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“The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today” exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery from March 12, 2016 January 8, 2017.
The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition invited artists from across the country to submit their best works in the art of portrayal. The dazzling variety of media and diverse approaches to the exploration of “self” and “other” challenge preconceived notions of portraiture and expand visitors' imaginations.
This competition and resulting exhibition “The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today” showcases excellence and innovation with a strong focus on the variety of portrait media used by artists today. The juried competition results in an exhibition of about 50 finalists, with the prizewinners announced at the opening.
The post The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
By Laurel Serieys, Joleen Broadfield, and Max Allen
In running the Urban Caracal Project there have been a number of learning opportunities. One of our most important insights is that by prioritizing public outreach we have built a strong community support group without which the project would be impossible. The community support has not just been integral to large-scale funding efforts, but also help with special project needs that sometimes seem impossible. It is when the community has stepped up that some of the most gratifying and memorable leaps in project success have happened. In our case, the African proverb of “it takes a village” is particularly apt, as it has taken a village to make the Urban Caracal Project successful.
The story of Tyger, a young male caracal that was the 16th that we radio-collared, is memorable on multiple fronts. First off, he is a survivor. As is common for our urban caracals, Tyger was hit by a car in the northern suburbs of Cape Town late last year. While most vehicle collisions end in death for caracals, Tyger was lucky that he escaped with only one broken leg. Perhaps more importantly, he was lucky that the community took action to ensure his survival; community members called the Cape of Good Hope SPCA who brought him in for rehabilitation. “Only a broken leg” is not a promising diagnosis for a wild carnivore because their survival depends their ability to travel far to hunt and find mates. For the lucky Tyger, however, the SPCA was optimistic that if the leg could heal, he would survive. And so the SPCA worked tirelessly to rehabilitate him, first with surgery to fix his broken leg, and then careful monitoring and feeding him as he healed and rebuilt his strength.
Within a couple of months Tyger was ready to be radio-collared and released. With the help of more community members, South Africa National Parks, the SPCA, the City of Cape Town and a handful of international volunteers, we were able to release him into the Tygerberg Reserve. This reserve is the nearest patch of natural habitat that is large enough to be able to support caracals near the suburbs where Tyger was initially found. Because of our limited number of available collars, we used a radio-collar that had only half of it's battery life left after it was recovered from the body of another caracal (Berg Wind, who had died from disease). But it would allow us to monitor his movements briefly, and whether he survived his release post-rehabilitation.
We expected that Tyger would remain in, or nearby, the reserve until his radio-collar ran out of battery power. But after only 10 days of laying low in the urban reserve, Tyger started an unexpected journey. He found a narrow strip of relatively connected habitat to make his exit from the reserve (map above), and then headed straight north all the way to Malmesbury! All told this was a 55 kilometer trek, suggesting that his leg was not a hindrance.
Tyger himself taught us important lessons. He is the only caracal we have radio-collared outside of our isolated, urban Cape Peninsula study area. As a young two year old male, he appears to have been in dispersal mode (looking for an unoccupied territory to call his own). Successful dispersal is important for wild cats because it is a natural deterrent to inbreeding in populations. Our data is suggesting that our Cape Peninsula population is severely isolated by urbanization, and so far we have not seen any individuals successfully disperse outside of our study area. Our early data suggests that in this landscape isolated by a sea of water and dense urban development, successful dispersal may not be possible.
Tyger's story could be one of success. As we expected, Tyger's collar reached the end of its battery life in mid-March, and at that time he seemed to have settled down in the Malmesbury area. The last of his movements spanning approximately 6 weeks suggest he was exploring a potential territory of his own.
To ensure that the project caracals are not stuck wearing radio-collars for the entirety of their lives, we use multiple measures to ensure that the collars drop off. We then attempt to recover the collars to ensure it has indeed fallen off of the animal and to recover the data from the collar that we could not remotely access. When the battery on Tyger's collar died we were able to send a signal remotely, through a web interface, to the radio-collar to have it fall off. The “drop-off” activation through the website has proven effective on other caracal studies in South Africa, but it doesn't always work. Therefore, we followed up to recover the collar in the areas where Tyger's radio-collar collected data. We spent days and days driving around trying to hone in on a radio-signal. Unfortunately we had no luck; we were not even able to hear the signal.
In cases like these, where we cannot hear the radio-signal from collar from the ground, it can be more effective to fly over the area to listen for the collar from above. As lead researchers on the project, we'd never even considered flights because of our limited budget. But we grew desperate to recover the collar, and with the knowledge of how far our community had carried the project to that point, we got creative. We reached out to our community supporters once again and posted a request on our Facebook page for volunteer help in scheduling a flight. Amazingly, our community came through yet again, and Ross Leighton and Stephan Moser from The Morningstar Aviation Club were able to get us up in the air within 12 hours of our Facebook post.
Despite the help, we were not able to find the radio-collar. But after the flight we could take solace in the fact that we had done all we could. After all our exhaustive searching, we now believe the collar fell off of Tyger and was then buried in sand. This is a problem we have seen in the past, and as the collar gets buried in sand the signal became too faint to hear.
The caracals on our project are resilient and adaptable. They seem to do remarkably well even in landscapes fragmented by agriculture and urbanization. But because this is in an environment where increasing fragmentation is occurring, it is important to try to retain what habitat connectivity remains; not just for caracals, but for the many other species that are trying to survive in the urbanizing landscape. Urbanization is the principle threat to global biodiversity conservation, and habitat loss and modification due to urbanization is going to continue at a rapid pace across the globe. It is important that if we want to try to protect biodiversity in the changing landscape, we protect areas that animals can move through to maintain functional habitat connectivity in fragmented landscapes.
It seems daily that we find ourselves counting our blessings to be doing the work within the supportive community of Cape Town. Our Cape Town “village” has helped this project function on many fronts, financially and logistically, as well as with their enthusiastic interest! So the project continues to survive and even thrive despite the various challenges that always crop up on large field projects.
The Urban Caracal Project is a cooperation between the Cape Leopard Trust, the University of Cape Town, University of California, Santa Cruz, the City of Cape Town, and South Africa National Parks, and the many private landowners around Cape Town. For updates on the project check out our project page: http://www.urbancaracal.org/ and give our facebook page a like: www.Facebook.com/UrbanCaracal.
syphrix photography posted a photo:
The red panda (Ailurus fulgens), also called lesser panda, is a mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China.
Taken at the River Safari, Singapore.
[Facebook | 500px]
"Really? You and the Florida legislature worked like mad dogs to reject, refuse and to deny the ability of the U.S. EPA to regulate fertilizers including nitrogen and phosphorous, the cause of the algae blooms. And you want the federal taxpayer to rescue you because of your own stupidities? When the federal government offered to assist in regulating fertilizers, you said 'no thanks'. Then you set the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida loose on Congress. When we have tried to move Everglades restoration forward, your administration has pushed back against any efforts to put tighter restrictions on phosphorous and nitrogen flowing from sugar fields owned by your buddies, the Big Sugar cartel. So who are you kidding with your complaints about the federal government not stepping in and being active? We tried. You denied. We promoted the U.S. economy and environmental stewardship and you demagogued against pollution control laws because they "kill jobs". You kicked us out and then you cut your own agencies' science staff to the bone. Next time you call, give me some good news; like you support buying enough land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to stop the use of Florida waterways as sacrifice zones for Big Sugar."
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Each year since 1994, the Pew Research Center has asked about priorities for the President and Congress. Of the eighteen issues Pew examined in early 2016, 47% said "protecting the environment" should be a top priority. The issue ranked low--thirteenth of 18 issues the pollsters examined...These low rankings don't mean that Americans no longer care about the environment. Having a clean and healthful environment is a core value for most people. What the responses probably tell us is that Americans think policymakers, regulators, and activists are paying sufficient attention to environmental issues and that they want them to turn their attention to more pressing concerns...On occasion, however, a specific environmental problem can elevate the general issue in importance. Is the unsafe lead level in Flint Michigan's drinking water such a problem? We know from work by survey organizations such as Gallup that problems people can see in their communities such as air and water pollution tend to concern Americans more than issues that seem distant. As Gallup noted in a release in March, polluted drinking water and pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs "have consistently topped Americans' concerns during the 27 years the organization has been measuring environmental attitudes." This year, 61% told Gallup they worried a great deal about pollution of drinking water, and 56% gave that response about polluted waterways. Concern about both was up slightly from 2015.
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Cat-Heads with Spinach and Mushroom Gravy (and no Cats)
Cat-heads are biscuits, big ones (cat-head-sized, if you're into hyperbole). Beloved in the south, they're tall, fluffy, and alas, traditionally made with lard. This vegan version may upset southern traditionalists, but their slight but pleasing tang and light texture honors the original without pork fat or harm to pig. No traditional milk-and-pork-fat gravy , but a plant-based one. Lemon zest can stand in for harder-to-find sorrel and everyday button mushrooms replace pricy chanterelles.
If like my dad, you prefer sweet to savory, skip the spinach and mushroom gravy, enjoy another southern tradition, biscuits and sorghum syrup.
For the biscuits:
-- Use a light hand with the dough. Even better, use a food processor. The whole batch comes together in minutes.
-- Chilled vegan butter. It keeps the dough cool so the fat melts into the biscuit dough only during baking.
-- Many southern cooks swear by White Lily flour, a soft wheat flour. I've adjusted by adding corn starch to unbleached all-purpose flour for lighter biscuits.
-- Biscuits always taste best fresh out of the oven.
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1-3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for shaping biscuits
3 tablespoons cornstarch
4-1/2 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
pinch sea salt
6 tablespoons) vegan butter or margarine, chilled
1 tablespoon vegan butter or margarine, melted (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, whisk together soy milk and cider vinegar to make vegan buttermilk (mixture will clabber -- it's supposed to). Set aside.
In a food processor, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Pulse a time or two to combine.
Pulse in the chilled vegan margarine and mix quickly, just until mixture becomes like coarse meal. Pour in vegan buttermilk and give a quick mix to form a damp dough.
Dust rolling surface generously with more flour. Turn out the biscuit dough. Knead oh-so-briefly, working in flour -- a tablespoon or two at a time -- just until dough loses its stickiness. Pat or roll out dough to 1/2-inch thick. Flour the rim of a glass or use a floured 2-inch or 3-inch biscuit cutter to form biscuits.
Place biscuits on the rimmed baking sheet. Brush tops with melted vegan butter, if desired.
Bake for 15 minutes. Biscuit should be lightly golden, pillowy and fragrant. Best served at once, with a generous ladleful of gravy.
Makes 6 to 8 biscuits, serving 6 to 8.
For the spinach and mushroom gravy:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 scallions, green tops and thick white stems, chopped
8 ounces mushrooms, chopped
4 ounces spinach leaves
1 handful sorrel leaves, if you can get them or 1 lemon, zested
1-1/2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1/4 cup plain unsweetened soy milk
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped garlic, scallions and mushrooms. Saute, giving the vegetables an occasional stir, for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until they're softened.
Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking another 10 minutes or until mushrooms have darkened and produced a nice amount of broth.
Add spinach leaves by the handful, the sorrel if you can get it, or the lemon zest if you can't. Stir just until the greens go limp, another minute or two.
Pour everything into a blender or food processor, scraping up any mushroom bits that stick to the bottom of the pan. Add soy milk and nutritional yeast. Give a quick puree until sauce thickens and becomes smooth and green. Season with sea salt and pepper. Spoon over biscuits or pair with any fresh vegetable.
Makes roughly 1 cup, serving 4 to 6.
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This post co-authored with Alex Hillbrand
Talks in Vienna to limit the super-warming chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Montreal Protocol kicked into high gear on Friday and Saturday. The first phase of the nine-day negotiating session ended favorably in the wee hours of Sunday morning with agreement on key “challenges and solutions.”
That agreement paves the way for countries to spend the week ahead coming to terms on the central issues: ambitious schedules for freezing and phasing down HFC production and use in both developed and developing countries, and financial assistance to help developing countries achieve their phase-down commitments.
The upbeat mood of the first two days, evident in the words and actions of nearly all parties, further raises expectations that this is the year for agreeing on an HFC amendment.
The goal for the Vienna meeting is to get close enough to a complete agreement on phase-down schedules and financing provisions that countries can seal the deal on a final HFC amendment to the Montreal Protocol when they meet in Kigali, Rwanda, in October.
The stakes are high. Left unchecked, HFC production, use, and emissions are rising fast. An treaty amendment this year could prevent, between now and 2050, HFC emissions with a warming power equal to nearly three times the world's current annual output of carbon dioxide. This would be the biggest climate protection achievement of 2016 and help power the Paris Climate Agreement forward.
The Sunday-morning agreement addresses the main principles to govern financial assistance to help developing countries meet HFC phase-down commitments. The parties agreed to continue using the Montreal Protocol's Multilateral Fund (MLF) the mechanism through which donor countries helped developing countries phase out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and many other ozone-destroying and climate-damaging chemicals and to provide “sufficient additional financial resources” to help those countries meet new HFC commitments. They agreed on a list of activities eligible for funding, and on a process for the MLF to adopt detailed guidelines.
The Sunday-morning agreement reassures countries that the MLF will cover the costs of licensing patents where needed. Patent issues have been a point of contention in past negotiations, although recent research presented at the meeting has helped cut this problem down to a resolvable size. The agreement also asks the MLF to look at ways to support enhancing the energy efficiency of air conditioners and other equipment in tandem with adopting new refrigerants.
The agreement also opens the door for making certain exemptions available as the phase-down proceeds. This is a tried-and-true mechanism for addressing the fear that alternatives won't be ready for some uses when phase-down limits kick in. The possibility of hard-case exemptions makes it acceptable for countries to agree up front to ambitious reduction schedules.
Negotiators' enthusiasm palpably increased with every “challenge” met and “solution” found.
India and China are joining the U.S., Canada, Mexico, European Union and others in down-to-earth problem solving. Even Saudi Arabia, in the past an obstacle, is contributing to progress.
What's next? Negotiators will work all next week to develop the specific language of the HFC amendment, building from four existing proposals and the “solutions” adopted this weekend. On Friday and Saturday, ministers from around the world will convene for a high-level “Meeting of the Parties.” The U.S. will be represented by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy as well as high-level White House and State Department officials.
The goal is to get as close as possible to a final deal, so that the ministers can close the remaining gaps this week and in the months ahead, and sign the long-awaited HFC phase-down amendment to the Montreal Protocol in Kigali this October.
We'll provide further updates as the week's talks proceed.
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Read more: Environment, Politics, Government, Infrastructure, Pollution, Green News
Stunning blue waters surround and pass through the tidal channels of islands in the Bahamas. Small tidal changes on the banks cause water to flow through the narrow channels between the islands, first in one direction and then the other. The darker blue sections of water are the deepest parts of the channels and the surrounding light blue color is more shallow (less than 25 meters / 80 feet). This photo was captured from the International Space Station and is courtesy of NASA
Hollywood has already cast Jennifer Lawrence to star in a movie about the embattled biotech firm. How did founder Elizabeth Holmes go from self-made billionaire to an estimated worth of $0? Read on.
Nano-tech scientists have managed to create the world's smallest hard disk. The 500TB/inch2 disk can store a kilobyte of memory in a few tiny chlorine atoms, according to new research published in Nature Nanotechnology.…
Pomponius Mela Scientist of the Day
On July 18, 1482, the German printer Erhard Ratdolt published an edition of Pomponius Mela's De situ orbis libri III, Three Books on the Situation of the World.
Puértolas posted a photo:
JH Images.co.uk posted a photo:
This is the view that you get from the terrace bar at the SkyLounge in the Hilton hotel in Tower Hill. They were nice enough to let me come by and set up my tripod at sunset and capture the evening view. I got the pink haze at the top of the frame as the sunlight reflected off the horizon.
martin christopher-martin posted a photo:
3 stop underexposure and a cross screen filter produced this silhouette effect on the river at Greenwich.