the top of Mount Soledad in La Jolla. I stayed in a large guest room which had its own entrance with French doors opening onto the deck and pool. People came over for dinner and lunch, but there were no large parties at the house that summer, as my granddad had been having slight heart problems. We did attend a few parties that summer, the most memorable being the one to celebrate the 85th birthday of Bradley Smith, the noted Life magazine photographer. Intellectual musings tended to be at smaller gatherings and over leisurely lunches by the pool, and most of the guests my grandparents entertained were photographers, painters or scientists.

Intellectual Capital: Do you visit the Salk now? How have things changed?

Not only did Francis end up tackling the problem of consciousness himself, collaborating with Koch, but he was slowly and deliberately recruiting some of the best and brightest to unlock the black box of the mind. For example, my granddad gathered with a small group of scientists who called themselves the Helmholtz Club. This group brought together scientists from various research fields as neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, psychophysics, computer science and engineering. All had an interest in the study of the visual system and of higher cognitive functions relying on visual perception such as visual consciousness. I believe one of the reasons San Diego and The Salk have become a hub of neuroscience research today is based partly on the work and vision of the scientists who attended those monthly meetings. The study of the brain is a burgeoning field and we are right in the middle of it. I have been told by many of my granddad's peers, that he was a tremendous inspiration and influence.

Intellectual Capital: And talk of your own art, its roots or themes--

At Princeton, I embraced the study of molecular biology but balanced it with my passion for drawing and painting by developing visuals and materials for campus theater. Biology itself is a visual subject, rich with a tradition in observation and communication through art. I still enjoy research, but I feel most driven when I am making art. My early experiments with the marriage of art and science came while at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In my paintings, I incorporated imagery from my observations under the microscope in the lab where I had worked on [breast cancer genes] BRCAI and BRCA2. Cancerous fibroblasts would envelop my canvas in layers. The birth of my daughter and my obsession with the new research on the biological basis of love fully crystalized my passion for merging science and visual expression. A series of prints and paintings questioning the science and symbolism of one of our most basic drives, love, soon followed. Now I create work that gives visual expression to the wonder and process of scientific inquiry.



Intellectual Capital: And your approach to your new sculpture--

I was invited to paint 'What's in My DNA?' on a seven-foot double helix-inspired sculpture.
This sculpture was part of Cancer Research UK's campaign to raise awareness for the soon-to-be-finished Francis Crick Institute in London. Twenty-one sculptures were created by world-leading artists and designers, including Ai Weiwei, Zaha Hadid, and Benjamin Shine, based on what's in their DNA.
My sculpture, What Mad Pursuit, explores the creative possibilities achievable through the intermingling of art, science and imagination in the quest for knowledge. The piece is inspired by my grandparent's contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA. My grandmother, Odile Crick, was the artist who first drew the iconic image of the double helix molecule.
Half of my double helix sculpture is a chalkboard layered with the patina of science. I christened the chalkboard by writing, erasing and rubbing in the dust the words from some of my favorite scientists, including Oliver Sacks. What I left visible for the viewer to discover are handwritten notations from my granddad's letters and his many chalkboards. The complementary helix strand is a flourish of vibrant blue bordered by a golden helix. The abstracted growing forms that spread and mutate up the sculpture can be seen as cellular life or as a metaphor for infectious ideas.

Intellectual Capital: Why "Mad Pursuit?"

I took the title 'What Mad Pursuit' from the title of my granddad's 1988 memoir and essays on scientific discovery. My granddad chose that title from a line in the Keats poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn." It is a nice banter between art and science and speaks to the mad pursuit of both, and sold earlier this year at Christie's London, at an auction that raised $500,000 for the Francis Crick Institute, a leading center of biomedical research and innovation due to open in 2016.

Cold Spring Harbor,100th Anniversary of Francis Crick's Birth. Clockwise from bott. left, Mike Crick, Anne Churchland, Kindra Crick, Bob Olby, Jim Watson (original Nobel,) friend, Liz Watson, Ludmilla Pollock, Yours Truly. I had the salmon.

TO VIEW THE MAKING OF KINDRA CRICK'S SCULPTURE, "WHAT MAD PURSUIT," PLEASE CLICK: http://www.kindracrick.com/dna/

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Climate Change This Week: Massive Worldwide Tree Die-Off, Selling Solar Surges, and More!  
Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.




Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, like this Amazon tree frog, is another reason to conserve carbon storing forests. Source www.theguardian.com

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon




The Giants Nearby my home in California. I love them. Source www.resetsanfrancisco.org

OO California Redwoods: The Ultimate Carbon-Storing Forests in the World a new study finds.







Amazon Burning Credit Dado Galdieri at AP

OO El Niño, Climate Change Are Making The Amazon Dry And Flammable says researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine.

What were once considered once-in-a-century events are increasing as global warming takes hold.

Just in the past decade, the Amazon suffered from two record drought years (2005, 2010), and massive fires thought to have been mostly caused by humans.


Related Headline:

OO Dry Amazon Could See Record Fire Season forecast researchers.




OO 2015 Southeast Asian Fires Emitted Most Carbon Since 1997 - blanketing the area in thick haze and, producing emissions higher than in the whole of the European Union, say scientists.


OO Millions Massive Die-Off of Trees Worldwide Tied to Climate Change is occurring in California, the US Southwest and Europe, adding to further climate change as their decomposition releases climate-changing gases.

The link is from current extreme droughts of the sort expected under continued climate change.


When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

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HOT NEWS



Orange Areas average 28 degrees C. Source www.independent.co.uk

OO Humans Have Caused World's Warmest Seas To Surge In Temperature, scientists say, via greenhouse gas emissions that have created the giant 'Indo-Pacific Warm Pool', the largest area of warm water in the world that stretches 9,000 miles along the equator.

The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, where the water averages more than 28 degrees Celsius, has increased in size by about a third in 60 years.


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SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS




The Fate Of Future US Babies? Zika infected pregnant women often give birth to tiny brained babies, whose lives are often short , and for their parents, tortuous. Source bn.thetodaypost.com

OO Zika In Florida: 10 New Cases Confirmed
Amid Concern Over US Sluggish Response - although all infections were acquired overseas, hundreds of infected people in Florida heighten the chances of creating an infected pool of mosquitoes.

This pool could then create an epidemic of zika in Florida that could spread further in the US.





OO Summer Of Fire: Drought Transforms Southern Sierra into a tinderbox of an estimated 66 million dead trees in the southern Sierra Nevada.


Related Headline:

OO Wildfires Engulfing The West Coast Are Fueled By Climate Change experts warn, and require new strategies.





Run: A new wildfire burning through bone-dry grass, shrub and timber has forced the evacuation of dozens of homes in a mountain community.

OO California Wildfire Prompts New Round Of Evacuations







Study in Toxic Green Source www.miamiherald.com

OO Florida Takes Economic Hit:
Toxic Algae Drives Away Tourists - the massive bloom smells like "death on a cracker"; the last time such a big bloom occurred, it took months for the estuaries to recover.

Both rising water temperatures and poorly regulated pollution guarantees more of these.





OO 1 In 10 People May Face Malnutrition As Fish Catches Decline around the world both from lack of protein and critical micronutrients like iron and zinc.

So declining fisheries pose major risks for global health, scientists warn.


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HOUSTON, WE'VE GOT A WATER PROBLEM...




The Vital Monsoon: When Will It Come? Wikipedia

OO Climate Change Warming Asian Waters, Altering Monsoon - making it more erratic and unpredictable.

It's an ominous problem for 70% of India's 1+ billion citizens, who need reliable monsoon predictions
to decide when they will sow their seeds and harvest their crops.






The Not So Mighty Indus Wikipedia

OO Stressed Indus River Threatens Pakistan's Water Supplies - the river supports the lives of 300 million people, and supplies Pakistan with less water than it did 50 years ago, particularly in the spring and summer, researchers have found.

Meanwhile, demand for water is projected to rise sharply.


OO Murders, Violence On Rise As Parched India Battles For Water - Northern and central India continue to suffer thorough severe drought and oppressive heat.

Police in several regions are reporting a rise in violent - and often deadly - clashes over water.


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MEATY PROBLEM




You Want To Eat ... ME??! Source TakePart

OO Meat: An Unhealthy Habit - accumulating evidence indicates that meat, particularly red meat, is just a disaster for the environment - and not so great for human beings, too.


OO This Is What Your Hot Dog And Burger Are Doing To The Planet When Americans fire up their grills on July 4th, they dump up to 882 million pounds of carbon pollution into the atmosphere--the equivalent of burning almost 2,200 railcars of coal.

Okay, I can hear it now - "What -- now you're attacking my hot dog?"

It does all add up - BUT what will really make a difference is whether you vote for leaders who will act on preventing further climate change.


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GOOD IDEAS




Blowing Interference Credit Christian Steiness

OO Creating More Efficient Wind Farms -
Based on Schools of Fish - Takeaways:

• Large offshore turbines disrupt air flow
• 
  
• creating interfering wakes of slow moving air behind them;
• 
  
• Thus, turbines in rows behind them harvest less energy;
• 
  
• Large size forces turbines to be spaced widely, further reducing energy harvesting.

Fish School Us On Wind Power - a piscine school is a demonstration of animals adapted to maximizing their swimming efficiency. Courtesy Robert Whittlesey

• Fish in schools show staggered formation,
• 
  
• And use neighborly turbulence to swim more efficiently;

Staggering Counter Spinning Turbines ups efficiency. Credit John Dabiri and Matthias Kinzel

• Staggering smaller, shorter wind turbines
• 
  
• In pairs of opposing rotations,
• 
  
• Increases wind energy harvesting 10 times, researchers found.

OO Transport Emissions Are Rising - Time to Tighten Standards






Source renewableenergyideas.org


OO Apple, Patagonia, Google, and Others Are
Expanding Into Solar Power - not just through solar panels on their roofs, but through:

• Rooftop projects to massive plants (Google)
• 
  
• Giant solar plants and selling excess energy from their roofs (Apple)
• 
  
• Solar panel leasing on other rooftops (Patagonia)

Patagonia is also showing other companies how to expand into the solar power business.

Walmart, Macy's, Costo, and Ikea are some of the biggest users of solar power to power their businesses in the US - is it just a matter of time before they start selling solar electticity?


OO 'Tesla Solar' Wants to Be the Apple Store for Electricity - providing the solar rooftop systems, the batteries to store the solar power, and the electric cars that use those batteries. And offering it all in a convenient, economic way to customers.




Educating Bill Gates Source www.huffingtonpost.com

OO Let's Upgrade Bill Gates' Climate Reading List - Bill is under the delusion that we need clean energy "miracles," because he believes the flawed arguments of Vaclav Smil.

Luckily, Bill and Vaclav are wrong. It's time to update Bill.


OO Canada: Govt Think Tank Pushes Nation to Think Beyond Oil Dependence


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THE "NEW COAL"
COULD CREATE A HOLE
IN ANY CLIMATE GOAL




Natural Gas: Not All That Clean Credit Tim Evanson at flickr

OO Leaking Coal Seam Gas Fields May Blow Hole In Emissions Goals - a growing chorus of voices from Australia and overseas is warning that any perceived benefits of burning natural gas for energy could easily be lost with just small leakages of the potent climate changing gas.


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SPEAKING OUT




Stephen Hawking Source www.strangenotions.com

OO Stephen Hawking: Pollution And 'Stupidity'
Still Biggest Threats To Mankind - he notes: "Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding, they have gotten worse since then. The population has grown by half a billion since our last interview, with no end in sight."




Credit Stephane Mahe at Reuters

"Greenhouse Gases Must Be Substantially Reduced." Major US scientific organizations told Congress.

OO Top U.S. Science Organizations Hammer Congress on Climate Change--Again
Scientists implore action and note rising bipartisan demands for action as heat waves and wildfires worsen.


Related Headline:

OO Science Organizations Again Urge Congress To Take Climate Change Seriously in a letter signed by many major US groups.

It pushes back against climate denial and calls for policy solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.


OO 31 Scientific Bodies Tell US Congress: Climate Change Is Real and to get real on climate change.

As many as 180 Congressional members are thought to be skeptical of human-caused climate change.





OO After 6 Years Of Working On Climate At Harvard,
I Implore It To Show The Courage To Divest




Source thomasnet.com

Clean It Up Fast for a smooth energy transition and stable economies, says Moody's.

OO Major Credit Giant Calls For Rapid Paris Climate Deal Approval

• The giant, Moody's has called on countries to speed ratification of the deal.
• 
  
• This will lower the risks of a damaging transition from fossil fuels -
• 
  
• And calm markets.

Moody's pledges to use the UN climate pact as benchmark for rating companies.


OO Canada: Court Overturns Major Pipeline Approval issued by the previous federal cabinet two years ago.


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CLUELESS LEADERSHIP



"Men Argue; Nature Acts." Voltaire, 1769

OO The World Has The Right Climate Goals --
But The Wrong Ambition Levels To Achieve Them - pledges will not meet targets. Takeaways:

• 195 nations agreed to pledge to cut emissions to prevent a 1.5 C rise in world temperature.
• 
  
• this would prevent most of the gravest tipping points, e.g., the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap.*

• countries' actual pledges to cut their emissions just aren't ambitious enough to keep the world within the "safe" climate range that lies at the core of the Paris agreement, shows a new analysis.

"The window for limiting warming to below 1.5 °C with high probability and without temporarily exceeding that level already seems to have closed," the study notes.

*an important planetary thermal shield preventing even more heat from being absorbed by Earth. A 1.5 C rise would not prevent severe threats to coral reefs, or major melting in Antarctica.


OO What Would It Take To Achieve The Paris Temperature Targets? To keep the Earth from heating a further 2 C would require net zero emissions to be reached by 2085 and considerable amounts of negative emissions, researchers say.

That is, humans would need to remove significant amounts of emissions already in the atmosphere.





Credit Tom Tole at the Washington Post

OO Richest Nations Fail To Agree
On Deadline To Phase Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies - campaigners say hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuels are undermining efforts to tackle climate change.


*
*

GOOD CLEAN NEWS




OO India To Get Over $1 Billion From World Bank For Its Solar Goals


OO U.S. Hardens Royalty Rules On Fossil Fuel Production - Takeaways:

• Rules had not been updated since 1980s;
• 
  
• Old rules let companies pay 50+% lower royalties when selling to affiliates;
• 
  
• A significant percentage of companies did this;

• New rule: companies must pay royalties on sales to the first unaffiliated customer;
• 
  
• Royalty revenues to taxpayers should increase significantly.

OO Exxon Is Now Lobbying for a Carbon Tax to combat climate change, and has supported one since 2009.

It's also is lobbying the rest of the American industry, and Capitol Hill.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, aimed specifically at keeping most fossil fuel reserves in the ground, has prompted the company to increase its efforts recently to convince the rest of the industry to get on board.





OO Minnesota: A Wind Power Utility Makes Wind Power Reliable - Xcel Energy developed:

• a constantly updated, reliable forecasting system, and
• 
  
• smart technology that allows turbines to turn on and off automatically in response to changing forecasts.

• Resulting savings are passed on to its customers,
• 
  
• to date yielding about60 million in savings for an investment of3.8 million.

Its wind production displaces approximately 11.7 million tons of CO2 emissions annually, too.

Now that's good news!


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NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS




Red Knots In A Bind Credit Greg Breese, US FWS

OO Rapid Climate-Driven Loss Of Breeding Habitat
For Arctic Migratory Birds - a study suggests 66-83% of Arctic shore bird species will lose the majority of their currently suitable habitat by 2070.

Rapid climate change in the High North strongly affects where species are able to breed and disrupts migratory connections globally, say the authors.




Credit roadrunner_876 at photobucket.com

As Long As The Zebras Are There lions' meals won't be disrupted. Credit roadrunner_876 at photobucket.com

OO Wild Meat Eaters Are Less Disrupted by Climate Change
Than Their Plant Eating Prey - says a new large study.

This makes sense: many plant eaters are not adapting well to shifting plant seasons.




OO Thanks To Climate Change, The Arctic Is Turning Green NASA scientists show with views from space especially as the northern regions rapidly warm. And then there's wildfires....


Related Headline:

OO Human-Induced Greening Of The Northern Land Surface is occurring a new study shows.


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CLIMATE LEADERSHIP





Source www.huffingtonpost.com

OO Hillary Clinton's Ambitious Climate Change Plan Avoids Carbon Tax - But she:

• vows to produce a third of the nation's electricity from renewable sources by 2027;
• 
  
• will spend billions of dollars to transform the energy economy;
• 
  
• will install a half-billion solar panels by 2020, upping the current number 7x;

• will give 60 billion to states and cities to develop more climate-friendly infrastructure,
• 
  
• will put the US on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 % from 2005 levels by 2050.

And, she says, she could achieve all that without new legislation from Congress.



OO US Senate Panel Backs $500 Million For Global Climate Fund - in a rare show of bipartisanship. More shows, please!





Source Office of the Prime Minister, Canada

OO US, Canada, Mexico Agree Climate Partnership - the "three amigos" set targets to get half of electricity from clean sources and cut methane emissions 40-45% by 2025.


OO US, Canada and Mexico Pledge 50% of Power from Clean Energy by 2025


OO Obama's New Clean Energy Goal For North America: 50 % By 2025







OO Conservative To Fund Republicans Who Back Climate Change Action - with least $5 million through to back five Republican congressional candidates who have supported taking action on climate change.


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FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES




You Want Me to Drink... THAT? Source activistpost.com

OO California: Freshwater Formations Are Being Drilled, Fracked - as oil and gas development overlap with groundwater sources; monitoring is clearly needed. Let's consider some safeguards, say the authors.





OO US Coal Baron Promises Huge Layoffs --
Then Tells Workers To Vote Trump - problem is, coal mining jobs aren't coming back - even under President Trump.


OO Falling Gas Prices Are Driving Consumers Back to Bigger Vehicles





When They Go Away, Who Will Pay? Source www.businesstimes.com

OO Indonesia Faces Environmental Time Bomb After Coal Bust - thousands of mines are closing in Indonesia's tropical coal belt as prices languish and seams run dry.

But almost none of the companies have paid their share of billions of dollars owed to repair the badly scarred landscape they have left behind.


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FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE



@@ A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels - and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What's not to like? Check it out!

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ELECTION YEAR:




If You Don't Vote For Climate Action, You Can Forget The Rest - in a climate-changing world of famine, drought, rising seas, giant storms and heat waves, there will be no security in jobs, health, wealth, or national safety. There will be chaos ensuing from increasing crises and disasters. Vote.

OO Global Warming Policies We Set Today Will Determine The Next 10,000 Years - of global warming, a new study shows -- and whether our civilization survives or not: history shows that harmful climate change has destroyed civilizations before.

This time, it could be worldwide. Let's keep "The Hunger Games" in the realm of fiction.

*
*



If we do not grow sustainably,
Our children will die inhumanely.





@@ Myth vs Truth: The Huge Value of Contraception is an incisive, heartfelt recognition of the value of contraception by Sarah Brown, CEO, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy


Unintended Pregnancy Costs US Taxpayers:

Unintended Pregnancies Cost US Taxypayers Nearly $11 Billion Yearly
-the Guttmacher Institute

Teen Childbearing Alone Cost US Taxpayers $9+ Billion In 2010
And the costs of raising a child usually ensures decades, if not a life, of poverty for its mother.
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


WHAT YOU CAN DO

Help prevent unintended pregnancies in your community:
publicize where women can access affordable contraception.



They can go here to find locations:




And there are many more actions you can do, right here.

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*

SOLAR KEEPS SAILING



OO Here Comes The Sun: US Solar Power Market Hits All-Time High after a rocky start.



@@ What Rooftop Solar Looks Like In Watts, Los Angeles, CA Women participating in a unique solar installation training program in Los Angeles's Watts neighborhood are bringing power to the people, and empowering themselves.





Check it out here, right now!

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There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I've compiled, "Climate Change News Resources," at Wordpress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by these wildflowers I photographed one spring. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fsally-brown2%2Ffood-waste-on-the-farm_b_10971562.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Food Waste on the Farm  
Food waste doesn't just come from your plate or the back corners of your refrigerator. Food waste starts at the farm- whether that farm covers hundreds of acres or some space on your terrace. Growing and harvesting food is not a 100% efficient process. The fate of excess lettuce is one classic example. Lettuce is one of the first things you plant in the spring. It comes in lovely shapes and colors and you plant it at a time when the whole notion of gardening is fresh and full of promise. That often means that you plant too much. Round about July that excess lettuce starts thinking that perhaps the reason you haven't harvested it is that it was destined for greater things than simple salads. The lettuce starts to bolt- meaning a center stalk grows tall and the leaves get bitter. The lettuce is attempting to turn into a tree. Maybe the lettuce has heard about Christmas in July. This happens to commercial farmers as well as to amateurs. Some examples from friends and the neighborhood are below.





At the farm these 'trees' are typically just plowed back into the soil. That can happen in your garden as well. Adding organic matter back to the soil is a good thing. But it isn't the best thing to do with food that could be eaten. Realize that it takes a lot of energy and effort to produce food. The New York Times made this clear with a pictorial showing how much water is used to grow various crops in California:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/21/us/your-contribution-to-the-california-drought.html?_r=0. Lettuce trees do not grow by water alone. All plants also require nutrients- the big three being nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Those are the three numbers that you see on a bag of fertilizer.



Nitrogen is typically applied at between 100 and 200 pounds per acre. While gaseous nitrogen is plentiful in our air (atmosphere is 77% N2 gas) it takes a lot of energy to turn the gas into a form that plants can use. Most of our fertilizer N is produced using the Haber - Bosch process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process) at a cost of about 4 pounds of CO2 for each pound of nitrogen. About half as much energy is used to produce the P and K. Phosphorus fertilizer comes from calcium phosphate rocks. We used to have large reserves in the US in Idaho and Florida. Now the biggest world reserves are in and around Morocco and China (http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnadw835.PDF) with Saudi Arabia also having significant quantities (http://www.mining-technology.com/features/featurea-kingdom-of-riches-saudi-arabia-looks-to-strike-it-rich-with-mining-sector-4382267/). Wasting the food means that you are also wasting the water and the nutrient it took to grow.

Soils are not so picky about the type of organic matter that they are fed. They are just as happy getting plant roots as edible leaves. They don't mind slime. The same can't be said for people. But even if you have excess romaine your neighbor may not. Feeding others with your bounty is one way to put the excess to optimal use and expand your social circle. On a commercial level this is much more difficult but can still be done. Excess from farmer's markets and fields can be donated to food banks or left for gleaning projects. Gleaning means going into a field after harvest and getting what the farmer did not. It was the subject of an 18th century painting by Jean Francois Millet and has been making a comeback in the US http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133059889/gleaning-a-harvest-for-the-needy-by-fighting-waste.



While you can give your extra lettuce to friends and neighbors before it bolts, this type of generosity is harder to justify for a farmer who needs to make a living from selling his/ her produce. Gleaning and donations are good for the world but not as good for the bottom line. Tax incentives to encourage gleaning and other rules that limit liability for farmers who allow gleaners on their land are ways to do that: http://modernfarmer.com/2015/12/gleaning/. So share your lettuce before it can think of turning into a tree. New rules and incentives will hopefully let farmers do so too.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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A Hard and Heartbreaking Week  

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Mary Ellen Harte: Climate Change This Week: Massive Worldwide Tree Die-Off, Selling Solar Surges, and More!  
Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.




Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, like this Amazon tree frog, is another...

Read more: Climate Change, Environment, Drought, Extreme Weather, Global Warming, Sustainability, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Nature, Science, Technology, Technologie, Green Technology, Technology News, Climate Change Denial, Climate, Climate Science, Climate-Change, Obama, Green Energy, Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, Natural Gas, Wind Power, Solar Power, Fossil Fuels, Heat Waves, Congress, Voting, Weather, Business, Business News, Corporations, Economy, Climate Change Solutions, Greenhouse Gases, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Carbon Emissions, Food, Water, Coal, Fracking, Oil, Agriculture, Crops, Rising Sea Levels, Insurance, Pollution, Wildlife, Transportation, Transports, Transport, Cities, Deforestation, Jobs, Natural Disasters, Population, Population Growth, Overpopulation, Oceans, President Obama, Barack Obama, Epa, Nasa, Noaa, Department of Energy, Republicans, Gop, Democrats, Animals, Cute Animals, Fish, Birds, Activism, Political Activism, Humor, Alaska, California, Florida, Minnesota, United Nations, United Kingdom, England, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Europe, European Union, France, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Asia, Africa, Mexico, Children, Babies, Children'S Health, Kids, Human Health, Health, Education, Air Pollution, Seafood, Exxon Mobil, Hillary Clinton, Soil, Art, Cartoons, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Apple, Patagonia, Google, Vegetarianism, Harvard, Green News

 
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Michael Brune: How Environmental Issues Impact Communities Of Color  
I don't know anyone who didn't find last week both hard and heartbreaking. Two more incomprehensible fatal police shootings of African Americans f...

Read more: Climate Change, Black Lives Matter, Racism, Global Warming, Environment, Green News

 
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Broken  

ibrahimbarbour posted a photo:

Broken LED light bulb.

 
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Red sky at night......  

CharlieH76 posted a photo:

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fsally-brown2%2Ffood-waste-on-the-farm_b_10971562.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Food Waste on the Farm  
Food waste doesn't just come from your plate or the back corners of your refrigerator. Food waste starts at the farm- whether that farm covers hundreds of acres or some space on your terrace. Growing and harvesting food is not a 100% efficient process. The fate of excess lettuce is one classic example. Lettuce is one of the first things you plant in the spring. It comes in lovely shapes and colors and you plant it at a time when the whole notion of gardening is fresh and full of promise. That often means that you plant too much. Round about July that excess lettuce starts thinking that perhaps the reason you haven't harvested it is that it was destined for greater things than simple salads. The lettuce starts to bolt- meaning a center stalk grows tall and the leaves get bitter. The lettuce is attempting to turn into a tree. Maybe the lettuce has heard about Christmas in July. This happens to commercial farmers as well as to amateurs. Some examples from friends and the neighborhood are below.





At the farm these 'trees' are typically just plowed back into the soil. That can happen in your garden as well. Adding organic matter back to the soil is a good thing. But it isn't the best thing to do with food that could be eaten. Realize that it takes a lot of energy and effort to produce food. The New York Times made this clear with a pictorial showing how much water is used to grow various crops in California:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/21/us/your-contribution-to-the-california-drought.html?_r=0. Lettuce trees do not grow by water alone. All plants also require nutrients- the big three being nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Those are the three numbers that you see on a bag of fertilizer.



Nitrogen is typically applied at between 100 and 200 pounds per acre. While gaseous nitrogen is plentiful in our air (atmosphere is 77% N2 gas) it takes a lot of energy to turn the gas into a form that plants can use. Most of our fertilizer N is produced using the Haber - Bosch process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process) at a cost of about 4 pounds of CO2 for each pound of nitrogen. About half as much energy is used to produce the P and K. Phosphorus fertilizer comes from calcium phosphate rocks. We used to have large reserves in the US in Idaho and Florida. Now the biggest world reserves are in and around Morocco and China (http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnadw835.PDF) with Saudi Arabia also having significant quantities (http://www.mining-technology.com/features/featurea-kingdom-of-riches-saudi-arabia-looks-to-strike-it-rich-with-mining-sector-4382267/). Wasting the food means that you are also wasting the water and the nutrient it took to grow.

Soils are not so picky about the type of organic matter that they are fed. They are just as happy getting plant roots as edible leaves. They don't mind slime. The same can't be said for people. But even if you have excess romaine your neighbor may not. Feeding others with your bounty is one way to put the excess to optimal use and expand your social circle. On a commercial level this is much more difficult but can still be done. Excess from farmer's markets and fields can be donated to food banks or left for gleaning projects. Gleaning means going into a field after harvest and getting what the farmer did not. It was the subject of an 18th century painting by Jean Francois Millet and has been making a comeback in the US http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133059889/gleaning-a-harvest-for-the-needy-by-fighting-waste.



While you can give your extra lettuce to friends and neighbors before it bolts, this type of generosity is harder to justify for a farmer who needs to make a living from selling his/ her produce. Gleaning and donations are good for the world but not as good for the bottom line. Tax incentives to encourage gleaning and other rules that limit liability for farmers who allow gleaners on their land are ways to do that: http://modernfarmer.com/2015/12/gleaning/. So share your lettuce before it can think of turning into a tree. New rules and incentives will hopefully let farmers do so too.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
science  

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Cocaine and HIV Infection  


By Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog

Cocaine and HIV Infection

It is well known that cocaine use increases the chance of acquiring HIV, the virus infection that if left untreated leads to AIDS. It was assumed that needle sharing and increased risky behaviors were the reason for more infections. Some data now argues that cocaine use fundamentally changes cells of the immune system making them more susceptible to HIV infection.

HIV is a retrovirus that infects cells of the immune system that carry the receptors to which HIV binds on their surfaces. The cells are a type of white blood cells called a T lymphocyte or T cell. T cells are important in identifying and hunting down virus infected cells and some of them are critical in orchestrating the immune response. For HIV to successfully infect the T cells, they must be capable of dividing into daughter cells. A large population of T cells in the body are not dividing and hence dormant and HIV cannot infect them.

Anything that activates these dormant cells would increase the cells HIV could infect. Scientists exposed dormant T cells to cocaine and then to HIV. They measured the amount of HIV produced to determine if cocaine influenced the susceptibility of these dormant cells to HIV infection. Exposure to cocaine increases the susceptibility of dormant T cells to HIV infection. These experiments were done in a petri dish, but if this occurs in the body, this would greatly increase the number of cells available for HIV to productively infect in cocaine users. This would increase the likelihood of establishing an HIV infection, likely making the infection more severe and potentially affecting the disease progression.

More recently, the investigators did similar experiments but this time in a very special type of mouse called a humanized mouse. In these mice, their immune system was eliminated and replaced with a human one. This was done by transplanting stem cells that become the full range of human immune cells, making in effect a mouse with a human immune system. These mice are a good model for studying HIV infections and their impact on the immune system. They had two groups of mice, one was injected with cocaine, and a control group that just received injections of saline before half the mice in each group were infected with HIV. Then the mice continued to receive either cocaine or saline for two more weeks after which blood and tissue samples were analyzed. HIV infected mice that received cocaine were found to have higher levels of virus than their counterparts which received only saline. So cocaine exposure enhances HIV infection and makes the infection worse, exactly as predicted by the petri dish experiments. They also discovered that cocaine reduced the immune response to HIV infection by affecting the activities of the very cells that usually protect us from viral infections. So cocaine not only changes people's behaviors, but also changes the cells of the immune system increasing the chances of HIV infection and potentially the severity of it. Cocaine is a tremendously addictive drug that ruins lives and now we know another important way it can compromise your health. Stay away!

Medical Discovery News is hosted by professors Norbert Herzog at Quinnipiac University, and David Niesel of the University of Texas Medical Branch. Learn more at www.medicaldiscoverynews.com.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Could we generate useful energy from earthquakes?  
Elliott Spender calculates the amount of useful energy we could generate during a quake  
science  

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Neural networks provide deep insights into the mysteries of water  
Simulations reveal the importance of van der Waals interactions  
science  

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PHOTOS: Experimental Solar Plane Flies Over Egypt's Giza Pyramids  

Egypt is the last stop before Solar Impulse 2 finishes its round-the-world journey in the United Arab Emirates. The team is aiming to raise awareness about clean energy.

 
technology  

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http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/07/12/485581183/after-dallas-black-gun-owners-take-stock?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
After Dallas, Black Gun Owners Take Stock  

Many African-Americans keep guns for self-defense, dating back to Emancipation. But the shooting in Dallas, and recent killings of black men by police, have raised hard questions for black gun owners.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/12/485759308/holocaust-museum-arlington-national-cemetery-plead-no-pokemon?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
Holocaust Museum, Arlington National Cemetery Plead: No Pokémon  

The sites where visitors normally reflect on somber themes ask players of the hot new mobile game not to chase cartoon characters there.

 
technology