europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
Space Science image of the week is this strangely meandering channel, carved on the Moon, is one of the most famous features on our nearest celestial neighbour. It shot to fame in July 1971 when the two astronauts of Apollo 15 drove their lunar rover to its very edge.
Known as Hadley Rille, the feature is named after the 18th century British mathematician and inventor John Hadley. In 1721, Hadley presented a telescope that used a non-spherical mirror to the Royal Society in London. Shaped as a parabola, the mirror avoided the aberration caused by a spherical mirror, and set the shape for all telescope mirrors to come.
Hadley Rille is thought to have been carved by an ancient lava flow, dating back just over 3 billion years to soon after the Moon formed. It stretches more than 120 km, up to 1500 m wide and more than 300 m deep in some places.
From their close-up position, the Apollo astronauts photographed what looked like strata in the walls of the rille. This suggests that there were many volcanic eruptions, each building a new layer. Then, a channel of lava cut through these deposits. When it drained away, it left the sinuous rille we see today. However, planetary scientists are not entirely sure of the details of the process.
This image was taken by ESA's SMART-1, which explored the Moon from 2004 to 2006. Its miniaturised camera demonstrated that smaller equipment could still provide first-class science.
This image was taken from an altitude of about 2000 km. It spans about 100 km and shows the region around Hadley Rille centred at about 25°N / 3°E.
SMART-1 was ESA's first mission to the Moon. It tested new engine technologies, including a solar electric propulsion system that will carry ESA's BepiColombo mission to Mercury in 2018.
At the end of its mission, SMART-1 was flown closer and closer to the lunar surface until it was intentionally crashed on 3 September 2006. During its mission, it had completed more than 2000 orbits of the Moon.
Credit: ESA/Space-X, Space Exploration Institute
A look at the wild works Kickstarter creators are making for Burning Man this year.
a team of designers has suspended dozens of crafted origami cranes from a courtyard ceiling, arranging them in a spiraling configuration overhead.
The post flock of origami birds fills french courtyard for the festival des architectures vives appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
Chalcid wasp (Perilampus sp.) collected in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG21601-C03; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=CNGSF2717-15; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACV0077)
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Turquoise Mountain is also committed to providing a sustainable source of income
for Afghanistan's young women. Currently over half of Turquoise Mountain's
calligraphy and jewelry students are women.
On the third sublevel of the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., a new exhibition “Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan” featuring jewelry, woodwork, rugs, calligraphy and pottery made by Afghan artisans, gives visitors a feel for what it's like to live in a society where craft, art and practical living solutions are coming together.
A non-profit organization founded in 2006, the Turquoise Mountain project aims to physically restore the historic city center of Kabul after years of turmoil and to restore the traditional crafts of the city. The project is giving artisans the lessons and resources they need to relearn traditional craft. This collaborative effort between Afghan artisans and the folks at Turquoise Mountain also has helped local artisans find new markets, both domestic and international, according to Tommy Wide, Director of Exhibitions at Turquoise Mountain.
Urban regeneration in Afganistan organized by the Turquoise Mountain Project.
Turquoise Mountain aims to restore Afghan tradition without keeping Afghan artists in the past. “The last thing I'd ever want to do is for this presentation of tradition to be seen as locking Afghanistan into its traditional methods,” Wide says. “It's about the fruitful preservation, but also transformation, of these traditions through the careful, judicious use of new materials, new techniques, new machinery, new design.”
This calligraphy was created by a teacher at the Turquoise Mountain Institute in
Kabul. The Institute has trained more than 450 artisans since its founding eight
years ago.
Collaboration is something that Turquoise Mountain stresses. Nasser Mansouri, a celebrated classical Afghan woodworker, came up with the idea that visitors should be able to touch the woodwork he would create of the exhibit, and this principle was incorporated into the design of the entire exhibit. Wide notes that the exhibit questions how we approach art. “It's not just treating the art as an aesthetic object, but as a lived experience and a story, and the person behind the art.”
Afghan lapis lazuli has been traded for thousands of years. It can be found in Tutankhamen's funeral mask and was ground into powder for the blue pigments used by Renaissance artists in Europe.
To drive this point home, the exhibit provides large photographs of the artisans themselves, and each explanatory panel is written by the artist, not the curator. “That was really important for us, that it was all in their voices, so the visitors have an unmediated connection with the artist,” Wide says.
The tactility of the exhibit highlights the strong connection between form and function in the craft of the artisans. The jali panels, designed by Mansouri, have several uses in Afghan society: to regulate light, to divide rooms and to create beauty. In the exhibit, visitors are encouraged to touch Mansouri's woodwork, which includes large archways and samples of the jali panels.
Beautiful flowers and traditional patterns are carved into the Himalayan cedar of the arches and columns, and darker walnut wood of the jali panels are carved with geometric lattice patterns, like a kaleidoscope. Visitors can lift the panels and hold them up to the light to see how the panels block and let through light to project the patterns onto the wall. The texture of Mansouri's woodworking is enticing to touch, as the wood itself is smoothed but the patterns jut out to greet the hand.
Since 2006 Turquoise Mountain has worked in partnership with the community of
Murad Khani, providing employment, education, healthcare, and a renewed sense
of pride.
While the jewelry in the exhibit cannot be touched, its texture is also enticing. The main attraction is a beautiful gold and emerald necklace designed in a collaboration between Pippa Small, a British designer, and Saeeda Etebari, an Afghan jewelry maker. Etebari, who is deaf, decided to make rain a motif in the design of the necklace, which is reflected in the emerald beads scattered throughout the gold fringe. The pottery in the exhibit reflects the name of the Turquoise Mountain organization, as the clay is found in the hills of Afghanistan and the pots are then glazed in turquoise.
Turquoise Mountain focuses on what Afghanistan has to offer, rather than what it lacks. Wide sees the strength of Turquoise Mountain's work in the way it harnesses the skills and beauty that are already present in the country. Turquoise Mountain does well to act as an intermediary between the artisans and the rest of the world, helping to accentuate and promote what they do.
“Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan” is on display in the Sackler Gallery until January 29, 2017. To find out more, visit asia.si.edu or turquoisemountain.org.
The post Traditional artisans breathe new life into Afghanistan via Turquoise Mountain Project appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
A new study has ‘solved' the problem plaguing our island for generations; which biscuit is best to dunk in a cup of tea to avoid the tragedy that is a soggy, broken biscuit?
The scientific team (they even used an official dunking robot) conclusively found that McVitie's Rich Tea biscuits came out on top.
But we're not so sure; what about the humble chocolate digestive or the Garibaldi, goddammit?
To help put the matter to bed once and for all we have put together this quiz so you can decide which biccie is truly the nation's favourite for the biscuit tin.
Vote!
Kelvin MacKenzie has sparked further outrage over his attack on Muslim newsreader Fatima Manji by threatening to mount and counter-complaint about her to Ofcom.
The Sun columnist penned a controversial article last week saying it was inappropriate for “a young lady wearing a hijab” to front Channel 4 News' coverage of the Nice terror attack.
His original piece has so far sparked almost 2,000 complaints to press regulator Ipso.
But today MacKenzie revealed he himself planned to lodge a “formal complaint” with the broadcast watchdog for a breach of “impartiality”.
He claimed Manji should not have worn her headscarf given the Nice attackers' religious motivation was “central” to coverage of the incident.
He pointed to the Tory peer Baroness Waris, who sometimes wears a hijab on television, saying: “A Muslim woman does have a choice [to wear the clothing]”. Warsi has previously accused MacKenzie of peddling “respectable racism” and “xenophobia”.
The former Sun editor wrote:
“I will be looking at making a formal complaint to Ofcom under the section of the broadcasting code which deals with impartiality.
“Since the question of religious motivation was central to the coverage of the Nice attack, I would ask whether it is appropriate for a newsreader to wear religious attire that could undermine the viewers' perception of impartiality.
“A Muslim woman does have a choice.”
But the comments provoked fury from social media users, including BBC journalist Julia Macfarlane.
The reporter quipped that given MacKenzie's stance he presumably “thinks men shouldn't report on any crime perpetrated by a man”.
Kelvin MacKenzie thinks Muslims shouldn't report on terror. Assume he also thinks men shouldn't report on any crime perpetrated by a man
— Julia Macfarlane (@juliamacfarlane) July 25, 2016
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron also admonished MacKenzie's counter-complaint, saying the threat to complain to Ofcom following his own “bigoted remarks” was “beyond belief”.
Other Twitter users joined in voicing their anger at MacKenzie, outraged at his latest column that further provoked the media row raging over Manji.
Extraordinary that Kelvin Mackenzie thinks it's ok to make a complaint on the basis of an individual's dress & faith https://t.co/xqFvwW2HoB
— Akeela Ahmed (@AkeelaAhmed) July 25, 2016
@jpublik @fatimamanji Can I complain to them about Kelvin Mackenzie being an absolute tool?
— Rob Remain (@robotbotch) July 25, 2016
The Sun has maintained a ‘no comment' stance over the anger at MacKenzie since the row broke out.
It deleted a tweet promoting his story amid a string of angry responses.
I'm hard to shock but speechless that @Channel4News @fatimamanji has been treated this way by @TheSun @TellMamaUK pic.twitter.com/REv4fCeqLY
— Afua Hirsch (@afuahirsch) July 18, 2016
Manji herself hit back at MacKenzie last week, promising “not [to] be deterred in this mission by the efforts of those who find the presence of Muslims in British cultural life offensive.”
Writing in the Liverpool Echo, poignant because of its longstanding animosity toward's MacKenzie and the Sun for the tabloid's Hillsborough disaster coverage, Manji said she would complain to Ipso.
She ended the piece by referencing The Sun's infamous 1989 front page which bore the headline ‘THE TRUTH', blaming Liverpool FC fans for the disaster at Hillsborough stadium which left 96 dead.
“THE TRUTH?” she wrote, “I confess. I pi**ed on Kelvin MacKenzie's apparent ambitions to force anyone who looks a little different off our screens, and I'll keep doing it.”
Kieran Williams Photography posted a photo:
Thomas Tompion Scientist of the Day
Thomas Tompion, an English clock maker, was baptized July 25, 1639.
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I hop off the boat into a horde of red-white-and-blue-clad 4th of July revelers. Looking back at the mighty Savannah River, I see a half dozen children playing in the water, with two sets of alligator eyeballs cresting the water thirty feet or so beyond.
“What's going on here,” I ask Tonya, my guide and companion for the week, who also happens to be of the Savannah Riverkeeper (a contributor to the funding of this part of my project).
“Oh that's fine, those gators are always here,” she cooly replies.
We're halfway through our journey down the Savannah River from above Augusta to the ocean, tracing the proposed route for a new gas pipeline, meeting the people that would be impacted along the way. This trip is part of a series of short films telling the stories of our most passionate defenders of freshwater around the United States. A gas pipeline of this magnitude has dredged up fiery passions on all sides of the issue. With it being Independence Day, we eschewed any set plans and posted up on a sandbar, which shortly after our arrival turned into a party barge destination of epic proportions. Before long, we earned an invite to the “real” 4th of July barbecue on the banks of the river a mile or so downstream.
Tonya seems to know everyone, so I get to know everyone. With an equal number of t-shirts featuring the Union and Confederate flags, I try to downplay my upstate New York roots and fit in with the 150 or so partiers. I ask everyone I can about their feelings on the proposed Palmetto Pipeline. Most seem to be against its implementation, but not for the reasons I might expect.
Looking back a year later, there were certainly a handful of people opposing it for purely environmental reasons, but the most repeated complaint was the proposed use of eminent domain by Kinder Morgan, the company responsible for the construction of the pipeline. Employing eminent domain could save millions of dollars for Kinder Morgan, removing the need to negotiate with individual landowners. This basically means landowners' properties would be assessed for a certain value (usually quite low). Kinder Morgan would pay the property owners to get the right of way to build the pipeline. However, this leaves the landowner, who still technically owns their property, to pay taxes on land they could no longer use. This didn't sit well for many of the people we met.
Eminent domain is typically used for large public works projects, such as highways or power lines, and the proposed use by a private company enraged many local landowners and motivated them to fight for the protection of their land and water.
Meeting these people and understanding their fight has greatly widened my understanding of why people care about rivers. Having grown up paddling and guiding on rivers around the country, I hold them in high regard for an entirely different set of reasons than my new red-white-and-blue Georgia and South Carolina friends. Despite the different routes to this passion, the end result is the same, people wanting to protect the integrity of their rivers.
In early 2016, government officials reasoned that eminent domain couldn't be used because there wasn't a significant public benefit to the additional gas it could provide. The Savannah River will run a little freer thanks to the hard work of an unlikely group of advocates crossing political and demographic boundaries to protect the water and the land.
The Water Is for Fighting project, funded in part by a National Geographic Young Explorer Grant, documents the challenges facing our nation's freshwater resources. Corey Robinson is collecting these stories through film, still pictures and words. Check back next week for the third of a four-part series of documentary videos about the project.
Follow along with @coreyrobinson #w4f2015
Visit Corey's Website
“Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting.”
In the 1980s, I remember that many scientists feared that ozone depletion was irreversible and the headlines in many newspapers declared that nations were powerless to stem the growing loss of ozone - the great hole in the ozone that threatened us all. But the Montreal Protocol proved that the pessimists and the naysayers were wrong. Virtually all the parties have met their obligations under the accord. Nearly 100 of the most ozone-depleting substances have been phased out. And as a result, the hole in the ozone is shrinking and on its way to repair. It's why we're here today... Now, that's the good news. The bad news is that in too many cases, the substances banned by the Montreal Protocol have been replaced by hydrofluorocarbons - HFCs - which are safer for ozone, but are exceptionally potent drivers of climate change - thousands of times more potent, for example, than CO2.
The Montreal treaty allows nations to amend it to ban substitute chemicals that have negative environmental effects even if they do not harm the ozone. And American chemical companies such as Dow, DuPont and Honeywell have already begun to patent climate-friendly HFC substitutes.
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OPM Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: That state of cognitive dissonance Lawyers.com Blog (blog) For all other species, even a momentary state of unawareness can mean death. Predators seek the narrow window of advantage; that is the evolutionary determinism which propagates death, and shows mercy of life for those who close all such seams of ... and more » |