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Scaling Positive Impact - 'ApHRICA' to Revolutionize Understanding of Ocean Acidification  

By Matthew Mulrennan

The Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOAON) with approximate locations for 'ApHRICA', a pilot project to deploy ocean pH sensors in South Africa, Mozambique, the Seychelles, and Mauritius for the first time. This project is a public-private partnership to fill in gaps for ocean acidification research in East Africa involving the U.S. Department of State, the Ocean Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, Schmidt Marine Technology Partners, and the XPRIZE Foundation and various research institutions.

This week kicks off a groundbreaking workshop and pilot project to install cutting-edge ocean sensors in Mauritius, Mozambique, the Seychelles and South Africa to study ocean acidification in East Africa for the first time. The project is actually called "OceAn pH Research Integration and Collaboration in Africa - ApHRICA". Workshop speakers include the White House Science Envoy for Ocean, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Dr. Roshan Ramessur at the University of Mauritius, and ocean sensor trainers and scientists Dr. Andrew Dickson of UCSD, Dr. Sam Dupont of University of Gothenburg, and James Beck, CEO of Sunburst Sensors.

ApHRICA has been years in the making, starting with developing ocean pH sensor tools, engaging leading experts, and raising the funds to bring passionate people and new technologies together to take action, and fill much-needed ocean data gaps. Last July, XPRIZE awarded the $2 million Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE, a prize competition for developing breakthrough ocean pH sensors to improve understanding of ocean acidification. One year later, the winning team Sunburst Sensors, a small company in Missoula, Montana, is providing their 'iSAMI' ocean pH sensor for this project. The iSAMI was chosen due to its unprecedented affordability, accuracy and ease of use.

James Beck, CEO of Sunburst Sensors states, "Sunburst Sensors is both proud and excited to be working in this effort to expand the monitoring of ocean acidification to nations of Africa and eventually, we hope, around the globe."

James Beck, CEO of Sunburst Sensors with the iSAMI (right) and tSAMI (left), the two winning ocean pH sensors of the $2 million Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE. The iSAMI is an easy-to-use, accurate and affordable ocean pH sensor, which will be deployed in ApHRICA.

The Indian Ocean is an ideal location for this pilot project not only because it has long been a notorious mystery for oceanographers, but long-term monitoring of ocean conditions is also lacking in many regions of East Africa. ApHRICA will strengthen the resiliency of coastal communities, improve oceanographic collaboration in the region, and the data will contribute significantly to the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOAON) to improve understanding and response to ocean acidification.

Mark J. Spalding, President of The Ocean Foundation, is a crucial partner on the project. Spalding says, "community food resources are being threatened by ocean acidification. This workshop is a critical step in increasing coverage for our network to forecast ocean acidification, especially in a place like East Africa that has a strong reliance on marine resources, but currently lacks the capacity to measure the status and progress of ocean acidification in the open ocean, coastal ocean and estuarine areas."

Each day, emissions from cars, planes and power plants add millions of tons of carbon into the ocean. As a result, the ocean's acidity has increased 30% since the Industrial Revolution. The rate of this ocean acidification event is likely unparalleled in Earth's history. The rapid changes in ocean acidity are causing an 'osteoporosis of the sea', increasingly harming marine life like plankton, oysters, and corals that make shells or skeletons from calcium carbonate.

Dr. Roshan Ramessur, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Mauritius, who is coordinating the training workshop believes, "this is an exciting project for us because it will allow us to build capacity in our countries for monitoring and understanding ocean acidification. The new sensors will allow us to contribute to a global network; something we haven't been able to do before. This is groundbreaking because regional capacity to study this problem is foundational for ensuring our food security futures."

We know ocean acidification is a threat to marine biodiversity, coastal communities and the global economy, but we still need vital information about these changes in ocean chemistry including where it's happening, to what extent and its impacts. We need to urgently scale ocean acidification research to more countries and regions around the world from the Coral Triangle to Latin America to the Arctic. The time to act on ocean acidification is now, and ApHRICA will light a spark that makes this invaluable research grow exponentially.

---

Matthew Mulrennan is the lead of the Ocean Initiative at XPRIZE - a commitment to conduct five ocean XPRIZE competitions, and put us on a path to making the ocean healthy, valued and understood.

Visit XPRIZE at xprize.org; follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+; and get our newsletter to stay informed.

-- 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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r0B0t: Philae to be switched off and die after hopeful little Rosetta lander goes quiet - The Independent  

The Independent

Philae to be switched off and die after hopeful little Rosetta lander goes quiet The Independent The little spacecraft that became a symbol for humanity's hopefulness and ingenuity is going to be given up on because it has gone silent. The Philae lander dropped onto a comet as part of the Rosetta mission, landing there at the end of 2014. It was a ... Let's all say goodbye to the Philae comet lander, which we'll never hear from againThe Verge This Space-Exploring Robot Tweeted a Heartbreaking GoodbyeTIME Say Goodbye to the Philae Comet LanderPopular Mechanics Astronomy Magazine -New Scientist -Motherboard -ScienceBlog.com (blog) all 10 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: Google wants to improve artificial intelligence to prevent robot screw-ups - Recode  

Digital Trends

Google wants to improve artificial intelligence to prevent robot screw-ups Recode More and more artificial intelligence will soon enter our lives. And Google would very much like its AI systems to be front and center. That's why the company is putting resources into making sure AI systems don't go off the rails. Last month, Google ... Google wants to improve AI today to prevent robot screw-ups tomorrowDigital Trends all 2 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: Tesla's Master Plan 2.0: AI experts, auto insiders, and Tesla customers weigh in - TechRepublic  

TechRepublic

Tesla's Master Plan 2.0: AI experts, auto insiders, and Tesla customers weigh in TechRepublic Smith also wonders if Tesla will "explore micro-trucks, delivery robots, and other forms of more localized (and necessarily automated) shipping," not to mention drones. He also said he "wonder[s] how Tesla will play in the digital world. For example ... and more »

 
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Flying Around the World in a Solar Powered Plane (28 photos)  

The journey took a very long time—505 days to fly 26,000 miles (42,000 km) at an average speed of about 45 mph (70 kph)—but pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg successfully landed the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, after flying around the world using only the power of the Sun. Solar Impulse 2 is a solar-powered aircraft equipped with more than 17,000 solar cells that weighs only 2.4 tons with a wingspan of 235 ft (72 m). Technical challenges, poor flying conditions, and a delicate aircraft all contributed to the slow pace. Gathered here are images from the record-setting circumnavigation, undertaken to help focus the world's efforts to develop renewable energy sources.

 
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Skyline up the River Thames, London  

gbuckingham89 posted a photo:

 
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Twisty Thames...  

Charlie_Joe posted a photo:

London from The Shard at sunset.


Hi-Res: 500px.com/photo/164954015/


| Facebook | Instagram | 500px | Google+ | Twitter |

 
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New species of beaked whale confirmed by DNA  
Biologists have identified a rare new species of beaked whale that ranges from northern Japan across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska's Aleutian Islands.  
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Newly discovered virus a prime suspect in often-fatal beak disorder spreading among birds  
Scientists have identified a novel virus -- 'Poecivirus' -- that has been linked to avian keratin disorder (AKD), a disease responsible for debilitating beak overgrowth and whose cause has remained elusive despite more than a decade of research. This new virus is being investigated as a potential cause of AKD and represents a critical step in understanding the emergence of this disease in wild bird populations around the world.  
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Sexual rivalry may drive frog reproductive behaviors  
Biologists have long thought that some frogs evolved to mate on land instead of in water to better guard eggs and tadpoles from predation. New research now suggests that mating on land in many species might be a strategy male frogs use to ensure that their own DNA gets passed on, instead of their rivals'. Sexual selection may trump natural selection in the evolution of these reproductive behaviors.  
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Deepest-ever reef survey by divers discovers new fish species  
Two marine biologists beat the record for the deepest underwater survey carried out by human divers, investigating a little-studied ecosystem full of new species  
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Towards smarter crop plants to feed the world  
Plant scientists have made an important advance in understanding the natural diversity of a key plant enzyme which could help us address the looming threat of global food security.  
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NASA Cuts Feed!  



I have spent much time in postings discussing the anomalous objects seen on the International Space Station feeds and I think its time to put it into an article so I can stop repeating myself. I have been asked to analyze many such images and video so I want to clarify some information about these feeds before addressing the objects seen on the feeds.

It seems that any article on the feeds from the ISS inevitably start with "NASA Cuts Feed! ..." or something similar. This points out how little people who write such garbage actually know. The feeds are not "CUT" as if they are hiding something. If you are reading this article because the title grabbed you then congratulations. You were the victim of needless sensationalism. Sensationalism with a point for once.

The feeds are transmitted to the ground from the ISS of course. The ISS is moving at over 17000 mph in orbit and the orbit changes slightly with each pass such that the station doesnt go over the same spot with each successive orbit. The ground stations and satellites that relay the signal are occasionally out of range. The coverage network has all kinds of Swiss cheese holes in it where the coverage momentarily drops out or is lost.

Having watched these feeds for two years now almost daily I have come to be able to predict when they will go down based on the known holes in the feeds' groundstation network. I can usually tell where the ISS is roughly located by simply seeing if the feed is UP. Then consulting a sat mapper I can confirm that no it wasnt over Iran but over the Southern Indian Ocean for example. Both locations among others are known 'holes' in the feed.

Here is the point: If NASA were cutting feeds at "critical times" as many articles dramatically claim, then WHY would we EVER see feeds from space that are live? Why would "NASA" ever take that chance? This is a simple "Oh yea...." moment you should be feeling right now. If UFOs were always seen in orbit as a matter of course, then "NASA", if intent on keeping it from us, would NEVER have allowed a live feed that could catch such an activity in the act of happening.

Speaking of NASA, the other very important point that the conspiracy folks like to ignore is that the ISS crew is an INTERNATIONAL crew consisting of Japanese, Russian, and American astronauts. the ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Space Agency) and Roscosmos (Russian Federal space agency) would all have to fully agree to such a coverup. And lets not leave out all the folks in DLR (German Space Agency) and the University of Bonn who are using the High Definition Earth Viewing Experiment (HDEV) data for their purposes. What is perplexing to those of us who remain logical about this is that the Russians are the ones from whom we have always traditionally wished to hide our technology from and a visit from a wayward alien in an UFO would certainly be one of those hidden items.

Further, the feeds are not all managed by NASA. The downlinked feeds are picked up by hundreds of locations around the world and processed or passed on by many people who would ALSO have to be in on the big secret. Jet Propulsion laboratory, JAXA, Roscosmos, and a large international team of monitoring staff watch the feeds all day and all night when they are up. Saying "NASA Cuts the Feed!" is embarrassingly ignorant and short sighted of those who report such. It shows all at once the incredible LACK of knowledge on the part of the reporting organization. I guess we can call it sheer ignorance right?

You can routinely hear Russian controllers talking to Russian crew members on the station The more you look at it the more sinister of a coverup it has to become for the conspiracy for to work. It approaches absolute nonsense at some point. Why hide a secret UFO visiting the ISS? Well if it was a strictly NASA station it would make more sense unlikely as it would be. In such a case the USA would remain in control and in communication with an alien species that no other nation has access to.

But that is NOT the case on the ISS considering its INTERNATIONAL nature... (The "I" in ISS remember) So NOW what is the reason that several countries would hide the technology? If you try to argue that they want it for themselves, it falls completely flat. By default the Russians, Japanese, and Americans would have it... There IS NO OTHER space faring people of substance right now. The Chinese Tiangong station is the equivalent of our 1970s vintage Skylab, and here is no other contender at the moment. We are the only ones with the Russians and Japanese. So what benefit would hiding a UFO visit to the ISS generate? NONE.

I would caution against the urge to play the "world panic" card too because an alien presence on Earth would probably generate peace between warring nations not war or panic. It would be a comfort to most people on Earth to know there was a race that has been visiting us for a long time and now making contact.

It would be CELEBRATED not FEARED.

On the tech side we can easily figure out what we are seeing on the feeds. This includes a number of astronomical objects that are visible in the live video from the ISS. One such object is of course the Moon. The Moon as on Earth shows up day or night. Now night on the ISS is simply being on the backside of the Earth from the Sun. Astronauts are treated to 15 sunrises and sunsets per 24 hour period. An easy test to determine if an object is astronomical in nature or otherwise is to calculate how long it takes to move from place to place and determine which direction it is heading.

One recent sensationalist article that went around the world claimed that an object appeared to be entering the Earth's atmosphere as seen from an ISS feed... And oh yes, "NASA Cuts Feed!" of course. The object was none other than the Moon setting as seen from the ISS and a simple calculation showed the object just happened to be setting at the same rate that the station was moving around the Earth. A remarkable coincidence wouldnt you say?

But it is not just the Moon that can be seen on the feeds. Bright stars and Venus show up plenty of times. On Earth during daylight the Moon is a familiar visible object to most people besides the Sun of course. Keen eyes can spot Venus if you know where to look. On the ISS however, Sun or no Sun, astronomical objects can be seen. There are no Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules in a sky to scatter the blue light from the Sun in a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering. This molecular content is the reason we have a blue sky on Earth and the corresponding lack of molecular content on orbit is the reason that the "sky" that the astronauts see is always black.

Lets look at an example that is related to one that I analyzed for this upcoming season of NASA's Unexplained Files. It was called out as an anomaly near the station in the sky seen around the ISS and of course the notion that the "feed was cut" was trotted out because that adds drama. But here is that image:



Looks interesting doesnt it? But, to borrow their own conspiratorial language, what you DIDNT get to see and what the authors of the many articles didnt want you to know was that moments later the image looked like THIS:



Here we can clearly see that it is just an artifact from the bright rising Sun hitting the clear camera cover on the UStream Live ISS feed. You can see many other artifacts as well and this is due to particles that are floating around in space that adhere to the window or due to micrometeorite strikes that pit the glass covering the cameras. So read the articles if you must, provide click income to the purveyors if you want, but see these artifacts for yourself and watch them come and go like clockwork with every rise and set of the Sun as seen from the ISS.

You can follow the ISS via http://www.isstracker.com/ or UStream's live ISS view or looking up the live feeds for the High Definition Experiment (HDEV) ... Be informed!

See you next time!

-- 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 Sniff Test For Alzheimer's Checks For The Ability To Identify Odors  

New research suggests it may be possible to spot people in the early stages of Alzheimer's by testing their ability to recognize fragrances. The goal is a quick and inexpensive screening test.

 
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Cognitive Dissonance Among Elected Climate Alarmists - Global Warming (blog)  

Cognitive Dissonance Among Elected Climate Alarmists Global Warming (blog) “Democrats don't alienate, isolate, exclude or demonize; and we don't manufacture fear.” —California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, 25th July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ...

 
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Discord Among Democrats in Philadelphia  

Hillary Clinton continues to divide democrats—and nowhere has that been more obvious than at the Democratic National Convention. What will happen to all those who cried “Bernie or Bust”? The Atlantic's Vann R. Newkirk II is on the ground, asking attendees about their opinions and their future votes.

 
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'What If?': Daily Life in the Face of Terror  
When fears of terrorism creep into daily life, it changes a person. Once that feeling of security is lost, the improbable suddenly seems possible -- and that's how terrorism works. It depends on people losing sight of those odds.  
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I wanna explore the WHOLE world  

marco18678 posted a photo:

 
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Dolly the sheep's poor health may not have been due to cloning  
Four sheep cloned from the same animal as Dolly are all in good health at the age of 9, suggesting Dolly's osteoarthritis may not have been caused by cloning  
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Invasive garden 'super ants' take hold faster than ever in UK, new research finds  
Three new infestations of an invasive garden ant - known for building massive colonies of tens of thousands of insects - have been found in the UK this year, with researchers warning their impact on biodiversity could be huge. First discovered in 2009, there are now a total of six known UK infestations of the Lasius neglectus which thrive in greenhouses and domestic gardens. Originating from Asia, they are likely to have arrived in the UK through the import of plants from infected areas.  
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r0B0t: BBC to reboot game-powered TV show 'Time Commanders'  
Ready for some more BBC nostalgia? Following the carnage of last weekend's Robot Wars (a great reboot, in my opinion) the broadcaster is turning its attention to Time Commanders. The game show, which simulated historical battles, originally aired on...  
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r0B0t: ICYMI: Better 3D viewing and your new robot gardener  
Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT developed a 3D projector system for movies that could get rid of 3D theater glasses altogether. An automated farming machine can plant, water and maintain the garden in your backyard with hardly any effort on y...  
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Five Ways to Optimize Your Workspace for Productivity  

Few things affect our productivity as much as what we surround ourselves with. Yet most of us rarely take the time to step back and really analyze our working environment. Instead, we take a ‘set it and forget it' approach to where we work.

This post originally appeared on the Crew blog.

We go to the same office, the same coffee shop, the same co-working space and try to force ourselves into a productive flow. Because we spend so much of our lives working, why not try to make the place we work the best it possibly can be?

Whether you're at home, in a shared space, or hanging out a coffee shop there are quick and easy fixes to help make your work space work for you.

Why Our Environment Matters (Even When We Don't Notice)

You may think that you've got a good set up, but read into the ways that our surroundings affect us on a subconscious level and you'll start to feel pretty uneasy about your environment.

Studies have shown how our working habits, both good and bad, are often related to some sort of external trigger or cue, which researchers are increasingly tying to our surroundings. We visit the same places, work at the same desk, and are constantly surrounded by the same influencing factors.

Which is great, right? Find a good working environment and you'll be forced into a state of flow. But unfortunately, like most things to do with how our brains work, there's so much more beneath the surface.

As we evolved, our subconscious brain has been trained to keep us safe, even when we don't realize it. When we're under threat we need to make decisions quickly, which our brain does through something called ‘thin slicing'. This means it takes one small element of reality and generalizes it, and from that it will determine what behavior to adopt.

So those triggers and cues in your workspace aren't just affecting you in a way you can consciously comprehend, they're changing the way your subconscious brain thinks and acts.

Don't believe me? Here are some studies that show just how ridiculously powerful our environment is in changing the way we think and act:

• Students holding a hot cup of coffee for a few seconds before being asked to judge a hypothetical person, were more likely to describe them as warm and friendly than those holding an iced coffee
• People will behave more competitively if there's a briefcase in sight—or even if there's a picture of a briefcase on the wall. And this happens even when people have no conscious memory of having seen the briefcase afterwards.
• If you talk to someone who consistently uses words like down, depressed, low, pointless, and disappointed you're likely to feel the same way
• Even the subtle aroma of cleaning liquid in the air causes people to be perceptibly cleaner and tidier than usual

So how do we create an environment that's optimal for making us feel the way we want to during the working day: motivated, productive, and creative?

Kill the Clutter Before It Kills You

There is a long history of creatives and thinkers with cluttered desks. As Albert Einstein once so eloquently put it:

“If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

However, whether it's your closet or office desk, excess things in your surroundings can have a negative impact on your ability to focus and process information.

That's exactly what neuroscientists at Princeton University found when they looked at people's task performance in an organized versus disorganized environment. The results of the study showed that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

A team of UCLA researchers recently observed 32 Los Angeles families and found that all of the mothers' stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings.

Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively.

However, it's not as easy as just getting rid of the excess things in your life. We don't create clutter simply through laziness or being unorganized, it literally hurts your brain to give them up. Researchers at Yale recently identified that two areas in your brain associated with pain, the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, light up with activity in response to letting go of items you own and feel a connection towards. This is the same area of the brain that lights up when you feel physical pain from a paper cut or drinking coffee that's too hot.

Your brain views the loss of one of your valued possessions the same as something that causes you physical pain.

So what do we do to reduce the stress of clutter?

• Apply constraints: Whether it's Twitter followers, tabs open in your browser, notebooks, or magazines, setting hard limitations and sticking to them is the best way to stop accumulating more.
• Use small storage spaces: Parkinson's Law says we fill the time we have available to us, and the same could be said about clutter. Less room means less room for clutter.
• Conduct a monthly review of your space: Set time aside to clean, sort, and discard every single month.
• Set up a daily cleanse routine: Crew CEO Mikael suggests cleaning your desktop at the end of every workday so to-do items don't linger and you've got a clean slate to start with the next day

Find Places That Inspire You

There's a reason we feel inspired by large spaces or refreshed from sitting by the window. Apart from a heavy dose of Vitamin D, architecture can have a huge impact on our productivity.

Author James Clear gives the example of researcher Jonas Salk, who, after spending years trying to discover the cure for the polio epidemic ravaging the US in the 50s, travelled to the quiet hills of central Italy where he stayed at a 13th-century Franciscan monastery known as the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi.

The space changed the way he thought:

“The spirituality of the architecture there was so inspiring that I was able to do intuitive thinking far beyond any I had done in the past. Under the influence of that historic place I intuitively designed the research that I felt would result in a vaccine for polio. I returned to my laboratory in Pittsburgh to validate my concepts and found that they were correct.”

Jonas' example is just one of many.

It's been long known that schools with more natural light provide a better learning environment for students and test scores often go up as a result. And natural light and fresh air are known to stimulate productivity in the workplace as well.

You might not be in a position to choose your workspace, but there are quick fixes: look for a spot with natural light from a window or skylight, take a walk outside when you feel stuck, or simply explore a new location.

A new environment can quite literally lead to new ideas. And what's even more exciting is that studies have shown it's actually easier to build new habits in new places.

Use Different Places for Different Places of Mind

We know that different locations will affect us, so why not use that to our advantage? Our brains love habits, and if we can associate certain qualities with different places, it can help us get into a better working flow. This is called ‘task association', where your brain knows that when you're in a certain place, you're taking a certain action.

Writer Gregory Ciotti gives one great example of how he forces himself into a better working flow just by changing the device he's using. In his example, he's trained his brain to know that when he's at his desktop it's time for deep writing like articles. The laptop is for more shallow work like emails or informal posts. And lastly, the tablet is for reading only.

This technique is so powerful it's even been used to help treat people with insomnia by telling them to only go into their bedroom if they're actually tired. If sleep isn't achieved in a reasonable amount of time, they were instructed to leave and move onto another task until they were tired again.

If you can set up multiple workspaces for different tasks you'll also be able to force your mind into a certain flow, just by physically being somewhere.

A great example of this is writer and artist Austin Kleon who keeps two desks setup in his space: an ‘analog' desk filled with paper, pens, and markers; and a ‘digital' desk with laptop and tablet. Idea creation and ‘playing' takes place on only the analog desk, while shaping, editing, and publishing is in the digital domain.

Set Yourself Up for Success

We may think we have the willpower and control to push through harder tasks, but deep down we're all lazy. But it's not entirely our fault. Our brains have been taught to conserve energy at all costs and make subconscious decisions for us based entirely on how hard or easy it is. So if you want to create a workspace that's productive, focus on making it easier to do the things you want to do, and harder to do the tasks you don't.

Stanford professor and psychologist BJ Fogg calls this ‘designing for laziness'.

Sometimes it's as easy as turning your phone off and putting it in a drawer so every time you're tempted to check it you have to go through a lengthy process, while other times it might mean unplugging your TV and putting it in the closet.

One technique I've used lately is to close all of my tabs in my browser at the end of the day (a hellish chore for any writer), leaving only my most important task open. The next day, the easiest choice is just to keep working on whatever was left from the day before.

I'm certainly not the first person to use this technique. Even Hemingway used to stop writing mid-sentence so that he always knew where to pick up the next day.

Curate Your Senses

Beyond the physical layout and mental associations of your space, there are some auxiliary things you can also control. The sounds around you and the music you listen to can have a huge impact on your productivity.

We've written about the power of music and how to find the right track for the right task before, but it's important to note that certain sounds can be incredibly harmful to how you work. Studies show that of all things, intermittent speech—hearing small snippets of conversation—can have an incredibly negative impact on your ability to concentrate.

One meta-analysis examined 242 studies of the ways noise affects performance, and found that when it came to performing cognitive tasks—like staying attentive, reading and processing text, and working with numbers—performance was more affected by intermittent speech than by either continuous speech (which would have little variation in volume and rhythm) or non-speech noise. Bad news for those of us in shared spaces or offices.

There are options though. If you can't find a spot that's silent, noise cancelling headphones or music that drowns out speech can help regain that focus.

When it comes to nature versus nurture in how we work, nurture almost always come out on top. The habits we've formed and the triggers we surround ourselves with can have a huge impact on the quality of work we do and how much we get done in a day.

But with a bit of mindfulness and tweaking we can create the kind of space that helps us get into flow quickly and more often.

5 Ways to Hack Your Workspace for Productivity | Crew

Jory MacKay is the editor of the Crew blog. Crew is a creative marketplace connecting mobile & web projects with vetted, handpicked developers and designers. Creativity is the lifeblood of your business. Want to learn to become the best version of you? Click here to join the thousands of makers and entrepreneurs who get our weekly email on boosting your creativity and productivity.

Top image by Anna de la Cruz (Shutterstock).

 
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