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Rick Fedrizzi: My America is Already Great  
This controversy that's been injected into the country's discourse about "Making America Great Again" drives me nuts.

Does that mean that America is...

Read more: Rick Fedrizzi, Usgbc, U.S. Green Building Council, Sustainability, Green Building, Environment, Business News

 
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Don't want to vote for Clinton or Trump? How about this woman who says Wi-Fi melts kids' brains?  

Jill Stein joins the presidential farce

According to a recent poll, just 10 per cent of Americans are excited about voting for either of the two political parties' presidential candidates in November.…

 
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Photos of the Day: Aug. 2, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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Team Refugee Ready for Rio Olympics (21 photos)  

Last year, the United Nations estimated there were more than 21 million refugees scattered across the globe—a level unseen since World War II. As the 2016 Olympic games approached, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach saw an opportunity to focus global attention on the crisis, and to give some of the athletes among this huge stateless population a chance to compete on the world stage. The IOC selected a group of 10 refugee athletes from South Sudan, Syria, Congo and Ethiopia to compete for the newly-formed Refugee Olympic Team. During the Opening Ceremony, the team will march into the stadium carrying the Olympic flag.

 
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Palace of Westminster, London  

Slice105 posted a photo:

Moody sunset picture of the houses of parliament, taken from the embankment.

 
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Untitled by Dora  

Untitled by Dora

Dora: Photos

 
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Terror in Germany: How Close Were Attackers' Links to the Islamic State?  
The attackers in Ansbach and Würzburg lived inconspicuously in Germany for months. Evidence is mounting to suggest that when they did act, they acted on instructions from the Islamic State.  
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fdaniel-moss%2Ffixing-nature-for-healthy_b_11278688.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Fixing Nature For Healthy Drinking Water: It's Not Cheap!  
When a relentless sun parches the landscape and dries water sources to a dangerous and unhealthy trickle, who's supposed to pay the repair bill? It's not so much the water bill itself that's the trouble - most people will pay a fair price for good quality water if they can afford it - it's the cost of fixing a broken watershed. Drinkable water was once an inalienable right on planet earth; now there's talk of "payments for environmental services" (PES) through which ordinary citizens may have to pay to get rivers flowing and aquifers gurgling. That sounds awfully expensive for the average household.

Only a small fraction of Mexico City's 21 million residents, and indeed the country's 120 million, receive uninterrupted water from the tap that they can confidently drink. Working for the National Forest Commission of Mexico, CONAFOR, Joaquin Saldaña spends his days (and many nights) figuring out how to finance the rehabilitation of Mexico's failing watersheds which diminish the quality and quantity of water to households across the nation. He tries to keep his piercing green eyes focused beyond the droughts, floods and politics to a far horizon where healthy ecosystems and healthy rural economies can deliver healthy water.

Joaquin has persisted at his job over many election cycles, observing that environmental conservation programs are, not surprisingly, sensitive to political whims and decisions. Having seen weak reforestation programs, he knows it's not just a matter of throwing money at the problem. His forestry team drives cautiously down steep mountain roads during field monitoring missions - brushing up with more than a few narco-traffickers - to identify projects and investigate whether funded strategies are actually nursing ecosystems back to health. The team is trained in forestry, but equally fluent in anthropology, hydrology and community organizing.

Joaquin's Matching Funds program borrows a page from Economics Nobel Prize Winner, Elinor Ostrom by enlisting local users and providers of environmental services in co-managing shared water and land resources. Communal property owners (ejidos) and private landowners who steward ecosystems are considered ecosystem services providers - in this case, providing clean and abundant water - while a beer company, a municipality or a water utility operator - those who can compensate the providers - are users. Rural communities in ecologically-sensitive zones can receive a federal grant when they match it with local funds. Joaquin's program has a redistributive bent, with federal monies flowing to poor rural areas. Funds can be to used to restore watersheds and care for natural resources - for example through soil conservation, sustainable forestry and water source protection - which have the added benefit of shoring up a bleeding countryside that in recent decades has sent millions of displaced farmers to the U.S. The urban areas, wealthier than their rural counterparts, pay a greater share into this payment for environmental service program and benefit by safeguarding their distant water supplies. The program strengthens a critical link between cities and rural communities.


The water crisis is making headlines - long overdue from Saldaña's perspective - from Mexico City to Flint, Michigan. The idea of payment for environmental services dates back at least as far as the Dust Bowl, when the United States Department of Agriculture offered soil conservation incentives to farmers to restore blown-away croplands. The wonkish term captures two big ideas: 1) Regulations and enforcement are only part of the solution; property owners and businesses need carrots - the sweeter the better - to motivate their watershed-friendly land and water use; and, 2) The human communities that steward ecosystems, for example, ensuring that forests recharge groundwater, ought to be incentivized and recognized as providing a public service. Also known as compensation for ecosystem services, payment for environmental service programs are gaining traction, occasionally written into public policies.

One program model that caught Joaquin's eye is that of New York City. When Joaquin met Albert Appleton at a learning exchange among U.S. and Latin American fresh water advocates, Joaquin was keen to learn how the public water utility of that giant city made payments upstream. Appleton, the architect of New York City's program, described to him how, over 20 years, the water authority transferred over a billion and a half dollars of urban customers' money to the Watershed Agricultural Council and the Catskill Development Corporation. Those funds were invested in farm improvements and town sewage facilities that kept effluents out of New York City's water supply, helped the rural economy, and enabled the city to avoid having to build a $6 billion treatment plant. The upstream spending is written into the water utility's operating budget, a stable resource base Joaquin yearns for.

The New York City case works, however, because of Environmental Protection Agency regulations and legislation like the Safe Water Drinking Act - public policy tools and enforcement capacity that Joaquin doesn't have to work with. Big stick regulation loomed large for upstate NY farmers, providing a strong incentive to clean up their act - literally. Application of those sanctions is spotty and fraught in Mexico - and has deteriorated in the U.S. as well.

In the 1970s, Richard Nixon reluctantly signed into law the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, setting in motion the heyday of environmental enforcement, paid for by polluters and taxpayers alike. Those regulations hurt - as was intended - leading the companies that spoiled the commons to fight back. From Reagan on, many regulatory agencies were dismantled or weakened. Even under Obama, enforcement remains under-resourced, evident in water disasters in Toledo, Charleston, and most tragically, in Flint. With thousands of cities around the world receiving lousy water quality ratings, payments for environmental services have grown in popularity as a possible way to improve quality without necessarily strengthening regulations.

One PES strategy garnering considerable attention is water funds. Monies are collected to invest in upstream watershed rehabilitation, whether it be to purchase conservation land or compensate landowners to preserve ecosystems. Joaquin collaborates with some of these funds in Saltillo, Coatepec and Monterey, among other places. These funds ask everyday water consumers to voluntarily pitch in to protect watersheds or in some cases, to pay a nominal environmental tax added to a water bill. Corona or Coca Cola might also be willing to make a tax deductible contribution for watershed recovery to safeguard its business' primary material and demonstrate social responsibility.

The idea is for stakeholders, public and private, to mobilize money and in some cases seek agreement on water extraction and land use rules. Many funds are led by non-governmental organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and have contributed significantly to public education on water conservation and watershed restoration. But Joaquin has also seen their limitations. Funds raised can't achieve the scale of necessarily gigantic watershed recovery efforts. The environmental tax can be regressive for poor households that have a hard time paying even basic water bills. Water concessions - which may privilege water to mines and export crops over people - are not consistently challenged. How to buttress regulations and enforcement is rarely addressed. Without this advocacy, the U.N. ratified human right to water may be vulnerable.

Climate change and ongoing water mismanagement spell big trouble for the health of our planet's water sources. The more they deteriorate, the higher the price tag to get those natural systems once again pumping out healthy water. With the unfolding water crisis causing an increasing number of public health and human rights catastrophes, conflicting proposals - sometimes visionary, sometimes false - will be floated about where the money should come from to fix the problem. For the average person, and even the so-called expert, it won't always be easy to distinguish which is which.

Joaquin will be a good person to watch. His main job will be ensuring that CONAFOR's Matching Funds program stays flush. But he'll also fix his eyes on the broader context, the enabling factors that make or break a fair and effective PES program. Joaquin will continue to marshal public dollars from multiple sources - even as he turns grey battling politicians; encourage mayors, community councils and public water utility companies to step up as leaders in governing and managing their water, insist on measurable results from conservation work and remind us to invest in regulatory structures that uphold water and land use laws. When watershed protection efforts subscribe to these basic principles, we may all have a shot at drinking clean water from our taps.

-- 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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White House Announces EV Initiative To Promote Charging Choice  
The White House has announced a new public-private initiative to accelerate electric vehicle (EV) charging in the US. The plan includes up to $4.5 billion in loan guarantees for charging infrastructure, a call on states and cities to procure electric fleets, a new guide for financing EVs and charging stations, and even plans for an EV hackathon.

At the center of this announcement is a list of guiding principles for EV charging, signed by nearly 50 diverse organizations, including automakers, charging station companies like ChargePoint, and utilities. The principles reflect policy discussions that are already underway in legislatures and commissioners around the country: what more can be done to promote transportation electrification and expand access to EVs for all income levels?

Here are the guiding principles from the announcement:

• Drive the market transformation to electric vehicles by making it easy for consumers to charge their vehicles with grid-connected infrastructure that is accessible, affordable, available and reliable, and interconnected with other low-carbon transportation options where feasible.
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• Promote electric vehicle adoption by increasing access to charging infrastructure and supporting the development of plug-in electric vehicles that are as accessible, available, and convenient as gasoline-powered vehicles.
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• Promote a robust market for vehicle manufacturers, utilities, equipment service providers, and support industries that ensures a consistent user experience, customer choice, and allows for a streamlined permitting process.
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• Enhance American manufacturing competitiveness, innovation, and the development of advanced technology.
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• Attract and leverage private, State, and Federal investment in electric vehicle deployment, infrastructure, research and development, and education and outreach.
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• Enable smart charging and vehicle-grid integration through solutions such as demand response, and other energy storage and load management strategies.

Consensus around a national direction for EV charging could be a game changer. There is potential for these principles to be echoed in future legislation, in Commission orders exploring the role of utilities to invest in EV charging infrastructure, and in agreements between state and regional coalitions seeking to work together on transportation electrification.

For more information, read the White House statement 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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African ibis and South American coati among 37 on EU's kill list  
Europe's list of 37 species of invasive exotic plants and animals that should be banished from the continent comes into force on 3 August  
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Raccoon, mongoose and cabbage among invasive species banned from UK  

New EU regulation blacklists 37 non-native plant and animal species in a bid to tackle threats to native wildlife and economic losses

The north American raccoon, an Asian hornet and an American cabbage are among 37 invasive species that will be banned from being brought into the UK from Wednesday when a new EU regulation comes into effect.

The continent-wide rules now make it illegal to import, keep, breed or grow, transport, sell or use, or release into the environment without a permit the listed invasive, non-native plant and animal species. But the ban will no longer apply when then UK leaves the EU.

Related: EU clamps down on grey squirrels and other invasive wildlife

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r0B0t: Engadget giveaway: Win a LattePanda DIY kit courtesy of DFRobot!  
A caffeinated bear with coffee bean eyes is a catchy brand concept, and you'll no doubt want to grab a cup 'o joe for a long dig into this week's LattePanda giveaway package. DFRobot, your online home for expandable electronics and robotics kits, has...  
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r0B0t: ICYMI: Some robots independently sing, others help babies  
Today on In Case You Missed It: A new neural network robot in Japan can independently sing and move whenever it wants to. Researchers developed a robotic onesie for babies who may have cerebral palsy that helps make motor skills connections in th...  
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Can You Trust Yourself to Make Healthful Food Choices When You're Ordering on a Touchscreen?  

If you've eaten at a Chili's, Uno Pizzeria, or Applebee's in recent years, you might have encountered a touchscreen menu: a tablet from which you can select your order instead of talking to a server. Uno found that installing touchscreen menus in some restaurants pushed their dessert sales up by 30 percent, Planet Money reported last year. “One theory is that customers feel like waiters will judge them if they order dessert right after they've eaten a huge pizza,” said reporter Stacey Vanek Smith, whereas a machine won't judge them.

In a paper soon to be published in the Journal of Marketing Research, a trio of researchers offer an alternate explanation: Using touchscreens to select food makes us feel like we are actually reaching toward that food to grab it, which makes us more likely to select “affect-laden products” (like cheesecake) than “cognitively superior products” (like fruit salad). Hao Shen and Meng Zhang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Aradhna Krishna of the University of Michigan found that university students in Hong Kong were more likely to choose hypothetical junk food over hypothetical healthier options when they used a touchscreen than when they used a desktop computer with a mouse. Interestingly, the effect also held when the researchers compared touching a touchscreen to using a stylus on a touchscreen. It was the act of touching the screen that apparently triggered hedonistic choices, rather than the convenience or interface of the touchscreen.

A few caveats are necessary: The studies used a small sample size in each phase of the study, between 85 and 228 students. Some of the students participated for extra credit, and the others were paid the equivalent of $1.30, which means they might not have had much of an incentive to take the study seriously. And the effect of touching the touchscreen was not huge: 95 percent of people using a touchpad selected hypothetical cheesecake over hypothetical fruit salad, but so did 73 percent of people using a desktop computer. Yes, the touchscreen apparently lowered people's resistance to the cheesecake, but most people were going to choose cheesecake no matter what.

This isn't the first (or last) study to attempt to tease out how external factors can affect what and how much we eat. Think of all those studies on whether plate size affects consumption, or a recent study showing that people make healthier food choices when they eat under bright lights. These kinds of studies are useful for the food service industry, which can use findings like this to bolster sales of items with a high profit margin. (It's no coincidence that the researchers behind the touchscreen study are professors of marketing.) These studies are also useful for regulators who want to understand how food manufacturers and vendors exploit consumers' unconscious weaknesses. They're also arguably just plain interesting, even if their conclusions ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

But I worry that studies like this play into a larger cultural narrative—one that also gets pushed by the diet industry, often onto women—that people just can't trust themselves around food, that our instincts will lead us astray. A person who is concerned about his or her eating habits or weight might read about this study and conclude, “Oh god, I won't be able to control myself if I follow my gut; my intuition is trying to undermine me.” This is the harmful notion that underpins most eating disorders. It's self-evident that external factors affect what one eats, but that doesn't mean that eating healthfully requires rigidly counting every calorie so that you don't fall prey to touchscreens or big plates or dim lighting. People can trust your gut if they eat when they're hungry, stop eating when they're full, and pay attention to how different foods make them feel. If you're not used to eating intuitively, this is really hard, and even scary, at first—but once you get the hang of it, the possibility that a touchscreen might have a small influence on your order won't freak you out. And neither will the possibility that you might sometimes choose cheesecake over fruit salad.

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2016%2Faug%2F02%2Fpeter-pan-was-pioneering-work-of-child-psychology-claims-new-study&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Peter Pan was pioneering work of child psychology, claims new study  

JM Barrie's boy who never grew up shows the author understood key aspects of infant cognition decades ahead of academics, argues neuroscientist

JM Barrie might be most famous for his classic story of a flying boy who never grows up, but the author was also far ahead of his time when it came to cognitive psychology, according to a Cambridge academic who argues in a new book that the Peter Pan author's whimsical stories deliberately explore the nature of cognition.

Neuroscientist Rosalind Ridley, of Newnham College in Cambridge, claims in the just-published Peter Pan and the Mind of JM Barrie that the author's work identifies key stages of child development. One scene she spotlights in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, published in 1906, sees a girl giving a tearful Peter her handkerchief, which he is confused by. “So she showed him, that is to say she wiped her eyes, and then gave it back to him, saying: ‘Now you do it,' but instead of wiping his own eyes he wiped hers, and she thought it would be best to pretend that this is what she had meant,” writes Barrie.

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Seeking Climate Change Clues in Old Pollen and Mammoth Dung  
A talented young scientist explains how old mammoth dung and pollen grains help climate scientists.  
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Iowa City Climate Action Plan: Creating a Regenerative City in the Heartland  
In the face of the "rapid onset" of 1,000-year floods, as reported by Slate meteorologist Eric Holthaus on the recent deluge in Maryland and West Virginia, should flood-prone river towns like Iowa City pursue incremental and piecemeal sustainability efforts or take the lead in setting out a "regenerative city" climate action plan?

For numerous Iowa City advocates, experts and innovators, who have held public Ecopolis Forums over the past two years on regenerative city initiatives, it's time for Iowa City to rethink, re-evaluate and re-imagine the ways it deals with energy, food, transit and biodiversity restoration--and turn its recently passed Regenerative City Proclamation into a climate action plan.

Eight years after the historic Iowa River flood swamped the city and left behind an estimated $1 billion in area damages, the city of Iowa City is investing $60 million in raising a "gateway" transit route only one foot above the 100-year flood level, and planning to hire an outside facilitator for a newly formed Climate Change Task Force, in order to draw up recommendations for 2018 and build on its STAR sustainability rating. Iowa City earned a 40 out of 100 rating on key Climate and Energy STAR benchmarks.

An Iowa City climate action plan based on a regenerative city framework, which seeks to create a restorative relationship between cities, local habitat and natural resources, could include some of the following measures:

Bringing Climate Action to the Public Commons
From public art, such as the proposed solar tree by the 100 Grannies, to educational city showcases, such as solar panels on City Hall, pesticide-free signs posted on public commons, orchards planted on city-owned lots, or a Climate Action and Education Center in the Riverfront Park, Iowa City officials need to actively promote public events, workshops and community discussions on how climate action is "a central priority in strategic planning" and daily life, as declared in the Regenerative City Proclamation.

Urban planning must no longer be the exclusive domain of a handful of city staff and stakeholders, but a process for public participation that brings together policy makers, entrepreneurs and the civil society. Transparency is key to this component; for example, while the city of Iowa City solicited a power purchase agreement proposal for a solar energy installation on City Hall nearly two years ago, which included a zero down and zero incremental cost option over 30 years, the proposal was never discussed in public forums.

Climate Action Partnerships
A true Iowa City climate action plan must be developed with the University of Iowa, the Iowa City Community School District, the adjoining city of Coralville, and Johnson County.

Incubating Green Jobs and Green Business
As the home of the University of Iowa, Iowa City should establish green enterprise zones, provide support and assistance for green job clusters and start-ups, and set benchmarks to significantly expand the number of green jobs in the areas of energy efficiency, green building design and construction, local food and farming, technology and design.

Big Grove: Soil Carbon Sequestration Campaign
While Adelaide, Australia planted 3 million trees as part of its regenerative city initiative, Iowa City should work with its area partners to plant 400,000 trees over the next 4 years, led by the expertise of nationally acclaimed Iowa City farmer and permaculture expert Grant Schultz and Versaland, which recently released this video production on planting 10,000 trees:



Establish Riverfront Crossings District as an EcoDistrict
As a follow up to a recent ordinance mandating inclusionary zoning in the Riverfront Crossings District, which was devastated during 2008 flood, Iowa City should pass a similar series of ordinances for walkability measures, public transit and biking, and requirements for all new buildings to be carbon neutral or include geothermal and photovoltaic solar panels; built-in recycling and composting; integrated edible landscaping; and water infiltration features surrounded by food-bearing plants.

The proposed Riverfront Park, in a city with abundant opportunities for grass and shade trees, should be developed as a showcase for local food, biodiversity and river restoration education.

Net Zero Energy Buildings, Energy Efficiency and Solar Mandates
While Iowa City, like much of Iowa, receives 31% of its electricity from wind energy production, Iowa City should take the lead in promoting Net Zero Energy Building development, and adopt two goals: a requirement for 25 percent of municipal energy use and new building permits to be provided by on-site renewable energy (solar, geothermal) within 2020; and a 2030 Challenge requirement for all new buildings and existing innovation projects to be designed and built to meet energy efficiency standards of 70 percent below the regional average EUI for that building type.

Local Food: 40% by 2020
Given that Iowa City's community gardens can be counted on one hand, compared to Chicago's 800-plus urban farms, and roughly 90% of all food is imported, Iowa City must revamp antiquated zoning policies for urban farming, support the development of a food hub, provide financial assistance for local food business and community garden expenses, and require public and private institutions that receive funding from the City of Iowa City to purchase at a minimum of 40% of their food from local sources.

Similarly, a New Iowans Food and Farm Project could provide city-owned lots and assistance to the growing immigrant community with extensive agricultural backgrounds, such the as Sudanese community, who are actively looking to expand local food markets.

Zero Waste Ordinance
Building on Iowa City's excellent reycling and reuse endeavors, including forthcoming changes in mandatory apartment recycling, Iowa City should pass a Zero Waste Ordinance with the goal of generating new materials and compost from 85 percent of its waste by 2025.

Wheels and Walking: Transit
Iowa City is currently pursuing a goal to achieve a gold-level designation from the League of American Bicyclists. While 20% of commuters in the university town walk or bike, less than 10% opt for mass transit. Iowa City should continue to set walkability and bike-ability benchmarks, like Copenhagen, where 50% of all commute trips are made by bicycle, and bicycles outnumber residents, 560,000 bicycles to 520,000 inhabitants.

As the White House noted this spring, "climate change poses a serious danger to public health -- worse than polio in some respects -- and will strike especially hard at pregnant women, children, low-income people and communities of color."

It's time for cities, like Iowa City, to no longer delay on climate action. It's time for Iowa City to put its resources behind local innovators, overhaul old ordinances, and turn its Regenerative City Proclamation into an action plan.

-- 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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What's in a name? Tracing the origins of orangutan scientific names  
A team of scientists have undertaken detective work to trace the origin of the first orangutan specimen to be scientifically named Pongo pygmaeus. By tracing the history of the specimen as accurately as they can, the team have established Banjarmasin, in the Indonesian part of Borneo, as the most likely place of origin.  
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In 40 Years, Human Consumption Of Earth's Natural Resources Has More Than Tripled  
Limestone and steel for our homes, wheat and vegetables for our dinner, fossil fuels for our industries: we rely heavily on our planet's natural res...

Read more: Climate Change, United Nations, Environment, Consumption, Natural Resources, Green News

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fvideo%2Findex%2F493718%2Fthe-confidence-it-takes-to-be-a-female-boxing-gold-medalist%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfeed&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
The Confidence It Takes to Be a Female Boxing Gold Medalist  

Claressa Shields was just 17 years old when she won the gold medal for women's boxing in London in 2012, and now she's ranked first going into the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. This excerpt from the feature-length documentary, T-Rex: Her Fight for Gold, is a glimpse of how challenging it's been for Shields to ascend to boxing greatness from her hometown of Flint, Michigan. The film is a beautiful, coming-of-age tale that emphasizes the transience and disappointments of athletic success. Despite her wins, Shields has to contend with not receiving the recognition and endorsements that come to many other Olympic champions. The full documentary airs August 2, 2016, on PBS, and will stream online during the month of August. For more information, visit the Independent Lens website.

 
general  

%feed  
http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/field-testing-nasas-new-carbon-dioxide-measuring-instrument  
Field Testing NASA's New Carbon-Dioxide Measuring Instrument  
A team of NASA scientists and engineers is poised to realize a lifetime goal: building an instrument powerful and accurate enough to gather around-the-clock global atmospheric carbon-dioxide (CO2) measurements from space. Developers of the CO2 Sounder Lidar instrument snapped this photo during a field campaign over California and Nevada.  
astronomy  

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http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/acadia-national-park  
Acadia National Park  
Acadia National Park is one of the most visited parks in America, drawing more than 2.5 million visitors per year to the craggy, jagged coast of Maine. The park is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2016. On September 6, 2015, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired these images of the park and its surroundings.  
astronomy  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2F500px.com%2Fphoto%2F165953885%2Freflect-by-jeff-dotson&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Reflect by Jeff Dotson  

Reflect by Jeff Dotson

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” — Mark Twain Model: Claire Dotson

Jeff Dotson: Photos

 
images  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fquora%2Fhow-do-our-brains-process_b_11303080.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
How Do Our Brains Process Another Person's Gaze?  
How do we know when someone is looking at us? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Paul King, Computational Neuroscientist, on Quora.

There are several things going on when you see someone looking at you, all of which happen very quickly.

This applies to actually seeing someone looking at you, not "sensing it" from behind or in the periphery.

Primates (including humans) are unique in the degree to which the eyeball can move around in the eye socket. This allows visual attention to be shifted quickly without physically moving the head.

Primates and certain other mammals can tell when another animal is looking at them, but humans are particularly good at doing this from a distance. In fact, humans have the added ability to be able to tell where someone is looking, even when it is not at them.

It is easy to see why this skill confers an evolutionary advantage: By being able to do this, you can essentially "read out" the location of another animal's attention. If you are a social animal, and the one looking at you is a superior, you'd better behave. Or if it is an inferior, you are being challenged and need to respond so you don't lose your place in the status hierarchy. For humans, knowing where another human is looking allows you to read their mind regarding what they are thinking about. This is invaluable when trying to learn language, since it allows you to pair particular words with particular objects in the environment. Pointing is also effective for this.

So, how do we do it?

Detecting the direction of gaze has to do with noticing the relative location of the dark spot of the eye (the pupil and iris) in the context of the whites of the eye. The differential size and location of the white region shows where the eye is pointed. And if the pupil is exactly in the middle with equal white regions on each side, then the eyes are looking at you. We can see this from across the room. Head direction also provides a cue, which is primarily determined by where the region of the two eyes and the nose are relative to oval face region, with hair as another reference marker. When the head is turned, the brain has to do some geometry to determine gaze direction from both head angle and relative eye angle.

Figure: Ratio of dark to light region of eye reveals direction of gaze. Bottom row: Location of facial features relative to head reveals head orientation. The visual system combines head orientation and eye orientation to calculate direction of gaze.

There is an additional effect that happens when "eyes meet". When you look at someone and they look back, you have the feeling that your gaze was met. This can feel uncomfortable, and the person who was "caught" often quickly looks away. This effect is caused by a feedback loop. The second person to make eye contact sees immediately that the first person is looking at them. The first person realizes they were "discovered" and responds often according to perceived relative status or confidence. There is also the mutual knowing that eyes met, which becomes a shared event establishing a transient relationship.

The meeting of gaze helps people recognize each other. You may think you recognize someone, but if they seem to think they recognize you too by not looking away, then the odds are greater that you are both correct. The visual systems of both individuals thus collaborate to establish mutual recognition. This happens quickly and subconsciously, allowing the social exchange to move forward toward acknowledging each other. If one person doesn't acknowledge back, it becomes an awkward case of mistaken identity.

Public speakers use the illusion of eye contact to create emotional intimacy with the audience. When people learn public speaking, they are told to glance around the room as they talk. This creates the illusion of intermittent eye contact with as many people in the room as possible, which allows the audience to feel that the speaker is talking to them personally, creating a feeling of intimacy with the speaker.

When TV newscasters deliver the news, they want the audience to have the impression they are talking to them. To accomplish this, they talk to the camera lens as if it was a person. In movies, actors avoid looking at the camera so that the audience never experiences mutual eye contact with them, preserving the feeling that the viewer is invisible. To look at the camera is called "breaking the fourth wall."

This question originally appeared on Quora. - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:​

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• Perception: Is everyone's experience of color the same?
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-- 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  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FPhysicsWorld%2F%7E3%2Fzdm8rpOGYlA%2Fnoncommutative-geometry-and-applications-to-quantum-physics&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Noncommutative Geometry and Applications to Quantum Physics  
School: 21 Dec 2017 - 22 Dec 2017, Quy Nhon, Bình Định Province, Viet Nam. Organized by Thanh Duc Dinh, Thierry Masson, Roland Triay, Jean Tran Thanh Van, Thi Thanh Tam Lam.  
science  

%feed  
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2016/aug/02/how-london-was-built-tower-bridge-southbank-in-pictures  
How London was built: from Tower Bridge to the South Bank in pictures  

These photographs showing the construction of landmark London buildings and infrastructure projects are taken from Collage: The London Picture Archive, a new website home to more than a quarter of a million images of the UK capital spanning the last 550 years. The site also hosts The London Picture Map, an interactive record of lost buildings and places

Continue reading...  
design  

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/02/brighton-i360-review-marks-barfield-british-airways  
Brighton i360 review London Eye team goes pole dancing at the seaside  

It took husband-and-wife designers 13 years to get this 162m-tall ‘vertical pier' built in Brighton but is it a feat of architecture or a corporate branding post?

To some it's the Brighton Pole, to others it is Sussex's supersized lollipop. Naughtier minds have dubbed it “the cock and ring”. Before it has even opened, the south coast's new observation tower has gathered a gaggle of nicknames and you can see why, when its creators insist on calling it the British Airways i360.

Related: 'It's a bonkers, outsized flagpole': Brighton greets the world's tallest moving observation tower

It makes you wish for the simpler age of balloons and baskets, and a gulp of fresh air

Related: Don't hate the Dudl-eye big wheels can turn towns around

Continue reading...  
design  

%feed  
https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-august-2016/robert-welch-campden-toast-rack-reissued-limited-edition-run/  
Robert Welch Campden toast rack reissued in limited edition run  

Robert Welch Designs has reproduced the six-slice Campden toast rack in a limited edition run to mark the product's 60th anniversary.

The new edition of the Campden toast rack is £40 and is available to buy from the new Design Museum shop in London.

There are only 600 copies of the reissued toast rack available, which are numbered and come with a replicate of its original packaging.

The Campden is a simple, stainless steel toast rack, which was first produced for kitchenware company Old Hall, where Welch was consultant designer.

It was first produced in 1956 in four and six-slice options, and remained in manufacture until 1982, when it was discontinued.

It was one of three award-winning products Welch produced for Old Hall, alongside a range of 22 dishes and the distinctive Alveston range of cutlery, known for its inverted or “hollow” handles, which aim to provide balance.

The toast rack was part of the Campden collection, which included saucepans, candle holders, a coffee set, cutlery and salt and pepper shakers.

It was also exhibited as a single item, seen at Robert's first solo exhibition at Foyle's Art Gallery in 1956, and received a Council of Industrial Design award in 1957, where it was described as having “elegant and ingenious construction”. The toast rack was also included in the council's annual Design of the Year exhibition in 1958.

The Campden range's simple aesthetic made it unique in the 1950s, as Welch's designs conveyed a rawness and realism while other manufacturers adopted ornate styles.

It was named after the designer's design studio based on the top floor of the Old Silk Mill in Chipping Campden, the Cotswolds, which he set up in 1955.

Alongside the Design Museum, the reissued toast rack is also available to buy from the Robert Welch website, or from the Robert Welch shops in Chipping Campden and Bath, and the Compton Verney shop in Warwickshire.

All photos © Robert Welch.

The post Robert Welch Campden toast rack reissued in limited edition run appeared first on Design Week.

 
design  

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-august-2016/design-still-one-fastest-growing-creative-industries-uk-report-shows/  
Design is still one of the fastest growing creative industries in the UK, report shows  

The creative industries are growing faster than any other business sector across the majority of the UK, with design outstripping the likes of advertising, architecture and film, according to a new report.

The Geography of Creativity, produced by charities Nesta and Creative England, highlights the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) findings that the Gross Value Added for the creative industries was £81.4 billion in 2014.

Within these industries, the report finds that the design sub-sector alongside software and digital businesses has some of the highest rates of growth.

Number of businesses, turnover and employment rates

Comparing data from 2007 to 2014 from sources including the Office for National Statistics, the report shows that businesses within the design industry have an average growth rate of over 20%, and over 30% when viewed in terms of turnover and employment rates.

While London is shown to be the dominant location in most creative sub-sectors responsible for 40% of jobs and a third of creative businesses the report also highlights smaller hotspots of creative activity thriving across the rest of the UK as well.

One in five clusters in the North of England

In total the report counts a total of 47 “creative clusters” all over the country. It suggests that around one in five of these are in the North of England, with Scotland and Wales also identified as having “thriving creative ecossytems”.

The report differentiates between “creative cities” such as Glasgow, Manchester and Brighton which tend to have highly diversified creative industries, while “creative conurbations” including Slough and High Wycombe are generally more specialised.

“Less hip” creative clusters emerging

“These clusters specialising in a smaller number of creative sub-sectors with a high technology component may be less ‘hip' than creative cities like Brighton, Liverpool and Glasgow, but our research suggests they make significant economic contributions,” according to the report.

“In particular, they are associated with larger-sized creative businesses, and potentially higher levels of business productivity.”

More support needed at local and national levels

Despite the high levels of growth and productivity among creative sectors such as design, the report also suggests that more support ought to be offered to creative businesses on both a local and national level.

“Over half of Local Enterprise Partnerships fail to even mention the creative industries in their strategy plans. We hope that the evidence that we have presented in this report…will persuade some of them to…take action to boost the creative industries growth that is taking place on their doorstep,” says the report.

“We also believe that national and devolved governments can play a more active role to scale up creative clusters outside London and the South East, with well-resourced, locally relevant interventions along the lines of Nesta's previous recommendations.”

“Power of the creative industries to drive jobs and prosperity”

Caroline Norbury, chief executive of Creative England, adds: “This report clearly shows the power of the creative industries to drive jobs and prosperity not only in London and the south east, but in communities across the UK.

“”It is more crucial now than perhaps ever before, that we work together to make sure our creative industries are equipped to play their part in driving a strong economy and maintaining our position as a world leader in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.”

The post Design is still one of the fastest growing creative industries in the UK, report shows appeared first on Design Week.

 
design  

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-august-2016/beijing-2022-olympic-winter-games-seeks-logo-designer/  
Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games seeks logo designer  

The Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games has announced it is looking for expressions of interest for the logo design of both competitions.

The games are set to take place in Beijing and Zhangijakou in 2022. At an event to mark the one-year anniversary of Beijing winning the bid, the organising committee set out broad proposals for the identity competition.

“Demonstrating the Chinese image to the world”

Both Olympic and Paralympic identities will need to reference the Beijing event and broader Chinese culture, according to the committee, which hopes the identity will be “globally accepted” and “demonstrate the Chinese image to the world.”

The identity will need to capture the Olympic and Paralympic spirit and embody the culture and values of the host city and country.  Furthermore the logos need to be inspiring and show that they can be recognised by  domestic and international communities, according to organisers.

Designs will need to stand up to the requirements of TV broadcasters, visual effects and digital platforms.

Key words and phrases

A series of key words and phrases have been given as broad guidelines for designers. These include running the Games in a “green, open, shared and honest manner”, the idea of “millions of people participating in winter sports,” as well as sustainable development and cues such as “cohesion, sport, strength,” and “world, reunion, festival”.

There are currently no detailed briefing documents available. The organising committee says that the “technical documents” will be “available to the public shortly”.

At the time of publication The Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games was unable to confirm whether it was looking for professional designers to bid.

The post Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games seeks logo designer appeared first on Design Week.

 
design  

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http://99u.com/articles/54240/99u-and-behance-are-hiring-a-creative-events-manager/  
99U and Behance are Hiring a Creative Events Manager  

At 99U, our mission of empowering the creative community community encompasses more than this very site. If it's helpful to you, our readers, we want to be there. It's in that spirit that 99U and our sister site Behance produce industry-leading live events. And for the first time, we are looking for an experienced Creative Events Manager to spearhead these efforts.

We're on the hunt for a Type A personality who loves every part of the event planning process — especially the parts that involve a top-flight attendee experience —  and is excited at the prospect of expanding two of our favorite efforts: our yearly 99U Conference and our Behance Portfolio Reviews. Our live events are the crown jewel of the 99U and Behance missions, a chance to serve an amazing creative community with speakers, workshops, organizers, and parties head and shoulders above any other conference on Earth.

Candidly, this role requires lots of experience executing large events. The idea of negotiating a six-figure venue contract while curating and coaching world-renowned speakers while charting the perfect ticket registration experience should feel like a walk in the park. Sound like you? Read our full description below for more.

—

99U is Adobe's Webby-award winning publication whose mission is to provide the “missing curriculum” for building an incredible creative career. Through our daily online articles, best-selling book series, popular quarterly magazine, and yearly sold-out conference, we provide actionable insights that empower the creative community.

The Creative Events Manager will be responsible for managing the current, and developing future, community-facing live events. This is to include the production and curation of Portfolio Review Week and The 99U Conference. This position will also work closely with the Editor and Creative Director of 99U to develop the brand's project roadmap.

99U is a small team, but we punch above our weight class. Each member must be an independent worker, someone who can take end goals and then execute with an extremely high level of autonomy. You must have a passion for organizing flawless events, a love of serving niche communities, a bias towards action, and an ability to work on deadline. We have fun and take a great deal of pride in our work — and you should too.

Responsibilities:

• Be the lead on all aspects of organizing our yearly 99U Conference in New York City and our twice-yearly Portfolio Review Weeks.
• Curate world-class speakers, workshops, and other editorial programming.
• Work with our outside production staff to ensure a flawless execution of all events.
• Oversee production of all collateral for 99U and Behance events.
• Secure and manage a network of partners, vendors, and sponsors.
• Develop and execute new live programming for 99U and Behance.
• Manage event budgets and staffing.
• Work with 99U Editor in Chief and Creative Director on 99U roadmap.

Requirements:

• An obsession with providing unparalleled attendee experiences.
• A passion and knowledge of the creative world.
• Experience with speaker outreach, preparation, and coaching.
• Experience leading or producing large (400 people or more) conferences — bonus points for experience with creative community.
• Experience working with professional event producers, technicians, and venue management.
• Be located in (or willing to relocate to) New York City.

To apply, send the following to behanceedits@gmail.com:

• Your resume.
• Links to events you've been involved in.
• Any 99U or Behance events you've attended.

 
culture  

%feed  
http://www.designboom.com/art/nomad-studio-green-air-contemporary-art-museum-of-saint-louis-08-02-2016/  
nomad studio suspends an aerial garden at the contemporary art museum of saint louis  

within the museum's courtyard, the brooklyn-based firm has installed a kinetic living sculpture that hangs overhead visitors and passersby.

The post nomad studio suspends an aerial garden at the contemporary art museum of saint louis appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
art  

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http://heptagram.co/post/148323741358  
Photo  


 
art  

%feed  
http://heptagram.co/post/148318951121  
designbby: dear reader  

designbby:

dear reader

 
art  

%feed  
http://www.designboom.com/art/instagram-windows-95-misha-petrick-08-01-2016/  
designer goes back in time to bring us instagram for windows 95  

misha petrick envisions the popular picture sharing app on a windows 95 operating system, with its 8-bit graphics, pixelated MS sans serif font, and familiar teal blue background.

The post designer goes back in time to bring us instagram for windows 95 appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
art  

%feed  
http://www.designboom.com/art/venus-art-automobile-piston-head-exhibition-los-angeles-08-01-2016/  
artists engage the automobile at LA's venus gallery  

the exhibition 'piston head II' spotlights the ways in which a car can be both a cultural icon and sculptural object.

The post artists engage the automobile at LA's venus gallery appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
art  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Finternational%2Feurope%2Fbrexit-the-british-always-want-special-treatment-a-1105751.html%23ref%3Drss&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Financial Expert on Brexit: 'The British Always Want Special Treatment'  
What direction will Britain take as it prepares for Brexit? British financial industry expert David Marsh says he believes Britain's withdrawal from the EU will do less damage to Brits than to the rest of Europe.  
general  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgo.theregister.com%2Ffeed%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2016%2F08%2F02%2Fswede_suffers_shrinking_penis_after_dentist_fits_mouthguard%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Swede suffers shrinking penis after dentist fits mouthguard  

Chopper protection blamed for faltering erection

Swedish authorities are investigating the mysterious case of a Smaland man whose wedding tackle went into rapid decline after his dentist prescribed a mouthguard to cure him of grinding his teeth.…

 
general  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slate.com%2Fblogs%2Fbrowbeat%2F2016%2F08%2F02%2Fa_video_essay_explains_how_pixar_uses_music_video.html&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
This Smart Video Essay Breaks Down How Pixar Uses Music to Make You Weep Uncontrollably  

Pixar has mastered the art of making grown-ups cry, and in films like Up, Monsters Inc, and Toy Story 3, the score plays a big part in eliciting that emotion. So why doesn't every movie simply add sad music to an already sad scene? It's not that easy, warns Youtuber Sideways, in this smart video essay that explains how the process is way more complicated than simply changing the key.

If you want to create an emotional response, the essay argues, the best method is to create dissonance between what the audience hears, and what they see. That's what gives us such effective tearjerkers as “Ellie's Theme” and “So Long”—both songs that were used in happier scenes before transforming others from sad to devastating. And it's a lesson that other movies could learn from, as Sideways so ably demonstrates here.

 
cogdis  

%feed  
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/24PyITDnaF0/colossal-void-a-dead-zone-discovered-in-milky-way-requires-a-major-revision-in-our-thinking.html  
Colossal Void, a Dead Zone Discovered in Heart of the Milky Way --"Requires a Major Revision in Our Thinking"  
 
astronomy  

%feed  
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/h-Tt1E6Taqc/-china-to-trump-cerns-lhc-initial-design-of-enormous-particle-accelerator-twice-the-size-and-seven-t.html  
"Beyond the God Particle" --China to Trump CERN's LHC: Twice the Size and Seven Times as Powerful  
 
astronomy  

%feed  
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/yo4UdHgKBpA/chance-of-life-in-the-universe-much-higher-in-distant-future-harvard-smithsonian-center-for-astrophy.html  
Chance of Life in the Universe --"Much Higher in Distant Future" (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)  
 
astronomy  

%feed  
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/DSh_9jkOLnk/jupiters-atmosphere-above-great-red-spot-hotter-than-molten-lava-weird-coincidence-or-a-major-clue.html  
Jupiter's Atmosphere Above Great Red Spot Hotter Than Molten Lava --"Weird Coincidence or a Major Clue?”  
 
astronomy  

%feed  
http://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/28592528232/  
A sky full of stars  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

Located approximately 22 000 light-years away in the constellation of Musca (The Fly), this tightly packed collection of stars - known as a globular cluster - goes by the name of NGC 4833. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the dazzling stellar group in all its glory.

NGC 4833 is one of the over 150 globular clusters known to reside within the Milky Way. These objects are thought to contain some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. Studying these ancient cosmic clusters can help astronomers to unravel how a galaxy formed and evolved, and give an idea of the galaxyâs age.

Globular clusters are responsible for some of the most striking sights in the cosmos, with hundreds of thousands of stars congregating in the same region of space. Hubble has observed many of these clusters during its time in orbit around our planet, each as breathtaking as the last.

Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

 
astronomy  

%feed  
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/mvhFZsQZzq0/first-few-minutes-after-the-big-bang-forming-the-alpha-particle.html  
First Few Minutes After the Big Bang --"Forming the Alpha Particle"  
 
astronomy  

%feed  
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/4N-fbgLaX5I/earths-first-mass-extinction-was-microbial-a-powerful-analogy-to-today.html  
Earth's First Mass Extinction Was Microbial --"A Powerful Analogy to Today"  
 
astronomy  

%feed  
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/112027109460807267/  
Hieronymus Bosch, Th  
Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), 1515. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.  
pin-art  

%feed  
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/175077504243532372/  
ZSL London Zoo  

ZSL London Zoo

 
pin-gaia  

%feed  
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/175077504243532369/  
Have you been to see  

Have you been to see our two adorable Sumatran tiger cubs yet? Critically-endangered in the wild, our newest arrivals are a vital addition to the International Breeding Programme which helps ensure the future of the species. #cute #tigers #tiger #tigercubs #Sumatrantiger #LondonZoo #babyanimals

 
pin-gaia  

%feed  
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/7881368077581234/  
#SensationalButterfl  
#SensationalButterflies species spotlight: the great orange tip  
pin-gaia  

%feed  
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/281543706337409/  
African lionesses in  
African lionesses in Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya (© Daniel J Cox/Getty Images) 2016-08-01 [www.bing.com/search]  
pin-images  

%feed  
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fsculptorlil%2F28685538956%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Grey Sunrise  

Sculptor Lil posted a photo:

 
images  

%feed  
http://borrachas.tumblr.com/post/148306930974  
338  

338

 
gifs  

%feed  
http://movieposteroftheday.tumblr.com/post/148311868277  
Russian poster for FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE...  

Russian poster for FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE (Eric Rohmer, France, 1987)

Artist: unknown

Poster source: Una Pagina de Cine

 
culture  

%feed  
http://insider.si.edu/2016/08/earthly-life-premature-cosmic-perspective/  
IS EARTHLY LIFE PREMATURE FROM A COSMIC PERSPECTIVE?  

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life on other planets could be billions of years older than ours. However, new theoretical work suggests that present-day life is actually premature from a cosmic perspective.

“If you ask, ‘When is life most likely to emerge?' you might naively say, ‘Now,'” says lead author Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “But we find that the chance of life grows much higher in the distant future.”

Life as we know it first became possible about 30 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars seeded the cosmos with the necessary elements like carbon and oxygen. Life will end 10 trillion years from now when the last stars fade away and die. Loeb and his colleagues considered the relative likelihood of life between those two boundaries.

The dominant factor proved to be the lifetimes of stars. The higher a star's mass, the shorter its lifetime. Stars larger than about three times the sun?s mass will expire before life has a chance to evolve.

Conversely, the smallest stars weigh less than 10 percent as much as the Sun. They will glow for 10 trillion years, giving life ample time to emerge on any planets they host. As a result, the probability of life grows over time. In fact, chances of life are 1000 times higher in the distant future than now.

“So then you may ask, why aren't we living in the future next to a low-mass star?” says Loeb.

“One possibility is we're premature. Another possibility is that the environment around a low-mass star is hazardous to life.”

Although low-mass, red dwarf stars live for a long time, they also pose unique threats. In their youth they emit strong flares and ultraviolet radiation that could strip the atmosphere from any rocky world in the habitable zone.

To determine which possibility is correct — our premature existence or the hazard of low-mass stars — Loeb recommends studying nearby red dwarf stars and their planets for signs of habitability. Future space missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and James Webb Space Telescope should help to answer these questions.

The paper describing this work has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and is available online. Its co-authors are Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Rafael Batista and David Sloan (University of Oxford). Loeb simultaneously wrote an extended review on the habitability of the universe as a chapter for a forthcoming book.

The post IS EARTHLY LIFE PREMATURE FROM A COSMIC PERSPECTIVE? appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

 
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Brioni's new David Chipperfield-designed Paris flagship marks...  

Brioni's new David Chipperfield-designed Paris flagship marks the start of a new era

 
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160801210354.htm  
A giant stellar void in the Milky Way  
A major revision is required in our understanding of our Milky Way Galaxy according to an international team. Astronomers have found that there is a huge region around the center of our own galaxy, which is devoid of young stars.  
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Faintest hisses from space reveal famous star's past life  
Using a telescope in remote outback Australia, astronomers have peered into the past of a nearby star millions of years before its famous explosion.The research paints a picture of the star's life long before its death in what was the closest and brightest supernova seen from Earth, now known as supernova remnant 1987A, which collapsed spectacularly almost 30 years ago.  
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160801113959.htm  
Is Earthly life premature from a cosmic perspective?  
The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life on other planets could be billions of years older than ours. However, new theoretical work suggests that present-day life is actually premature from a cosmic perspective.  
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Johann Jakob Scheuchzer Scientist of the Day Johann...  

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Johann Jakob Scheuchzer Scientist of the Day

Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, a Swiss paleontologist and geologist, was born Aug. 2, 1672.  

read more…

 
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Medical Magic in Mushrooms?  
Ingredients in magic mushrooms may have profound therapeutic potential in the treatment of psychological disorders, but under current UK law, it's almost impossible to study them. We ask Professor David Nutt where scientists can get their hands on some...  
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Canary Wharf from the O2  

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When the sun goes down  

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The art of climate change impresses but doesn't go down a storm  
A weather and climate-themed exhibition in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, does everything but bring home the scariness of global warming, finds Sjef van Gaalen  
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300 million pelicans? Pah. What 6 billion plastic bags <i>really</i> weigh  

How many Jubs? What number of chicken's eggs? You demand answers we give them

The splash story on one Sunday newspaper breezily informed us Brits used six billion fewer plastic bags this year than last, and that these weighed the same as “three million pelicans” a grave naughtiness committed before El Reg's Standards Soviet.…

 
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interior l by Zsuzsanna Buzas  

interior l by Zsuzsanna Buzas

Zsuzsanna Buzas: Photos

 
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Jessica Blain-Lewis Surf by Jessica Blain-Lewis  

Jessica Blain-Lewis Surf by Jessica Blain-Lewis

Surfing at the beach.

Jessica Blain-Lewis: Photos

 
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America's last mammoths died of thirst on an Alaskan island  
Three kinds of data all agree that 5600 years ago, one of the last mammoth populations went extinct when climate change dried up their lakes  
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'The box' Bones uses to fix any ailment on the <i>Enterprise</i>? Yup, it's real  

Yeast factory bests cumbersome labs and slow supply chains

Researchers at MIT's electronics division have developed a small mobile medical laboratory that could help bring vaccines to remote impoverished areas, battlefields, and space.…

 
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Idols  

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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

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Taken from the bus

 
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IMG_5327London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

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View from Waterloo bridge

 
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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

Londrina92 posted a photo:

Taken from the bus

 
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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

Londrina92 posted a photo:

Taken from the bus

 
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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

Londrina92 posted a photo:

View from Waterloo bridge

 
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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

Londrina92 posted a photo:

View from Waterloo Bridge

 
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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

Londrina92 posted a photo:

taken from a bus

 
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Stag beneath Canopy  

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A red deer stag beneath a tree. Light was pouring through the canopy creating shafts of light in the dawn mist.

 
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London, 14 to 26 july 2016  

Londrina92 posted a photo:

Thames at Hammersmith

 
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Evening Big Ben  

Sam Schmidt posted a photo:

Well, ElizabethTower. Right as I came out of the tube station the sun broke through for just a second, I only got one quick shot off before the light faded again.

 
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http://twitter.com/John_CITES/status/760375916895895552 
'Japan must take lead in conservation of endangered eel species for future' The Japan News https://t.co/u04hEviuJT Eels @CITES #CoP17 
https://t.co/u04hEviuJT 

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Newly discovered fossils strengthen proposition that world's first mass extinction engineered by early animals  

Full Text:

Newly discovered fossil evidence from Namibia strengthens the proposition that the world's first mass extinction was caused by “ecosystem engineers” newly evolved biological organisms that altered the environment so radically it drove older species to extinction. The event, known as the end-Ediacaran extinction, took place 540 million years ago. The earliest life on Earth consisted of microbes various types of single-celled organisms. These held sway for more than 3 billion years, when the first multicellular organisms evolved. The most successful of these were the Ediacarans, which spread around the globe about 600 million years ago. They were a largely immobile form of marine life shaped like discs and tubes, fronds and quilted mattresses.

Image credit: Simon Darroch/Vanderbilt

 
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SEM of partially opened spore  

Full Text:

A scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a spore stalk that's partially open from a hornwort Dendroceros crispata. The hornwort is one of many species of plants that scientists are studying as part of the National Science Foundation-supported "Tree of Life" initiative. The goal of the initiative is to reconstruct the evolutionary history of early land plants, as well as to answer such questions as how multicellular aquatic plants evolved, what plants first colonized land, how are the early plant lineages related to each other, and what genetic, cellular and structural changes did they undergo.

Image credit: Photo by Karen Renzaglia; courtesy Dan Nickrent

 
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Virgin Galactic wins US operators licence for SpaceShipTwo  

Beardy Branson's bird not cleared for takeoff just yet, but hopeful of flight tests soon

Virgin Galactic has won an operators licence for its re-usable low-orbit vehicle, SpaceShipTwo, from the United States Federal Aviation Administration.…

 
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Behind the Olympics: Brazil's Dirty Incarceration Secret  
A former jujitsu champion and one of Brazil's most powerful judges takes on his country's prison system.  
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Boffins shrink light-twister to silicon scale, multiply bandwidth 10x  

This could be how light becomes a more common data carriage medium

We've known for some time that the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light (colloquially known as “twisted light”) can be modulated to carry information, but until now, it's only been demonstrated on large-scale laboratory lasers.…

 
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Lack of water likely caused extinction of isolated Alaska mammoths  
A remnant population of woolly mammoths on a remote Alaska island was likely pushed to extinction by rising sea levels and a lack of access to fresh water, according to a newly published study.  
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Study: Bioenergy decisions involve wildlife habitat and land use trade-offs  
New research finds that choosing how to meet bioenergy goals means making trade-offs about which wildlife species and ecosystems will be most impacted. The work focuses on the southeastern United States, but yields general insights that could inform bioenergy policy globally.  
gaia  

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Single photon simultaneously excites two atoms  
Process could be used as a qubit in future quantum-information processes  
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With Zika in Miami, What Should Pregnant Women Across The U.S. Do?  

Federal health officials are cautioning pregnant travelers to avoid a Miami neighborhood where at least 14 cases of Zika have been traced to local mosquitoes. What about the rest of Florida?

 
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r0B0t: Professor Emeritus Seymour Papert, pioneer of constructionist learning, dies at 88 - MIT News  

MIT News

Professor Emeritus Seymour Papert, pioneer of constructionist learning, dies at 88 MIT News Seymour Papert, in a 1986 video, discusses computers in schools of the future. Video: MIT ... Children used Logo to program the movements of a “turtle” — either in the form of a small mechanical robot or a graphic object on the computer screen. In his ... and more »

 
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New York Joins California In Leading On Clean Energy  
For a glimpse of what New York's just-announced clean energy standard could mean to the state's economy, look West.

New York's plan to get 50 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030, announced Monday by Gov. Cuomo, matches the renewable standard set by California in 2015. It will make New York a major leader for clean energy (only tiny Vermont and Hawaii have higher standards than New York and California), setting an example for other states.

Look to the other side of the continent at California, and the positive impacts of a 50 percent renewable standard are undeniable.

Solar panels are now ubiquitous from San Francisco to San Diego. Deserts are dotted with wind farms and solar arrays. Consumers and companies are saving billions of dollars by getting energy from the sun and by reducing energy waste through efficiency.

Thousands of small businesses have been started to construct, install maintain and invest in renewable energy equipment, and today more than 500,000 Californians now work in advanced energy businesses. For perspective, that's three times as many people who work in the movie and television business. It's more people than work in agriculture in the state.

Clean energy, quite simply, is a tremendous economic catalyst. Smart clean energy policies, we know from California and other states, create jobs and drive economic growth.

New York already has had a taste of what clean energy can mean to the state's economy. More than 85,000 New Yorkers work in clean energy in every county of the state, according to the Clean Jobs New York report from E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) and partners. That's a lot. That's more than the number of New Yorkers who work in investment banking, and it's almost as many as work in the state's building construction industry. All those workers and their families should be cheering the job security and opportunities that just got a big boost by New York's new Clean Energy Standard.



But remember that 85,000 workers is less than one-fifth of the 500,000 advanced energy workers in California right now. California and New York are the No. 1 and No. 3 most populous states, respectively.

That leaves some serious room for growth for working folks and businesses in the Empire State.
Under the Clean Energy Standard announced by Gov. Cuomo and the New York Public Service Commission:

*Utilities must get about 31 percent of their energy from renewables by 2021, before moving to 50 percent in 2030. That's similar to California's planned phase-in, giving utilities and clean energy companies alike the time needed to develop their business models.

*NYSERDA, the state's energy research and development agency, will create a blueprint to advance offshore wind. That could create a major new job-generator for the state and help the United State catch up to other countries.

*The state PSC will promote and support energy efficiency programs wherever possible. That's important in a state of 7 million households and some of the biggest office markets in the world. It's also important because 69,000 New Yorkers today work in energy efficiency - representing about 80 percent of all clean energy workers.

Of course there are other good reasons to move to clean energy.

New York's 50 percent renewable plan is a critical part of the state's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 (from 1990 levels). It will boost efforts to get us off of dirty fossil fuels that are contributing to climate change and nuclear energy that comes with myriad expensive environmental problems.

To be sure, New York's Clean Energy Standard could've been even better. It is still too dependent on expensive nuclear energy, and it could use more teeth when it comes to energy efficiency and offshore wind. And besides, there's no reason New York should ever want to simply tie California - just ask any Dodgers-hating Mets fan.

E2 and other groups will keep pushing to make a good plan even better. That said, businesses, investors and everyday New Yorkers alike ought to be cheering the state's new Clean Energy Standard.

It's a big step in the right direction that will create new jobs, drive new economic growth, and - with California to the West - bookend the United States with another shining example of how we can move the entire country to a clean energy future.

-- 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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Why I'm an Attorney on the Clean Power Plan's Side  

(US Capitol/US Government Work)

Written by Howard Fox, Earthjustice Counsel

Washington, D.C., isn't just the seat of our national government; it's also my hometown. It's the place where I was born and have lived nearly my whole life. I attended the very first Earth Day rally here in 1970. I've also spent over three decades working here, under six presidential administrations and on a wide variety of issues.

During this time, I've seen how things operate. Those who pollute our environment continue to send a swarm of hired lobbyists to this town. They blanket Capitol Hill in their quest for legislative favors and sue at the drop of a hat to overturn government policies they don't like.

Their latest effort focuses on the Clean Power Plan, which sets the first-ever federal carbon pollution limits for our nation's electric power plants. It is a vital, common-sense safeguard that will greatly reduce the U.S.'s largest source of carbon emissions.

August 3 marks the one-year anniversary of the Clean Power Plan's unveiling. The plan rests on a solid legal and factual foundation, but the coal industry and its allies have been attacking it relentlessly with misguided lawsuits. I have joined a team of attorneys working to defend the Clean Power Plan—and on Tuesday, September 27, the plan will finally have its day in court, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

For me, the Clean Power Plan isn't just an abstraction. At my apartment building, renewable energy is real. We have the largest residential solar energy installation in Washington, D.C. This isn't just a photo of a solar panel that might be built somewhere, someday: Instead, these panels are installed and operating, creating energy for myself and my neighbors.

The clean energy genie is already out of the bottle, in the form of technologies that dramatically cut carbon pollution. With every passing year, the need for those pollution cuts grows more urgent, as unprecedented warming continues to threaten our health and environment. Like communities around the nation, Washington, D.C., is at risk from a warming climate. Our beloved National Mall and other downtown areas are located on the coastal plain, making them vulnerable to sea level rise. A storm several years ago damaged several important D.C. buildings, including the National Archives where we keep many of our nation's most precious historical documents. The Army Corps of Engineers has built a levee south of the White House in an effort to keep floods at bay.

So there's no time to lose—the Clean Power Plan and its common-sense cuts in carbon pollution must be allowed to take effect. We simply can't let fossil fuel interests turn back the clock and prevent progress on the biggest environmental challenge of our time.

As I've seen through my time in the Nation's Capital, progress never happens if there aren't people willing to take a stand. Fortunately, most of us recognize the need to move decisively away from carbon pollution and toward clean energy. Among those vigorously defending the Clean Power Plan are state, county and municipal governments; forward-thinking power companies; renewable energy producers; companies that specialize in helping businesses and consumers save energy; and public health and environmental groups.

Misguided fossil fuel interests cannot and must not succeed. I believe we can successfully push back on them once again.

 

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Earthjustice: Why I'm an Attorney on the Clean Power Plan's Side  
(US Capitol/US Government Work)
Written by Howard Fox, Earthjustice Counsel

Washington, D.C., isn't just the seat of our national government; it'...

Read more: Clean Power Plan, Green, Environment, Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, Earthjustice, Green News

 
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Pokémon Economics, Secular Stagnation, And Cognitive Dissonance - Benzinga  

Benzinga

Pokémon Economics, Secular Stagnation, And Cognitive Dissonance Benzinga Do economists really understand the essence of what's going on in the economy, or are they like fish who don't know what water is, assuming can openers to solve what ails it? Vox had an article on what Pokémon Go says about capitalism. The gist: all ...

 
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Impossible Symmetric Architecture by Erik Schepers  

Impossible Symmetric Architecture by Erik Schepers

http://www.erikschepers.com/architecture/impossible-symmetric-architecture/ Images of impossible symmetric architecture. Inspired by modern cities, I've created these impossible symmetric images of buildings hanging in the sky. Soporific & exciting architecture alike, become intricate structures of concrete and glass. Sometimes they turn out looking like a spaceship, sometimes the image is completely abstract. I leave it too your own imagination to find the spaceship amongst them.

Erik Schepers: Photos

 
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